As Carlos hung up, soft footsteps padded into the kitchen.
He turned around to find Gabrielle standing on the other side of the island, dressed, thank you, God. Her hair was twisted up in a plastic clasp, the smooth hairstyle accentuating her high cheeks and extraordinary eyes on her pensive face. She moved with an elegance he hadn’t noticed yesterday when she’d been running for her life.
“Hungry?” He loaded his empty plate into the dishwasher.
“Not particularly, but I’ll eat.”
He ignored the contradictory comment and slid her plate over the island counter toward a seat across from him. He uncovered her dish, revealing scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast.
She lifted a fork and pushed food around for the next minute, using the paper towel he’d given her to dab her mouth in the same manner someone would use a linen napkin in a five-star restaurant.
Little was leaving her plate.
“You should eat,” he prompted. This might be another long day.
She raised pained eyes to him.
Hurt? Hell. Hurting a prisoner’s feelings had never been an issue for him, ever, in all his years with BAD.
She lowered her gaze back to her plate without a word and picked at the food some more.
Carlos folded his fingers tight in frustration from watching her. He’d only yelled at her to go in the bathroom. She’d shown more backbone in the face of death yesterday.
Where was the female who had snapped at him last night?
He didn’t know, but he did have to get this interrogation moving along. If only he could raise the anger he’d felt forty-eight hours ago in France.
The urge to browbeat their informant had simmered.
He’d feel like the lowest of animals if he used normal interrogation tactics on this delicate creature. But he had a job to do. Appearances aside, if Gabrielle really was the person who had connections to the Anguis and the Fratelli, she was a threat to American security.
“Where’s my laptop?” she asked in a whispered voice.
“Downstairs.”
When she pushed back, he stopped her with “It’s locked up. I haven’t touched your laptop. I know enough about your kind to know the program would likely disintegrate if I did.”
Her mouth thinned at the “your kind” comment, but she scooted forward again and shoved the plate away, food half-eaten. “What do you want from me?”
“To begin with, your real name. And a word of warning, lying will not help your case.” He really doubted her name was Gabrielle Parker. “We know your online code name is Mirage.”
She said nothing. No reaction at all.
Carlos sipped his coffee, considering his next question. The monitor on the wall activated. A mechanical voice said, “Guests arriving,” indicating someone had sent a gate-access request from a cell phone.
Guest was code for “BAD agent.” Carlos pressed a remote to disengage the security and open the gate so they wouldn’t have to wait. The entire security would return active again once the gate closed.
A sleek, creme-colored Lexus SC 430 pulled through the now open gate as Carlos pressed a remote to disengage the sensors along the driveway. Rae’s ride.
Korbin’s 1978 gold Road Runner pulled through next, the custom mufflers rumbling with a throaty growl that warned all challengers he had a HEMI under the hood. Gotthard brought up the tail with his deep-woods-green Navigator sport utility.
“Who are they?” Gabrielle stared at the monitor.
“Guests. Stay where you are. I’ll be right back.” Carlos sauntered to the front door and opened it to the trio climbing out of their cars.
“Mornin’, luv,” Rae said, striding up the steps in a warning-flag-yellow, wispy blouse and jeans that fit her long- legged frame as if shrink-wrapped. She carried a Starbucks cup in one hand and had an alert gaze for someone who had slept one night in the past three days.
Just like the rest of the team.
“Rae.” Carlos held the door for her. At the top of the steps, she strode right on past him.
Korbin’s dull-white ostrich-skin cowboy boots clicked decisively on each step. He paused at the door, his eyes taking in the scratches still evident along Carlos’s collarbone and the stitches on his forearm. “I hope for all that you got something out of the informant.”
“Not enough.” Carlos smiled.
Gotthard followed Korbin inside with nothing more than a grunt and nod at Carlos, but the big guy was never much of a morning person and probably caught hell at home for leaving again so soon. The computer case dangling from his fingers might as well be an appendage since he was rarely without it.
When Carlos walked back into the kitchen, he found three agents looking at him as if they were in the wrong house.
“Who’s she?” Rae asked with an eyebrow hiked up in accusation.
Carlos frowned at her. Gabrielle wasn’t handcuffed to indicate her status, but did Rae really think he would bring a woman he was dating here?
“This is Gabrielle,” Carlos said. “Also known as Mirage.”
Gabrielle sat as still as a mouse staring down a roomful of hungry alley cats.
“Really?” Rae chuckled. “This shouldn’t take long.”
Gabrielle angled her chin up in an unyielding manner in reply that drew a feral smile to Rae’s lips. Carlos clenched his teeth to keep from snapping at Rae for frightening Gabrielle, whose face lost color.
But Rae was only doing her job, intimidating the witness.
He had to do his part and run this show. Unfortunately for Gabrielle, that meant as of now she was on her own.
Carlos turned to the trio. “Okay, everyone downstairs.” He waited until they vacated the room to speak to Gabrielle.
She jumped up first. “What’s down there?” The panic in her voice ate at him.
He’d never hated his work, but using that fear against her was part of his job. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d do it.
“Just a room. We’re going to ask questions. Nothing sinister.” Not unless you don’t give us what we want. He squashed the sudden urge to reassure her everything would be okay. Lying came with the job description, but he didn’t have to terrorize her unnecessarily.
Not yet.
NINE
SOMEONE WAS LEAKING Fratelli information.
Fra Vestavia pressed the button on his private elevator, which ascended subtly to the thirty-second floor. Who had interfered and now had Mirage?
Who could possibly be leaking information from within the Fratelli de il Sovrano? Someone brilliant and ballsy.
A perfect description of Josie.
He pondered that all the way to his suite of offices occupying the top floor that included a secured access to the helo pad on the roof. Plus a 360-degree view of Miami and the Atlantic Ocean from a prime spot along Brickell Avenue.
The elevator doors swooshed at the thirty-second floor, opening into the central foyer for Trojan Prodigy, a business purported in national magazines to represent state-of-the-art electronic counterterrorism software and antispyware.
True, but not the whole story.
Vestavia had started Trojan Prodigy twelve years ago, back when international companies were desperate for technology to protect them from sophisticated hackers. They welcomed his people with open arms and access to
