The Perfect Target

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“What if someone sees us?” she asked, glancing toward the window. Not much light made it through the grime and the overgrown foliage surrounding the villa, but beyond this secluded world, the sun shone brightly.

“No one will see us,” he said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because we won’t be anywhere. You’ll be here, and I’ll be doing what I do best.”

Miranda just stared at him. “You’re leaving me?”

He strode toward the small window and peered outside. “You’ll be safer here than out there with me.”

She hugged her arms around her middle, not wanting to be left alone, but unaccustomed to asking one of her father’s men for anything. “What if you don’t come back?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

But what if it does? she wanted to ask, but the words jammed in her throat. He was hiding something, she realized with cold certainty. Holding something back. It was there in his eyes, an edgy, unsettled look, like he wasn’t quite sure what he’d find when he turned the corner.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

He picked up his briefcase. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Nothing I need to worry about?” She crossed to him and took hold of his forearm. “A man shoots at me and my bodyguard goes down, then I’m dragged through alleys to some abandoned old house and led through a secret passageway to a room that looks more like a jail cell and you tell me not to worry about it?”

His lips twitched. “You do have a way with words, bella.” He glanced at the black-banded watch around his wrist. “Give me an hour, two tops. When I get back, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Until then, I need you to try and relax.”

“Sandro—”

He took her hand and led her to the door. “Here,” he said, pressing a metal object into her hand. “This lock works both ways. When you hear me turn it from the other side, I want you to do the same.”

She looked at the small silver key in her palm. He was trusting her, she realized. He was giving her a small measure of freedom, of respect, just like when he’d given her back her grandfather’s knife.

Beware of strangers bearing gifts, she’d always heard.

“How do you know I’ll let you back in when you return?” she asked softly.

“I don’t.”

Surprised, she looked up, just in time to be blinded by his smile.

“I’ll have food, clean blankets, and flashlights,” he said matter-of-factly. “If you’d prefer to spend the night hungry, cold and in the dark, that’s your decision.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small black device, which he pressed into her palm, as well. “If anything happens, if you hear anything, if you get frightened for any reason, push this button, and I’ll be back before you can catch your breath.”

Her throat tightened. God help her, she wanted to believe him. “When I’m scared, I breathe pretty fast,” she said with a small smile.

His expression gentled. “There’s no need to be scared.” Reaching down to the bottom of his pant leg, he came back up with a sleek black semiautomatic. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

He had no way of knowing how many memories a simple question could unearth, memories that tumbled hard and fast, of long afternoons spent at the shooting range, determined to prove to her father that she could take care of herself.

He’d been furious when a tabloid photographer had found her instead, splashing her photo over the cover, along with a headline that insinuated she didn’t trust the government to protect its own. “Yes.”

Sandro put the butt of the gun into her hand. “If anyone comes through that door besides me, shoot.”

She swallowed hard. “You’re trusting me not to shoot you?” she tried to joke, but his expression remained grim.

“You’re a smart woman,” he said, lifting a hand to her face. An odd light glimmered in his midnight eyes. “I think you realize someone out there wants to hurt you. I also think you realize that as much as you don’t want to be with me, you want to be with him even less.”

And then he was gone. He didn’t give her time to protest or agree, simply let himself out the door, turned the lock, and headed down the stairs, until footsteps faded into silence, leaving only the ragged rhythm of her own breathing. She tried the door, desperately, vainly, but the lock wouldn’t budge.

She was alone in the small room, but Sandro’s presence lingered like a seductive mist. She inhaled deeply, drawing in not the scent of a villa abandoned to the fate of time, but of a man who’d stepped out of her dreams and into a nightmare she’d never imagined would come to pass.

Frowning, Miranda put her key to the lock, then wandered to the other side of the room, where she sat on the old sleeping bag, pulling the threadbare fabric around her legs, not at all sure why she’d suddenly become so cold.

Or why she wanted to have something of Sandro as close as possible.

The backup. Sweet Mary, she thought he worked for her father. The absurdity of it would have made him laugh, if the stakes hadn’t been so obscene. For now, Sandro figured, they were both better off if he let her continue believing the simple explanation.

His real identity didn’t matter, he reminded himself as he kept to the shadows and made his way back toward the resort community. The nature of his ultimate goal didn’t change the immediate objective. He had to keep the ambassador’s gypsy daughter away from the general’s men and arrange an exchange that didn’t jeopardize her life or his cover.

And he had to do it fast, he thought as he pulled his mobile phone from his belt.

“Cristo,” Javier swore a few minutes later. “Are you out of your mind? Taking the girl wasn’t part of the plan.”

Sandro glanced covertly around the alley where he’d stopped to call his ISA partner. “Tell me about it,” he muttered into the phone. He’d wanted to protect her, not take her. But obviously he’d been double-crossed. The informant who’d sold him the information about Miranda’s whereabouts had obviously had more than one buyer.

The question was who?

Regardless, Sandro was stuck with a complication he couldn’t afford. “I had no choice.”

“We all have choices,” Javier reminded.

“Yeah, you’re right. I could have left her for the shooter.” Just the thought had his blood running cold all over again.

“I would tell you to just leave her at the villa,” Javier mused, “call someone from the embassy and let them retrieve her, but there’s no telling who else is on Viktor’s payroll. But you can’t keep her either, amigo.”

“You think I don’t know that? But I can’t let her go right now. She’s safer with me than anywhere else.”

“Do you realize how insane that sounds?”

He did. “Javi, I need you to find out what happened to the bodyguard, Hawk.” If the poor bastard still lived, he might be Sandro’s best chance for a quick handoff.

“Consider it done,” Javier said, then lowered his voice. “But there’s something else you need to know first. Viktor knows you have her.”

Damn. Implications stabbed deep. In order to infiltrate his organization, Sandro had been working to win General Viktor Zhukov’s trust for close to a year. Turning the general’s coveted bargaining chip over to the United States government would destroy Sandro’s credibility. Countless lives, including his own and Javi’s, would be thrown into jeopardy.

“How the hell does he know already?”

“He’s got eyes and ears everywhere. He’s pleased and waiting for you to bring her in.”

Sandro leaned his head against the stone wall. His shoulder burned like a son of a bitch, he had an untrained, frustrated woman on his hands, a ruthless criminal on his heels, and now years’ worth of work threatened to blow up in his face. “Cristo.”

A hard sound broke from Javier’s throat. “I thought you might feel that way.”

“Get word to Omega,” Sandro said, thinking quickly. With international security on the line, arrangements needed to be made carefully. Discreetly. He could afford neither the risk to his cover nor the time of making plans himself. Calls could be traced, tapped, overheard. Any of those would be akin to signing his death warrant. There were appropriate channels and protocols, well-rehearsed methods designed to minimize risk.

Sandro’s job was to keep straddling that line. If the general caught so much as a whiff that Sandro was working to turn his prize over to the United States government, he was a dead man. This time for real.

And the carefully engineered plan to avenge eight operatives and bring the general to justice would be set back immeasurably.

“Tell Omega what’s going on,” he instructed. “Have him notify Ambassador Carrington.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“And I’ll await your call.”

Javier muttered something under his breath. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”

Sandro frowned. “So do I.”

Javier Fernandez thumbed off his phone and threw a wad of cash on the small round table, quickly exiting the Stockholm café where he’d been grabbing a late lunch before Sandro’s call. He had to get back to his hotel room, make those calls and figure out how the hell he was going to extract his comrade from a potentially explosive debacle. And he had to do it fast.

“What’s the hurry, Fernandez?”

Javier glanced over his shoulder, realizing his mistake too late. Three men circled him. Three guns were trained on various parts of his body.

“I don’t think you’ll be taking care of anything, after all,” one of them said in broken English. “The girl is ours.”

“It’s me. Open up.”

Shuffling came from the other side of the door. “Sandro?”

“Expecting someone else?”

“How do I know you’re alone?”

He heard something in her voice, a fear and uncertainty that hadn’t been there before. Obviously, the time alone had allowed her imagination to kick into high gear.

“Sweetheart, I appreciate your caution, but you need to know something about me. I’m a trained professional. I’d die before I’d let someone follow me back here. Now open up.”

Nothing. Sandro put his hand to the door, wondering if he’d made a serious mistake by trusting her. But he’d had no choice. Giving trust was the best way to receive it in return.

More than anything, he needed her trust.

He waited, silently, patiently, until the lock clicked and the door opened. The ambassador’s gypsy daughter stood there, blond hair smoothed behind her ears, those fascinating green eyes darker than before, her expression somewhere between relief and alarm.

The sight damn near knocked the breath from his lungs.

Ignoring the reaction, trying to ignore her, Sandro strode into the small room and secured the door behind him. That morning, when he’d awakened in the old sleeping bag, the cramped quarters had seemed stale and dank, but after only a few hours of Miranda Carrington’s presence, everything seemed brighter, fresher, more welcoming. Like sunshine.