American Law (Law #2) (11 page)

Chapter 19

The boss glared at Sean, who hadn’t been worth the trouble he’d gone through to acquire him. He had been a constant disappointment from the moment he’d hired him. The man was a thug, bought muscle. All he had to do was force the Russian to download Sundown and confirm once it had been finished, but the idiot had lost the entire goddamn protocol.

Fear blossomed inside him, his silk shirt clinging to his damp skin. The country was vulnerable. The entire defense force was on high alert, awaiting the possibility of attack. He channeled his fear into anger and focused it on Sean, who it appeared couldn’t follow a directive without monumentally fucking up.

“I just got word that Elena Ivanova is in Washington,” the boss said. “She met with SAC Fitzgibbon at Langley this morning along with Secretary Mann of the Pentagon. Apparently, the woman has friends in high places.”

Something his subordinate had neglected to mention. If he’d known Dmitry Ivanov was related to a woman who worked for Russian intelligence, he never would’ve allowed Sean to hire him. He didn’t like surprises, but maybe he could use this to his advantage.

“I’m well aware. I’m close to retrieving the file,” Sean replied. “I’ve learned Ivanova has a relationship with an agent here in the States, a Lucas Gates. I believe that she is staying with him and that her brother is with them.”

He let out a frustrated sigh. “This was not supposed to happen. Sundown was not supposed to be endangered.”

He hadn’t wanted to compromise the protocol, only wanted the paper-pushers in the White House to see how wrong they were, and now everything was fucked. The entire system had escaped into the void, available to anyone with the know-how.

He only hoped Dmitry Ivanov was as good as he had proved so far. He knew the man didn’t want to jeopardize the country’s defenses. From what Sean had said, Ivanov had recognized the IP address and had to be forced to retrieve the file. He sounded like a decent man; it was a shame to have to involve him in this issue, but something had to be done. The country was not secure, and wouldn’t be until the men at the top saw it for themselves.

This wasn’t how he had planned it, but nothing could change it now. Now he had to retrieve Sundown from wherever Ivanov had sent the files, and replace it back in the Pentagon’s mainframe. Only then would he be safe from prosecution.

It was a shame the same couldn’t be said for the Russian, but certain sacrifices were necessary and his reputation and position were more valuable than one man’s life.

No one must know that it was he who had arranged the entire thing.

Chapter 20

Elena inhaled the clean scent of a man—her man. She could have been blind and would still be able to pick Lucas out of a crowd. She drowsily opened her eyes and looked up into his brilliant blue ones, the skin around the sockets crinkling, showing his age as he smiled down at her. With slightly damp hair, dressed in a light grey suit and blue shirt he looked downright edible. She licked her lips and his eyes followed her tongue. Her body warmed, desire coursing through her as if she had become some horny hormonal time bomb.

“I’ve got to go into work but you stay here and help Dmitry, all right? I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

She nodded her understanding, her mind a riot of erotic memories of the previous night. Lucas leaned down and gave her a kiss that if she ended up with Alzheimer’s in her old age, it would be the one thing she would remember with crystal clear clarity.

He sent her a sexy grin before picking up his keys from the bed side table and leaving her with her thoughts. She climbed out of bed, pulling on Lucas’s shirt that had been left discarded on the floor and made her way to the kitchen. Her body was slightly sore from the previous evening’s activities. It had been over two years since she had last made love and her inner muscles were now protesting that fact. She smiled. Lucas certainly hadn’t gone easy on her just as she hadn’t with him.

She looked about the kitchen. The carafe was empty and had been for some time. She frowned when she couldn’t see any signs of Dmitry and assumed he had finally relented and had gone to bed. Her brother was far too used to staying awake all night, streamlining caffeine. She had told him more than once she worried about it. It certainly wasn’t good for him but he’d yet to change his nighttime habits.

She’d begun preparing the coffee maker for another batch when a piece of paper on the kitchen table caught her eye. Picking it up, she recognized Dmitry’s handwriting. The letter had been written in Russian. Either by habit or because he was paranoid, she didn’t know. She quickly read through his letter telling her he had gone to the library to do some research he couldn’t risk doing at Lucas’s.

She shook her head.
Be safe, Dmitry, and for goodness sake keep your head down
.

He was taking a huge risk, and had she been around when the decision was made, she would’ve fought to keep him from going. Which was probably why he had snuck out while she was sleeping, the little shit.

She crumpled up the letter and threw it in the bin, then finished loading the coffee maker and pressed the start button before retracing her steps back down the hall towards the bathroom. She let the almost burning hot water of the shower beat down on her shoulders and back, loosening the tension that she hadn’t realized was there, and washed away the dried perspiration left over from the night before. She almost moaned in delight as the water performed miracles on her sore muscles.

Several wonderful minutes later, she climbed out of the shower and dried herself off, dressing in her favorite worn pair of jeans. She added a peach blouse and put on her sneakers, brushed her teeth and hair before exiting the bathroom, and decided it was time for her morning coffee. The machine should have finished making the pot by now.

She poured the coffee into a mug with the CIA emblem and took a sip. She felt the caffeine begin to take effect as it zinged through her bloodstream. She was halfway through the mug when she heard a car pull into Lucas’s driveway. She stood, thinking it was Dmitry, and walked towards the kitchen door that led out to the garden which she’d learned was Lucas’s preferred entrance. She saw the shadowed figure on the opposite side and stiffened, knowing immediately that it wasn’t her brother. The silhouette of the man on the other side of the door didn’t match him or Lucas. Her suspicion was proven correct when she heard the scraping sound of a small tool being forced into the locking mechanism on the door.

She backed away toward Lucas’s bedroom. She remembered seeing him lock away his weapon there. She went straight to his closet and found the safe, the code still imprinted into the computer. Opening the safe, she sighed in relief at the sight of an eight shot revolver with a black handle, then checked to make sure it was loaded before slowly returning to the kitchen where the man continued working on Lucas’s lock.

She reacquainted herself with the weapon, holding the familiar weight in her hand, and breathed slowly to avoid panicking. She had to trust herself; one wrong move could prove disastrous for her and for the man on the other side of the door. Her heart thumped in her chest and she took a moment to calm herself. Panicking never helped anyone, and while she didn’t believe it, it could be very well be a common burglar.

They certainly picked the wrong house
, she thought, gripping the handle firmly and resting her finger against the trigger guard.

She lifted the revolver and aimed toward the door as it opened. The man stepped through, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight of her with the gun.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man before her was no common burglar. He was clean-shaven and she could see the outline of his weapon under his shirt. His eyes held a shrewd intelligence that sent a shiver down her spine.

“Relax, honey. It’s all good. No need to be pointing that gun at me.”

His vocabulary made him seem American lower class, not college educated. If she had to guess she’d say he’d barely finished high school, but she wouldn’t underestimate him. She’d met men like him in the past and knew not to turn her back on them. His gaze drifted up and down her body in a way that made her want to run to the nearest toilet and throw up. She glared at him, moving the sight of the gun lower until it was pointing at the zipper on his pants.

“Hey,” he immediately covered the area with his hands as if this would stop a bullet. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing.”

“Remove your weapon,” she said, her tone telling him she would shoot if necessary.

“What weapon?”

“I’m not stupid. Remove it or I will remove a part of you. One you will most certainly miss.”

His eyes widened further as he stared at her and gauged that she wasn’t kidding. She made sure he understood that perfectly well. He moved slowly, removing his gun from the waistband of his pants with two fingers. He tossed the pistol to the ground away from his reach.

She watched as he briefly looked past her. She felt the presence behind her and acted too late. She didn’t have a chance to swing around before the second intruder had his weapon digging into her back in direct line with her kidney. If he pulled the trigger she was dead. He had snuck up behind her. The man could have been a ghost. She’d not heard him, not one squeak of a floorboard or one exhale of breath.

The man stepped forward and she studied his face, her fear slowing down time, allowing her to process everything around her. She stiffened when she recognized him from the security feed Dmitry had found. This was the man who’d shot Ivan and tried to kill Dmitry. She barely suppressed the snarl that threatened to escape her mouth.

How had they found her? Her mind gave her the simplest answer. They’d followed her and Lucas from the morgue.

The man relieved her of the gun before pointing it back at her. Like his friend didn’t already have a good enough hold over her. She tried to get a look at the man behind her but he was a professional and kept his face hidden from view.

“When you aim a gun, young lady, be prepared to fire it,” the man behind her lectured smugly. She could hear the age and wealth of experience in his voice.

Bastard. She had no compunctions about firing a weapon. In fact she had shot and killed a man just two years ago in self-defense. The man had been a terrorist and would have shot Lucas had she not intervened. She just wanted to avoid an international incident, and didn’t fancy spending her time in any American prisons.

“Think you can handle it from here, Henry, or would you like me to hold your hand?” the man behind her asked Ivan’s killer. Using names and not bothering to conceal their identities…this was not good. Not one fucking bit. Her heart leapt as panic rose within her.

Sean’s eyes narrowed, his face turning red. Elena could see he wanted to tell the man behind her where to go, that or shoot him, but he must be quite powerful or just plain scary. His lips tightened, thinning as he nodded curtly. She felt the pressure of the gun alleviate from her back and she was then pushed toward Sean Henry. He grabbed her hands as she came close to him. His entire focus on his next step, she used his lack of concentration against him, knocking him off balance and into the island bench nearby. His body rammed hard into the ninety degree angle corner of the bench and his cry of pain almost deafened her as she made a leap for Lucas’s revolver.

The second man came up behind her and grabbed her hair, yanking her head backwards until she was looking up into his hard angry eyes. Her palm closed around the butt of the gun. She bit down hard on her bottom lip to stifle the gasp of pain, unwilling to give the man any satisfaction, and glared up at him, ignoring the metallic tang of blood in her mouth as her teeth cut the soft tissue of her lips.

Raising the revolver, she brought it down hard over the man’s head. His breath hissed out and he pulled tighter on her hair, bringing her closer to him, his free hand applying pressure on her wrist until she dropped Lucas’s gun once more.

Limping, Sean reached inside his pocket and brought up a small black object. She struggled futilely against the second man’s strong hold as his arm wrapped around her chest, capturing her flailing arms and pinning them down.

For a moment she thought she should know him, that she had seen him somewhere before. He looked so familiar as if she knew him or at least knew
of
him. No memory was forthcoming. The man had obviously been in the army at some point, her panicked mind interpreting his efficient actions, as he applied force against certain pressure points on her body that had her unwillingly relenting to him.

“Hurry up, Henry, this one’s a real fighter.”

Sean nodded as he came at her while simultaneously powering what she now recognized as a taser. He sent a dark look toward her as moved closer, telling her that he would enjoy the pain he inflicted on her. She steeled herself against the pain she knew was coming, just as he pressed the device hard against her hip, allowing for no mistakes.

A bolt of electricity zinged through her and this time she couldn’t stifle the cry of agony. She attempted to dislodge him by throwing her head left and right but he only pressed harder almost fracturing her hip bone in the process. The man behind her tightened his grip painfully warning her silently.

She jerked from the jolt and darkness invaded her vision. She tried to shake it off, to keep fighting but her body began to feel heavy and sluggish. She soon found she could barely move her arms. The man who looked so familiar stared down at her, watching as she fell unconscious.