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“ Too bad.” Kinsey bobbed her dark brows like Groucho Marx . In a deep, sultry voice, she added, “ Your gun looks so big and powerful. Is it true that size doesn’t matter?”

“ Puh -lease,” Annabelle elbowed Kinsey in the ribs.

Margo stifled a laugh.

Gina clapped a hand to her forehead.

“ Will there be any other agents out there with us?” Margo hiked up the sleeves of her jacket.

“ No .”

“ Why not?” Annabelle pinned him with suspicious eyes.

Time for more half-truths. “ As I already told Gina , the fewer agents who know you’re involved, the better off you are.” Truth being, as an unsanctioned FBI op, he couldn’t request backup. Not even Smitty .

“ What if something goes wrong?” Annabelle asked.

Gina tossed a balled-up piece of foil onto the table. “ We’ll make sure it doesn’t.”

“ What if it does? No , wait. Let me guess.” The redhead held up her hand. “ As always, Jack , if you or any of your special team are caught, the United States government will disavow any knowledge of your existence. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.”

He snorted at the Mission Impossible reference . “ Tom Cruise , I’m not.”

Annabelle’s surly expression lightened until the edges of her mouth quirked. Finally , a thaw in her prickly disposition.

He pulled a combination earpiece-microphone from his jacket pocket.

“ We should go over a few more things before we head out, communication being the first.” He tossed the combo kit with its mini power box and wire attachment onto the glass-topped coffee table.

“ I know you have your own rigs, but mine have a secure channel allocated solely to the FBI and used only for undercover ops. No one else can break into this channel or hear us.”

Gina picked up the kit and unwound the wire coiled around the battery box.

“ I’ll help you hook it up before we head out.”

She nodded, and he turned to address the other women, who seemed to have put their antipathy toward him aside and were now listening intently .

They might hate his guts, but beneath that veneer of pampered richness, they had a professional side that took over when there was work to be done.

Yesterday , he’d admired that same quality in Gina .

Her lightning-fast assessment of Psycho’s house and security system was balls-on accurate, and her detailed drawings had impressed the heck out of him.

“ Both vehicles,” he continued, “will have a hand radio set to the same frequency as the transmitter Gina will wear. She and I will be in my truck with Kinsey . Margo and Annabelle in the rental. Margo and Annabelle will run countersurveillance along the street behind the house. Kinsey will take the street in front of the house and pick us up when we come out.”

He dug into his other jacket pocket, fumbling with his injured hand until he pulled out a small gray plastic box.

Using his thumb, he flipped open the hinged lid, exposing the slim, black pea-sized device nestled in a piece of foam padding.

He gave it a quick inspection and was about to close the lid.

Gina edged forward on the sofa. “ Is that the bug you’re going to plant?”

“ Yes .” He handed her the box. “ You can take it out, just be careful with it.”

She plucked the bug from the padding and held it under the lamp on the end table.

“ How does it work?” Annabelle eyed the gadget with curiosity. “ It’s so small.”

“ True , but in this case”—he flashed Kinsey a quick smile—“size doesn’t matter. This little beauty can pick up a whisper thirty feet away.”

“ Wow .” Annabelle nudged Gina’s shoulder and held out her hand. “ Let me see.” Gina stuck the device back into the padding and handed her the tiny box. “ How long does the battery last?”

“ There is no battery. I’ll wire it into the internet cable to power up.”

Annabelle passed the bug to Kinsey . “ Is there a tape recorder inside here too?”

“ No , that would require too large a device, something that could easily be seen and too difficult to retrieve.” He was surprised at the redhead’s sudden shift from nagging to interested.

Margo examined the bug next. “ Then how do you record conversations?”

“ This bug detects sound and transmits conversation off-site via microwave signals to a nearby tower. From there, the signal is sent to another location where it’s recorded.”

“ Amazing .” Annabelle eyed him with fascination, no longer intent on cutting him up for shark bait. “ Just like in the movies.”

“ Annabelle is our resident Hollywood expert,” Kinsey explained, tucking her long dark braids behind her ears. “ She’s seen The Untouchables at least ten times. Elliot Ness is her idol, and she’s in love with Kevin Costner .”

Jack grimaced. Kevin Costner was only an actor. Hardly the real thing.

“ Please .” She waved her hand at him. “ Call me Anna .”

Gina groaned. “ Oh , brother.”

Anna inched forward. “ I realize you can’t reveal too much information, but what kinds of things do you hope to record with this bug?”

“ General intel, evidence of crimes committed by any mobster, particularly Franco and Tino Falzone .”

“ Ahhh .” Anna nodded. “ But why don’t you just plant a bug in Franco’s or Tino’s house?”

“ I would if I could. I don’t have PC —probable cause—to plant devices in their homes.”

“ Do you have PC to plant one in the house tonight?” Margo asked.

“ Yes . And with the info from that bug, hopefully I can get PC to install devices at Franco’s and Tino’s and record evidence good enough for an indictment. That’s how the FBI nailed Gambino crime boss Paul Castellano back in the eighties.”

Anna scrunched her eyebrows. “ How so?”

“ FBI agents planted a device in Castellano’s kitchen. Using those recorded conversations, Castellano was indicted for extortion, theft, prostitution, drug trafficking, and multiple murders.”

“ How much jail time did he get?” Kinsey asked.

“ None . Before we had a chance to convict him, he and his underboss were gunned down outside a Manhattan steak house.”

“ Who did it?” Margo asked.

“ The way the story goes, it was set up by Castellano’s own capo, John Gotti , aka the Dapper Don , and Sammy “ The Bull ” Gravano , a Gambino Crime Family hit man.”

Anna’s eyes widened. “ So all that work for nothing?”

“ Not really. As a result of that case, we learned more about the Mafia than we knew before.” Including those rare, secret meetings held by the Commission .

Margo pinned him with shrewd eyes. “ You hope to get the big fish by first reeling in the little fish.”

“ Exactly .” The grandfather clock chimed once, and Jack glanced at his watch. Eight thirty. “ You need to get ready while I outfit Gina with the com microphone and transmitter.”

As he set up the earpiece, Margo and Anna went down the hallway and disappeared into another room. Kinsey padded into the foyer and opened a closet filled with coats.

Gina unzipped her jacket, revealing the skintight suit that made every article of clothing in the Victoria’s Secret catalog seem grandmotherly in comparison.

Focus , brain cells.

When he looked up, her eyes were twinkling. She wasn’t making this easy on him. Knowing her, she was playing with him.

“ You’re going to have to help me out here,” he said.

“ Ya think?” Grinning , she shrugged out of her warm-up jacket and tossed it onto the sofa. Next , she unzipped her catsuit down to her waist and spread the fabric by placing her hands on her hips.

She did not just do that. He actually had to squeeze his eyes shut for a second. When he reopened them, the view was the same. Creamy swells of the most perfect breasts peeked out of the laciest, sexiest black bra he’d ever laid eyes on.

His heart beat a little faster, and he prayed he didn’t get a colossal boner. Adding to his discomfort, that intoxicating scent of hers mingling with her natural body heat was like a warm vanilla-sugar bath. One he was on the brink of drowning in.

“ What ?” At her question, he snapped his eyes from her chest to her face. “ I don’t have any pockets on this thing.”

“ Yeah ,” he muttered. “ I see that.”

From the hallway, Kinsey snickered. Way too much amusement at his expense.

With the unsteady fingers of his good hand, he gently pressed the com kit’s power supply box against Gina’s taut abdomen.

Heat from her bare skin seared his fingertips as he adjusted the box to fit into the hollow beneath her rib cage.

“ Hold that.” His voice sounded like someone had rubbed his vocal cords with sandpaper.

She held the box in place while he tugged her zipper up.

With each tug, he had to reach inside her suit with his injured hand to keep threading the ear wire out the top of the material so it would reach to her ear.

With every touch of his fingers on her soft skin, his body temp went up a degree.

The same way it had yesterday when he’d gotten a good view of her shapely legs…

those same legs that made him dream about dragging those incredible stockings off them with his teeth.

With a final tug, he yanked the zipper up to her neck and began hooking the earpiece around her ear.

More sweat beaded on his forehead. If things got any hotter, his Glock would go off on its own.

The woman didn’t seem to notice the torture she was inflicting on him.

Or maybe she did, and that was part of her diabolical plan to exact revenge.

When he finished draping the ear wire beneath her thick hair, her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed, and her pink lips parted. With every breath, her chest rose and fell a little too fast. The same way his was doing.

“ You two really should get a room.” Kinsey’s voice sliced into his consciousness. He and Gina practically jumped apart. “ Merely an observation.” She giggled and winked over her shoulder as she returned to the hallway.

As Gina shrugged back into her warm-up jacket, her lips pressed together tightly.

“ You okay?” When she didn’t answer, he rested his hands on her shoulders. “ You can do this. The mission might have changed, but the tactics are no different from the rips you’ve been doing.”

“ I know.” She took a deep inhale. “ Thanks for the pep talk.”

“ Anytime .” For what must have been the tenth time tonight, their gazes locked and held. He wished that would quit happening. Every time it did, one—if not both of his heads—stopped thinking clearly.

Stay . On . Target .

Gina might be a beautiful, intelligent, sexy woman, but she was a cooperator. An essential element of his job and the mission he’d focused on nearly every waking minute of his life for the last six months.

“ Remember ,” he said as he jammed his arms into his jacket. “ There’s only one mission tonight. We get in, do the job, and get out.”

His words were as much to himself as to her. After tonight, he’d do the same and get the hell out of her life.