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The assholes who killed Blondie and ThrεεWolvεs. Be CAREFUL. They’ll kill you, too. And no, I don’t know who ‘they’ are. You need to leave it alone.

C¥berE¥e’s reply was succinct.

I’ll find ‘em. You kill ‘em.

He stared at the message speculatively. He’d long suspected C¥berE¥e was some sort of intelligence agent or at least a former one. More than once, the hacker had sent Alex timely warnings about various government agencies being close to catching up with him and some of his more adventurous online activities.

What was fascinating about that short statement was that this person seemed to think Alex was capable of killing.

Hackers were criminals but rarely violent ones. Who was C¥berE¥e, anyway? Not that it mattered at the end of the day if the guy found Cold Intent for him.

Slowly, one letter at a time, Alex typed his response.

Done.

“Whatchya doin?” Katie asked from right behind him.

Alex jumped about a foot straight up in the air.

“Wow. I managed to startle the great spy, Alex Peters?” she crowed. “I win!”

He scowled at her as he stood up, sweeping her into his arms. “We’ll see about that.”

She laughed as he swept her off her feet and carried her back to bed. “You always have to win, don’t you?”

“Yup.”

It was nearly an hour later, and Katie had unequivocally declared him the winner in all things…loudly and passionately…before he finally collapsed beside her.

How she managed to take him out of his head to a place of pure feeling and emotion, he had no idea. But he had no power to resist whatever it was she did to him. God knew, he wanted to. He hated the loss of control. His entire life was based around the concept of supreme self-discipline. Success rested upon it. Hell, survival rested upon it.

He died a little each time she broke through his mental defenses. But man, it was a good way to go. Seductive. Addictive as hell.

Still. He would give just about anything for her not to be here with him, back in harm’s way. He couldn’t fight them all—André, Roman, Katie herself—but his gut was yelling at him that taking her to Cuba was a giant mistake.

“I’m hungry again,” Katie announced.

He had to smile. She sounded like a little kid who’d just come in from the playground, breathless and happy. “Shower, then food?” he suggested.

She leaped out of bed, laughing over her shoulder. “Last one to the shower’s a rotten egg!”

How could anyone be so damned innocent? Particularly given that she was highly intelligent and by no means naïve. And getting less naïve by the day around him.

She told him once that happiness was a choice. Was innocence a choice, as well? If so, he’d chosen long ago to forsake it. As for Katie…she clung to her innocence like it was armor against everything bad life threw at her.

He climbed out of bed more temperately and invaded her shower.

He’d just finished dressing and she was still in the bathroom blow-drying her hair when his cell phone rang.André.

“Hey, boss. What’s up?”

“You’ve got a charter flight to Inagua in two hours. From there, a boat will take you to Baracoa. A guide will meet you at the rendezvous point on shore and take you to the base camp that’s being set up for you.”

Baracoa. He swore under his breath. Roman’s intel had been accurate.

A sane man would tell André the Baracoa meet-up was compromised. But Alex was inclined to go ahead and show upwhere Roman expected him to. Maybe he could spot whatever was going on that had both the CIA and FSB so interested in Cuba all of a sudden.

“Got it,” he replied to André’s more detailed instructions, which he memorized in lieu of writing them down to be found by anyone else.