The Second Betrayal (25 page)

The girl's handler smirked. "Just do your job. I'll do mine."

"I'm serious." Chandra put more authority into her words. "She could die."

"Fuck off." The handler supported Vera and dragged her off the stage.

Chandra tried harder to slow her breathing and rein in her fury. But even counting shot-off dicks wasn't doing the job.

The mini cell phone in her bra vibrated against the side of her breast.

She went stone-cold sober.

The fact that it had just gone off had one meaning and one meaning alone.

She had to get the fuck out of there. Now.

"I need to take a restroom break." Chandra walked down the steps from the stage, trying to look calm and casual. "I'll be right back."

"I do not think so." Stalder's voice came from the direction of the podium, directly behind her. "You have a meeting scheduled. And you are
late."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Nick

"Word's out on the street according to Johnny." Takamoto snapped his cell phone shut. "Good job, Donovan. The Elite Gentleman's Club is looking for a couple of new bouncers."

Smithe snorted as he braced his hand on the back of the chair in the suite of their hotel room HQ. "Bouncers, better known as prostitute handlers on the inside of Giger's little Manhattan organization. So Hagstedt's man's bought it."

As he finished putting on his leather jacket Nick frowned. "But the damned
New York Times
—if Giger read that article, this could be a setup."

Takamoto slipped his cell phone into its clip on his belt. His starched shirt and unwrinkled appearance created an

extreme contrast with the rest of the surveillance team, all tired as hell. "That does potentially complicate things."

Nick thought about this morning's
Times
and narrowed his eyes. How could he have made that mistake? Letting his silencer get damaged? It had been one fucking big mistake.

"Giger putting word out this soon could mean you're right, Donovan." Smithe fidgeted with a button alert sensor Nick would be putting on his jacket. That sensor would bring down the wrath of RED wherever Nick was if he simply

pressed the device. "I expected at least a day before we'd hear anything," Smithe continued. "But then the dipshit Giger was in one hell of a big of hurry to hire a madame after we strangled the bitch."

Not actually strangled, of course—they'd just staged the act, and then shipped her out. Cherie was now tucked away in Nevada running a cathouse. Nick lightly touched the stiletto-heel-shaped cut and bruise on his cheekbone from the

night they'd kidnapped her and he almost snorted. The madame wasn't happy about being in a place that was nothing

like New York City. Nick had told her to deal with it or face being gunned down by Giger's men. Hell, Steele had told her she'd gun Cherie down if she got in their way.

Steele could be pretty damned convincing. And she usually followed through with her threats.

Cherie's situation wasn't like entering a witness into the Witness Security Program. With WITSEC, witnesses were

given entirely new identities and lives, including being unable to take on any kind of job remotely related to their previous careers.

In Cherie's case, RED had just gotten her the hell out of Manhattan until they took down Hagstedt and Giger's local ring. She could come back when the op was finished. They wouldn't need her for testimony. RED didn't deal with red

tape.

"We'll just have to see what happens when I meet up with Giger or his men." Nick checked to see if the slender blade he'd put into a hidden pocket right behind the thick leather lapel could be felt if he was patted down by Giger's men.

One of the smallest handguns available, a Rohrbaugh R-9, was tucked into one of his shitkickers. With the thick

leather of his boots, and the small size of the R-9 9mm, it wasn't likely to be detected.

He'd rather have his Beretta.

Smithe handed Nick the button sensor. He peeled off the backing so that he could stick the device behind the middle button of his leather jacket.

Nick couldn't shake the feeling that Steele was going to need his help. He had to be convincing and get on the inside of the club.

Takamoto gave Nick a slim cell phone. "If this thing vibrates, you know to get the fuck out of there."

Nick gave a short nod and put the cell phone into a belt clip, close to his hipbone where he'd be sure to feel it.

"Good luck, man," Smithe said as Nick headed out of the hotel room.

Nick was too focused to reply. He took the elevator to the lobby and walked toward the entrance and its floor to

ceiling wall of crystal clear, unsmudged glass. The brass around the revolving glass doors shone as if it had just been polished, It reflected the holiday decorations in the lobby as the doors turned.

He stopped twenty feet short of the hotel entrance and focused on the situation with Giger, calculating the risk of trying to get on as a handler to back up Steele's ass. And Kerrison's, too.

Around Nick the expansive lobby was decorated with holiday lights, massive wreaths, huge bouquets, and an

enormous evergreen tree with shiny gold bulbs and white satin bows. It even smelled like the holidays. Pumpkin pie

spices and pine.

Outside the floor-to ceiling windows, the day had turned blustery. A stiff wind bent trees and caused holiday

decorations to swing. A crumpled newspaper and scraps of garbage tumbled along the sidewalks.

If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost feel the late-November sunshine and mild climate in Arizona. He'd

practically made his home into a fortress in a small community in Bisbee. The fortress was there in case his past caught up with him. In Boston with RED on this op he didn't feel as vulnerable as he had when he settled down in one

location and worked as a PI. With RED he was always on the move and mostly underground.

Or maybe it was his determination to get that fucking bastard, Hagstedt.

After Hagstedt was brought down, Nick would return to Arizona. This time his sister would live with him, safe from

harm and far from the place of her nightmares. If he hadn't had such pure hatred toward Hagstedt for what the

sonofabitch's organization had done to his sister, Nick would have returned to Bisbee after he recovered Kristin.

Nick closed his eyes for a moment. But Lexi was in Boston. He pictured the petite woman taking down men two or

three times her size and beating the shit out of the dickheads who deserved it. He smiled to himself. Lexi was one

tough little chick, something no one would argue about. He pictured her wicked grin, her don't-get-in-my-face

expression and attitude.

But then in his mind he saw her features soften into a smile in the flickering candlelight from their recent night

together. His gut clenched as the feelings returned that always stirred inside his chest when she was around. She'd kill him if she knew how much he wanted to protect her.

Him and Lexi?

He opened his eyes again and started for the front doors as he shoved the images out of his mind. From the start, Lexi had made it clear she didn't do long-term relationships, especially after her last one ended with the bastard cheating on her.

Hell, he didn't do long-term either.

Before Nick reached the revolving glass doors, the small RED cell phone vibrated against his hip.

Fuck.
Something was going down. And it had to be bad.

He jerked the cell phone out of its clip and flipped it open. His heart started pounding as he pressed speed dial for Takamoto then raised the phone to his ear.

"You're all blown." Takamoto started talking without giving Donovan a chance to speak. "One of the bugs Steele planted caught a conversation between Giger and Stalder. They're on to the handlers' killings, and they suspect

Kerrison and Steele as plants."

Nick started jogging toward the revolving doors and ducked into them. "Shit. Where are they?"

"According to the GPS devices, Steele has reached Trump Tower. We got a text from her confirming that—and she

says she's still going after the man she thinks might be Hagstedt." Takamoto sucked in his breath. "Kerrison is at the club, or she was. We lost signal. She didn't trip her alarm."

"Goddamnit." Icy wind blasted into Nick as he ran toward the street where a Christmas-red Ferrari was running, its exhaust jetting out puffs of fog from the cold. Its owner, who looked like he was probably a millionaire computer geek, was standing by the curb talking with a bellhop from the hotel.

"You go after Steele," Takamoto said, "We'll cover Kerrison."

"Got it." Nick flipped the phone shut as he reached the owner of the Ferrari. He rammed his shoulder into the slender geek, knocking the guy hard into the bellhop and sending them both onto their asses and sprawling onto the sidewalk.

"Police," Nick said as he slid into the vehicle and tossed the phone on the passenger seat. "I need your vehicle," he added before shutting the door, gunning the powerful engine, and shooting straight into a narrow gap in traffic.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Chandra

Prickles ran down Chandra's spine as she sped through options in her mind.

First option—run for the door and make it past the two muscle-bound bouncers.

She eyed the door. Those two muscle-bound bouncers were blocking that means of escape. She could take them one-

on-one, probably. Two-on-one with those guys, possibly.

Second option—go with Stalder, get him alone, and rip his throat out.

The third option wasn't an option at all. Fight her way out. There were too many men to have much of a chance of

defending herself. She could take on a few. Not a dozen.

Option two seemed her most likely bet. And could be much more satisfying if she did manage to rip out Stalder's

throat.

Even as her heart started pounding, she kept that image in her mind and didn't have to fake a smile as she turned and faced Stalder. "Somehow I missed the memo. Maybe you can fill me in on this meeting I'm late for?"

"Now." Stalder kept his face expressionless but his eyes told her she was in deep shit.

"Sure." Best she could do was go along, try to get with as few men as possible, then use every means she could to escape. She walked toward Stalder in a slow and deliberately sensual pace and smiled at him. "No problem. The

restroom can wait."

Chandra followed Stalder around the drapes behind the podium and out of sight of the girls and their handlers. Two

men in suits were waiting in the lap-dance hall on the other side of the curtain. Men she'd never seen before.

One of the guys was typical hired muscle. Built like a linebacker, blond, blue-eyed, and he wore a diamond stud in

one of his ears. She'd put him at around thirty-five. His arms were folded across his chest, and veins stood out on his hefty biceps. Yes, hired muscle, not brains. The kind of guy who used his size and appearance to intimidate, his

strength to cause pain.

The other was a very young Japanese guy. Maybe twenty. She couldn't tell if he was American Japanese or a Japan

native. He was of slighter build than both Blondy and Stalder, dark-eyed, with stylish shaggy black hair. The way he stood, a casual but ready stance, told her he was extremely confident in his abilities. He was probably a black belt in some form of martial arts. Out of the three—the Japanese, Stalder, and Blondy—the Japanese was likely the one to

watch out for. But she didn't intend to underestimate any of them.

Stalder would pull a gun on her rather than wasting his breath on physical contact.

Blondy would be the one to
try
beat the shit out of her.

The Japanese—he could probably break her neck in one move.

To the men, Stalder gestured toward Chandra with a
handle the girl
motion.

Chandra took a step back as the blond headed for her. The guy had plastic zip cuffs. For one second she considered

tripping the alarm on her jewelry and having RED come down on the place. All she'd have to do was unfasten the

catch on her bracelet. She could use the narcotic in her rings to knock the men out and then she'd make her escape.

No, not yet. Their team was too close to getting Hagstedt and she couldn't jeopardize the
Little Red
and
Big Bad Wolf
ops.
She'd play along with this and see where it led. Their RED team wasn't after shutting down one single club. They were after the bigger picture.

She ignored the increasingly rapid beat of her heart as she looked at Stalder in feigned surprise. "What's going on?"

"We will find out soon," Stalder said in a tone that made her want to shiver. "Won't we, Chandra?"

Blondy reached her and took one of her wrists. He smelled of Stetson cologne but it didn't do a good job of masking his body odor, a heavy smell of testosterone and sweat.

"What the hell?" she said, putting as much confusion as possible in her words.

Stalder said nothing as Blondy forced her to turn her back to him and handcuffed her with the plastic zip restraints. He wasn't rough like she'd expected, but he did a damned good job of making the cuffs tight.

Stay calm, Kerrison.

"Tell me what's going on," she repeated as she looked over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes at Stalder, this time putting anger in her words.

Stalder ignored Chandra, and Blondy took her by her upper arms so that she was facing Stalder. The asshole ignored

her and walked in the direction of the restrooms and the stairwell.

The Japanese man followed. She considered flipping him off since her wrists were bound behind her, then thought

better of making a possible martial arts expert Enemy Number One.

She couldn't hear a sound coming from him, but Blondy made enough noise for them both as his boots clumped on the

black-and-white-checkered linoleum. The four-inch stilettos she wore today had rubber heels so they didn't make any clicking sounds.