VENDETTA: A Bad Boy, Motorcycle Club Romance (25 page)

BLACKLISTED OPERATIONS

Prologue

Russia

The screams of the crowd filled his ears while he circled his opponent, ready to knock his ass out.

Rage dodged a meaty fist and then pulled himself upright, making sure to stay light on his feet. Out-maneuvering the competition was how he’d made it to Moscow in the first place. Without his quick feet and fast hands, he’d have gotten stuck in Chicago or Iran and never made it to the big time.

Four years of turning his back on everything and everyone he loved, and it was almost worth it. He could taste victory through the tang of the sweat and copper blood that misted over his face when he cracked his opponent’s nose to the side. The crunch had been loud enough to hear over the crowd, even when they’d surged forward to get a better look at the carnage.

But the ox hadn’t gone down. He’d circled Rage, his eyes darting in search of a weak spot. A place where he could really make him hurt.

Rage wasn’t worried about that. This match was already won, even if his opponent didn’t have the sense to lay down and tap out yet. The bout had gone on long enough though.

When the larger man rushed him, intent on taking Rage down, he sidestepped. The man recovered, came at him with a haymaker. Damn impressive footwork, but it still wasn’t enough. He didn’t know that Rage was straight sprawl and brawl.

Rage attacked his sweating opponent, delivering a knockout. The crowd wailed with satisfaction when the mountain of a man spun around and then hit the ground, blood leaking from his lips and nose.

He looked down at his opponent and pushed the hair out of his own face. His body was covered with purple and blue bruises from bouts earlier that day, but he didn’t feel them. While someone shoved a robe into one hand and another guy pumped his other fist in congratulations, Rage looked up to the top of the soaring arena, intent on finding the man he was here to kill.

Bartek sat in a private box with three guards around him. He was separated from the fighters by thick bulletproof glass. His lips quirked in a smile as he nodded to Rage, satisfied with the outcome of the match. Two more hours, and Rage would be in that box—there was just one more man standing between him and the Russian.

The announcer spoke to the crowd and declared an hour intermission. Rage and his next opponent—Bick, whose teeth were sharpened to points—would rest before facing each other. The next fight was to the death.

Finally, finally, Rage would be able to get close enough to Bartek to take the man’s life.

“Aidan?” The voice that came through the phone was not unexpected, but it was unwelcome.

“What do you want, boss?” Aidan wiped the other man’s blood from his face and held the phone between his shoulder and his ear. There was little time left before the final match, and he didn’t have time to hear about the problems that his boss wanted to discuss.

“Dima’s in danger.”

“What do you mean?” The man Aidan’s boss spoke of worked in a lab outside of Moscow.

“He found a way to,” the phone crackled and he couldn’t hear what his boss had said.

“What?”

“Dima found a cure. But he said there’s someone following him. He’s trying to get to you, to give you the paperwork. He doesn’t have a damn Internet connection.”

“Tell him I’m at the arena. There’s only the championship match left now—and Bartek. Just make sure he waits til the fight is over.”

“Aidan, there’s no time for that. If someone really is following him, they could get the only copy of the cure for the Synthesis virus. Damn it!”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go to him. He’s by the canals. Find him. Keep him safe if you can. Get the cure no matter what you do. That’s our top priority.”

“Fuck you,” Aidan said, crisp and final. “I can’t leave now. I’m less than an hour away from finally getting to Bartek.”

“Is your vendetta worth the lives of millions?” His boss’s clipped tone broke through the anger that swelled in his veins. “Millions. That’s how many people will die if Synthesis gets loose without a cure.”

“Fuck,” Aidan said again.

“You can’t be Rage right now,” his boss said, conciliatory. “You have to do what you were trained to do.”

Aidan slammed his fist into the wall and tore the already-abused skin. “I’ll never get this chance again if I walk away.”

“I’ll help you get to Bartek, Aidan. I swear, I will. But right now, this isn’t about you.”

“I’m on my way.” Aidan closed the phone with a snap and left the room. If he hurried, he could get to Dima and make it back to take down his opponent. He didn’t have to lose everything over this.

The night was cold and cloudy. The moon barely broke through the clouds, but the streetlights lit the way well enough. Aidan ran, cutting through traffic without a care for his own safety, determined to get to Dima and get back to the fight before it was lost to him.

He approached the canals, his eyes scanning them for the man he was tasked to retrieve. At first, there was nothing. Then the moon broke through the clouds and he saw the body in the dirt next to the glittering water.

“Fuck,” he cursed, assessing the area for potential threats. No one was there. Aidan slid down the hill to Dima and checked for a pulse. Nothing. His body was still warm, but he was gone.

The papers that he’d been carrying were gone, too.

Buried in his chest was a dagger. Aidan wrapped his jacket around his hand and pulled it out, examining it. It wasn’t familiar to him, but his boss might have a better idea about who used flashy black hunting knives with a mother-of-pearl inlay on the handle.

Part of him mourned for Dima, but there was nothing he could do. Aidan ran back through the cold night, desperate to reach the arena in time.

He stepped through the doors just in time to hear the announcer scream out that the match was forfeit and Bick was the new champion.

Everything in him went hot, then cold. His hand clenched on the bloody knife wrapped in the jacket. Whoever killed Dima didn’t only assassinate a good man and steal something that was desperately needed to keep people safe—they took away the one goal that had driven Aidan for years. The one thing he’d given up everything else for.

Killing Bartek. The man who killed his sister.

Aidan threw back his head and screamed until his throat was raw. Then he took a picture of the knife, sent it to his boss and waited for further instructions.

Chapter One

United Arab Emirates

If she’d known what was going to happen, Sophie would have never ordered the second strawberry margarita. Maybe she’d have nixed the first one, too, and ordered straight vodka instead.

Cotton whispered over her skin when she crossed her legs, turning sideways on the barstool to watch the elegant men and women swarm out of the restaurant, into the lobby and then push through the heavy glass doors into the salty sea air. The heat of the day would end with sweat stains on some of the heavy wool business suits the men wore, Sophie was sure, but she couldn’t afford to worry about the state of others’ clothes.

She missed France. Everyone smoked in France and short black skirts were de rigueur.

One of the men in the lobby reminded her of the Parisian man she’d left when the job at a university in Rome opened up. They’d danced until three in the morning on weekends; he’d spin her in circles while her skirts flared around her knees and made her feel carefree, young. Sophie had left him, of course, the way she left everyone at the merest hint of something better. But she missed that man and wondered where he was while she was sitting in a hotel bar in Dubai, wearily considering another drink.

Her best friend Adele had recommended the strawberry margarita with pink-tinged lips at two in the morning the night before, stumbling in over her heels and grinning sheepishly at Sophie when she crashed into a lamp and woke her friend up. She’d been right. The first one was good—sweet and with just enough tequila to make it bite.

Sophie raised her hand again, trying to capture the bartender’s attention. He was flirting with two tan women with sun-kissed hair and silk dresses. Mentally, Sophie tallied the money she’d need to furnish the small apartment she’d found in Rome. It was walking distance to Via del Corso, so she knew she’d have to budget for that too. Teaching paid the bills, but it didn’t keep her in couture and, oh, how she loved a perfect hem or neckline. She could get around that, of course, but she preferred not to touch her family’s money.

Pulling her thoughts away from peep toes and handbags, she turned to the woman who had materialized beside her without a sound, sliding onto the barstool like a ghost. Adele lifted a finger and cleared her throat, causing the bartender to turn away from the two women and immediately cross to them.

“What would you like?”

“A martini, please. Straight up, two onions and don’t bruise the gin.” Adele lifted Sophie’s heavy crystal glass and looked at the dregs of clumped sugar at its base. “Get another for her, too.”

“It’s on the house,” he said, his face going ruddy as he realized he’d been remiss in serving a customer. He hurried to the wall of liquors and started making their drinks, reaching for the top-shelf liquor without being asked.

Adele, Sophie thought, always got top-shelf. Her rich voice was pure sex, hot, sweet and inviting. For years, they’d been partners in crime, as well as comrades in the halls of academia, and it still amused Sophie to see men jump when her svelte friend flipped her ruby hair over her pale shoulders.

She loved Adele, and not just because she was as willing to move as quickly between cities as Sophie was. Sophie loved her because she wore four-inch heels to teach, because she kept tea she never drank in her cupboards for Sophie and because she organized Christmas parties every year for the ex-pats who couldn’t go home to their families.

After a disastrous year of lecturing in Paris, they’d earned their vacation in Dubai. Too quickly, Sophie had realized that the boutique school they’d selected was populated by students who were more interested in parties than paintings. It was all rush now—rush and texture. One student had even run her fingers down the bumpy canvas of a painting at an art showing until two security guards has escorted her off the premises.

After that, Sophie had decided to never organize another class trip to a gallery.

“Are you okay?” Adele asked, leaning in and placing a hand on Sophie’s leg. “You seem out of it.”

“I’m fine,” Sophie said, forcing her mouth into a smile. It wasn’t fooling either woman, but it was enough to avoid a conversation that neither wanted to have.

“What do you want to do tonight?” Adele withdrew her hand and looked into the lobby at a group of men who had just arrived downstairs, poking each other in the ribs, baseball caps pushed down over their sloppy hair. “Dinner? Dancing? We could just hang out and have a girls’ night.”

“No,” said Sophie. “I’m going to stay in again tonight—without the added bonus of you laughing while I cry at a movie. I’m thinking shower, soup and sleep, the three most important s-words.”

“I think you’re forgetting one.”

“Only if I’m living by your standards,” Sophie replied with a grin.

Adele sat back and glanced at the men in the lobby again. “Soph, you know I have very. High. Standards. Except when I’m on vacation. You sure you don’t want company? They look like they might be fun. American, I think.”

“We’re American, pretentious.”

“No, we’re ex-pats. Do you even pay taxes there anymore?”

“I don’t make enough,” Sophie said. “Seriously, though, go out with them. It’s a good idea and you’ll have fun. Tonight’s just a bad night for me.”

“That’s why I’m not keen on leaving you alone.”

“Tomorrow we’ll do a whole spa day. Mud masks. Salt baths. Food with so few calories that we immediately disappear when we eat it.”

“I don’t mind just ordering room service and hanging out here.”

“Go out, Adele. You’ll have a good time and if they’re cool, maybe I’ll come out tomorrow.” She wrapped her arm around her best friend, relaxing against her as the bartender dropped off the drinks they’d ordered and left without a word.

“I can’t leave knowing you’ll end up sitting alone in the dark.”

Sophie sighed, running a hand over her long, blonde ponytail and smoothing out the frizz that had erupted after she’d come in from the heat. She picked up her drink and took a long sip, not surprised that it was better than the first she’d ordered. “I won’t,” she promised. “I’m so tired that it’s almost ridiculous at this point. Pulling off week-long dance marathons like we did five years ago just isn’t happening anymore.”

“What will you do?”

“Eat some food, watch a little TV and pass out. Vacation stuff.”

Adele narrowed her eyes, but nodded. She took a single swallow of her martini, slid off the barstool and wrapped her arms around Sophie. “I’m going to catch up with those guys. Introduce myself. You’ve got my cell number, so call me if you need or want anything. I’d rather be with you anyway.”

Sophie nodded, then turned to watch Adele saunter into the lobby and catch up with the men by the door. Their friendly faces turned appreciative and they easily accepted the woman into their group, ushering her through the main doors with smiles. Sophie turned back and finished her drink. Almost immediately, the bartender set another in front of her.

“Are you from around here?” The line would have been tired from anyone, but from a hotel bartender it was downright stupid. Sophie didn’t want to hear any pickup lines. She especially didn’t want to hear one meant for her best and only friend.

“No, we’re moving to Rome next week,” she said, running a finger along the sugared rim of the glass and then touching it to her mouth. “This is just a pit stop.” His eyes dimmed, and she softened. “She’d just break your heart anyway. Please put the drinks on my tab.”

“I said they were on the house,” he said, and smiled. Once upon a time she might have smiled back, invited him to come to her room or to dinner. But things were different now. So she nodded, took one last sip of the drink, and then headed for the elevators, ready for the long ride up to her room.

Aidan watched the blonde woman from his booth in the back of the bar, flexing his hands to keep them from stiffening where the knuckles were swollen. He hated to do a job when he wasn’t at his best, especially a dangerous one.

Usually the weakness wouldn’t worry him. But this was Veronica. A guy didn’t capture the prime bitch of The Hellenic Agency with busted knuckles.

He kept his eyes on the mirror behind the bar, watching the girl flirt with the bartender after her friend left. Veronica was beautiful, he thought, Porsche 911 sexy with curvy hips and high, taut breasts. Even as he’d cursed himself for it, he’d watched with appreciation as they pressed against the front of her t-shirt earlier that day on the beach. Now, in a blue sundress, she was radiant. A cool drink of water in the dusty heat of the desert.

She was sexier than he remembered, but it could have been the fake veil of innocence that surrounded her as she sat alone in the bar. Veronica looked tiny and lost, two words he’d never have thought to associate with her. Women like Ronnie, in his experience, used sex as a weapon. They bartered ten minutes of access to their wet, warm pussy for information that could get a man killed. Aidan had never yet met a woman who was worth it.

He took a long swallow of his Coke. It was watery and too sweet, but it helped clear the lump that had gathered as he watched Veronica laugh and smile at her redheaded friend. The steak on the table went untouched. Aidan wasn’t hungry. He just wanted the booth.

When Veronica pushed back her drink and crossed to the elevators, he finished his Coke and waited until the doors had slid silently closed in front of her face. He dropped a few bills on the table and left as quickly as he’d entered.

The opulence of the hotel made no impression on him, nor had it at the moment he first entered. The thick, colorful carpets, sparkling fountains and curved balconies that lined the interior of the place were just the trappings of wealth, which he’d had long enough that it no longer mattered. It was just another place where Aidan had been dispatched to do work that needed to be done.

Reaching the bank of elevators, he pressed a button and stepped in. Aidan reached out and hit 26, then stood with his arms crossed while the box rose.

He’d never killed a woman before and he wasn’t looking forward to it now. But no matter his personal preferences, Veronica would die and he would be the one to kill her.

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