72 Hours (12 page)

Grace was watching Alex, studying the emotions he could probably hide from other people play across his face. She’d not only had years of watching him try to hide his emotions, but years of watching his son do so, as well. And Alex Rossi was hiding something.

He knew more than he was telling his team, and she had to bite down on the inside of her lip to keep from calling him on it right then. Never in a million years would she believe Alex capable of being dirty, but if he was holding back information that could help the team get this job done, she’d be on the phone to Sean Devlin in seconds flat.

For a second her mind considered Devlin—he hadn’t called to follow up with her since her rather abrupt inquiry as to Rossi’s location—but Alex was looking at her with what looked alarmingly like guilt and sadness in his eyes.

“Gallagher, start compiling everything we know or could logically surmise into a report,” he said. “Grace, I need to talk to you for a sec. Alone.”

And then his cell phone rang.

Chapter Nine

He unclipped the phone as he paused on his way to the bedroom, aware of Grace stopping behind him.

“Yeah,” he said curtly into the phone, not recognizing the incoming number.

“Good evening, Mr. Devlin? Or should I say Mr. Rossi?”

For the second time, Alex’s two identities collided. He’d been anticipating this moment, wondering what his instinctual response would be to contact with the man who’d ordered his mother’s murder. He’d expected fury, victory, bloodlust, all shadowed by sadness for his own loss. Instead he felt nothing but cool and collected, edged with a little thrill that now
his
game was truly afoot.

“Rossi’s fine, Mr…?”

“The Devlin name has served its purpose, then? It’s been a small source of amusement for me watching you bait me with it for decades, but this is the first time you’ve ever gotten close enough to me to step on my toes.”

Alex bit back a growl of frustration. He wanted a name. Before this thing played out—regardless of the outcome—he would know the true name of the man who killed his mother. “You hide well. But then, cowards always have the best hiding places, don’t they?”

There was a moment of tense silence, during which Alex’s adversary must have shrugged off his anger, because his voice was smooth as Italian leather when he spoke. “Say hello to Carmen, Rossi.”

The emotions came now—fury and bloodlust—knifing into his gut.
Shit.

He heard the scuffle as they brought his agent to the phone, and he signaled to Gallagher what was going on. The hissed Spanish and male grunts let him know Carmen hadn’t gone down easy—and wouldn’t.

“Alex?”

“Where are you?” he asked instinctively, even though there wasn’t a chance in hell he could use the information. Assuming she even knew.

“I’m blindfolded, but it doesn’t feel like a boat. Back of a car. Moving, but smooth. High-end.”

Alex heard the low mutter of male voices in the background and then Carmen took a deep breath. “They want to trade me for the suitcase, Alex.”

No surprise there. “Where and when?”

“A warehouse outside of Miami. In four hours. Just you.”

She reeled off the instructions as if they’d written them down for her, and Alex scribbled them on a notepad. As he wrote, Grace was reading quietly off to Gallagher, who was already calling up information on the computers.

“Got that?” Carmen asked when she was done.

“Yeah. I’ll have you home in time for supper, babe.” The bastard was listening in because Alex heard him chuckle. “You take care of yourself.”

“Alex? Remind Gallagher about the yellow roses.”

The call was cut off and Alex would have thrown the phone in frustration if not for the chance Carmen would contact him again.

“We’ll get her back, boss,” Gallagher said, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Yellow roses mean anything to you?”

The man’s fingers froze, his whole body going perfectly still. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“Carmen asked me to remind you about the yellow roses. Is that some kind of code? Was she trying to tell us something?”

“Yeah.”

When he didn’t say anything else, Alex wanted to drag him out of his chair and beat the answers out of him. “Care to share what the fuck it is you know that we don’t?”

“Carm’s from Texas. I promised her if she was ever taken out, I’d bury her with a bouquet of yellow roses.”

“What the hell kind of clue is that?” Grace asked. “Rose warehouse? Something to do with Texas…boots, cattle, hats…”

She was thinking out loud as she moved toward the computer, and Alex stopped her with a hand on her arm. She paused, looking up at him. He was aware of the second understanding dawned.

“Carmen doesn’t think we’re going to get her out,” Grace whispered.

“She doesn’t want us to give them the suitcase, even if it means her funeral.”

He watched the dread settle into her eyes. She didn’t have many real friends, and he knew Carmen was one of them. “That’s not acceptable,” she said.

“I agree. We’re going to get her back. Alive. First I want to talk to you.”

“We need to get right on this, Alex.”

He had to do it now—while he had a hope of explaining—so she didn’t hear it from the enemy. “We’ll only be a minute, Grace. And it’s important.”

She opened her mouth, no doubt ready to argue the point, then closed it again and shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

As he led her into the bedroom and closed the door behind them, he tried not to dwell on the irony of that statement. She was about to find out he was, in fact, just that.

When Grace leaned against his dresser and folded her arms, he almost backed out. She could be so damned hard to talk to. But he cleared his throat and dove in.

“You know my mother was killed. That my father was working to take down a crime lord.”

She nodded. “You said he was with an agency.”

Alex swallowed hard and hoped his brain would stay ahead of the words coming out of his mouth. “He was undercover. He was Italian, but born in America. He met my mother during a mission to Italy…while he was using a false name. Devlin, actually.”

“Let me get this straight. Your Italian father was in Italy, using an
Irish
name?

Alex shrugged. “My paternal grandmother was an American, and my father looked more Irish than Italian. It worked out well, with his cover being that he was an American professor who had fallen in love with Italy and an Italian woman.”

She rubbed at her temples, no doubt trying to process what he was telling her. “Who are
you
?”

“I’m Alex Rossi. There have been many names in my life, but that’s the name my parents gave me. Allesandro, actually, but only my mother ever called me that.”

“So what does the Devlin Group have to do with…No. Alex, you son of a bitch, who is Sean Devlin?”

“I’m Sean Devlin, Grace.”

“No!” He barely had time to duck the hairbrush she threw at his head. “No, Alex. Sean Devlin is my friend—my only friend besides Carmen. I
trusted
him.”

“You trusted
me
.”

“Trust you? Only an idiot would trust you.”

His chest ached so badly it was all he could do not to rub the skin over his heart. “I chose the name Devlin so the bastard would know. So when I find him and kill him, he’ll remember how he gunned down my mother. I chose to keep the secret in the agency because knowing I’m the boss could put the other agents at risk.”

“Who else knows?”

“Gallagher. Charlotte, of course,” he said, referring to his executive assistant.

She pressed heels of her hands to her eyes, and he stopped himself from going to her. The last thing she wanted was comfort from him, and she had the ability to kick his ass if he tried.

“You have no idea how much Sean Devlin meant to me,” she said without moving her hands, and he heard the tears in her voice. “It’s as though you just killed him.”

He said nothing. He didn’t figure there was much he
could
say at this point. She’d forgive him or she wouldn’t.

“Will you
ever
stop hurting me?”

Pain sliced through his chest, robbing him of his breath. “At least you’re alive, Grace. Carmen’s probably going to die.”

“Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t throw my friend—my
only
friend now—at me to distract me from how incredibly pissed off I am at you.”

“I’ve been hunting the bastard for years, Grace, and this is the closest I’ve ever come. It might get ugly—maybe even personal—and I didn’t want this coming at you in the middle of a bad situation.”

She settled on the bed, sitting cross-legged, which Alex took as a good sign. Hell, anything other than her trying to kill him was a good sign right now.

“That’s why he didn’t call.”

He wasn’t quite sure what she meant, and he didn’t want to guess wrong. “That’s why who didn’t call?”

“Sean Devlin,” Grace snapped, and then she shook her head. “I was just wondering why he hadn’t called. My calling him to get your location after all these years should have seemed odd to him, and he should have followed up with me, but he didn’t. Now I know why.”

“I was going to tell you…before.”

“When, Alex? When you took me to Italy to propose to me?”

That hurt. “Yes, actually. I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me without giving you the truth. And now, this time, I wasn’t going to tell you, but after I found out about Danny—I knew I’d have to tell you eventually. I was just waiting for the right time.”

“How have you not found this guy?” she asked after a long silence. “The Devlin Group isn’t the reject squad, you know.”

“He’s good. Damn good.” Alex rubbed his temples. “My father hadn’t gotten that far up the ladder yet. And after my mother was killed, he…”

He paused, and Grace watched his Adam’s apple work as he swallowed. But he took a deep breath and continued. “My father burned our house. Everything. He totally lost it for a while. Then we came back to the States. Years go by and shit gets lost. Memories fade. A lot of people die.”

“Still, you have—”

“I let it simmer on the backburner. There was always a more pressing mission,” he interrupted, not quite willing to admit he’d never launched a full-out search for the guy. He’d preferred to bait the killer, sending jabs through the intelligence grapevine. Making inquiries just to let the man know he was still watching. Waiting. But the asshole never bit.

And Carmen was suffering for it. But there was no way in hell he was going to let her sacrifice herself, whether she was willing or not.

* * *

It took almost thirty minutes to make the necessary arrangements, but thankfully they could take care of most of it while in the air.

Grace was in the process of trying to decide if Alex was a genius or somebody who needed to be thrown out of the private jet. “You’re borrowing a vehicle from a Miami drug lord?”

“They do have the best toys,” Gallagher pointed out.

“And I’m supposed to do
what
again?” She’d never questioned what Gallagher referred to as his “mission mojo” before, but this was insane even for the Devlin Group.

Alex sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I can only take one of you in with me, and that person can’t be seen. And while you’re my best sniper, Grace, I really need Gallagher in the helo and on satellite. And you’re small.”

“I get that part,” she snapped. “It’s being strapped to the undercarriage of an SUV blowing down the highway I’m having some trouble with.”

“You won’t exactly be strapped to the undercarriage,” Gallagher said, and she was surprised to hear impatience in his voice. He was usually preternaturally laid-back going into a mission. “The SUV has a special box—in layman’s terms. The cargo area in the back has a shallow false bottom with panels that will allow you back into the cargo area, or to exit underneath the vehicle.”

“There’s a chance they’ll do an infrared scan,” Alex took over. “The box is lined, and there’s no way in hell they can detect you without a ruler, time, and an intimate knowledge of the SUV’s measurement specifications.”

Grace nodded, waving a hand impatiently. She wasn’t stupid. She got the plan, she just wasn’t sure she liked it. “And once you park I’ll drop down below the vehicle and take up an ankle-sniping position.”

Gallagher raised his hand for a high five, which she reluctantly gave him, making him smile. “You blow out the ankle and when they drop, go for the head or body shot.”

“This is the single most dumbassed plan the Devlin Group has ever conceived,” she pointed out.

“Agreed,” Alex said. “But going in blind, I’m at a loss as to how else to do this.”

“This is the best way,” Gallagher said. “While we manage to borrow shit on the low-down occasionally, the government can’t give us actual personnel. And time is tight, which leaves just the three of us. Logically, there’s a good chance Carmen has been or will be injured, and we have to factor that in. This way, Alex gets our best shot as ground cover, and I’ve got roof shooters and extraction duty.”