THE PERFECT TARGET (8 page)

"Let's get this over with," he muttered.

She picked up his T-shirt from the day before, dampened it with bottled water, and gently smoothed the cloth over his shoulder. "Does that hurt?" she asked, leaning so close her hair teased his arms, the swell of her breasts his back.

He winced. "I can handle it," he bit out.

"Let me know if it gets too bad."

"Why?" he asked. "Will you put me out of my misery then?"

If she picked up his innuendo, she gave no indication. "I'll be gentle." Putting her left hand at his waist, she ran the cloth down his back. "Who was shooting at us?" she asked. "And why?"

Sandro closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Her cool hands played over his body like silk, and even though his shoulder still stung, her touch came damn close to making him forget what had to be done. "Have you heard of Viktor Zhukov?"

Her fingers skimmed the tender spot in the center of his back, where a bullet had slammed against body armor, penetrating several layers. "He's a former general in the Soviet Red Army, right? Linked to the senseless slaughter of innocents and executions of several U.S. counterintelligence agents?"

ISA agents. Fathers with families, men with whom Sandro had broken bread and laughed, for whom he'd sworn vengeance. "Right."

Against his back, her hands stilled. "What does he have to do with me?"

Sandro opened his eyes, noting the lengthening shadows creeping across the room. "His son was arrested by the U.S. government," he started to explain, then broke off abruptly.

"What?" Miranda asked.

"Shh." He listened carefully, focusing beyond the sound of their ragged breathing for the noise he'd heard moments before.

"Sandro?"

He stood, reached for his briefcase. "Get in the bathroom."

Her eyes went dark. "What?"

"The bathroom," he mouthed, gesturing toward the small dark closet. "Now."

He saw the reluctance in her gaze, the return of the hated fear, but she didn't question him again, just quietly moved to the small room.

Sandro crept toward the locked door. His heart hammered viciously in his chest. Adrenaline rushed. He'd been careful, damn it. So damn careful. No one had followed him. He'd made sure of it.

But then he heard it again, the sound of a door opening. Only this time, he heard voices, as well. Muffled and in Portuguese, but deadly and dangerous all the same.

"You check upstairs," a man instructed. "I'll take the back. And remember, if you find them, Vellenti's had his chance. Only the girl leaves here alive."

Chapter 4

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V
ery few times in Miranda's life had she been afraid. Uneasy, yes. Exposed and trapped, definitely. Her family's wealth and political prestige rendered simple luxuries most people took for granted, like privacy, impossible. The media's fascination with the Carringtons ensured someone was always watching her every move, breath, mistake. Her first kiss had been splashed on the front page of a tabloid. Her first drink. Her first heartbreak.

A book had been written about her sister's brief, tragic life.

But none of those intrusions had frightened her. There'd been only frustration and a blade of determination that nicked harder, deeper, with every invasion of her privacy. Her heart had bled, but rarely had it hammered in fear.

Like it did now.

Adrenaline surged like the tide rushing in all at once. Her pulse raced. Her blood ran cold. Curling her clammy fingers around the doorframe, she peered into the small room, her gaze riveted on Sandro. Shirtless, he stood in the lengthening shadows of late afternoon, completely still, completely at attention. In his hand he held the semiautomatic he'd quietly removed from his attaché case, his finger on the trigger.

Miranda forced herself to breathe slowly, deeply. In. Out. In. Out. Sandro was a careful man, the secret room well hidden. Chances were no one would find them. And if they did, Miranda knew beyond a shadow of doubt whoever walked through that door wouldn't live to tell about it.

Sandro wouldn't let them.

That thought both thrilled and horrified. She abhorred violence, had fought revulsion every time she'd visited the firing range and squeezed the trigger on the Lady Colt she'd bought to assure her father she could take care of herself. She'd learned to hit the target with unerring accuracy, but had secretly wondered if she'd be able to fire on a human being.

To end another's life.

Sandro, this mysterious man her father had sent to protect her, who could change from charmer to commando with quicksilver speed, would have no such compunction. He wouldn't hesitate. Instinct told her violence was second nature to him. The nasty scar slashing across his throat confirmed that. Without doubt, he was a man shaped and hardened by the kind of brutality most people saw only in movies and on the evening news.

She wondered if his scars ran deeper than the flesh.

For some crazy reason, she found herself hoping they did. Not that she wanted him to hurt, not this man who'd willingly put his body between hers and a bullet. But she didn't want to think him heartless. She didn't want to think he could fire his gun and stop a human heart without experiencing a flicker of sorrow for a life gone wrong. She didn't want to think him so calloused that he no longer felt anything.

She didn't want to think of the pain necessary to create such a hardened, impenetrable exterior.

An emotion she didn't understand scraped against a throat already raw. She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them a moment later. Sandro still stood there, still hadn't moved. Silence filled the room like helium stretching a balloon to the brink of exploding. Every heat of her heart seemed to echo with punishing clarity.

Or maybe that was his heart.

Maybe both.

Voices then, in a language she didn't understand. She didn't need to recognize the words, however, to hear the frustration. The anger. Danger.

Sandro moved his head a fraction of an inch. From where she stood, Miranda saw his eyes glittering behind a scraggle of dark hair.

The voices continued, growing more distant with every ragged breath she drew. As they faded, so did the tension riddling Sandro's body. His back still looked carved of dark, magnificent stone, but he didn't look coiled so tight, didn't look as lethal.

Still, she didn't speak, didn't dare. Not until he issued the all-clear.

Long moments passed, long moments during which her breathing leveled out and the thrumming of her heart gradually relaxed. Finally Sandro lowered his semiautomatic and turned to her. "You can come out now."

Careful not to make a sound she eased into the shadows of the small room. "Are they gone?" she asked quietly.

He crossed to the dirty window and narrowed his eyes, his gaze fixed on some point in the distance. "For now."

Relief skittered through her. As a child she'd loved to play hide-and-seek, scampering through her grandfather's sprawling estate, slipping among the shadows of the basement or squeezing into obscure nooks and crannies, climbing the mammoth trees alongside the lake, but the stakes had been innocent and inconsequential, a candy bar or a wad of bubble gum.

After her sister's death, the fun and games had stopped forever.

"Who were they?" The voices could have belonged to anyone, she tried to convince herself. Tourists who'd lost their way. Locals who'd lost a dog. "What did they want?"

Sandro turned from the window, but remained drenched in shadows. "They're gone, Miranda. Just leave it at that."

His grim tone abruptly killed the fleeting hope that the men's appearance was nothing more than a coincidence.

"They wanted me, didn't they?" she asked, and felt the chill of the realization all the way through to her bones. "They were looking for me."

He started toward her. "They're not going to find you—"

She stuck out her arm, warning him to keep his distance. She didn't want him to touch her. Couldn't bear it. She might crumble then, all those battered walls she'd thrown up against a fear she didn't want to feel might just come tumbling down.

"I thought you said I'd be safe here!" The accusation tore out before she could stop it. "You said virtually no one knew about this room—"

He ignored the pathetic barrier of her arm and pulled her against his chest. "The house is no secret," he said against her hair. With one of his arms around her waist, he ran his free hand along her back. "But the room is. Even if I hadn't been here, they would never have found you, not unless you'd made enough racket to the wake the dead."

Miranda held herself very still, refusing to sink against the tempting warmth of his embrace. His shirt remained on the floor, leaving the side of her face in intimate contact with the wiry hair covering his chest. His heart beat slowly, calmly. Strongly. If she closed her eyes—

No. She wouldn't close her eyes, not to this man. He operated too efficiently in the shadows. In the darkness, he'd be lethal.

"Then how do
you
know?" she asked, struggling against his arms.

Surprisingly, he let her go. At least his arms did. With his gaze, he continued to hold her just as fiercely. "I went to school with the grandson of the last man to live here, die here. He told me."

She swallowed hard, tried to think. "He could have told someone else, then. He could have told those men."

He released her fully, the shadows of the room filling his eyes, as well. "Not unless they summoned him through a séance."

Miranda staggered back. The room was too small to put distance between her and Sandro, but as she looked at him standing there, inches might as well have been miles. Years. His dark eyes were bleak, lost, for the first time since she'd met him, not full of command or confidence, but sorrow and pain.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and was.

"Me, too." Like a macabre slide show, he closed his eyes, opening them a moment later to reveal the agony completely gone, replaced by a ferocity that jolted through her like lightning.

Questions surfaced—what had happened to his friend? Had Sandro been there? Had he been hurt as well? Is that how he got the nasty scar across his throat? But instinct warned not to veer too deeply into his personal life. Instinct warned he'd retreat further, and for some crazy reason, she didn't want him pulling back from her, not now. Because of the threat, she told herself. Because as much as she craved freedom, she wasn't foolish or naive. She knew she couldn't hold her own against criminals armed with hatred and submachine guns. Whether she liked it or not, for the time being, she needed this man sent to protect her, whether he was one of her father's yes-men, or not.

She also needed answers.

"Why do they want me?" she asked, returning to the conversation they'd begun before the noise downstairs had sent her into the bathroom and transformed Sandro back into a commando. "What do I have to do with anything?"

"You,
bella,"
he said without hesitation, "are the bargaining chip."

"The bargaining chip?"

He moved from the window, deeper into the shadows. Very little of the sun remained, only a few meager rays seeping through years of neglect and decline.

"Jorak Zhukov was arrested in the United States a few days ago," he told her, returning his semiautomatic to the attaché case. "His father, General Viktor Zhukov, wants him back, but knows there's no way in hell that's going to happen. Not unless he has something the United States wants more than they want him."

A chill cut through Miranda. She heard what he didn't say, understood what he'd left unsaid.

"I'm not that important," she protested.

Sandro looked up abruptly. "To your father, you are."

The words wove dangerously close to her heart, but rather than comforting like an embrace, they stung like the yellow jacket she'd kneeled on when she was eight years old. The insect had stung and stung, and she'd cried. And cried.

Her father had told her she needed to be more careful. If she didn't respect boundaries, she'd always end up hurt.

"There are those who believe nothing is stronger than a parent's love for their children," Sandro went on, having no way of knowing how badly his words scraped, or how bitterly her throat burned. "This is personal for Viktor," he said. "By making it personal to the ambassador to Ravakia, as well, he hopes to put himself in a stronger position. Your father is an influential man. Your grandfather was legendary. Your family is much loved." He stood, moved toward her. "All in all, it's a pretty smart move. You're the perfect target. A child for a child."

The thought chilled her. The Carringtons had already lost a child. She didn't think her father could survive burying another.

Sandro closed the distance between them with three long strides, his big powerful body moving with a stunningly virile grace. And for a moment, a dangerous moment, she wanted him to pull her into his arms again, against that warm, reassuring chest, to tell her this really
was
one of her father's drills and if she just played along, the morning would come and with it her freedom.

But deep in her heart, she knew that wasn't going to happen.

"Everyone knows the United States doesn't negotiate with criminals," she said, backing away from Sandro. The wall stopped her before she could insert more than inches between them.

"You're right," he said. "America doesn't negotiate. That's why I was there this morning, to make sure you didn't become a pawn in a high-stakes game you're not the least bit equipped to handle."

She'd become that pawn, anyway, and the game extended far beyond rules of fair play.

She looked him in the eyes, determined to convey strength, when really she wanted to slide down against the increasingly cool wall. "Why didn't you just tell me this straight-up?"

It would have been easier that way; she would never have indulged the fleeting, dangerous fantasy that the tall dark-haired stranger had really wanted to take her picture.

You're not a woman for shadows.