After chugging a couple gulps of coffee, he set the cup on the black granite counter. Exhaustion was as much at fault for his libido breakout as not having a woman in a while, but he was rested and better under control.
So he shouldn’t make the mistake of giving in to his conscience again, which tossed out ideas like kissing her to take the sting out of his words. But she was the reason behind the edge in his voice to begin with, so why was he suffering this stab of guilt?
Because he’d barked at her like a tyrant for not moving all that hot body out of his view when the real problem was that he wanted her and couldn’t have her.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw and face. She was not a guest here. Might as well establish their positions from this point on. The worry he’d indulged last night was understandable, the same he’d have felt for any woman who had been through yesterday’s ordeal. And things could have been worse for her if Joe had sent an armed team to haul her off in the middle of the night.
Gabrielle had put herself in the middle of this somehow. Not him. He’d saved her ass. That ought to count for a few points toward forgiveness.
Besides, he was the freakin’ ice man from here on.
She was a prisoner until Joe determined her status.
Carlos paused. Joe and Tee didn’t release any prisoner back into society as a free person. That was standard for anyone who learned the identities of BAD agents, and before this was done, Gabrielle would see more agents than him.
He shook off a twinge of remorse over what would happen to her. He had a duty. American security depended on how well he performed.
And Gabrielle had information on the Anguis that could jeopardize the lives of loved ones he’d spent his life on the run to protect.
Carlos headed to the bedroom, ready to see her as he should-a detainee waiting for interrogation.
A screeching alarm blared as he entered the room. Annoying sound, but he’d set the clock alarm on “obnoxious” in case he overslept.
As he reached over to hit the off switch, the door to the bathroom opened and Gabrielle rushed out, holding a towel in front of her, not wrapped. Her hair hung in wet links around her shoulders. She looked refreshed. Innocent.
Like a rain nymph.
“Clothes?” She squeezed out that one terrified word.
Merde!
He slapped the alarm, silencing it, dumped her clothes on the bed, and walked out.
Ice man, my ass.
Carlos scowled his way back into the kitchen, then got busy putting breakfast together. He ate his food while he cooked hers. The secure phone line to headquarters beeped in the office on the other side of the great room. He lifted the extension next to the sink and shoved the receiver under his chin. The clock on the microwave indicated just after 8:00 a.m.
“What’s up?” Carlos asked since Joe shouldn’t expect him to be mobile for another hour. “I just got the damn e-mail with the files to send a few minutes ago.”
“I’m downloading them now,” Joe confirmed. “I sent the team to you. They should all arrive in the next half hour. I’ll be there close behind.”
“Why?” The cabin was secure, but Carlos didn’t like the idea that he might be holding up the team.
“New developments came up overnight I want to share with everyone together once we talk to the informant. Rae, Korbin, and Gotthard got more rest than you so I put them on the road early this morning. Of course, they haven’t seen your reports yet.”
They would have if Carlos could have held a gun on the computer to make that piece of shit send an e-mail.
Joe added, “What have you gotten out of the informant?”
No rest. No sex. No information.
“Not much, but she was pretty beat up last night,” Carlos told him.
“She?”
“Yeah, and she’s not what I expected. She comes across as untrained to be in the intelligence field.”
“She admit to being Mirage?”
“Not in so many words, but she hasn’t denied it either.” Carlos flipped a saucepan lid over Gabrielle’s plate to keep her breakfast warm.
“Hold on.” Muffled voices filled the break, then Joe was back on the phone. “Got to go. I’ll have anything new sent to Gotthard along with your files.”
As Carlos hung up, soft footsteps padded into the kitchen.
He turned around to find Gabrielle standing on the other side of the island, dressed, thank you, God. Her hair was twisted up in a plastic clasp, the smooth hairstyle accentuating her high cheeks and extraordinary eyes on her pensive face. She moved with an elegance he hadn’t noticed yesterday when she’d been running for her life.
“Hungry?” He loaded his empty plate into the dishwasher.
“Not particularly, but I’ll eat.”
He ignored the contradictory comment and slid her plate over the island counter toward a seat across from him. He uncovered her dish, revealing scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast.
She lifted a fork and pushed food around for the next minute, using the paper towel he’d given her to dab her mouth in the same manner someone would use a linen napkin in a five-star restaurant.
Little was leaving her plate.
“You should eat,” he prompted. This might be another long day.
She raised pained eyes to him.
Hurt? Hell. Hurting a prisoner’s feelings had never been an issue for him, ever, in all his years with BAD.
She lowered her gaze back to her plate without a word and picked at the food some more.
Carlos folded his fingers tight in frustration from watching her. He’d only yelled at her to go in the bathroom. She’d shown more backbone in the face of death yesterday.
Where was the female who had snapped at him last night?
He didn’t know, but he did have to get this interrogation moving along. If only he could raise the anger he’d felt forty-eight hours ago in France.
The urge to browbeat their informant had simmered.
He’d feel like the lowest of animals if he used normal interrogation tactics on this delicate creature. But he had a job to do. Appearances aside, if Gabrielle really was the person who had connections to the Anguis and the Fratelli, she was a threat to American security.
“Where’s my laptop?” she asked in a whispered voice.
“Downstairs.”
When she pushed back, he stopped her with “It’s locked up. I haven’t touched your laptop. I know enough about your kind to know the program would likely disintegrate if I did.”
Her mouth thinned at the “your kind” comment, but she scooted forward again and shoved the plate away, food half-eaten. “What do you want from me?”
“To begin with, your real name. And a word of warning, lying will not help your case.” He really doubted her name was Gabrielle Parker. “We know your online code name is Mirage.”
She said nothing. No reaction at all.
Carlos sipped his coffee, considering his next question. The monitor on the wall activated. A mechanical voice said, “Guests arriving,” indicating someone had sent a gate-access request from a cell phone.
Guest was code for “BAD agent.” Carlos pressed a remote to disengage the security and open the gate so they wouldn’t have to wait. The entire security would return active again once the gate closed.
A sleek, crème-colored Lexus SC 430 pulled through the now open gate as Carlos pressed a remote to disengage the sensors along the driveway. Rae’s ride.
Korbin’s 1978 gold Road Runner pulled through next, the custom mufflers rumbling with a throaty growl that warned all challengers he had a HEMI under the hood. Gotthard brought up the tail with his deep-woods-green Navigator sport utility.
“Who are they?” Gabrielle stared at the monitor.
“Guests. Stay where you are. I’ll be right back.” Carlos sauntered to the front door and opened it to the trio climbing out of their cars.
“Mornin’, luv,” Rae said, striding up the steps in a warning-flag-yellow, wispy blouse and jeans that fit her long-legged frame as if shrink-wrapped. She carried a Starbucks cup in one hand and had an alert gaze for someone who had slept one night in the past three days.
Just like the rest of the team.
“Rae.” Carlos held the door for her. At the top of the steps, she strode right on past him.
Korbin’s dull-white ostrich-skin cowboy boots clicked decisively on each step. He paused at the door, his eyes taking in the scratches still evident along Carlos’s collarbone and the stitches on his forearm. “I hope for all that you got something out of the informant.”
“Not enough.” Carlos smiled.
Gotthard followed Korbin inside with nothing more than a grunt and nod at Carlos, but the big guy was never much of a morning person and probably caught hell at home for leaving again so soon. The computer case dangling from his fingers might as well be an appendage since he was rarely without it.
When Carlos walked back into the kitchen, he found three agents looking at him as if they were in the wrong house.
“Who’s she?” Rae asked with an eyebrow hiked up in accusation.
Carlos frowned at her. Gabrielle wasn’t handcuffed to indicate her status, but did Rae really think he would bring a woman he was dating here?
“This is Gabrielle,” Carlos said. “Also known as Mirage.”
Gabrielle sat as still as a mouse staring down a roomful of hungry alley cats.
“Really?” Rae chuckled. “This shouldn’t take long.”
Gabrielle angled her chin up in an unyielding manner in reply that drew a feral smile to Rae’s lips. Carlos clenched his teeth to keep from snapping at Rae for frightening Gabrielle, whose face lost color.
But Rae was only doing her job, intimidating the witness.
He had to do his part and run this show. Unfortunately for Gabrielle, that meant as of now she was on her own.
Carlos turned to the trio. “Okay, everyone downstairs.” He waited until they vacated the room to speak to Gabrielle.
She jumped up first. “What’s down there?” The panic in her voice ate at him.
He’d never hated his work, but using that fear against her was part of his job. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d do it.
“Just a room. We’re going to ask questions. Nothing sinister.” Not unless you don’t give us what we want. He squashed the sudden urge to reassure her everything would be okay. Lying came with the job description, but he didn’t have to terrorize her unnecessarily.
Not yet.
NINE
SOMEONE WAS LEAKING Fratelli information.
Fra Vestavia pressed the button on his private elevator, which ascended subtly to the thirty-second floor. Who had interfered and now had Mirage?
Who could possibly be leaking information from within the Fratelli de il Sovrano? Someone brilliant and ballsy.
A perfect description of Josie.
He pondered that all the way to his suite of offices occupying the top floor that included a secured access to the helo pad on the roof. Plus a 360-degree view of Miami and the Atlantic Ocean from a prime spot along Brickell Avenue.
The elevator doors swooshed at the thirty-second floor, opening into the central foyer for Trojan Prodigy, a business purported in national magazines to represent state-of-the-art electronic counterterrorism software and antispyware.
True, but not the whole story.
Vestavia had started Trojan Prodigy twelve years ago, back when international companies were desperate for technology to protect them from sophisticated hackers. They welcomed his people with open arms and access to their operating systems while he was busy splitting his time between playing the role of DEA special agent Robert Brady and Vestavia, a loyal Fratelli supporter.
He abandoned the DEA identity last year when he disappeared after successfully executing a Fratelli mission and was now considered a wanted felon. As of next month when he had surgery, Agent Brady’s face would no longer exist and his fingerprints on file had been altered years back.
Timing was the most critical element in any plan.
He abandoned the DEA just as Trojan Prodigy received significant military contracts that made him the best choice to take a seat at the table of the twelve North American Fras when one died unexpectedly.
Every continent had its own ruling body of twelve Fratelli, who headed up businesses with international influence or had stockholder seats or strategic government positions-everyone had to bring something to the table once he proved value as a leader.
Vestavia stepped from the elevator and sank into carpet that reminded him of walking on clouds. The air smelled pristine and untouched. Samuel, a male assistant of slight build, sat behind a monitor at a contemporary workstation trimmed out in gold. He typed so quickly the sound was lost in the rush of water pouring down a twelve-foot-high slate wall directly behind him. Running the width of the twenty-foot-wide space, the waterfall shushed in peaceful reverence.
When Vestavia neared, Samuel came to attention, brown eyes alert, hair cut short, business-neat, slate-gray suit blending into the background. They shared an interest in archaeology, but Vestavia had no time for casual conversation right now.
“Messages?” he asked the young man.
“Yes, sir. On your desk in order of priority. And Josie Silversteen is waiting in your office. She said she has something for you.” Samuel spoke in a hushed voice used in places of worship.
Josie here? Vestavia checked his watch. “I’m expecting her.” Not really, but Josie knew he’d want answers on what happened to Baby Face and Mirage. Anyone else would have called in that update rather than face him.
Josie was like no one else.
He hoped his trust had not been misplaced.
“Shall I bring coffee or tea?” Samuel asked.
“No. This will be a short meeting. Hold my calls for a half hour.”
Vestavia strolled down the wide hall, passing a virtual gallery of art by Renoir and Matisse intermingled with contemporary masterpieces. Glancing into offices as he passed, he noted the flurry of activity in each one. He kept a small staff with an excellent work ethic who appreciated having offices that rivaled those of corporate CEOs.