Soul Deep (23 page)

Holly got up from the sofa and went through
her nightly routine, undressing, brushing her teeth, and washing
and moisturizing her face, a sinking feeling stealing over her.
Naked, she walked over to her dresser and carefully took her new
Louboutins out of their red silk bag, moving them in the light to
make the crystals sparkle.

She didn’t want to spend another moment with
Sasha Dudayev, but she’d already accepted and had the shoes…

Just one more date and that would be it.

She tucked the shoes carefully back in the
bag, turned out her light, and crawled between her soft cotton
sheets.

# # #

Nick fell to the floor, pain knocking the
breath from him. He looked down, saw that the round had penetrated
his right side. He pressed his hand against the wound to staunch
the blood loss.

He glanced over his left shoulder, caught
sight of Dani. She lay flat on the ground behind a forklift, her
gaze on him, her eyes wide.

She was safe.

Thank God!

She got to her knees, clearly about to run
to him.

Nick shook his head in warning. “Stay
there!”

But their attackers had already spotted her
and opened fire again.

Rat-at-at-at-at!

AK rounds struck the forklift, ricocheting
wildly.

Dani felt flat again, panic in her eyes.

Then Dudaev appeared, gliding down the
center of the warehouse like an apparition.

The bastard walked over to Dani.

“
No!” Nick shouted.

Dudaev glanced his way, looked back down at
Dani and said something. Then he drew a Makarov from a shoulder
holster inside his jacket.

“
Dani! No!” Nick fought to reach her,
bullets raining from above, pain and blood loss making it
impossible to move.

He was too late.

God, no!

“
Dani!”

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Nick awoke with a gasp, sweat beaded on his
forehead, a hand pressed to his side. There was no blood, pain only
a memory.

Around him, the room was silent.

Another nightmare.

He rose, walked to the bathroom, splashed
cold water on his face, his sense of terror slowly receding, grief
taking its place.

Dani.

Every damned time he had one of these, it was
like losing her again, the pain as real and new as it had been when
he’d lain there holding her body, her lifeless eyes looking up at
him, her blood and his mingling on that warehouse floor.

God, how he wished it had been him.

How he wished Dudaev had killed him
instead.

# # #

“They say they’ve got more leg room, but
that’s bullshit. I’m six feet. You just can’t get leg room in
economy.”

Nick nodded, took a swig of Tsingtao, his
gaze on Kramer as he typed a message onto the Notes app of Nick’s
phone with one finger. Nick had known Kramer since the beginning.
He’d been working under Bauer when Nick had joined the Agency and
had taken Nick under his wing, acted as his mentor, showed him the
ropes.

Kramer had always seemed indestructible to
Nick, but today he was looking rough around the edges—older, pale,
worn. There were thick bags under his eyes and a couple of days of
whiskers on his jaw. His hair was more gray than brown now and
looked as if it hadn’t been combed in a few days. Then again, he’d
just flown in from South Korea. But it was more than that.

For the first time since Nick had known him,
Kramer seemed shaken, worried.

Kramer turned the phone so Nick could read
it.

We’ve got big trouble.

As soon as he’d read the message, Nick
deleted it and typed his own.

An internal investigation. Who? Why?

“I’m six-three, man,” he said aloud. “You’re
preaching to the choir.”

On his plate, an order of kung pao beef was
growing cold, the food and conversation nothing more than
cover.

Kramer frowned, took the phone, typed.

Daly, Carver, both dead.

“I sat there for the last three hours of the
flight wishing I could stash my legs in the overhead compartment,”
Kramer went on, the tone of his voice casual, his Brooklyn accent
standing out in this crowd of Coloradans and California
imports.

“I’ve had that same fantasy.” Nick deleted
the words, typed his own message.

I heard. Were they outed?

Kramer shrugged, deleted Nick’s message, and
began to type again. “They’re going to have to decrease their fares
or take out a couple of rows of seats if I’m ever going to climb
into one of their rust buckets again. I felt like a goddamn
sardine.”

McGowen’s dead, too.

“Too bad you’ve still got four hours of
flying time to go, old buddy.” Nick’s mouth formed words that
barely registered with his mind as he did the mental math, a sense
of foreboding growing in his gut.

He typed out his reply.

They were all part of the Batumi op. What
the hell is going on?

“Yeah, too damned bad about that for sure.”
Kramer looked Nick straight in the eyes, typed one last message,
then finished his beer and stood.

Nick turned the phone so that he could read
it.

Watch your six.

That was it? Kramer had met with him just to
tell him to watch his back?

Nick had every intention of doing just that,
of course. He erased the message, stood. “Want a ride to the
airport?”

Kramer tossed a couple bucks onto the table.
“I’ll grab a cab.”

As he watched Kramer leave the little Chinese
joint, Nick felt certain that Kramer knew more about all of this
than he’d just shared.

Copyright © 2015 Pamela Clare

Other titles by Pamela Clare

Romantic Suspense:

I-Team Series

Extreme Exposure
(Book 1)

Heaven Can’t Wait
(Book 1.5)

Hard Evidence
(Book 2)

Unlawful Contact
(Book 3)

Naked Edge
(Book 4)

Breaking Point
(Book 5)

Skin Deep: An I-Team After Hours
Novella
(Book 5.5)

First Strike: The Prequel to Striking
Distance
(Book 5.9)

Striking Distance
(Book 6)

Soul Deep
(Book 6.5)

Seduction Game
(Book 7) — Coming
October, 2015!

Historical Romance:

Kenleigh-Blakewell Family Saga

Sweet Release
(Book 1)

Carnal Gift
(Book 2)

Ride the Fire
(Book 3)

MacKinnon’s Rangers series

Surrender
(Book I)

Untamed
(Book 2)

Defiant
(Book 3)

Colorado author Pamela Clare began her
writing career as a columnist and investigative reporter and
eventually became the first woman editor-in-chief of two different
newspapers. Along the way, she and her team won numerous state and
national honors, including the National Journalism Award for Public
Service. In 2011, Clare was awarded the Keeper of the Flame
Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. A single mother
with two sons, she writes historical romance and contemporary
romantic suspense at the foot of the beautiful Rocky Mountains.
Visit her website at
www.pamelaclare.com
.

Twitter
: @Pamela_Clare

Pamela Clare Fan Page

I-Team Fan
Group on Facebook

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