Elite Metal-ARE-epub (13 page)

Damn her. How dare she take away his anger. How dare she make him feel one bit sorry for her. He was the wronged one. And Zinc. His brother lost everything because of her.

Leaning down until they were nose to nose he snarled. “You’re not worth it, sweetheart.”

He flicked the safety on, then tucked the gun into the back of his pants. Pausing only long enough to grab his wallet, phone and shoes. He strode away from her and the door thumped closed behind him as he walked out.

Empty.

He’d never before felt so empty.

Chapter Ten

The door shut behind Steele, not with a bang, but with a solid thud of finality that echoed through Alayna’s heart. Not even when she’d been floating in the icy Moscow River did she feel as cold as she did in the silence of the room she shared with Steele.

Anger she was prepared for, even the betrayal. The disgust, at her and at himself, was like a dull knife to the gut, bending her in two as she wept into the tan carpet beneath her cheek.

Yes, she slept her way into Red Wolf’s inner circle. She also lied and killed as well. That was her directive. Babikov expected strength and respect in his organization, and until Korovin sold her out, she had the old man believing she would do anything for his affections. He had come to trust her enough to be at his feet during his most private conversations, including that last one when he talked to his men about the deal with Hossein.

She should have been suspicious when he announced he would personally oversee the transaction taking place. By that time she had been so done with the role of the CIA’s black widow, she was ready to pounce on the first bit of intel that would release her from her servitude—a desperate move that changed too many lives. A desperate move she would pay for until the day she died.

If she was be lucky enough to escape it in death.

Steele had every right to be furious, she just wished he hadn’t been so cruel.

What did it matter anyway? She clutched her knees to her chest as a fresh wave of tears assailed her. Her mission wasn’t to earn his love, or even respect. It was to bring in Korovin.

Period.

Steele could hate her all he wanted, but she wasn’t going to rest until Korovin was detained in Warbucks’ care. If she had to finish the mission without him, so be it.

* * * * *

“Hey, baby. Looking for some company?”

Steele ignored the catcalls from the hookers in the shadows and continued his run down Twain Avenue. All he wanted was to work out some aggression, but with the hotel’s gym not open for another hour, there had been no place for a man to sit in peace with the cocktail waitresses, dealers or other hotel guests surrounding him everywhere he went. His only option had been to hit the pavement or face jail time when he bit off someone’s head for daring to speak to him.

Alayna should have told him. Poppy should have told him too, but Alayna most especially. He should have been warned that he was to sleep next to the person who destroyed his life.

If he’d known, he’d have never touched her. Never kissed her. Never… loved her.

No. He did not love her. How could he love someone he obviously knew nothing about? Any emotions he felt for her were false, a happenstance of their situation. There was no way he would feel true affection for a woman who was able to cozy up enough to a terrorist to allow him to fuck her. Surely there must have been other ways to accomplish her directive.

Dammit. Alayna’s betrayal was not what he needed. Korovin behind bars, or even better, dead, was the only thing that mattered. In Recon he walked through nightmares to accomplish his mission. He could do the same again. Alayna was a necessary evil he was going to have to deal with. It meant setting aside his hatred till Korovin went down. Then, and only then, he could get the hell away from Alayna. Get in, get out.

The hotel doorman took one look at him as he ran up to the entrance and pulled the door open as if he were afraid Steele would plow right through the glass. Hotel guests parted like the Red Sea before Moses and he was pretty sure security had eyes on him too.

He hit the button to call the elevator and caught his breath. He had to get his shit together or his temper was gonna blow again the moment he saw her face. The first thing he was going to do was establish control of the mission and stop thinking about her. She meant nothing to him.

She had to mean nothing to him.

It took all of his focus to open the door to the room without blasting it off its hinges.

“Don’t say a word…” Where was she? “Alayna?”

Bathroom was empty, as was the bed.

“Fuck,” he bit out when he spotted Alayna’s collar on the table. Did she bail?

He checked the bathroom again and the closets, confirming that her things were still there. The only items he noticed missing were the bag she used for the pool and her purse.

He punched her cell number into his phone and paced across the room as the line rang once. Voicemail. Damn.

“Call me. Now.”

For the first time fear crept into his belly. There was the real possibility Laskin and Korovin discovered their identity and had taken her, but the room was more or less untouched. Alayna would have put up some sort of a fight if that were the case. Wouldn’t she?

Damn it all to hell.

He tried to call her again, then sent three text messages thirty seconds apart. Nothing.

“Shit,” he grunted and dialed the second to last person he wanted to speak to.

“Are you ready for extraction?” Poppy asked after the first ring.

“Ah, no. I have a slight problem. Alayna is missing.”

There was a pause, then the line clicked as if she took him off of speakerphone as she asked in a suspicious tone, “What do you mean…missing?”

“I mean I went for a run and when I returned, she wasn’t here. Most of her things are still in the room, but she’s gone and she’s not returning my calls or texts.”

“Then track her with the GPS in her collar.”

“I,” he paused to clear his throat. “I can’t. She left the collar on the table.”

Several more seconds of silence. “Tell me everything.”

“I’ll tell you what happened. You two declined to tell me that Alayna was Venus. You lied to me. I should have been told I was sleeping with the enemy from day one.”

“Your enemy? How is Alayna your enemy? Don’t forget, jarhead, Alayna was as much a victim from Operation Phoenix as Elite Recon. But unlike you who had the good fortune to have the US government set you up with a new identity and lifestyle, Alayna had no one. Red Wolf thought she was dead and it was someone in her department that not only sold her out, but made it look like treason. The only reason she survived the car crash was because she wandered into a convent claiming her husband beat her and they granted her sanctuary.”

Damn it, what was it with these women trying to play the pity card. “Cry me a river.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Steele. Log in to your computer. We’ll track her through the chip.”

“What chip?” he asked as he grabbed his laptop and tossed it on the bed then powered it on. “I told you the collar’s laying on the—”

“The chip we embedded into her back at the shelter. It’s a failsafe in case she was captured or lost contact.”

His fingers froze over the keyboard. There were so many things in that sentence he found questionable, but one word stood out above the rest. “Shelter?”

“Yes. I told you, Alayna had nothing. Once she was able to sneak back into the country, she had nowhere to go and no one to trust. She’s been moving from city to city and shelter to shelter. It took Warbucks over a year to find her.”

Nausea filled his belly and his throat tightened. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course not. You’re concern over her well-being is plainly obvious.”

“Damn it, Poppy—”

“I’m sending you her coordinates now.”

Okay, so he never thought about what might have happened to Venus. He had assumed that she sold out his team for wealth or power. It never occurred to him she might have been hung out to dry by her handler. That she might have been played too. And when Alayna said Venus had died, he stopped thinking about the woman altogether.

The burn in his throat sharpened as the enormity of how badly he’d fucked up struck him in the gut.

“She’s still at the hotel,” Poppy said as the map began to download on his monitor.

“Wait a minute.” Steele zoomed in on her little red dot. Another blue dot nearly overlapped hers. Laskin.

“Son of a bitch,” he said. “She’s going after Korovin herself.”

Chapter Eleven

Steele looked through the lens of his binoculars and experienced a horrible sense of déjà vu sweep over him. Sunny day, expensive yacht, gorgeous woman in a bikini. Only this time he wasn’t viewing a photograph, but was watching the events unfold live and in color from the deck of his commandeered boat.

There was a reason he had been a sniper. With his size, he wasn’t built to stealthily move from point A to point B without being spotted. Those types of maneuvers were best left to the smaller guys on his team like Adamantium or Cobalt. He was more of a take them out from a distance with his rifle kind of guy. But he got his ass in gear and was able to follow Laskin and his entourage from the hotel to the marina on Lake Mead without any incident.

He recognized several of the faces on board from the Purple Curtain, and as he suspected Korovin was there as well looking very all American in a blue polo shirt and khaki slacks. The moment he spotted Alayna sans husband, his eyes had lit up and he greeted her with a smile. All teeth. Now she sat with Korovin, chatting with the girl in the lounge chair next to them while Korovin had his hand on her knee.

Overriding the jealousy burning a hole in his stomach was fear for her safety. For all she knew, she was on her own, without backup and might be more willing to take risks. After all, he all but told her she was worthless, and from what he learned from Poppy, Alayna may be thinking she had nothing to lose. He had to get a message to her ASAP. Poppy’s ghosts were en route with a plane for pick up, but by the time they arrived, it might be too late.

He double checked the watertight seals on his pack and his snorkel, then readied himself at the away side of the boat from the yacht and dove in.

Water traffic on the lake was light, but busy enough to conceal his movements. He stayed submerged and swam the hundred-plus yards to the yacht. From what he could count there were approximately twenty or so people on board, including eight crew and two on security detail. He’d do what he could to spare them from becoming collateral damage, but Alayna came first.

He scaled the hull of the Lurssen and dropped onto the deck once he confirmed the all clear. From his pouch he withdrew a shammie and mopped up as much water as possible from his skin and the flooring.

Two jet skis rested on their racks. He unhooked one and readied it for launch then moved up the stairs to the second deck. A bartender stood with his back to the staircase. His arms were folded and he leaned against the counter. Mixed in with the blare of the radio were the grunts and moans of a faceless man and a woman while a third voice cheered them on.

Keeping his back to the wall, he made his way to the staircase that led up to the third level, which consisted of mostly dining and living space. A crew member descending the service stairs with an armload of towels blocked the exit. Steele knocked the towels to the floor and nailed the young man with a dart to the chest. As the man succumbed to the drugs, he collapsed in Steele’s arms before he knocked them both down the stairs. Leaving him where he lay, Steele continued to round the corner to the next level when he heard the sound of Alayna laughing from across the living room. She was trailing two of Laskin’s friends who were leading her down the spiral staircase to the second level.

Damn it. Steele hid the body, leapt back down to the lower floor and spotted the trio as they disappeared down a hallway. On this level the galley, butted up against the guest rooms, and although the entrance was in a separate hallway, the location was such, they didn’t need any more potential witnesses to whatever was about to go down.

He crept to the entrance to the galley and rolled a colorless smoke bomb into the room. Fifteen seconds later came the thud of two bodies hitting the floor. He held his breath and peered inside to confirm that all who were inside were incapacitated then headed back in the direction Alayna had disappeared to.

To the right was a closed door, and from behind it came muffled shouts and the smack of what sounded like a headboard banging against the wall.

Oh fuck no. Steele bit back the curse and readied his pistol. He kicked in the door and rushed inside only to stop in his tracks. Yuri lay naked and spread eagle on the bed with his hands tied to the headboard and a pillowcase stuffed in his mouth. He flopped in his restraints as he stared up in either terror or surprise, Steele couldn’t tell. On the floor lay his friend also naked and with his ass in the air. He was out cold with his hands zip tied behind his back and a nice red mark down the side of his face that was rapidly darkening into a bruise.

“Okay,” Steele murmured. “I guess the girl does have some skills.”

Yuri’s wails grew more frantic along with his bucking as Steele switched out his pistol for the dart gun.

“Time for your big O, Yuri.” There was a soft pfft as the dart shot down the barrel of the gun and lodged into his chest.

Steele turned and shut the damaged door as best as he could behind him then went in search for Alayna. As he approached the stairs, he saw several crewmembers with their backs to him standing on the stern deck. Between them he could see what had been capturing the attention of the bartender.

Both of Korovin’s guards were engaged in a daisy chain with two of the women. Laskin’s friend Ory was kneeling besides the heaving group, snorting cocaine off of a blonde’s sweaty back. Using the orgy as a distraction, Steele inched up the stairs to the upper level, vowing to tan Alayna’s backside the minute they had a moment alone. The yacht was too dangerous of a location to launch this type of a mission on her own. They were a team, and after he apologized for earlier, he’d do everything he could to make her believe in him again.