Two Evils (4 page)

Billie turned away from the scene before her. She couldn’t allow the broken bodies and frightened expressions now slipping into shock to worm their way into her conscience. It wasn’t that she had no feeling, no compassion, for their suffering. She just didn’t have the time to deal with it.

“John, we have to go,” she said, and not waiting to see if he followed, she stepped around the man who’d been shot in the leg and headed into the kitchen.

“Billie, where are you going?” he asked as he came up to her side.

“The back door, of course,” she replied. “I hope your shit is packed at your hotel. We don’t have time to dick around.”

“I only brought an overnight bag with three days’ worth of clothes. It’s packed,” he replied.

“Good. Now all we gotta do is get a couple plane tickets off the island.”

John patted her shoulder as they were stepping through the back door he’d asked about. “Already got ‘em. We depart at noon on a chartered flight for Miami-Dade.”

She snorted. “Awfully confident of you to have a ticket in my name.”

“Well, one of your names,” he countered, and she looked at him with a frown. John grinned sheepishly as they walked quickly down the alley behind the buildings.

“Better hope they don’t ask to see my I.D.,” Billy remarked sourly. “Unlike you, I didn’t come down here with my real name.”

“Don’t worry. In case we need it, Regina Tucker’s driver’s license is in the bag right next to her husband Adam’s.”

Billie stopped next to the Volkswagon Beetle she’d bought from a Flamingo Bay used car lot, briefly reflecting on the fact that she was going to miss this car—it wasn’t her usual style, but she’d fallen in love with it. It was a classic convertible model from the 60s, and in damn good condition. She hated to be leaving it behind. Unlocking the passenger door for John and rounding the front end, she stopped to look at him over the roof as she opened her own door.

“Let me guess—matching wedding bands are in the bag with those I.D.s?”

John nodded. “But of course,” he said, his expression straight.

“Remind me to file for divorce as soon as we get home,
honey
,” she said sweetly, then dropped into her seat.

Billie waited until they were alone, the door to John’s hotel room shut behind them, before she made her move. When he’d moved around her to walk toward the bed and grab his bag off of it, she took a step toward him and shot a quick, hard jab at his right kidney. John grunted and started to fall to his knees. Billie grabbed his shoulder to throw him to the floor but he surprised her by grabbing her wrist and twisting her arm. She could tell right away that his intent was merely to incapacitate, while hers had most definitely been to cause damage.

“Billie, what the fuck are you doing?” he asked, stifling a groan as he forced himself back to his feet.

With her free hand she knife-chopped the inside of his knee, then punched him in the gut. As he went down a second time, she landed a right hook to his jaw. John let go
of her wrist and she jumped on top of him as he hit the floor, straddling his chest with her knees pinning his arms down. Deftly pulling her Sig from its holster, she flicked the safety off and held it pointed at his head for a second time.

“I’ve got one fucking question for you: Why?” she snapped angrily.

John frowned. “Why what, Billie? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Billie pressed the end of the gun into his forehead. “You knew who was shooting at us, Agent Courtney. My guess is that they’re the same assholes who shot up the Crabana and killed Sergei,” she said. “And funny thing is, both times they tried to kill me
, they didn’t show up until after you did.”

“Christ, you think I’m working with them?!” John challenged. “Haven’t you ever heard of a coincidence?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” she replied sharply. “So either you’re working with them, or you’re fucking careless and they followed you.”

“I’ll concede they probably followed me, but that doesn’t make me careless, Billie,” he told her. Then he surprised her by grabbing her elbows and throwing himself to the left. As they rolled he was able to push her arms upward and the gun away from his face. Billie growled and tried to fight him off, but he was exercising all the force he could muster to pin her to the floor from the chest down—and co
nsidering he had about sixty pounds on her, it unfortunately wasn’t hard to do. Even with her legs trapped she’d have had an advantage if her arms were free, but he was holding them over her head, clasped tightly together at the wrist in one of his hands as the other stripped her gun from her grasp and tossed it away.

“Now you listen to me,” he said, and she could feel his breath on her face. “I am
not
working with Andre Sardetsky.”

“You wouldn’t be the first agent to cross the line, Courtney,” Billie snapped. “Operatives go traitor all the time.”

“Well I haven’t. I knew Andre was one of the shooters because I recognized his voice, nothing more. I’ve listened to so many fucking recordings of that bastard I’d probably recognize his voice in my sleep. I’ve been under in Russia once or twice in my career, Billie—how do you think I recognized your pal Sergei as one of the Sardetsky family? Because I’ve seen his picture. Hell, he resembles his father more than his brother Ilia does.”

Frustrated and angry, Billie growled loudly. “Then why the fuck are they here?!” she wondered aloud. “How the hell did they find us?”

John sighed. “I swear to you, I don’t know.”

As she lay there staring into his eyes, she became slowly aware of the position of his body on top of hers—his groin was situated right at the apex of her thighs. The weight of him was suddenly not as undesirable as it had been just moments ago, and the heat of his breath on her face was welcome. The expression on his face changed from one of determination to one of curiosity seconds before he lowered his lips to hers.

At first Billie stiffened. She did not want this man kissing her, did not want to acknowledge that he was bringing desires she’d thought permanently dormant out of hibernation. And for goodness’ sake, she did
not
want to be responding to the pressure of his tongue probing at the seam of her lips by opening her mouth and welcoming him with her own.

With his free hand, John skimmed down her side and back up again. Shifting slightly, he slipped it under her jacket and cupped her breast, feeling for the traitorously hardening nipple and pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. A thrill of sensation shot through her and without any direction from her brain, her hips rolled into his.

John groaned softly then, and somehow it served to snap Billie out of the trance his kiss had put her under. She turned her head away from his, and now that she was no longer responding with enthusiasm, he lifted his head and looked down at her.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice thick with want.

“Get off of me,” she said, unable to look at him.

With a sigh that sounded more like a growl, he let go of her hands and rolled off of her onto his back. Billie rolled in the opposite direction as John shot into a sitting position. Wordlessly she got to her feet and went to retrieve her gun.

“We need to leave,” she said, turning for the door.

Pushing to his own feet, John stopped her by taking her arm in hand. “Billie, I really think we need to talk about what just happened.”

Billie looked at the hand on her arm pointedly. John let her go and she forced her gaze to meet his, disturbed to see a naked lust that matched her own in the now stormy blue of his eyes.

“No, John, I really think we don’t,” she replied, wrenching the door open and walking out.



They were silent on the way to the airport, silent still as they parked in the long-term lot and got their bags out of the trunk. Billie immediately turned and
headed for the building looming ahead but John stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. Her expression as she looked at him was hard, but in her eyes he saw emotions too mixed to decipher. Wordlessly he held out his hand, opening it to reveal a small gold band. The muscles in her jaw twitched along with the vein in her throat, but she took it and slipped it on, then snatched the driver’s license he held out next.

“We don’t have to check our bags,” he said as she snatched the fake I.D., “
but we should take off the guns we’re carrying.”

“
You said we’re going to be alone on the plane,” Billie argued.

John nodded. “
We are. But in Miami we’re going to be picking up more passengers, and packing heat would look a little suspicious. You want people asking questions?”

With a scowl on her face, she dropped her bag to the ground and jerked her belt open, pulling it through the loops of her jeans so that she could remove the holster holding the Sig. Billie then knelt down and yanked open her military-issue duffel bag and thrust it inside. After closing the bag, she stood up, slung the strap over her shoulder, and looked at him pointedly as she replaced her belt.

Stifling a sigh, John followed suit and removed his weapon. He then fell into step beside her as they headed into the airport terminal. Throughout the drive, he’d wanted several times to open his mouth and speak. About the shootings. About leaving the people at the café to deal with the police on their own.

About the kiss.

Obviously, despite having been shot at twice in less than 24 hours, kissing a woman who could kill him before he knew what was happening was such a wise move—
not
. In truth, he hadn’t really meant to do it, it was just that… Oh, who the hell was he kidding? Billie was a trifecta—beautiful, brainy, and badass. She was about 5 feet 9 inches tall, with blonde hair past her shoulders, and she had eyes the color of a clear summer sky. Her body had curves in all the right places, and due to all the physical training she had undergone in the Marines and the CIA, she was in incredible shape. Records showed she was as sharp as a tack, and he’d seen proof—something told him the rabbit hole wasn’t Sergei’s idea. Despite her claim when she’d resigned that she wanted to be left alone, she had prepared an escape plan.

And regrettably, she had gotten the drop on him. That kidney shot had hurt, and his knee still ached a little from the knife chop. But damn, she had fit beneath him so perfectly. She had looked so pissed and so beautiful—vulnerable, even—that he simply hadn’t been able to resist having a taste of those lips. Her response had been a welcome surprise, though he couldn’t figure out what he had done that had turned her heat to ice.

Then again, maybe it was for the best. He had wanted her, that he could not deny, but making love to Billie when their lives were on the line would not have been the brightest idea he had ever had.

Not that he wouldn’t have enjoyed every single moment before Andre Sardetsky and his crew came bursting through his door
…

That was the one thing that bothered him: How had the Sardetskys found them? Had he really been followed? John reasoned th
at it was (much as he was loath to admit it) entirely possible that he and Billie had been observed by Andre or a member of his crew sometime after their escape from the Crabana. So that explained the shooting at the Coconut Hut.

But what about the shooting at
the bar? No one save for Rex, his boss, and one other person knew he was in St. Thomas. So they hadn’t been there because of him. Andre and his crew had been at the bar to kill Billie or Sergei. Or both.

Well, they’d certainly succeeded in one aspect: Andre’s uncle was dead.
Obviously no love lost there
, John mused as they stepped into the air-conditioned airport terminal. But then, that was how Grigori Sardetsky operated his business. It didn’t matter if you were in the family by choice or by blood—if you betrayed him, you died. Piotr’s “betrayal” had been to walk away after his wife and daughter had died in a car bomb explosion meant for him.

Once he’d exacted vengeance on the rival family that had planted it, of course.

Billie paused a few feet inside the door and looked up at him. “Which airline? You said it was a chartered flight.”

“This way,” he replied, taking the lead and weaving through the throng. They ended up at the counter for Carter International Air.

The attendants at the counter had no idea that the up-and-coming charter flight airline they worked for was a front company for the CIA, though given the snort Billie tried to hide, she’d made the connection. Certainly it was a commercial business as well—Fortune 500 executives made use of their services every day—but their main purpose was to provide immediate access to a plane for the agency’s operatives in the field.

With a smile, John pulled his and Billie’s tickets from his bag and handed them to the man behind the counter. The nametag on his lapel said “Michael”, and he smiled politely as he accepted them, read the names, and entered the information into his computer. He next asked for their I.D.s, which he checked against the names and addresses on the tickets. When he had finished processing them, he attached the boarding passes and handed everything back to John.