CHAPTER TWO
The Gulfstream was a luxury Gabe was glad he didn’t have to do without. The interior was set up like an apartment—a living area, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom—and was comfortably decorated in muted shades of gray and navy blue. He’d spent more time in the comfortable space the last two years than he had in his actual apartment. International terrorism and intelligence had kept him busy, and working constantly helped him to forget Grace. At least he liked to think it did.
Logan climbed aboard, ignoring both of them, and immediately went to seat himself in the cockpit. A smile twitched at Gabe’s lips. Logan was a man of few words.
Grace had already fastened her seat belt by the time Gabe took his own place across from her. She stared out the window as they taxied before takeoff, doing her damnedest to ignore him. A table sat between them, but it might as well have been a brick wall.
“Grace,” Gabe said softly. Her gaze met his—her eyes filled with pain and coldness—and he decided she needed no less than complete honesty from him. “I want you to join my team.” She opened her mouth to say something, but he hurried on before she could deny him. “You’re the best there is, and I only want top agents working with me. I need you. Even if it’s just for this one mission, I need you. It’s important. More important than anything we’ve done before.”
She was the best sniper he’d ever known. Her eyes could focus on a target from a thousand yards and she was brilliant enough to calculate terrain and angles in her head in a matter of seconds before taking the fatal shot. She never missed. And they’d worked well together once. She’d saved his life and the lives of others on more than one occasion.
“If I agree, I want something in return.” She gripped the armrest of her seat tightly as the nose of the plane tipped up and then left the safety of solid ground behind. She’d always hated flying. A weakness he knew she despised in herself.
“I’ve already told you I’d double what you’re getting for the jobs you’re doing now. I know what you’ve been doing with the money, Grace, and how important it is to you. I’ll give you what you need.”
“I won’t need the money anymore if I work for you. I want something else.”
He looked at her warily, a feeling of dread curling in his stomach. He knew what she was going to ask before the words left her mouth.
“I want your help and your resources hunting down Kamir Tussad. I want his head on a platter. Take it or leave it.”
The hatred in her eyes knifed through him, but he understood it. Gabe stared at her intently, all the impotent rage he’d kept bottled inside at the terrorist’s name threatening to claw its way out and slash him to ribbons. He couldn’t afford to be ruled by anger as she was. Anger made him less than useless. They were fire and ice, and cold logic was the only thing that worked for him. He knew if he wanted to get her on his team then he had to agree to her demand. And then they’d face the past. Together.
“Agreed. But you’ll not take any side jobs while you’re working for me. My company has an international reputation. A good one.”
“Fine. Tell me about the job.”
Gabe handed her a thick file folder. “Take a look and tell me what you see.”
He waited patiently while Grace flipped through pictures and let out a long, low whistle. “It’s a clean job,” she finally said. “Too clean. Land this smooth doesn’t occur naturally. What was in these places before they were leveled?”
“Whole communities. Houses, people, animals, children. You name it. Six tribes, sparsely populated by traditional standards, fallen off the face of the earth. South America, Central Mexico, Africa, and Australia. The fingerprint is the same at each place.”
She raised a brow but didn’t say anything else as she looked through the rest of the documentation. She held up a picture of a couple, both with pale blonde hair and the kind of creases in their faces that said they spent a lot of time smiling. “Who are they?”
“John and Esther Norris. Missionaries with a Tuareg Tribe in Africa. They came back to the states because she had pregnancy complications four months ago. They arrived back with the Tuareg last week and were greeted with this.” He pointed to the aerial picture that showed nothing more than a flat square of smooth dirt. “The U.S. Embassy told the Norris’s they’d check into it.”
“Which means they’ve decided to ignore it for some reason.”
“You got it.”
“Which is where you come in, I assume. Who hired you?”
“Frank Bennett.” Deputy Director Frank Bennett had been a mentor to Gabe for fifteen of his sixteen years at the CIA.
“Very funny, Gabe. Frank Bennett is dead. Even I heard that news, and I was in a third world country with very limited communications at the time.”
“He’s dead because he had information he wasn’t supposed to have.”
“And now you have it?” Grace asked, holding up the file in question.
“That’s part of it. You haven’t seen the rest yet.” Gabe unbuckled his seatbelt and went to the fridge to grab a couple of waters. He handed one to Grace and sat back down. “Are you curious enough to stay on board?”
“You knew I would be.” Grace rotated her neck and used her water to wet a cloth napkin. She wiped the grime from her face and neck, and the action was unguarded for only a split second, but it was long enough for Gabe to see a glimpse of the vulnerability she kept hidden.
“Good. Go take a shower, and feel free to use whatever is in the closet. Everything you need is on board. We’ll have plenty of time for me to tell you the rest on the way to London.”
“Why the hell are we going to London?”
“Because that’s where The Collective headquarters is.”
“The Collective?”
“Your new employer. The rest of the team will be waiting for us there.” He held up a hand before she could argue. “Yes, a team. A five-man unit all hand selected. The others have been with me awhile. It took some time to track you down. Be nice. You’re the new guy.”
“Great,” she said, standing. “We’ll be one big, happy family.”
Grace went into the small bathroom and he heard the shower turn on. He knew exactly what she looked like naked, and the thought of her pale, wet body made him ache with desire. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was tempting fate in more ways than one. Grace was a different person than she’d been two years ago— harder—colder—but he loved her still.
He just had to prove it to her. And pray to God that she might forgive him.
CHAPTER THREE
Gabe was exhausted—his thirty-eight years felt closer to a hundred—but at least his life wasn’t tied to the CIA any longer. He was free. Of course, the reason he no longer worked for the CIA was that his life had turned to shit, so he wasn’t sure the levels of bad canceled each other out in the long run. Shit was still shit, no matter how you labeled it.
If his cover hadn’t been blown two years ago, he’d still be accepting missions. And he knew with absolute certainty he’d be dead. He was used up. A man could only live that way so long before he lost his soul or his life. He’d come close to losing both.
But now there was Grace.
He spent the flight back to London trying to keep his mind focused on anything but her, but it was impossible when he could smell the scent of his soap on her skin teasing his already-primed senses. All he wanted to do was sink into her wet heat and chase away the memories of the last two years with every thrust. He’d be lucky if she didn’t stab him in the back in the middle of his orgasm.
