Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (13 page)

Bastard was like a rat in a particularly impenetrable hole. Shaw also had a bird’s-eye view of the canyon below. Nobody could approach his oddly shaped fortress undetected.

Nobody but an invisible wizard, that was.

Matera had been dirt-poor for centuries, but now the educated sons and daughters of the people were returning, opening restaurants and shops for tourists and locals alike. Gentrification had come to the
sassi.

Professionals. Families. Businesses.

Shaw had craftily padded his lair with innocents. Above him, below, and on either side, lived and worked hundreds of people unaware of whom they sheltered in their midst.

T-FLAC considered all aspects when they went on a job, including collateral damage. Caleb’s stomach tightened, knowing that they had to get their mark and get out before people got hurt. Tango assholes were a different story. They wouldn’t give a shit about the twin five-year-olds in the house next door. Or the blind octogenarian one street over. Caleb remained motionless as they waited and watched.

Surveillance gave a man a lot of time to think. On the plus side, anyone new arriving would have to walk in, right past four pairs of watchful eyes. While there were vehicles on the plateau above in Matera, here in the
sassi
it was foot traffic only. Good thing the four of them had other forms of transportation, Caleb thought as they waited for the last handful of the restaurant’s patrons to go home. Tourists mostly, headed back to the Sassi Hotel on the opposite side of the ravine.

The warm, still air retained the savory smells of hundreds of dinners. Caleb rubbed an absent hand over the ache in his chest. He’d felt an unexplainable hunger in his gut for months. Not for food. He needed…

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Action. Shooting. Running around.
Hannah.
Shit happening. Yeah. All that.

He needed it soon.

He’d been pathetically grateful to get that call from Lark in San Francisco after Hannah had left him.

Man, he’d been glad to get back to work. Get back into the thick of things after three months of inactivity…Why the hell did she have to sneak out like that? The least she could have done was say thanks for a great fu—, er, afternoon.

Rubbing his chest wasn’t making the ache go away. It never did. Caleb dropped his hand.
Come on,
people. Go home already.

“Rook,” he said softly. “Go check the restaurant.” It was 02-frigging-hundred, didn’t these people have to get up and go to work in a few hours? The sounds of restless animals and the susurrus of voices could be heard up and down the canyon as people settled in for the night, but the lights in the nearby restaurant were still on, and the sound of people laughing—God damn it—a
woman
laughing, grated on Caleb’s last nerve.

Hannah’s laugh was lighter, and why did he still remember that? They were adults. A one-night stand was no big deal in this day and age—but damn it, she hadn’t even leaned over to kiss him good-bye. Just f-ing walked out with her shoes and coat in hand like a damned thief in the night. Clearly she hadn’t felt the intense visceral response to him that he had to her.

Good thing, as it happened.

Yeah. A
damn
good thing.

A one-night stand was supposed to be just that. One night. Or, more accurately, one intense, incredible, transcendental damned afternoon.

Whatever.

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He was grateful that she’d had the opportunity to leave first. The alternative was far worse. The knot in his chest tightened as he imagined the scenario in reverse. What if he’d been the one to slink away from the bed? Leave her? After all, he wouldn’t want to leave her feeling an aching hollowness that nothing could fill. He didn’t want to break the woman’s heart.

No. Their parting had gone down fine. Great. Excellent.

He’d lost his quarry and the girl.

By the time he and his men had arrived in San Cristóbal three months ago, Shaw was gone. Of course he was. Lark had pulled Caleb off Shaw detail, claiming she was sick of looking at his pale face and listening to him bitch. He was in
pain
and damned-well better take that R&R, or she’d fire his ass. She’d sent a tracking team to follow the banker’s almost invisible trail, chasing any lead they could find, and told Caleb to get lost for at least two weeks.

So he’d taken that damned vacation after all. He hadn’t gone to Germany and Kris-Alice. She deserved better than Caleb Edge in a “mood,” as Lark called it. Instead, he’d gone to Paradise Island, a T-FLAC training camp in the middle of the French Polynesian Marquesas Islands.

Sun. Beach. Rookies to beat the crap out of. A good vacation.

Besides, he hadn’t been in a goddamned “mood.” He’d been agitated and pissed off that Shaw was so elusive. How was she going to feel when he killed her father? How do you
think
she’s going to feel?
Jesus.

Don’t even go there.

After a week of Paradise he’d begged Lark to send him in—
somewhere.
Anyfuckingwhere. She’d obligingly sent him with a small team going to the Saudi desert. There was sun and there was sun. It had taken the T-FLAC/psi team three weeks to track their targets to their hideout, but they had found the tangos and dealt with them.

There’d been plenty of shooting, running, and dodging bullets. They’d been outnumbered seven to one.

It had been fun.

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Oh, hell, Caleb suddenly thought. What if Hannah and her father had reconciled and she was inside those tufa stone walls with him right now? His heart trip-hammered and his mouth went dry. What if?

Jesuscrap-damn.

It had been eighty-nine days since he’d laid eyes on the woman. Was she inside with her father?

Anything was possible…But if Hannah was this close, wouldn’t he feel her? Wouldn’t he
know
?

A couple passed.
Get a room, people,
Caleb thought, annoyed, as they stopped two feet away from him to French kiss.

He pressed a fist to his chest and closed his eyes.

“Told you to stay away from the lamb chops,” Farris whispered.

He wished the damned ache could be relieved with an antacid. Ignoring his partner, Caleb went back to his memories of Hannah, a favorite yet torturous pastime. He’d loved the fragrance of her. Lush and ripe.

She’d smelled of hope, and promises he knew he would never hear. She’d smelled of Hannah. His Hannah.

No. Not his. Never his. Not ever.

And not
Hannah.

Heather.Heather Shaw.

There were a dozen good reasons Hannah could never be his. Forget about the last eight. Number two was that her father was as dirty as they came, and deeply enmeshed in the finances of his clients—a dozen tango groups; drug lords, weapons dealers, child porn traffickers. Hannah wasn’t going to be Caleb’s number-one fan after he killed her father. And if he could, by some strange miracle, bypass reason number two, number
one
would cinch the deal.

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There was that little matter of Nairne’s Curse.

Duty o’er love was the choice you did make

Which showed what a dick their great-great-great-however-many-great-grandfather
was.
The original Magnus, then Edridge, had fallen for a village girl named Nairne. But he’d chosen duty over love when he had married the laird’s homely daughter, Janet, as his family had wanted.

My love you did spurn, my heart you did break

Only—the beautiful village girl was actually a witch, and if Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, ten times that is the anger of a scorned witch. Who knew?

Your penance to pay, no pride you shall gain

Three sons on three sons find nothing but pain

Five hundred years of three sons, not a daughter in the bunch. So Edges could
procreate
just fine. It was hanging on to their brides that was the problem.

I gift you my powers in memory of me

He and his brothers had often wondered: If the Curse was lifted, would they still be wizards, or would their powers disappear? Since five hundred years’ worth of Edges had tried, and failed, to break Nairne’s Curse, they figured the answer was rhetorical.

The joy of love no son shall ever see

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Yeah. Whatever. None of them was willing to risk an emotional entanglement. Not when they’d been weaned on the consequences.

When a Lifemate is chosen by the heart of a son

No protection can be given, again I have won

Not even with a Lifemate, if there
was
such a thing. He and his brothers pretty much played the field.

Some parts of that field were plowed a little deeper than others, but in the end there’d been no emotional ties. Safer that way. An image of Hannah, well kissed and sated, made him suck in a breath.

His pain will be deep, her death will be swift,

Inside his heart a terrible rift

Fortunately, with no entanglements that wasn’t going to happen. Caleb pressed a fist to his chest; the couple kissed as though they’d die if parted. He shut his eyes again to block them out. Unfortunately he could still
hear
them.

Only freely given will this curse be done

To break the spell, three must work as one

He and his brothers had no problem with working as one. But they had no idea what the hell had to be given freely. Love? In that case he, Gabriel, and Duncan were screwed. Wasn’t going to happen.

The woman sighed, her silk shirt rustling as the man drew her closer in his arms. Hannah had made just such a sweet sound when he’d—Get over her. Abandon hope all who enter here…

Caleb scrubbed both hands over his face.

Maybe he could get Hannah out of his head with brainwashing?

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A frontal lobotomy?

Some sort of mind-altering drug?

He’d look into it when this was over.

Finally,
finally,
the lovers pulled apart and walked on, thank you Jesus. They were wrapped around each other, making one shadow as they disappeared down the bumpy path, their shoes clattering on the hard stone. Their soft, intimate laughter ratcheted Caleb’s irritation level up another notch. The narrow, cobbled labyrinth of paths wound between the houses in uneven steps, making sound bounce deceptively.

Lights winked out, one by one, across the face of the ravine like fireflies. Hannah would think it was—Damn it. Caleb dragged in a sharp breath. Why couldn’t he forget her? Why had he retained such a clear, sharp image of her in his mind after all these months? He was afraid he knew why.

“’K?” Tony Rook asked softly out of the darkness.

“Never fucking better.”

“Crap,” Rook whispered. “Bad time of the month, Edge?”

Caleb ignored him. What if he just went to check on her? Not talk. Just check in. Make sure she was okay. She would never even know he was there.

“Keep out of the walls.” Dekker showed up, interrupting Caleb’s mental monologue.

“What happened?” Caleb heard something in the other man’s voice.

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“Got stuck. Be careful.”

Yeah. Back on task. Better.

“Plan on the floor being rigged.” Keir Farris could whisper more quietly than anyone Caleb had ever known. His voice was almost as quiet as a thought. Came in handy during that mission a while back in Gofuckistan when the terrorists’ safehouse came complete with sound detection.

The good news was that they’d sensed no fellow wizards in Shaw’s stronghold here in the
sassi
to detect their presence. The bad news was that Shaw’s bolt-hole was a series of small, linked cave rooms, and each was filled with muscled goons loaded for bear.

Not that Shaw’s firepower bothered them; in fact, they’d welcome some action right about now. But a shootout wasn’t what was called for here. They needed Shaw. Alive. He was the only one who knew where the money was stashed.

To do that they had to teleport to his exact location and shimmer him out with no one being the wiser.

Not exactly rocket science. It was a simple retrieval now that they had the man’s basic location. But while Caleb could backspace time should they be seen, he didn’t want to waste his TiVo ability. He could only backspace in the same time and place three times. Each time had to count.

The problem was navigating those small, crowded rooms to
find
Shaw. He was in there. But exactly where? They needed to have a
visual
to teleport the man.

“I take it you didn’t find him?” Caleb asked Dekker.

“No.”

“Seen?”

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