FIFTEEN
Sophie emerged from the shower with a towel in hand, drying the ends of her wet hair. Body parts she didn’t know she owned still tingled from the last hour with Con. Add in the lingering flavors of champagne and strawberries on her tongue, and she couldn’t wait to climb back into bed with her big, hunky, hot SEAL.
When her gaze fell over the bed, she stopped. Lowering the towel, she swept her gaze over the room in search of her lover.
“Ryan?”
Standing at the glass door that overlooked the pool, he had his back to her. Beyond him, the sun had dropped behind the horizon hours ago, and most of the lights of the skyline had blinked out, casting the world beyond the broad-shouldered man in blackness.
One hand was lifted to his face and the other clutched his phone to his ear. As she moved closer, she saw that he pinched the bridge of his nose.
At her quick intake of air, he turned and saw her. His hand dropped to his side.
She tilted her head in an unspoken universal question, used by couples everywhere, but he held up a finger to indicate he needed a moment longer.
He issued a few grunts into the phone, followed by a muttered, “I’ll be in touch.” And ended the call.
He faced her fully. At the expression in his dark eyes, dread spiked through her.
Quickly, she closed the gap between them. “What is it?”
“Our suspect—Bayar. They just found him dead.”
She plastered her hands over her mouth, but it didn’t silence her gasp of shock. “What? How? When?”
“I don’t know much, only that they’ve been looking for him the entire time we’ve been in Turkey. We had a lot on the guy—location, access to his phone records and emails, but they still hadn’t found him as of yesterday. They finally pinned him down to bring him in for questioning, but when they entered the apartment, he was already dead.”
“Did he take himself out to keep from being arrested?”
“Not likely. He had a bullet in his back and no weapon found on the premises.”
“Oh god, Ryan. That’s so scary. What happens now?”
This was all so real. So raw. And too close to home for her.
“Maybe I can help.” She made a shift toward the laptop on the desk. “One of those cryptograms might reveal something.”
“No, Sophie. We’re going to the safe house. Get your things together.”
At his sharp tone, worry and fear balled in her stomach. She stood frozen for a moment, unsure where to start.
All at once, her feet unglued from the floor and she hurried to the bedroom. Tossing a look around the room, she located her bag set neatly against one wall. She grabbed it and began tossing everything she had scattered around into it. High heels, the discarded Princeton T-shirt. The black shirt that Con loaned her was balled up on top of her bag, and she hesitated about whether to give it back to him but finally stuffed it into the bag with her belongings.
She was just exiting the bathroom, both hands full of toiletries, when Con walked in and started packing his bag.
“The car will be here in three.”
Her gut clenched. She let out a noise, and he stopped, turning his head to look at her. Whatever he saw on her face made him abandon his task and cross the room to her.
He drew her against him. “You’re safe with me. With Charlie team.”
She nodded against his chest.
He smoothed a hand over her hair before releasing her.
“Should I change?” She looked down at her loungewear.
“You’re fine.” He zipped up his bag. She stuffed her toiletries in her luggage. Con grabbed both of their bags and headed out.
As they passed by the glass door, she sent a look into the darkness, wishing for one final glimpse of the beautiful pool and terrace. Both were obscured from view, and she caught only the faint outlines of her and Con’s reflections in the glass. Con standing close behind her.
“I wish we’d had more time here. Together,” she whispered.
Saying nothing, he just squeezed her hand before urging her out of the room, out of the hotel and into the night. This time Mason didn’t have the car waiting for them. Another man sat behind the wheel.
Con looked inside, and Sophie saw his shoulders tense. “Jesus Christ. Denver .” Con’s voice rumbled with surprise as they jumped into the back seat. “What the hell, man? When did you get out of the hospital?”
The man was mostly obscured by darkness, but the faint lighting from the dashboard skimmed along the angled planes of his face. “Two days ago. They were going to send me Stateside, but I heard y’all were in Turkey, so I made my way here.”
“Without orders from the cake eaters?”
The codes they seemed to be speaking in didn’t make sense to Sophie, but she was too scared for even her overactive curiosity to pique.
Denver Malone waved a hand in dismissal. “I wasn’t going back to base without my team.”
“Glad to have you. Damn, it’s good to see you, brother.”
“You too, boss man.” The car sped through the sleepy city. When they reached a tall, narrow building perched on the corner of two streets, Denver pulled around behind it.
When Sophie stepped out, she had the dizzying sensation of stepping into a black hole. The inky darkness seemed to swallow every lumen of light. She clung to Con, trusting him to lead her. Out of the darkness, a faint orange light loomed up, revealing the outline of a door.
Only Con’s arm around her kept her feet moving. Her body wanted to freeze in fear.
Sophie hunched her shoulders. Her mind knew that Con would never lead her into the path of danger, but everything felt too frightening.
Denver entered the building that appeared to be unoccupied at first glance. Con placed a hand on her spine, guiding her inside next.
She paused in the space. Darkness closed in around her.
Con’s voice brushed over her ear. “It’s okay, Sophie. We’re safe here.”
Safe. Why did that word feel so hollow? Was anything safe anymore? Not even Bayar, a criminal welded deep in this terrifying underworld, had survived.
She kept her gaze fixed on Denver’s back as he navigated several dark rooms. At one point, she caught the scent of something earthy, like dust settled in the crevices of old wood.
Finally, he opened a door. Light flooded out, and Sophie blinked, taking in a knot of men, all enormous and familiar to her. Their conversation stopped abruptly, and they looked from Denver to Con and finally at Sophie.
She was looking at Mason when his attention dropped to where her hand was joined with Con’s between their close bodies.
He flashed a smile at her that lit up his eyes. “Welcome to the safe house, Sophie. I’m guessing you’ll be sharing a room with our leader.”
* * * * *
Con poked his head into the kitchen and centered his gaze on Denver. His brother-in-arms was raiding the refrigerator.
“Good to see some things never change.”
Denver quirked a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. After the injuries he’d sustained in Italy just weeks before, it was no wonder. He had more healing to do, but fact was, on Blackout, none of them had much time for nursing wounds, physical or otherwise.
It still surprised the hell out of Con that he’d made his way back to them. None of them thought Denver would survive his injuries let alone make such a quick recovery.
Denver met his gaze. “When you grow up with so many siblings the way I did, you eat before there’s nothing left.”
Con flicked his head toward the door. “Meeting.”
His brother-in-arms crushed the top slice of flatbread onto his sandwich and gathered it off the plate to take with him.
Con led the way into the living area, the nerve center of the safe house. A battered coffee table sat in the middle of the room, encircled by a mishmash of chairs ranging from heavy leather upholstery to a rickety one that appeared to be hand-constructed of wood. Maps and satellite images were spread out on the table.
He joined his team that was already gathered around, waiting to hear the plan. When he dropped into a seat, Denver took one adjacent to him and dug into his sandwich like they didn’t feed him in that hospital, but Con knew firsthand that Swiss hospitals tended to take very good care of American military.
He looked around, making sure that Sophie hadn’t slipped in when he wasn’t looking. He’d tucked her into bed with a lingering kiss between her brows and a promise that he’d return as soon as he could.
As he started to straighten to leave her, she’d gripped his shirt front and held him there. “When you come back, I would like some answers too.”
Who knew what questions his beautiful little professor had come up with. Even though he didn’t know what he was agreeing to, he nodded.
After he pondered the conundrum for a beat, he kicked off the meeting. He cleared his throat, and all eyes snapped to him.
On the coffee table was a map of Istanbul. Using a knife blade—all he had at hand—he pointed to a spot in the right corner. “This is where Bayar was recently found dead.” He picked up a photo of how the man was found.
Nobody winced or turned their gazes away from the photo. They were well accustomed to death and gore, but this was one example of why he didn’t want Sophie present.
“The CIA is investigating Bayar’s—”
His phone buzzed, cutting him short. He set the knife on the table to take the call.
The caller’s tone wavered. “This is Deniz.”
Con put the call on speaker. “Go ahead, Deniz.”
“I attended the concert as I was instructed. Nobody approached me there. No contact was made.”
“Yes, we know.”
The man’s words tumbled out in a rush. “When I took off my jacket, my housekeeper took it away. She goes through my pockets at the end of the day.”
“What did the housekeeper find?” Con leveled a look at Mason and muted the phone for a brief moment to say to his teammate, “Look into the housekeeper.”
Mason gave a short nod in response.
Deniz continued, “A note. Somebody must have slipped it into my pocket during the concert.”
“What does the note say?”
“I have a new task. It tells me to prepare for a shipment. It must arrive at the destination by a particular date and is time-sensitive.”
“Take a picture of the note. I’m sending you a secure link to upload it to.”
“I will do that.” Deniz was silent for a bit as he did what Con asked.
After the photo came through, Con skimmed it. Sophie was right that he always had trouble reading as a kid, and reading still wasn’t his favorite. But he had no trouble whatsoever seeing that the clock was ticking.
“I don’t want to ship more bad things.” Deniz’s voice broke. “I only want my wife back.”
Con detected the pain in Deniz’s tone. He considered himself to be a hard man—one of the hardest. But his heart gave a pang at the sound of the man’s suffering.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t be lying. He’d have his guys look into it.
“We’ll get her back for you. Give me ten minutes. I’ll call you back. Keep your phone close.”
“I will.”
As soon as he ended the call, he addressed his team. “All right, listen up. The shipping agent received this note.” He held out his phone to Henner. He took it from Con and with a few swipes of a fingertip, had the photo on the screen of the computer tablet.
Henner held it up for all to see.
“Mason, get on this. See what you can find out, and if what Deniz says is true.”
“Got it, boss.”
“While Mason works on that, we’re going to create a plan of attack in the event that Deniz is telling the truth.”
Denver shook his head, brushing away crumbs left by the sandwich he’d gulped down. “We don’t have much time if we’re going to make this happen on their terms.”
The people pulling Deniz’s strings had ordered the agent to meet them at the dock before dawn. If he did as they asked, they would tell him where his wife was being held.
They all knew what would happen if he didn’t show.
Con issued a breath that felt too hot in his tight chest. “I don’t believe for a minute that they’ll make good on the bargain. We aren’t going to give them a chance to get away. Two teams.” He stabbed a finger toward Henner, indicating he was responsible for splitting them up into teams balanced by their strengths.
Mason’s voice broke in. “It’s all true. Our contact at the CIA confirmed that they know about the wife being held.”
Con gave a hard nod. “That decides it. Team One intercepts the shipment at the dock. The minute we get the intel about the wife’s whereabouts, Team Two goes after her.”
Everyone nodded that they understood.
“We have two hours till sunup. Gear up.”
At that moment, the patter of quick footsteps moving their direction brought Con’s head up. Sophie came skidding around the corner, her face glowing with the excitement he’d seen several times when she figured out a puzzle.
“Ryan! I mean Con.” She shot a look at the guys. “I found something!”
“Ry-annn,” Henner cooed under his breath. The guy sitting beside him laughed.
Con let out a growl to silence them and shoved to his feet. “What did you find?”
She rushed into the room. It was then that he saw what she was wearing—and everybody else saw too.
The long-sleeved black T-shirt he loaned her for their stakeout.
And nothing else.
Her bare thighs, shapely calves and those sexy ankles he couldn’t seem to quit thinking about were on full display for all of Charlie Team to see.
Several guys traded appraising looks, and more than one man was staring at her.
She must have donned the shirt for bed.
The thought of her sleeping in his shirt had his gut clenching…and someplace much higher, in the vicinity of his chest, tightening.
In quick steps, she reached his side, tipping her head back to look at him. Her words tripped over each other. “The composite photo of Henry VIII. One of the pictures is a geometric image of black lines on a white background. But I saw the same thing in a tattoo on somebody at the concert!”
He reached out to take hold of her. Not to steady her—simply because he wanted to touch her.
A soft snicker came from his right where Henner sat. Later, Con would rearrange his friend’s teeth but he ignored him for the moment.
“Where was the person in the crowd?”
“He was sitting in the row in front of Deniz. I noticed the tattoo on his forearm when they panned the crowd with those flashing lights.”
He remembered the lights. He also remembered how Sophie’s face had glowed with genuine pleasure in that moment. Meanwhile, Con hadn’t seen any guy sporting a tattoo sitting a row in front of Deniz. Maybe it was his vantage point. Or maybe he’d been too distracted by the woman he was with. Reason two why this relationship had to end after they no longer needed a cryptologist.
She leaned into his hand on her arm. “It stood out to me because, well, it’s not as popular for men in Turkey to have tattoos. And you did say there were a lot of Americans in the crowd.”
He waved a hand at Henner. “Pull up the footage from those glasses I had on. We need to see if I caught the guy Sophie saw.”
Moments later, the footage filled the tablet screen. The recording stayed trained on Deniz for several minutes…then panned to Sophie. Con’s focus lingered on her face, her features alive with excitement…then dropped to her breasts as they swayed with her light movements to the beat.
“Give me that.” He ripped the tablet out of Henner’s hands. His second-in-command held up both hands in surrender and took a seat again, but not before Con spotted his grin and several others from his teammates.
Con glared at the recording. Hell, he might as well hand in his resignation now. He’d been more absorbed in Sophie than the op. Nothing was more important than the op. That was practically the first rule of Blackout.
If he wanted to lead these men, he had to set a good example. He couldn’t let himself get distracted again…and he sure as hell planned on destroying most of the footage.
When he finally quit looking at her breasts and beautiful face and focused on Deniz, he zoomed in for a better look. He crooked a finger for Sophie to come closer. Holding the tablet where she could see, he asked, “Is this the guy you saw?”
“Yes! In the blue shirt.”
As they watched together, the man appeared to be dancing. He moved his arms close to Deniz—close enough to drop a note in his pocket.
“There!” She pointed to the screen, and he paused the video with the tattoo clearly in view.
He stretched it on the screen and held it up for the guys to see. “Somebody find out what that symbol is. Search photos of tattoos for it too.”
He hit play again, but his own focus at the concert returned to Sophie. Henner snorted, and Matthews gave a forceful cough to cover what Con guessed to be snickering.
“Keep working,” he ordered. Grabbing Sophie by the hand, he towed her out of the room with him.
“Hey, Con?” Henner called as they reached the doorway. “We’re going to need the tablet.”
“You’ll get it when I give it to you. You have other devices.” His growl didn’t have the effect he hoped for—his team’s laughter followed them out the door.