23. 2
He stared at his phone as the line went dead. It wasn’t that simple, dammit. Looking around in the jumble of cop cars, vans, fire trucks, and ambulances, he spotted the telltale satellite dish on top of a step van. He strolled over next to the vehicle, just behind the dish. He waited until no one was near and pulled out his cell phone.
“Now what, Alexei?” his father asked a little irritably.
“I thought you might like a heads up. POTUS will be calling the Kremlin shortly. Shermayev’s uranium mining operation in Karshan is busted.” Alex disconnected the call without waiting for a reply from his father. None was necessary.
Roman could now call his superiors, forecast that the United States would catch on to Shermayev’s plan to secretly mine uranium and sneak it into Iran, thereby impressing his bosses with his brilliance and prescience.
It would give Russia a little time to plan damage control before the President’s call. Nobody liked to be surprised, particularly with the global nuclear balance on the line.
The Russian president might secretly approve of Shermayev’s operation, but he would no doubt cut his losses and hang the general out to dry, now. And Roman Koronov had an opportunity to distance himself from the general and come out on the winning side in this fiasco.
Where it left Alex was anybody’s guess. His father would still demand repayment someday for the massive favor he’d granted Alex today. But his own lines of communication were now open with the CIA, and Alex had fallen off the fence and onto the side of the Americans. For now.
He would give it all up in a minute if Katie walked out of that warehouse alive and with Dawn safely in her arms.
Katie had actually dozed off when a flurry of noise jolted her to full consciousness. The sun had passed out of sight overhead, marking the passage of a couple hours she must have slept. The dead bodies had been cut down from where they hung in their ropes and were laid out in a row off to one side.
What was that noise? It sounded like a herd of elephants on the roof! Natasha’s men were pointing their AK’s up at the ceiling frantically, and Natasha emerged from the office, her hair tangled around her face. She must have been catching a nap, too, during the lull.
“Are they breaching us?” one of the mobsters shouted. The muzzles of their weapons roved back and forth nervously. The thumping and banging turned into slithering noises down the walls and Natasha’s men leaped away from the aluminum panels toward the middle of the warehouse. For her part, Natasha hit the floor. Katie tensed, helpless, taped to the damned chair.
As quickly as the noise started, it stopped. A faint commotion was audible outside, and then that, too, stopped. Silence blanketed the building ominously.
And then a lone voice shouted form outside, “Natasha, it’s Alex. Let me in.”
The Russian woman pressed up onto her knees. “Why should I trust you?”
He called back wryly, “Who else do you have?”
Natasha knelt on her heels for several long moments, and Katie held her breath. Lord, it was good to hear Alex’s voice. Natasha gestured angrily at one of her men to open the same door André Fortinay had come through.
Katie had to hold back a sob as Alex’s beloved form strode inside. His gaze raked the space quickly, lighting on her and locking with hers.
A lifetime’s worth of promises passed between them in that instant. Please God, let there be time later to put all of them into words and action .
Alex tore his gaze away first, and held his arms away from his body as one of Natasha’s men approached him warily. The guy frisked Alex and then stood back.
“Natasha,” Alex sighed. “What have you done?”
He took off speaking in rapid, low Russian with the woman. Their conversation turned into a short, sharp argument than ended abruptly with Natasha sagging in defeat. Alex said something gentle and put an arm around the woman’s shoulders. Katie stared in shock as he led her to the same door he’d come in through.
Natasha’s men squawked, and Alex snapped something at them that sounded like an order. The men subsided.
It looked promising that Alex was leading her captor outside, but Katie was leery of getting her hopes up too much, yet. She held her breath as Alex and Natasha stepped through the doorway.
Please let no one try to shoot Natasha and miss .
So fragile, human life. It could be gone in the blink of an eye. A single twitch of a finger on a trigger and an entire life could be wiped out. If she’d learned nothing else in her time with Alex, it was to value each moment and not take the next breath for granted.
Katie saw shadows rush forward and it looked as if Alex passed off Natasha to someone else.
All of a sudden, he whirled and strode back inside the building. He barked an order at the mobsters who, shockingly, laid their weapons down and laid down on the ground themselves.
A rush of black-clad, body-armored, SWAT guys exploded through the door, but not before Alex was in front of her, bending down, wrapping her and Dawn in a crushingly tight embrace.
“I’ve got you, now. You’re safe, Katie. You and Dawn.”
Sobs tore through her as someone sliced her free again, this time not nicking her, and Alex drew her gently to her feet and into his arms.
“Don’t ever let us go,” Katie choked out.
“Never.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Peters. We need to get you three outside. We’re not done clearing the building and it may be booby-trapped,” one of the SWAT guys announced.
“Natasha said the place is clean,” Alex replied. “I think she was telling me the truth. But we’ll go, anyway.”
His arm looped over her shoulder and holding her tightly to his side, Katie stepped out into the bright sunshine.
It was pretty chaotic for a while after that. She and Dawn were rushed into a van and another doctor examined them for injuries. A team of FBI agents took a full statement from her starting with the phone call from Sister Mary Harris last night and culminating with Alex walking through the warehouse door.
It took her a while to get through it all, but Alex never left her side. He was silent through most of it, holding Dawn while he listened. He wore being a father well. If only he was willing to embrace this side of himself.
But Katie’d had a lot of time to think about it sitting in that damned chair, and she knew better. Now that she’d experienced the adrenaline rush that was his life, she knew first-hand the thrill of cheating death.
Alex would never walk away from all this for good. He’d been born and raised to it. The spy game was in his blood. She only prayed it hadn’t infected her, as well.
At least she understood now what pulled her brothers into danger over and over. She’d also proven she could play with the big boys—not that she ever needed to do it again, thank you very much.
She only had to take one look at the infant nestled in the arms of the man she loved to know there was more to life than adrenaline. She had much more important things to do than chase bad guys all over creation. She had a baby to raise. A home to make for Dawn and herself.
The FBI agents finally ran out of questions for her and released her to Alex sometime around three p.m. Someone had arranged for a helicopter to Teterboro Airport, and a business jet back to D.C. By dinner time, a dark blue government sedan had delivered them to Alex’s doorstep.
No surprise, Alex made her and Dawn wait in the car with the nice, armed escorts while he thoroughly checked out his place. Finally, though, he came back out to the vehicle. “All clear,” he announced. “Let’s go home.”
Tears filled Katie’s eyes at the words. If only.
The escorts rode up in the elevator with them and waited until they were all inside the condo to leave. The door closed and silence fell around Katie one last time. Except this time it felt safe. Welcoming.
Okay, she was a little delusional. But after the twenty-four hours she’d just had, she figured she was authorized.
“Hungry?” Alex asked.
The FBI had fed her stale sandwiches earlier, and there’d been food on the plane, but her stomach growled loudly.
Alex smiled in response and she followed him into the kitchen. It all seemed so normal. He chopped vegetables and threw them in with a pot of pasta while she warmed a bottle for Dawn and fed the baby.
Alex served up dinner while Katie put the baby down in her crib. Poor kiddo was exhausted and crashed immediately after her bottle.
Trepidation rattling through her, Katie returned to the kitchen. Alex held her chair for her and she sat down beside him.
“We need to talk,” he announced quietly.
She nodded, at a loss for words and terrified that if she said the wrong thing now, she would lose Alex forever. She forced herself to be honest. There was likely nothing she could say to hang on to Alex, anyway. It was useless to try.
“I understand that I have to let you go,” she blurted “I won’t try to cling to you and make you hate me and Dawn.”
Alex stared, shocked. After a long moment’s silence, he said merely, “How about you let me talk first?”
“Umm, okay.”
“First, I will never be able to apologize adequately for putting you and Dawn in such danger. I will never forgive myself. I do promise, however, to do everything in my power to keep the two of you safe for the rest of your lives.”
“That’s really sweet of you, but you don’t have to?—“
He interrupted gently. “It’s still my turn. Please let me get this out before I lose my nerve.”
Him? Lose his nerve? What was the world coming to? She subsided, shocked.
“First things first. I know why the Russians were after Dawn.”
She listened in disbelief as he outlined what he and Ian had pieced together. Those poor people in the Karshan Valley. They’d just been trying to make a little money. Give themselves a better life, and they’d gotten caught up in a political game that extended far beyond their isolated valley.
“So that was why Dr. Fortinay took Dawn’s umbilical cord stump and her diaper?” Katie exclaimed when Alex got to the part about the U.S. government needing a sample of Dawn’s bodily fluids to prove his theory. They’d been looking for trace uranium in the infant, and that was apparently the reason everyone had wanted to lay their hands on the baby.
Alex nodded.
“And did they find uranium?” Katie asked.
Another nod.
“Is Dawn going to be all right?” Katie asked in quick concern.
“Her mother’s placenta caught most of the heavy metals. The levels in Dawn’s blood are well within safe limits. She should suffer no ill effects from having been born in the Karshan Valley.”
Katie let out a big sigh of relief.
“Who was on the roof of the warehouse, and what was all that shooting about?” she demanded suddenly.
“Russian Special Forces troops,” Alex answered.
Her jaw sagged. “Are you serious?”
Alex nodded. “Natasha reported to her Russian mob bosses that she had you in custody and subsequently lost you. They sent her over to the Cartwheel Casino to get you back. She was pissed when her guys got shot up by DeMecci’s crew. He and his boys had been looking for an excuse to take out the Russian mob, who’ve been moving in on their turf in Atlantic City for a while. With me so far?”
She nodded.
“Natasha was pissed enough at the Russian mob bosses that she snatched you herself and ran when it all went to hell in the casino. She didn’t count on me, though. I gave her name and phone number to the FBI. They called her and tracked her down using her phone signal.”
“How in the hell did Spetznatz troops get on the roof, then?” Katie demanded.
Alex frowned. “Someone in Natasha’s organization likely spies for Sergei Shishani’s organization and told him Natasha had you and where you were being held. My guess is Shishani called his contact within the Russian military. It then ran up the chain of command to Shermayev, who activated a team of his guys to grab Dawn and cover his tracks. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone to find out what he’s been up to in the Karshan Valley or that he’s been funneling uranium to Iran.”
Katie processed all that for a minute. “So, the Spetznatz team got there first. They got onto the roof of the warehouse and were, what? Preparing to go in and grab Dawn when the FBI showed up?”
Alex grinned. “Must’ve been a nasty shock to them.” He continued more seriously, “Realizing they were surrounded and dead anyway, they went ahead with carrying out their orders and launched an attack on the warehouse.”
Katie shuddered with memory of how terrifying it had been sitting in the middle of that horrific firefight and the bloodbath to follow.
Alex said soberly, “As soon as we realized who they were and what they were doing, I called my father.”
“Oh, Alex,” she said softly. She reached across the table to lay her hand on top of his. “I’m so sorry it came to that.”
Her heart expanded, though, at the thought that he’d been willing to call his father over her and Dawn. He must really care about the two of them.
He shrugged. “I did everything in my power to save you.” He paused for a moment as if to collect himself and then forged on with his story. “My father agreed to go over Shermayev’s head and pull strings. He got the Spetznatz team ordered to stand down.”
Katie nodded. “Then André Fortinay came in, got the samples from Dawn, and you all delayed Natasha until the results were back.”
He filled in the remaining details quickly. “The President of the Unites States confronted the Russian Prime Minister with the evidence from Dawn’s blood. The Kremlin had no choice but to disavow Shermayev and call off its dogs. The U.S. agreed to let the Spetznatz team go in peace and keep everything that came after the casino shooting out of the news.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
Silence fell between them. Into it, Katie asked quietly, “Where does that leave us?”
Alex looked up at her sharply. Questioningly. He visibly steeled himself and then said, “When you two were in that warehouse, and I didn’t know if you were dead or alive, it felt like my life was over. I realized you two are my life.”
“What are you saying?” she breathed.
“I love you. I want—no, I need—to be with you. You and Dawn.”
It was as if everything that had come before had been washed away. Her whole life started anew in that instant. “You’re sure?” she asked in a small voice.
“I’m sure,” he replied ruefully. He lifted his gaze from the tabletop to look at her candidly. “Is there any chance you might learn to feel the same way about me someday?”
“No,” she answered. As his whole being started to shut down she added quickly, “I don’t have to learn to feel anything. I already love you.”
He surged to his feet, staring down at her in shock. “Truly?”
She rose as well, coming face to face with him. She laid her hands on his chest which rose and fell rapidly under her palms. “When have I ever lied to you?”
Slowly, slowly, the doubts leaked out of his beautiful eyes, leaving behind wonder. Awe. Fierce possessiveness. And just maybe a touch of fear. But that was okay. He was allowed to be a little freaked out. She was a bit freaked out, herself. Who’d have guessed a man like him would fall for a girl like her?
“You and Dawn will stay with me, then?” he asked carefully.
“As long as you’ll have us,” she replied firmly.
“How does forever sound to you?” His arms came up to circle her, to draw her to his heart, to hold her close. She felt safe. Protected. Loved .
She wrapped her arms around him in return, surrounding him in her warmth and joy and love.
She whispered against the spot right over his heart, “That sounds just about right to me.”
* * *
Thanks so much for reading the first part of Alex and Katie’s story. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
If you want to know what happens when Alex tries to work for the Americans against his father…
If you think maybe Katie’s adventurous streak might reassert itself and get her in trouble again…
If want to know whether or not Alex and Katie get to keep Dawn…
If you want more of Alex and Katie’s smoking hot chemistry…
…here’s a sneak peek at the continuation of Alex and Katie’s story!
Katie McCloud started as the condo’s elaborate electronic locks buzzed to indicate they were disengaging. Her heart leaped in nervous anticipation. Alex was home. Finally. After nearly a year away.
She’d barely recovered from the trauma of nearly dying overseas and coming home only to be kidnapped when the man who’d kept her safe through it all, Alex Peters, was whisked off into some super-secret CIA training program.
As if he needed to learn how to be a spy. He could already teach the class.
He had just started to let down his emotional walls with her, and she’d finally realized she loved him, when he’d been yanked away from her.
But now he was back, and their life together could start...
…assuming a year of intensive instruction in all the skills he’d been trying so desperately to leave behind—leaning into that whole part of himself he despised so deeply—hadn’t pushed him right back into his emotional shell and turned him back into the silent, dangerous man he’d been when they met.
His CIA handler, André Fortinay, had briefed her not to assume anything about her relationship with him when he got home. Was she going to have to start from square one with Alex? Teach him all over again was love was, how to love himself, and how to let her love him?
What if it turns out differently this time? What if I fail?
Fortinay’s also said to let Alex set the tone and pace of the reunion. Meaning what? She’d gotten the distinct impression André was hinting to her that the CIA had done something terrible to him.
If they’d broken Alex in some way, she was going to have a serious problem with the CIA.
What exactly had they done to him in his “training”?
All of her questions and fears spun around maddeningly in her gut as she rose to her feet cautiously. She sent up a quick, fervent prayer that the man she loved and not the stranger she’d feared would walk through that door.
Alex stepped into the living room, and her heart gave a lurch.
God, he was even more beautiful than she remembered. Tall. Dark. And if possible, radiating even more danger than before.
His coffee brown hair was a little lighter, his skin darkly bronzed. He was leaner through the waist and bigger across the shoulders. But those changes weren’t what really arrested her.
Something intangible had changed about him. His natural confidence had been replaced by something else, something more…powerful. Now, he quietly exuded utter belief in himself. He’d always had a lethal quality, but it was sharply focused, now, a cold reserve that oozed don’t-screw-with-me-in-a-dark-alley.
Crud . She’d planned to stay seated, arranged sexily on his white leather sofa when he walked in, not standing here wringing her hands nervously.
Oh, well. So much for pretending to be calm, cool, and sophisticated. She was a hot mess and would always be a hot mess. To heck with André Fortinay’s do’s and don’t’s for Alex’s homecoming.
“Alex!” she cried joyfully. She started forward and managed to catch the edge of the area rug with her toe, slam her shin into the edge of the glass coffee table, and pitch headlong into Alex’s arms as he jumped forward to catch her.
“Been working on your coordination in my absence?”
She felt embarrassed heat bloom across her face. With her fair skin, she must look like a ripe tomato. “I’m such a clutz?—”
“You’re perfect. Thank God you didn’t change,” he murmured as he drew her up against his body.
His mouth closed on hers and wild magic exploded between them like it always did. His dark desires and her na?ve romanticism collided and melded into something entirely unique, a mix of naughty and sweet, hot and tender, lustful and loving.
His lips slashed across hers as her mouth opened eagerly for him. Their tongues clashed, and he inhaled her like he couldn’t’ get enough of her. At least that hadn’t changed about him. Relief that he still craved her crept through her nervousness.
Her arms slid around his waist. He was more muscular, harder, than before. But then, so was she. She’d been working out like crazy while he was gone. Some of it had been boredom, and frankly some had been a remedy for horniness.
That, and insecurity over how a small-town girl like her was ever going to hold the attention of a worldly, sophisticated man like him. He was James Bond, and she was the girl next door.
He came up for air long enough to murmur against her lips, “Where’s Dawn?”
“Asleep. Would you like to peek in and see her, though?”
He smiled and the warmth reached all the way to his eyes. “I’ve missed that little squirt.”
She leaned back in his embrace to gaze up at him fondly. Hah. Alex hadn’t changed a bit. What was Fortinay so worried about? She commented, “She’s not so little anymore. Were you able to see the pictures I sent you of her?”
His gaze went black as a stormy, starless night, and all the warmth melted away from him, leaving a furious, sharp-edged stranger tensed in her arms.
Whoa. Note to self: don’t ask Alex about the last year just yet. Don’t even bring it up. She shivered at the icy chill pouring off him. Should she be afraid of him?
Even now, she looked back at when they first met and couldn’t believe she’d been so na?ve she hadn’t clocked just how dangerous a man he’d been back then, how deadly his world was, and how much peril she’d strolled right into.
Keeping her plastered almost painfully tight against his side, he strode across the sleek living room of his penthouse and down the hall to the nursery where Dawn, recently turned one, slept.
He cracked the door open and a wedge of light lit the crib. “My God, she’s grown so much,” he breathed. “I don’t even recognize the newborn we rescued from Zaghastan.”
“I thought they taught you in medical school that growing is what babies do.”
He snorted without taking his gaze off the sleeping baby. “She’s gorgeous.”
“Did you ever get a good look at her birth mother before she died? The girl was stunning. Our Dawn’s going to keep you hopping in about thirteen years when the boys start sniffing around.”
“There will be no sniffing,” he said firmly.
She laughed under her breath. “Good luck with that.”
He backed out of the doorway and headed for the bar in the corner of the living room. He poured himself a shot of ridiculously expensive Russian vodka and tossed it down. He groaned in appreciation.
“Missed the good stuff?” she asked.
“You have no idea.”
“How bad was it?” she asked softly. André had told her not to ask any questions, but he could get over it. Alex would think something weird was up if she didn’t display at least a little curiosity.
His eyes shuttered instantly and completely. “Rough.” And that was obviously all he planned to say about it. Great. He was back to one-word sentences punctuated by long silences.
“Fair enough. Glad to be home?”
He looked around the condo, his sharp gaze probing the corners carefully. “Thanks for house-sitting.”
She laughed. “It was a real hardship, living in all this luxury for free.” She added more seriously, “Actually, it helped me feel closer to you while you were gone. I missed you.”
She waited for him to say he’d missed her…but nothing.
She sighed. “Any chance I could convince you to give me a teensy hint as to how you’re feeling right now? I know André said not to ask you any questions and let you dictate the pace of your return to your life. But I don’t know what to say or do. I can’t read you, right now.”
He poured himself another shot of vodka but sipped at this one. He grimaced and finally bit out grimly, “I missed you.”
She knew him well enough not to take personally how supremely unhappy he sounded about that development. He’d been raised by his spymaster father to believe that all human emotions were weaknesses in need of expunging from his heart and mind.
“André said you might want some time by yourself to decompress after your training. I’ve talked with my parents, and they’ve invited me and Dawn for a visit to give you some space.”
“No,” he replied sharply. “Stay.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re safest here.”
He wasn’t kidding about that. She’d spent the much of the past year learning all the many security features of his fortress-like home and they were daunting. The place was elegant and gorgeous on the inside, hard and impenetrable on the outside. Rather like him.
“You haven’t lived with a toddler before. Dawn will totally destroy your grand solitude. Chaos is the normal state of affairs around here,” she warned him in all seriousness.
Not to mention, she was concerned about his reflexive responses to a baby. Who knew what knee-jerk reactions had been hard-wired into him this year? Were she and Dawn even safe around him? After seeing the hard detachment in his eyes, she wasn’t entirely sure.
“I insist.”
Apparently, his honorable streak was still a mile wide. That, and his protective streak.
Still, she worried about how he would react to her and Dawn. He’d been alone basically his entire life, and the transition to having an overnight family had not been easy for him. She suspected it was part of why he’d agreed to leave for special training so quickly after he’d gotten her and Dawn back from their kidnapper.
No way would she even consider staying here with him in this dark, lethal frame of mind were it not for the threat his father still posed to them all.
“I had an intercom system installed while you were away, Alex. I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that the place is so big I can’t hear Dawn if she’s in her room and I’m in—“ she broke off.
How to describe the master bedroom? Was it still just his room? Their room? It had been her room for the past year. She slept in it to feel closer to him. To smell his clothes in the closet, hug his pillow at night, and remember the mind-blowing sex they’d had in his bed.
“Good call on the intercom,” he remarked.
“Are you hungry? Tired? It’s late. Have you traveled a long way to get here? Oops. Strike that last one. But you do look tired.”
He actually looked more than tired. Up close, she spied lavender shadows beneath his eyes, and a haggard quality clung to him. He looked bone-deep exhausted. She could imagine the kind of stuff the CIA trained its field operatives to do, and he probably had good cause to be wiped out.
“I’m fine.”
He was so not fine.
She murmured, “Let me check on Dawn, and then I’ll be back to welcome you home properly.”
His gray, intelligent gaze went alert and predatory. Her tummy fluttered apprehensively in response. For all the times he’d warned her his sexual tastes were too dark for her, he always ended up making love to her without harming a hair on her head.
Sure, he’d pushed her inexperienced, vanilla boundaries some. And she’d loved every minute of it. But she’d naively trusted him back then, and he’d been trying hard to become a different person.
But he’d just spent a year being pushed back to being his darkest, most dangerous self. Was she safe around him anymore?
More to the immediate point, would this new—old—Alex’s darkness translate into the bedroom as well?
* * *