Codename: Nightshade (Deadly Seven Strike Force) (6 page)

I laugh, nursing the glass of rum and coke in front of me. “It was a bonus. He’s okay, right? They said it was superficial.”

“Pfft.” He waves a hand and rolls his eyes. “It grazed the tip of his cheek, broke his damn sunglasses. That’s it. It’ll heal into a sexy scar, watch. Something that will make him look the part of a James Bond villain. He’ll change his name from Ace to… pretty boy with sexy scar on his cheek.”

“You make up the names of the missions, don’t you?”

He shoots me a look as the bartender refreshes his drink, and I wave him on.

“What’s next on your plate?” I ask, knowing he won’t tell me too much detail. I won’t tell him anything about my missions, either. It’s part of our training.

“I have a dignitary luncheon tomorrow in London. You?”

Dignitaries, politicians… bodyguard work.
Ugh
. When our governments tell us to take a break, what they mean is we’ll be contacting you soon with the name of a figurehead to babysit.

“So far I’m—” My phone beeps in my hand. “Never mind.” I check, seeing a familiar name. “Looks like I have dinner in New York.”

“Ah, the Big Apple. I was just there this morning.”

I choke on my drink. “Really? Then why the hell are you here in Germany?”

“Some bitch blew up a dictator’s head and needed escorting to a meeting.”

I slap his arm and he laughs. “They flew you all the way to Germany
just
to escort me to the meeting?”

“Aye. That’s the American tax dollar at work.”

“What were you doing in New York?”

His sight tracks a couple of young dudes who walk up to the bar. They’re fresh—still wearing their uniforms like pride patches and not just clothes. A decade ago, I might have tried to flirt with them. Now I just feel like their mother.

I look back to Claymore and see a glimmer in his eyes I don’t think he meant to show me. He shakes his head. “Believe it or not, I might have a life, and I might have been living it.”

“I don’t believe it. A life for us is like a unicorn.”

I finish my drink and remind him he’s covering the bill.

He salutes in response.

I’m not going to waste the night sleeping in a hotel here. Might as well hop on the first plane heading to New York.

“You gonna be okay if I ditch you?” I ask.

He grabs his chest, pretending to die. I kiss his cheek as he remains 'dead' on the bar. “Don’t drive back to your hotel tonight, okay?”

“You only want to keep me alive so you can kill me one day.”

I shrug one shoulder as I walk away. I stroll past the boys at the other end of the bar. One smiles at me as I pass.

“
Mein Freund ist einsam. Halten Sie ihm Gesellschaft? Sein Name ist Coogan
.” I point to Claymore and wave when he glares at me. The boys nod and agree to go over and talk to him.

Claymore holds up two fingers—his country’s version of flipping me off— as I exit the bar.

I send a text to my commanding officer, letting him know I will be reporting for security detail tomorrow night. I’m not even ten steps from the bar before my phone rings.

I answer, knowing who it is without looking. “Vincent.”

“How long will it take you to get here?”

No hello, no how are you… against my will, I smile. “Roughly eight hours once I get to the airport and on a plane. I kind of stink. I might have to stop and buy clothes… take a shower…”

He sighs dramatically. “But I’m bored right now.”

“I’m sure you can find a way to entertain yourself.”

“Or you can take my family’s private jet and get here sooner.”

“Or you can be patient and anticipate my arrival.”

“Fine,” he says. “But the longer I wait, the more obnoxious I get.”

“Bring it on.”

The line goes dead, and I smile at the screen. Maybe some time off will do me good.

God knows I have some tension that needs to be purged.

And I know just the man to help me take care of it.

2

Marko Veltriv.

The only son of Alexandra and Roman Veltriv, a wealthy aristocratic couple in Russia. Marko’s father had ties with the Soviet government and continues as a state figurehead today. As such, he’s invited to all events involving Russian dignitaries around the world, as is his son. Marko has been groomed his whole life for political office, but at the age of twenty-five, he’s more interested in personal than political affairs.

Enter me. The U.S. government’s favorite deep-throat assassin who they have moonlight as a bodyguard to the political celebrities they wish to keep tied to their interests. When Marko does take office, it’s anticipated that he’ll help to further bridge U.S.-Russian contacts and keep us from a second Cold War. They trust me with keeping him attached.

Little do they realize how
hands on
I am with my job.

Truth be told, fate had led me to Marko’s path long before the first time I was assigned to protect him. The appointment was simply a cherry on top of a delicious pie.

After getting to New York, I check into a hotel across town and take a much-needed shower. I waste the afternoon away, knowing how it’ll get to Marko to have to wait for me to arrive. I enter the Gansevoort hotel at five on the dot. The hotel is one of those impossibly modern and chic locations that makes me want to buy an antique sofa and sit on it in the middle of the lobby. Everything is cold and sleek. Gunmetal is somehow a paint color splashed on every surface.

I flash my badge to the woman at the counter. “Veltriv?”

She doesn’t even have to look at her fancy touchscreen computer. A cheesy smile pulls her lips. “Mr. Veltriv has booked floors nine through fourteen. He’s currently on the roof, enjoying our pool, privately.”

Of course he is.

I thank her and stroll to the elevator. I don’t know if it’s the decade of working as a covert agent, or just my personal taste, but I can’t imagine having to be so extravagant. I stay in motels with the letters missing from the signs. I use aliases and pay by the hour.

Marko rents out half the goddamn building.

Modest
is not one of his middle names.

An aria from some opera I don’t know is blaring through the loudspeakers when I step off the elevator. His usual bodyguard, Sven, is standing by the pool. The Norse god nods to me when I reach the door.

“Enjoy your night off,” I tell him as he holds it open for me.

“A soldier never has a night off,” he says a second before he leaves.

“Don’t I know it,” I say to his retreating form.

The sound of water splashing draws my attention to the pool. Marko’s arm darts above the surface and back under, over and over so fast it’s just a blur. He works his way to one side and flips around to head back the other way.

I take off my jacket and unlace my boots, kicking them off as I plunk down on an ottoman near the bar. It’s fully stocked, and I can see a dozen empty glasses that I have no doubt Marko drank from. One of Sven’s many talents is mixing drinks.

“You look tired.”

I’m so absorbed in casing the place that I flinch at the sound of Marko’s voice. “You’re all wet.”

Marko is the kind of guy you don’t just call pretty—he’s that
he-can’t-be-human-because-they-aren’t-made-like-that
kind of good looking. Tall, built, black hair and bright blue eyes… he really is too good to be true.

He climbs out of the pool, water running down his chest and arms. My eyes linger on his legs as he struts toward me. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t think… he just leaps on top of me. I fall back, my clothes sticking to my skin as the fabric absorbs him.

His smile is bright white. Even his teeth are perfect. “Now you’re all wet, too.”

“You do know that this is the only outfit I have with me, right?”

He shrugs a shoulder, running his pointy nose along my jaw. “You have whatever you want when I’m around, my dear. Just say the word.”

He bites the skin below my ear, and I hiss.

“Do you have your goody bag?”

I feel his smile grow wider against the side of my neck. “Of course.”

I run my fingers through his soaked, curly hair. “So I’m assuming just a night of normal fucking isn’t really in the cards?”

He turns his head, pressing a soft kiss to my wrist. “I’m yours, Penelope. However you want me.”

The sincerity in his eyes takes me back a few steps.

“I thought you were going to be obnoxious?”

“I was. I am. But your eyes…” He leans in so close my eyelashes brush against his when I blink. “What troubles you, my dear?”

Troubles me? I just completed an exemplary mission. I killed a bad guy and got away. I’m sky-fucking high.

He keeps staring, and little by little, words wiggle into my mind.

“You ever feel like you’re on a hamster wheel?”

He nods as the back of his hand caresses my cheek.

I close my eyes and give over to the feel of his touch. “When I was a kid… I wanted to be a princess.”

I hear laughter in his voice when he says, “you
are
a princess, Penelope.”

“No,” I say, opening my eyes. I make a face that’s meant to be seductive and teasing, but I feel like it probably comes off as empty-headed bimbo. “I wanted to be the girl in the tower that the prince saved.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“You’d be surprised.”

He cocks an eyebrow, and I return my fingers to his hair. He purrs. The man actually purrs like a giant panther, as he rolls and stretches out across my body. He’s on his back, staring up at the stars, encouraging me to continue.

“Hassan used to tell me a fairytale about a woman who locked herself in a tower, waiting for her true love to save her.”

“Rapunzel?”

“No. This woman was no one special. She'd suffered loss, watching her best friend murdered in the street when they were children. When she grew up, she visited a gypsy to ask the identity of her true love. The gypsy told her that her best friend was her true love, and if she waited long enough, they would be reunited once more.”

“In death?” he guesses.

I press my hand over his mouth. “I’m telling the story.” He licks my palm and laughs when I swat his chest. “So the woman ignored all others. She locked herself in her home and waited. And waited. And waited.”

“Until she was old and withered and died, realizing she had wasted her opportunity to
live
.”

“No,” I say, much to his surprise. “She waited five years. She was still young, still had suitors who came to her door. And one night a knock sounded that she recalled from her childhood. She and her best friend had a secret knock. One only the other would recognize. It woke her from a deep sleep, and she pressed her ear to the door. She had no way to look out, but she listened.

“The knock didn’t sound again that night. The sun rose, and the woman returned to the chair to wait some more. The next night the knock returned, louder this time. The woman was eager to know if this was her true love, but she feared opening the door. If she stopped waiting for him, for even a second, then she was afraid he wouldn’t return to her. So the woman drilled a tiny hole through the door so she could spy on the outside world. She saw nothing.”

“Is this story going to wrap up before I lose my own will to live?”

I slap my hand over his mouth and finish. “The knock sounded again the next night, and the woman swore, for just a second, that she saw her true love in the street… right where he had died as a child. So she threw the door open, dying instantly.”

Marko sits up, glaring at me. “She
died
?”

I nod. “What are you upset about? You predicted she would from the start.”

“Yeah… but… that’s it? She dies? What was in the street?”

“No one knows. Some think the gypsy tricked her, to steal her soul. Others think it was the Grim Reaper calling her to death.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s a metaphor for embracing the end. The woman lived her life until she was ready to move on to the next. And she knew it would be okay, because she wouldn’t be alone.”

“Why did Hassan tell you the story?”

“His opinion was that what the woman saw was a
Daeva
.”

“A what?”

“A ghost… what Hassan’s people call a trickster. He used to tell me to beware the
Daeva
. Not all that glitters is gold. Not all that sounds lovely is true. Not all ghosts are dead.”

“So he thought her lover was alive?”

“No. But her need for him to be alive wouldn’t die and that’s what killed her.”

He props his elbow on his bent knee, scrunching his face as he considers my story. “Why did you want to be a princess based on that story?”

“Oh,” I say, waving him off. “I wanted to be a princess because of Disney movies. I was just stuck on the similarities of Rapunzel and Hassan’s story. Sorry. My brain does that sometimes.”

He’s overcome with amusement, shaking his head like I’ve turned into a video of an adorable cat on the internet. “I like your brain.”

“Yeah?” He nods. “My brain kinda likes you, too.”

He kisses me once, twice, three times, so soft and deep. “What would you like to do, my dear? I am yours. Tell me more stories—I will be the big bad wolf.” He nudges his nose into my crotch. “I’ll huff and puff and eat you right here.”

He bites the inside of my upper thigh.

I make a noise in my throat that my mother would call unladylike.

“I think the time for fairytales has ended,” I say, tugging on his hair. “How about we make a horror movie?”

His eyes are wicked when he looks back up at me. “Yes. Let’s.”