Badass: Deadly Target (Complete): Military Romantic Suspense (20 page)

This is mind control.

Delivered to thousands of airports around the world through something as innocent as baby formula, a canister no airline will check. Imagine the power. You don’t kill your enemy. You control them. You have seven billion puppets who’ll do as you say the moment you say it. Don’t talk back. Surrender body and soul to your every demand.

And the one percent who die or have seizures? Who cares?

The two percent who hallucinate are dispensable.

“Jax, please talk to me.”

Turning in my seat, I take her face in my hands. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she answers without hesitation.

“I need to make some phone calls. I’ll put it on speaker so you can listen in, be brought up to date as I’m figuring this out. Good enough?”

She nods and I kiss her hard.

Taking out the satellite phone, I dial Haun. It rings, no answer. I try again. No answer. A third time. No answer. I call his assistant.

“Albright speaking.”

“Sir, this is Jaxson Hawthorne calling for Executive Director Haun. Urgent.”

“I’m sorry, Agent Hawthorne, but ED Haun is unable to take or return your call at this time.”

“Transfer me to next superior.”

“Agent Hawthorne, are you aware of what’s—”

“Transfer me to next superior,” I repeat, louder this time.

“Does your request directly affect the president or the World Peace Summit?”

Does it? “I’m not su—”

“Will your request prevent imminent harm of a world leader?”

I say nothing.

Albright exhales loudly into the phone. “I know this is not what you want to hear, Agent Hawthorne, but neither I nor the executive director have slept in twenty-eight hours and we won’t for another twenty-eight. Every man on deck is facing the same. We have chatter. We have detentions. We have over one hundred plus world leaders who must be protected in a time when hell has unleashed its fury. I repeat myself. Unless your request will prevent
imminent
harm—”

I press end and scrub my hands over my face.

“Still on our own?” Mia asks, her hand squeezing my thigh.

“Yes.” Then I remember Tate. “Maybe.”

Picking up the iPad, I do a quick search. Bingo. Black Shield. Home office located in Salt Lake City. President and CEO, Tate Rodgers. I dial the number.

After speaking to a receptionist, I’m transferred to an assistant before being transferred to a man named David Deakins.

“How may I assist you, Mr. Hawthorne?”

I roll my eyes. This man doesn’t sound like he could assist a turd into a toilet.

“As I told the two people before you, I need to speak to Tate Rodgers. It is urgent, and he will most definitely want to speak to me.”

“Jaxson Bartholomew Hawthorne, you old son of a bitch.” Relief floods me as Tate’s voice booms over the line.

I look at Mia, who is mouthing
Bartholomew?
I flip her the bird, and she covers her mouth with her hand.

“Tate. Thank God. I thought I was going to have to speak to the holy mother to get a chance to speak to your highness.”

His laughter brings back a dozen memories, most of them ending with us running extra miles because of whatever shit we got into. Our troubles usually involved women and liquor.

“Tate, I don’t mean to bring trouble to your door, but—”

“You’re bringing trouble to my door.”

“Yes. Is this line secure?”

“Hold.”

Less than a minute later, he’s back. “What’s going on?”

Filling him in on everything I know so far, Tate doesn’t ask a single question until I’m through. “That’s fucked up, Jax. I’m sure you know what happened to me and Camille Duffy back in—”

“Yes. That’s why I thought of you.”

“And you have no backup?”

“None. Not until this summit is over at least.”

I can hear the smile in Tate’s voice. “Hundred bucks says you aren’t willing to wait that long to figure out what this is.”

“You’d be a hundred bucks richer. I have a bad feeling about this, Tate. Too many coincidences for this to all be a coincidence. If you didn’t want one hand to know what the other hand was doing, what would you do?”

“Create a distraction.”

I nod to Mia but answer Tate. “Exactly. Blow up CIA offices, bomb a few airports. Increase chatter. Create worldwide unrest.”

“Lots of fucking distractions.”

“Right. Turning the focus away from…”

“The summit. Where a hundred world leaders and their staff sit in the same room and—”

“Inhale the same air,” I finish for him.

Mia gasps.

“Who was that?” Tate asks, his voice sharp.

“Mia Hewitt.”

“The spy’s still with you?”

“I’m not a spy!” Mia hissed.

Tate scoffs. “You sure about that? Jax, do you need me to take her off your hands? I’ve got men—”

“No, she’s good.” I squeeze her hand. “We’re holding her cat hostage so she’s been very agreeable.”

“What the fuck, man? A cat?”

“Long story. I need to get on a plane. There’s a third safe deposit box in Nicaragua, and it will be a long ass flight down south. Bank won’t open until nine in the morning, and I want to be there on the dot. I’m hoping that box contains a map with a big X marking the spot of the testing lab.”

“What time does the summit start?”

“Shit, Tate. I don’t know. Wasn’t on the guest list, but I do know Mutko is there now, probably several others. Secure location.”

“I’ll get my men on it, see if we can tap into some Intel. Then I’ll scramble men and rendezvous in the a.m. You’ll receive details from David Deakins and rights to a personal secure server. Use it.”

“Thanks, Tate.” Maybe I should give Deakins more credit.

“No problem. Do you need flight assistance? You said you are on alias docs. Do you have enough money or a credit card on you?”

“Fifty thousand pesos and forty thousand US.”

“Not enough. Hold on.”

I can hear him barking orders, and it’s a beautiful sound.

“Start heading to the airport. I’ve tagged your phone and am tracking you.”

Wait, what? “Tate, this is a secure phone.”

“Not anymore. My lead tech used to be CIA. Get over it.”

I shake my head. “Consider me over it.” I give him my email address, and the iPad begins to ping. “Confirming receipt of server information.”

“Good. Send photos of passports, licenses, identity shit, then head for the airport. Deak is working on a flight leaving out in an hour and a half. You’ll get e-tickets soon.”

Chapter 10 – Mia

Nine hours on a plane.

Nine hours!

Okay. Maybe not officially nine. There was a layover in Mexico City, but I’m still in shock at how long my butt has been either in a car or airplane seat. I’ll probably get a pimple on my hiney from all this sitting around.

Oh, and we’ve flown into a city with a US travel advisory, meaning US citizens are advised not to travel into Nicaragua due to civil and political unrest. But Jax assured me it was meant mostly for journalists and scientists.

Mostly.

I don’t think I like that word very much right now.

Another thing I don’t like. The cab drivers here. Oh. My. God. They’re crazy. I think my heart is officially a size bigger from pumping so hard.

On a happy note, our hotel room has a squishy bed and good pillows. It’s lovely. After I spray it down with my disinfectant, I head to the shower while Jax taps away on his laptop researching who knows what.

Turning the water on hot, I turn my face to the stream, reveling in the cleansing warmth. I’m so glad we made it this far. Out of nowhere, I begin to cry.

The emotion hits me hard, and it’s totally unexpected because I’d been doing such a good job of being supportive and brave. I’d smiled and squeezed Jax’s hand, listened to him talk and been a good sounding board. I’d asked sound questions, tried to be devil’s advocate and look at our problem from every direction.

And now I’m sitting on the shower floor, my palms pressed to my face to muffle the anguish and fear ripping its way out of me. My mother. I still can’t believe it, even with all this proof right in front of me. My mom was a Russian spy, and she was holding documents that would have given someone unimaginable power over the world. And my mother, my sweet mom wanted me to finish the job for her.

I hate her.

The emotion hits me with the force of a train.

How could she have done all this? Put me in harm? The world in harm? How could she ever think that giving one country so much control over all the others would be a positive thing?

Was it the money?

If so, I’ve never seen any signs of wealth on her part. We always had enough to eat, but Mom was frugal. She used coupons at the grocery store, for goodness sake. Bought our clothes from discount houses. It had surprised me completely to see so much money in the Sacramento bank box yesterday.

The horror of it all continues to grow in my mind as I lift my face to the shower spray once again.

What if I’d succeeded? What if I’d known what to do and had gotten those documents without meeting up with Jax and that terrible man? If I’d been able to get into Mexico, then Nicaragua, then somehow made it to Russia, would I have smiled and shaken Sergei Aslanov’s hand as I handed over these documents? Would he have slit my throat after I did? Worse, would I have been able to live with myself knowing I’d been a party to making human zombies? Would I have known? Become a zombie myself?

Because this shit is real.

On the trip, Jax let me borrow his laptop to do some research of my own. With a single puff of air, people lose their free will and do whatever their handler tells them to do. People have surrendered their organs to the black market while under this drug. Had sex. Emptied their bank account. Stolen. Probably worse.

I shudder and press my hands to my mouth, muffling my cries. How can our world be this bad? How can people be so mean to each other? Is it just evil? Have we been conditioned to be so selfish?

“Sweetheart.”

I jump at Jax’s voice, then stiffen when the shower door opens. A few seconds later, he’s naked and on the floor with me, pulling me into his lap.

“Ssshhh,” he soothes, holding me tight against his chest. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong. He doesn’t tell me not to worry. Just holds me until I’m no longer shaking, and the tears have run dry.

“I hate her,” I finally say, voicing aloud the words that have been clogging my throat for the past twenty-four hours.

In response, he turns me until I’m facing him, straddling his thighs, and opens the bottle of shampoo. He pours a large measure in his hand. When his fingers are on my scalp, I close my eyes to the pleasure.

“Do you believe in love at first sight yet?” he asks me and my eyes open again. The dimple is there. The glorious blue eyes. Full lips. My heart hammers in my chest.

Be brave, Mia.

“I believe that you’re the best man I’ve ever known.”

Don’t settle anymore.

“And I believe that, from the moment I looked up and saw you, there was a pull between us. Like I wanted to lean toward you. Smell you. Touch you.”

Lifting a hand, I scrape a fingernail down his stubble, loving the prickly feel. I press my nose to it. My cheek. My lips.

“And I know that my chest feels tight, full, when I think of you. That it hurts when I think of not being with you. I know that I want to know you better. All your likes and dislikes. I want to please you. Give to you. Make you smile.”

The dimple appears again, and I press my finger in its center.

“I know I’m wildly attracted to you, that my body burns and aches to be close to yours. That I like hearing you talk. Like the funny things you say. How smart you are. How brave.”

He tilts my head back and water streams over my hair, rinsing the shampoo down on the shower floor where the bubbles pool around us. Conditioner comes next, and he combs it through with his fingers, gently pulling each tangle out.

“I love how gentle you are with me.” A memory of me pressed into the wall comes back. “And how rough you can be at times.”

He grows hard, his erection lifting up in the space between us. Reaching for soap, he rubs the bar down my neck and over my shoulder, lathering my arm down to the fingertips. My other arm. My breasts and stomach. My back. My ass.

“I don’t want to lose you, Jax. I don’t want this to be a fantasy. I want it to be real, and true. And forever.”

He soaps one leg, then the other, working lather between my toes, massaging my arches.

“So is all of that love?” I ask. “Or strong like? Or lust? Or hope? The promise of something growing that could last?”

His fingers slip between my legs, the soap slick against my folds.

Be brave, Mia
.

“I’m calling it love,” I confess.

A finger slides inside me, then another. I don’t let it distract me from what I need to say next.

“The seed of new love, baby love, that will grow stronger with time and as we know each other better.”

He smiles and curls his fingers, touching that spot that makes me moan.

“So you baby love me?”

I press down on his hand, grinding my clitoris into his palm.

“Yes, I baby love you. And if what I feel for you tomorrow or the next day or the next decade is stronger than what I feel for you today, no man will ever be more loved.”

I kiss him then, a soft touching of lips that quickly grows deeper as our mouths open to each other. His tongue twists around mine, capturing it, mating with it as his fingers lead me to pleasure’s door.

“I want you inside me,” I murmur against his mouth, stroking his thick cock from tip to base.

“No condoms in here,” he groans before sucking on my bottom lip.

The disappointment is sharp. “Could you, you know, pull out in time?”

He leans back to look at me. “Do you know what they call people who use the pull out method?”

I shake my head.

“Parents.”

I laugh. “When all this is over, and we’re back home, I’ll go on the pill. I want to feel you skin on skin.”

His thumb brushes across my clitoris before rubbing circles around and around.

“I like that word. Home.”