Page 57

J ordan sat in the bar nursing a beer, watching his colleagues who were back after finishing up the op from hell in Boston. Cas Demarco eyed him through the mirror behind the bar with both suspicion and pity as a hockey game played on the TV.

Jordan looked away. The past four days had been torture. To not tell these men the truth about Kurt Montana when they wore their grief tattooed in the sadness of their eyes and the deep grooves around their forced smiles.

They still did their jobs, excelled even, but he knew how Montana’s supposed death wore at them, eroded them from the inside out. He’d felt it himself.

But even though he knew Montana hadn’t gotten on that flight, he didn’t know if the man was still alive.

The idea of giving his friends and colleagues hope, only to quash it, didn’t sit right either.

He did know that Montana had somehow for some reason connected with Rowena Smith and driven on the Mutare Road and then disappeared.

The ghost signals weren’t anomalies. Someone had tried to erase them from the phone records, and that someone had powerful resources. Lots of resources .

Had Rowena Smith warned Montana about the bomb?

No way would Kurt have willingly let that plane take off if that had been the case.

Had she known about the explosives? Her phone records had been wiped, as had those cloud files.

Her house destroyed. Her uncle had agreed to hand over her laptop to the British Embassy, and they’d started putting pressure on the Zimbabwean police to search for her.

Jordan didn’t think it would be long before the pressure from her family and friends led to some media releases regarding the missing woman, which might shake something loose.

Interestingly enough, the FBI analysts had tracked Smith across the city to near Bjorn Anders’ office the morning of the flight, around the time he’d been murdered.

Had Rowena Smith killed Bjorn and then tricked Kurt into meeting her?

It didn’t fit with what the people who knew her had said, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. Maybe she was a sleeper agent. Deep undercover.

Had Kurt been taken in by a pretty face and a willing body?

He wouldn’t be the first, or the last.

Jordan’s mood soured. The locals and FBI had suppressed the story of Trooper Mires being a hired killer, and she’d been buried with full honors, having died in a horrific accident. It was solely to try to keep whoever hired her ignorant of the fact the FBI were actively hunting them now.

The fact the Anders’ murder case was already closed suggested the authorities didn’t want to find whoever had killed Bjorn Anders.

Why?

Rowena’s DNA profile had been developed, and the techs were running it through the databases for matches, and also loading it to the other family tree websites.

Casting the genetic net as wide as possible.

They should have some useable information in the next couple of days.

The money used to pay Mires to try to either kill him or fuck him into revealing what he knew had been paid in Bitcoin, and although it was traceable, it was taking a lot longer than anyone had anticipated.

With Montana’s memorial looming, he was anxious to resolve this. To find Kurt, who would surely have made contact if he could, which suggested he was either hurt or dead, or being held somewhere against his will.

It was like walking a tightrope, and if he fell off, his friend died.

A pretty blonde with flyaway curls walked inside the bar, and Jordan saw the interest of half the guys stir. She bought a beer then checked her cell. Then she glanced around for a seat. He tried to give out vibes that told her to find somewhere else, but she smiled at him and sat one table over.

“Seems like a busy spot.”

He frowned when he realized she was talking to him. He ignored her for a moment then realized maybe whoever hired Mires had decided to try it again with someone more winsome.

He forced a smile. “Yeah.”

She held herself tightly together. Knees pressed close. Arms against her sides even when she took a delicate sip of her beer.

Cas Demarco half staggered off his stool and out the door. Was he sick? Jordan exchanged a startled glance with Sebastian Black before the sniper went after the other man.

He hated this situation with every cell in his body.

A few minutes later, Sebastian came back inside. He sent him a sharp nod to say Demarco was okay.

Jordan nodded back.

“You work for the FBI?” The woman looked sweet and guileless. Her eyes were slightly red as if she’d been crying.

He didn’t trust her an inch. “If I did, I wouldn’t go around admitting the fact to strangers, now, would I?”

A soft smile touched cherry red lips and sent a bolt of desire straight through him. Ellen had worn that exact shade of lipstick .

He hadn’t realized how easy he was until these last few weeks. Give him a pretty blonde with crimson lips, and he was toast. They didn’t even need to buy him a drink.

She sniffed. “I guess not.”

He didn’t believe the act for a moment. Did they think he was an idiot? Regan’s words came back to him. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. Perhaps he was playing this all wrong.

“So what do you do?”

“Me?” She looked startled by the question, tapped her painted nails on the table. “I’m a student, actually.”

He raised his brows.

“Richmond.”

“And what are you doing in Quantico?”

“Family business.”

“Is your family in this bar?”

Her tongue slipped out and tracked slowly over her lower lip which she then bit seemingly to hold back emotion. “No. Unfortunately, they’re not.”

“But you are? Why?”

She squirmed under his gaze which he allowed to travel boldly over her T-shirt that featured a quote from Hamlet stretched over pert breasts.

She shrugged, looking miserable. She wasn’t very good at this. “Curiosity.”

“Curiosity about what?” He let his voice drop and linger suggestively. He used the fact he found himself attracted to this woman to fuel his rage.

“It doesn’t matter.” She pushed her beer away and picked up her coat before heading outside.

Pissed, he followed her out into the parking lot, stalked her to her car. “What are you curious about?”

“About the Hostage Rescue Team. I know they drink here.” Her hands fumbled with her keys. What else did she have in her pockets ?

He spun her around and grabbed her wrists so she couldn’t pull a gun on his stupid ass. “Who told you that?” He thrust his face close to hers as he transferred both wrists to one hand so he could frisk her for a weapon. “Tell me who the hell put you up to this?”

Tears began pouring down her face. “Leave me alone!” She tried to shove him away from her. “Let me go.”

Bitterness welled up inside him, along with hatred.

She stopped struggling and glared at him so fiercely he released her and took a step back. She wasn’t carrying anything more dangerous than her face.

“Do me a favor. You might be prettier than the last one, but tell whoever hired you that I don’t need any more whores to fuck and kill, so they can save themselves the trouble.

” Her mouth opened in shock, and her dark blue eyes were massive and terrified.

Good. She was playing a game she didn’t understand.

“And tell them this, I will find them, and I will make them pay for what they’ve done to my friends. ”

He held her door open and watched her bolt inside. “And if I ever see you around here again, I’ll make you regret it. Understood?”

Those eyes looked at him aghast before she sped away like the hounds of hell were on her tail.

Good .

He watched her go with satisfaction. She wouldn’t be knocking on his door, and he wouldn’t be letting her in, no matter how pretty a shade of blue those eyes were.

He wouldn’t be seeing her ever again, and that suited him perfectly.

Thursday, February 11.

Rowena focused on pattern ten. She appreciated the need to be in the moment to make sure she did the movements exactly right. Because sometimes the need to escape scratched at her skin from the inside, desperate to get out like some creature in a horror show.

Kurt sat on the bed and scratched the day off the wall. Twenty-eight. Then he looked at her.

“You haven’t had your period.”

She was well aware. The idea of being pregnant was daunting in this environment. She’d always wanted a family, but not like this. “I know.”

“Pulling out is not exactly a fail-safe contraceptive method.” His expression was twisted and full of self-condemnation.

“I know that too.”

She gave up on wherever she was in the pattern and started over. “I’d rather be pregnant with your baby than by unknown rapists.”

Her stomach lurched because that was what she was probably a product of. Rape. That was why her mother had fled Africa so suddenly. She swallowed. “It’s my womb. It should be my choice.”

His dark blue eyes looked defeated. This was hard on them both.

“Plus, it could be stress. I remember going into the hospital overnight as a teen. My period was due, but it never arrived. Skipped that whole month in some sort of stress response.”

He looked surprised. “That happens?”

“Yes. It happens.”

“You’d keep it?” His dark eyes burned. “If you have a choice?”

She held his gaze. She didn’t know if he wanted more kids or not.

She didn’t know what this would mean for them .

They hadn’t discussed a future together.

It wasn’t safe to be pregnant here, and having a child under these circumstances was dangerous and awful.

But she enjoyed the intimacy she shared with Kurt.

She wanted that much control over her own body, her own choices.

The fact nature might have taken its course was not shocking, although it seemed fundamentally unfair that the consequences varied so much between the sexes.

“I’d keep your baby.” She watched his features which currently revealed nothing but intense concentration. She couldn’t read him. “If that scares you, you better tell me now because I’ve always wanted kids. Although I imagined a very different scenario if it ever happened.”

He stood in front of her. Tipped up her chin.

“In other circumstances, the thought of you having our baby would bring me so much joy. I’d love the chance to be a proper dad this time.

But”—he looked around their cramped quarters—“here? It terrifies me. And, just in case you’re not already pregnant.

No more sex. I’m jerking off in the bathroom from now on. ”

“There are other alternatives.” She sent him a sweet smile. She wasn’t agreeing to abstain from making love with him, not when it was one of the things that was keeping her sane.

His lips pinched. “ Row .”

It was about choice and autonomy. And enjoying sex with the man she loved. It was a risk, but a calculated one that she was willing to take. “I have a lot of catching up to do, and I don’t think I’m there yet. How often do you think people have sex in a normal relationship?”

“Normal? Depends on the normal. When I was married and home, before Daisy arrived, pretty much every day. After she arrived…probably twice a week if we were lucky.”

“So, say the average person, assuming they’re in a healthy relationship, has sex twice a week, conservative estimate.

So fifty-two weeks multiplied by twice a week is 104 times a year.

So over ten years…that’s more than a thousand times!

We’ve had sex, what? Twice a day on average since we met?

About sixty times. I have a ways to go to catch up, pal. ”

He closed his eyes and tipped his face up to the ceiling. “You’re going to kill me.”

She rose up on tiptoe and kissed his bearded cheek. “Can’t wait.”

He took her face in his hands. “We’re getting out of here as soon as we spot land.”

She held that intense gaze. “You and me.”

He rested his forehead against hers. “You and me.”