She sighed and not all of it was in exasperation. “All right. You have the duration of a meal. Since you’re paying, I’m ordering lobster.” They followed her out of the club. Her butt looked amazing in the buttery soft leather cupping her rump. “I’ll drive.”
They got in. Saint in the front seat and Professor in the back.
When she parked in a lot adjacent to a seafood place, they got out and went inside. Once seated, she ordered a club soda, shrimp appetizer, and a lobster meal.
When Saint went to talk, she held up her hand. “Just give me some quiet right now.”
“No one followed,” came through his earpiece. It was Anna’s voice. TOC overwatch.
Her meal came and she dug in while they waited, drinking nothing, eating nothing. The hunt sustained him right now.
He watched her crack the claws and the spine of the lobster with adept strength, cleaning out the meat like a pro. When she was done, she sat back and wiped her mouth on the napkin. “All right. What is it you want?”
He was one of those guys that went for the bad girls…very bad girls. The fact that his mind kept wandering with her unnerved the hell out of him.
“We’re looking for someone and think you can help us.” Their intel had been wrong. The cage fighting had been a dead end to insert Professor so he could get inside the organization and discover where Darko and Zasha were holed up.
Darko wasn’t predictable, but Saint could understand the appeal. Two beautiful, capable women throwing down was a turn-on. He had the hard-on to prove it. But he was here for bad guys…not bad girls. Eliminating the refuse of the world was his job, and there wasn’t a SEAL on Uncle Sam’s payroll who coolly, calmly, with utter precision and no fucking regrets all day long carried out that mission without fail better than he and his teammates.
“Who?”
“Darko Stjepanić. He runs with a blonde woman.” Saint didn’t know what was worse, not knowing what was happening to his teammates or lying in a hospital recovering from a bomb blast that had killed an innocent eighteen-year-old woman. She had taken the brunt of the explosion, effectively saving his life. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He was the protector, the defender. He’d had nothing to do in that room except work at keeping his head on straight and pushing the guilt to a manageable level. It wasn’t until later, when the team came home, that he found out 2-Stroke had accidentally killed a nine-year-old boy—Anton Martina. Darko and Zasha had more to answer for than the death of Charlotte Mueller, but justice would be served cold and without mercy.
Quell sat up straighter and eyed them, going a bit pale, her sexy mouth softening. “You know who he is, right?” She looked at Professor and back to Saint.
“Yeah, we know.”
“Darko is dangerous, unpredictable, and runs this whole damn country. His control of a standing army of people who will die for him is legendary. He has a firm grip on the underground, the cops, the government. There are rumors he’s selling arsenals to terrorists. What do you want with him?”
“That is our business, but we’ll pay you to let us know when he shows up.”
She sat back. “You know those fights are my meal ticket. I can’t afford to have an interruption in my payday.”
“With what we’re offering, you won’t have to worry about money.”
“Are you here to kill him?” Another level of tension filled the space between them.
His senses heightened. Did she have some stake in Darko? “No, that’s the last thing we want. We need to talk to him or the woman.”
She seemed to relax, and the tension went from a shriek to a buzz. “Talk?”
“We realize some persuasion will be required.” This was a last-ditch effort to salvage their line of attack, but still, this Hail Mary put Saint even more on edge. His teammate’s and liaison’s lives hung in the balance. Losing them…hell…that was a place he definitely wasn’t going to go tonight.
“Hmm. I see. Are you dealers in some kind of product?” she asked suspiciously, leaning in close.
For a second, as their gazes met, it occurred to him again how her eyes were like the changing seasons, dark, richly verdant greens, mysterious and stimulating flecked with honey, streaked with earthy shades.
“Right.” She’d interpreted his momentary lapse as a refusal to respond to her question.
He couldn’t get distracted by her and that minor slipup left him even more unnerved. “No. He has something we want, and we’re not leaving until we get what we came for.”
“You’re going to rob him?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Are you crazy? That is suicidal. He will cut you up into little pieces and feed you to his piranhas.”
It was Saint’s turn to smile. “Don’t worry about us. Just take the money and alert us when he shows up.”
“Can I think about it?”
“Our time is short.”
“Twenty-four hours. Meet me here.” She extended a piece of paper with an address on it.
Twenty-four hours later, he and Professor showed up to what looked like an abandoned warehouse, but Anna Keegan, their current CIA liaison, had assured him it was Quell’s living space. Anna had tried to look into her in the time between offering her a substantial amount of money for information and her response but came up empty. No name, no identification, no answers. They had to go in blind.
He was aware that this wasn’t just about 2-Stroke and Chry, that a lot more was at stake, including the tight ties between Darko and Muhammad Angar Said and weapons that could cause plenty of death and destruction. But he had to be honest—the free world would have to wait while they saved their teammates. The brotherhood was stronger than any other oath he’d taken. No man left behind. No man forsaken.
They entered into a wide-open space. If these were her living quarters, she was taking shabby chic to a new low. Their footsteps were hollow as they walked across the concrete floor. “That’s far enough,” she said, her voice coming out of the shadows.
“We don’t have time for games, Quell. All we need is your answer.”
He sensed movement in other dark places of the cavernous room. His hand dropped to his waist, reaching back, but she spilled from the swirling shadows like a dark angel, a wicked looking handgun in her grip pointed at him. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“What is this?” He raised his hands. “You on Darko’s payroll for more than cage fighting?” He stepped forward and she held her ground. He came up against the muzzle of the weapon, pressing it into his chest right over his heart. Coming to a sudden, tight-jawed halt, he took big fistfuls of her stretchy tunic and sleek black jacket and hauled her up to meet his glare. Nothing but her tiptoes touched the floor. “Don’t,” he said in his best I’ll-eat-you-for-breakfast voice. “Not if you want to get out of here alive.”
“What do you want with him?” she asked without one shred of fear. “I’m only going to ask once.”
Somewhere in Croatia, The Balkans
Chry stared straight ahead, her cheek resting against the grit and dirt on the metal bars that had been her scenery for…she’d lost track of time. Her head felt full, and her breath came in small gasps, like life-saving hiccups of the oxygen that Zasha and Darko’s sadistic minions had cut off when they’d repeatedly dunked her head into a barrel of water. Her diaphragm still hurt from the press of the wooden frame against her torso.