A Cold Dark Promise (A Wedding Novella) Read online

  Alex had spent the last day or so gathering information. He’d run facial recognition programs on images he’d captured while strolling the streets and bars of Antibes and come up with a few more potential bad guys.

  It was the people who weren’t on the IC radar who worried him most—they were the people they needed to identify and shut down.

  His cell rang, and he answered with an internal grin. Mallory. She was up late. He wondered how her German was. “Hallo.”

  “Hey. Can you talk? How’s everything going?”

  “Es geht mir gut.”

  A few beats of confused silence. “I thought you were in France.”

  “Richtig.”

  She groaned. “I don’t speak German. I’m gonna text you.”

  “Gute idee. Auf wiederhören, fräulein.”

  “I love you.”

  The best words in any language. Alex resisted the urge to say it back. He had a role to play and that role was of a happily married man. He kept one eye on the quay and texted Mal who was listed under MR with a picture of another woman. The communications were encrypted but it was always possible if someone captured Alex they could eventually force him to open his phone. Everyone broke under torture. The key was gaining enough time that appropriate safeguards could be put into place to mitigate potential damage. Frazer would look after Mal if anything happened to him. Alex didn’t doubt that.

  Not that he intended to get caught.

  Alex: Why are you up so late?

  MR: Couldn’t sleep. Junior is kicking.

  Alex: Everything alright?

  MR: Everything is *fine*

  After the scare Mal had on New Year’s Eve, Alex would never take their health for granted. But he refused to obsess. Even as he obsessed, he refused to obsess. It was an ongoing process.

  Alex: How was your last weekend as a free woman?

  MR: How was your last weekend as a free man?

  Alex: Sucked because you weren’t here.

  MR: Awwww…

  Alex: Did Haley get your friends drunk?

  MR: Ha! You have no idea how much Harvard law students drink.

  Alex: Are you saying they drank more than Haley?

  MR: …No, but my mother did. I needed the stripper’s help to get Haley into bed.

  Alex: Wait.

  Alex: What?

  Alex: Stripper???

  MR: Actually, three strippers but only one helped me get Haley into bed.

  Alex: You had three strippers at your bachelorette party? In a health spa? And you were in a bedroom with one of them?

  MR: They didn’t go full monty despite my mother offering them a thousand-dollar tip if they did.

  Alex: But…

  MR: Not my idea!!!

  Alex blinked stupidly at his cell.

  Alex: I’m now terrified of your mother. Glad they kept their shorts on. Would have hated to have to kill them all…

  MR: Who said it was their shorts they kept on? ;)

  Alex laughed. He never forgot how blessed he was to have found this woman, or the knowledge that she trusted him. It humbled him.

  MR: I have to go. I love you. Keep safe. Don’t be late!

  Alex: I’ll be there. I’m just off to find some strippers for my impromptu bucks night…

  MR: You’re not the only one with a gun, buster.

  Alex: :)

  The fact he was sitting here smiley-face emoticoning his pregnant fiancée was not lost on him. His life had gone from doom and gloom to almost too good to be true. He didn’t intend to fuck it up.

  Something bright caught his eye. The flaxen tresses of a slight figure hurrying along the quay. Little Taylor Masook. His fingers tensed on the handle of his coffee mug. This was a perfect opportunity to spirit her away. Would she fight him? Would he need to subdue her? Not a happy thought. But he could do it.

  Or did he wait for Frazer?

  He climbed to his feet, and the little girl glanced toward him and started waving frantically.

  He froze. Had he been made? By a frickin’ eight-year-old?

  “Josette!” she shouted.

  Alex turned and saw the beautiful, young woman he’d observed on Saturday sitting at a table against the wall. He hadn’t noticed her arrival because he’d been distracted talking to Mal.

  Fuck. That’s how operatives died.

  The woman caught his gaze for a brief second before her eyes slipped to the child. So, this was Josette. She must be the nanny or a tutor. Perhaps she was the reason Masook had brought the child with him. Because if the child was close, so was the nanny? A man as insecure as Masook probably wouldn’t want to stray far from this woman if she was his lover. And if she wasn’t, then this would be a good opportunity to try and change that fact.

  Alex put some euros on the table, weighed down with his cup. Then he headed inside on the pretext of using the bathroom. He stood at the counter checking out the cake selection as Josette climbed to her feet and went to meet the girl at the edge of the patio. Alex took a quick photograph of the woman and the child through the window. He sent the image to Frazer and his team back in DC.

  From what he could gather from Taylor’s animated arm-waving and high-pitched excitement her daddy wanted Josette back on the boat ASAP. Probably meant he was going somewhere and didn’t want Taylor’s company but didn’t want to leave the kid alone. If Alex’s primary objective had still been to grab the kid, then the next couple of hours would have been the ideal time to do that. Jane would get her daughter back, Alex would make it to his own wedding.

  He eyed the blue-eyed, blonde child as she spoke earnestly to Josette. He could see her mother in her coloring and the shape of her face. The slice of her nose was her father’s.

  Ahmed Masook had forfeited a father’s rights when he’d lifted his fists to his wife, and again when he’d flouted the US court order. If Alex’s gut was correct then Ahmed Masook was also an arms broker, and they were some of the dirtiest scum in the universe. They didn’t care where weapons ended up. They just cared about their personal wealth. A kid shouldn’t be within a mile of that sort of evil.

  Admittedly, some might say the same thing about him.

  Josette went back to the table and collected her things and followed Taylor out of the patio and back along the quay.

  It was another beautiful day on the Med. Alex followed slowly, losing them in the crowd ahead, but not worried. He knew where they were going. He mingled with tourists as they took in the opulence of the setting and the fancy yachts. He drew in the sharp scent of the ocean and enjoyed the heat of the sun on his skin. Even so, he’d rather have been in Virginia or DC on a cool spring day with Mal by his side.

  He glanced at Fair Winds and the Akula with admiration and awe he wasn’t really feeling. These people expected gawkers and probably ignored them. There was a helicopter landing pad on both boats complete with machines that gleamed in the sunshine like giant metal wasps.

  He passed a man smoking a cigar and wearing a cerulean silk suit. Alex kept his pace to a saunter, but his heart gave a jolt.

  Serat Al-Hadam was a front man for the Iranians.

  What the hell was Masook brokering?

  The former Soviet Union had been rife with nuclear, biological and chemical arsenals when it had fallen and, with the tacit approval of the Russian government, men like Ranich had been lining their pockets selling off those instruments of death ever since.

  The full heat of the midday sun hit him as he approached the end of Millionaires’ Quay. Something was going down. Something big. An international arms deal was too big to ignore, but so was his promise to help Jane get her daughter back.

  Jane was trying to move on with her life. The same way he was. Images bombarded him. Not of the men he’d killed, but friends and patriots who’d died in service, innocent civilians running the gauntlet of warlords and governments as they tried to live normal lives between power grabs.

  Only a month ago a white nationalist had tried to bring some homemade
devastation to the heart of DC. What would happen if one of these bastards got hold of some bonafide military-grade hardware, or some other weapon of mass destruction?

  He stood on the end of the pier, struggling with his options, trying to figure out which was more important—getting an innocent child away from a cesspit, or making sure everyone involved in this arms deal was scooped up and put out of business.

  Unfortunately, he knew the answer and that was another blow for Jane Sanders’s hopes.

  Another massive yacht entered the port. It was three stories high, and the sun gleamed off the white hull so intensely Alex squinted and shielded his eyes from the glare. And there, on the very top deck, stood a guy who would have looked just like Lincoln Frazer except for the scruff on his jaw and the board shorts he was wearing. That, and the fact he was kissing the crap out of a woman who looked exactly like Ashley Chen.

  Alex turned away to face the deep blue of the Med.

  He smiled.

  The cavalry had arrived.

  Chapter Eight

  Frazer ignored Lucas Randall’s silent glower as he walked back into the main living area of billionaire financier Robin Greenburg’s enormous luxury yacht, Ascension. He still held Agent Chen’s hand as if he had every intention of dragging her off to bed and making mad, passionate love to her. As soon as he was sure no one on the outside could see them he let go of her hand and raised his brow at Lucas.

  Ashley was posing as his lover, and Lucas was going to have to get used to him having his hands on her for the next day or so. They’d needed Ashley’s technical genius onboard this vessel and having a woman running around in a bikini was good cover. Foolishly, few considered them a threat.

  Lucas was posing as crew, as was Patrick Killion and a couple of Brits that Killion assured him were trustworthy. This mission was an off the books joint CIA/FBI operation with full cooperation from Interpol. The only member of Greenburg’s real crew was the captain who Robin assured him was trustworthy and closed-mouthed.

  He’d better be.

  Years ago, Frazer had saved Greenburg’s life by arresting the man’s then wife who—unbeknownst to Greenburg—had already disposed of three husbands before she’d gotten her razor-sharp talons into what she must have thought of as the motherlode. At first the guy hadn’t believed Frazer and had threatened to destroy his career. Then Frazer let Greenburg watch him interview the woman. The evidence Frazer had was overwhelming and it hadn’t taken long until she’d confessed to the murders in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. Then she’d told Frazer in minute detail how she’d planned to get Robin drunk and push him overboard on one of their moonlit cruises.

  Who said romance was dead?

  Frazer regularly took advantage of the guy’s gratitude and media interests to strategically aid FBI cases.

  It was ironic that over the years the billionaire had invited him onto this boat dozens of times. Frazer had never had the time, nor the inclination, to indulge in this sort of vacation. But now he needed the vessel to blend in with the other paragons of opulent wealth.

  Greenburg was off on some Australian outback adventure, and the boat had been moored in Monaco, thank god. It was perfect cover for Millionaires’ Quay and allowed them to bring in all the necessary equipment and firearms they might need—kindly provided by the CIA who was eager to jump on this unexpected, but solid intel.

  “Matt and Scarlett are in place,” Lucas told him, staring out the window toward one of the smaller quays.

  Frazer checked them out with binocs. Sure enough, the two lovebirds were on the tiny deck of the small sailboat they’d rented. Scarlett sat cross-legged sipping from a mug and Matt was showing off his muscles as he stretched out on the deck.

  Once it got dark, Matt Lazlo, a former Navy SEAL, would attach some hi-tech listening devices to the hulls of mega-yachts. Scarlett Stone was a physics genius who added some nice color to Matt’s cover. More importantly, Scarlett had been developing her own virtually undetectable listening devices. As sea water created serious problems for radio signals Frazer had asked her to help them out. Matt hadn’t been happy, but nothing bad would happen to Scarlett. The two of them would work independently from the rest of the team. They planned to leave on tomorrow’s high tide.

  Ashley sat down and started typing on her laptop.

  “Alex was on the pier. Did you see him?” Frazer asked Lucas.

  Lucas nodded.

  “I didn’t see a thing.” Ashley admitted. She was still nervous around Frazer, but she’d turned out to be an excellent behavioral scientist with computer skills that allowed them to dig deep into the unchartered waters of the dark web.

  “Probably because someone was sucking your face,” Lucas said dryly.

  “It’s a hard job but someone’s got to do it.” Patrick Killion joined them in the lounge and gave Frazer his trademark shit-eating grin.

  Frazer quirked a brow. Kissing Agent Chen, while not a chore, certainly wasn’t something he’d want to do for any reason besides work. “I’m going to head into town with Killion and wait for Alex to find us. You guys see what you can pick up or observe from here. If you’re a good boy,” Frazer eyed Lucas, “I’ll let you sleep in the main stateroom with one of the other agents tonight.”

  “Pretty sure I’m the one who decides who gets to sleep with me,” Ashley commented.

  Lucas grinned.

  Frazer nodded. Touché. “Don’t go breaking cover while I’m away.”

  Ashley snorted. “Yeah, I think I’ve got the undercover thing down pat. See you in a few.”

  Frazer’s main priority was still getting the groom-to-be to the church on time without any bullet wounds or arrest warrants. He changed into jeans and button-down white shirt and flip flops, which felt weird on his feet.

  It had taken some doing to arrange this op on the fly, but everything had come together nicely.

  They were going to find out what these bastards were selling, who the potential buyers were, and on top of that, they were going to retrieve the Masook child to go live with her mother—her legal guardian. Then they were all going to go home because they had a wedding to attend. A wedding he didn’t intend to miss.

  Chapter Nine

  Reilly watched Jane reach for the bottle of wine from the fridge even though it was only noon. She paused for a moment in the middle of the enormous kitchen with its flagstone floor, then silently put the bottle back.

  She turned and caught him watching her. She was wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt today, no make-up, her hair tied back in a simple ponytail. It was the first time he’d seen her looking less than perfectly packaged. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

  She gave him a tired smile. “Don’t look so proud of me. I’ve used alcohol and sex to get through the loss of Taylor in the past. Both are very effective in the moment.” Her voice was pure southern belle and almost as sweet as her face. “But you already rejected the latter and I’m vetoing the former in case Alex brings Taylor home today.” Her features tightened. “I don’t want her thinking I’m a lush.”

  Her words took him back to their encounter a few days ago when she’d touched him and he’d wanted to strip her naked and christen the pool. But she was his client. He did not mess with clients.

  “You’re not a lush,” he said quietly.

  Humor flashed in her eyes along with enough heat to tell him she meant what she said. “I’m not a whore either, but it doesn’t mean I don’t like sex.”

  Damn. He didn’t want to talk about sex, especially after his boss told him to do whatever it took to distract her.

  “With the right man, I happen to like it a lot.” Her teeth bit into her bottom lip, and her gaze drifted down his body. Reilly felt a corresponding response in his dick.

  “We can play cards,” he suggested a little desperately.

  Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and he thought he saw a touch of admiration in their depths. “Not a lot of men would turn down a blowjob for a game of cards.”
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  His pulse sped up, and his skin felt scorched, but he forced himself not to react. “Under normal circumstances in a choice between a hand of poker and having your mouth on me? I’d definitely want your mouth.” He made it personal. He made it about him and her, not some anonymous ejaculate down a stranger’s throat. “But I am not the jerk who takes advantage of a woman under difficult circumstances.”

  Her lips curved, and her eyes darkened. He found himself wishing he could bend the rules once, just to taste her.

  “I think I’m the one taking advantage, Jack.”

  And he wanted her to. He really did. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t cross that line.

  He pulled a pack of cards from his pocket. “Poker or Crazy Eights?”

  “Strip poker?” She raised a mocking brow.

  He’d walked right into that one. He shook his head ruefully.

  She grew serious and looked at him for a long moment until the grip she had on her own arms lessened. “If something doesn’t happen soon I think I might go insane,” she admitted tightly.

  “I’m not going to let you. We’re in this together until you get your daughter back.”

  “It’s been four years.”

  The desolation in her eyes got to him. “Alex has got this,” he reminded her.

  She slowly released a tense breath. Finally, she nodded. “Crazy Eights it is.”

  Chapter Ten

  Frazer and Killion found a bar in the center of the old town and ordered two bottles of blond beer.

  Killion watched the door. Frazer kept an eye on the rear exit. They’d chosen a spot near a small, indoor fountain, which helped destroy the quality of intercepts in the unlikely event someone was listening in.

  Killion was here because Alex had helped him and Audrey Lockhart out of a jam in January and now he was returning the favor.

  They clinked bottles.

  “Here’s to retirement.” Killion grinned.

  Frazer took a long swallow and wiped his mouth, startled by the feel of bristles on his jaw. It made him look less like a Fed, and more relaxed and carefree than he’d ever actually be. He hoped he got to find out what Izzy thought of it before he shaved. He checked the time. She’d be asleep. She was staying with her uncle Ted before starting the drive back in the morning. Ted had volunteered to load all their personal belongings and any furniture they wanted to keep into a moving van, and drive it north at the end of the month. Frazer wasn’t used to having so many people in his life but he was adjusting. He was enjoying the simple pleasure of having someone to talk to at the end of a grueling day. Someone to wake up with every morning. Someone to make love to whenever they had a spare five minutes alone…