Page 19 of Perfect Vengeance (FBI Strike Force #1)
“ Hmm .” She knitted her brows, feigning deep thought. “ I don’t know. My opera allergy isn’t nearly as dangerous to my health as your chocolate allergy is to yours.”
Another one of those killer smiles curved his lips, and for a nanosecond she wondered what it would be like to have his mouth on hers, kissing her. Get . Real . “ Deal .” She extended her hand.
The instant their fingers touched, a jolt of awareness sparked up her arm to her neck, shooting straight out the top of her head, and leaving tingly goose bumps parading across her skin. She jerked her hand away.
Jack’s eyes widened. His nostrils flared and the muscles in his square jaw flexed. When he refused to stop staring at her, the hair at her nape began to prickle.
Once again, she could practically hear the gears turning in his head, and again she longed to dive into her bag for a chocolate-covered lychee. But she’d given her word.
“ What , do I have chocolate on my face?” she asked in a light tone, hoping to diffuse whatever thoughts were occupying his far too suspicious brain.
At first, he didn’t answer. “ Sometimes you look familiar. I don’t know where we could have met before.”
“ Maybe you saw my picture in the society pages. My friends and I are occasionally photographed at fundraisers we attend for the women’s shelter.” Like the one this Saturday night.
“ That’s not it.” He gave a quick shake of his head. “ We’ve been here long enough, but there are a few things we need to discuss.” He tilted his seat fully upright and maneuvered the SUV back onto the road. “ The most important thing is that you have to trust me.”
“ Fat chance.”
“ You may not like me, but I never lied to you.”
“ I seriously doubt that.”
“ No .” The tone of his voice hardened. “ I never lied to you. Good , bad, or ugly, I’ll always give it to you straight.”
“ How can I believe that?”
“ Because it’s the only way I do business.”
“ You work for the federal government. That makes you and anything you say suspect.”
At a traffic light, he rested his broken wrist on the back of her headrest. “ What we’re doing is too dangerous for me to hide anything from you and for you to hide anything from me.
We have to trust each other or someone could get hurt, and that’s not acceptable. No one else gets hurt on my watch.”
No one else ?
After the playful banter they’d established, the seriousness of his expression was a bit frightening.
“ Okay .” She nodded and assumed he was referring to his dead colleague, that agent the Falzones had supposedly killed.
No , not supposedly. She , too, had firsthand knowledge of what they were capable of.
If Jack was certain the Falzones murdered his colleague, that was good enough for her.
“ Sorry . Didn’t mean to go ballistic.” He shut his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “ I just don’t want anything to happen to you or your friends.”
When he opened his eyes there was no doubting the truth of his words. It was written on his face as clearly as a commandment. Was she wrong? Did he actually care about what happened to them? The possibility upended every preconceived notion she had about the FBI .
A horn sounded behind them, and he stomped on the accelerator. Moments later, he turned onto the Garden State Parkway and broke every posted speed limit. The only times he spoke to her again during the drive were to firm up details of their plan.
There was nothing special about this break-in. At least not on the surface. But she’d learned enough from Sergio to expect the unexpected.
Barely twenty minutes after they’d passed the Leaving Montclair sign, Jack maneuvered the SUV through the narrow streets crisscrossing the Wall Street section of Manhattan .
After parking in front of her building, he got out and retrieved the rolled schematics for Psycho’s house from the back of the SUV .
Before she could finish buttoning her coat, he came around to her side and opened the door.
Wind blasting across the concrete courtyard in front of the building blew her hair from her face. Behind her, the enormous American flag atop a thirty-foot pole whipped back and forth.
“ I’ll be at your place tomorrow night. Eight sharp.” He handed her the schematics, barely making eye contact. “ We’ll do a briefing before heading out. Make sure your friends are ready to go.”
Yup . Hard -assed fed back in place. All is right with the world again.
Or was it?
Without another word, he left her standing at the curb. While she watched the SUV disappear around a corner, a chill ran through her, and it wasn’t from the strong winds or the sub-zero temperature.
This deal with the FBI … Things were about to change. Their days of ripping off the Falzones might be coming to an end.
As she clenched her fingers around the rolled documents, a plan took root, one that could grab them an absurd amount of cash in one night. Then they could call it quits.
Her conscience prickled with anxiety. Breaking her promise to Jack wasn’t an option. The ramifications were too great. There had to be a solution, and she’d find it. She had to. Because lives were at stake.