7. Smith
Chapter 7
Smith
C alista’s still a little too wet behind the ears to notice someone like me waiting for her. She never spotted me while I was on the other side of the Stra?e, having coffee and getting information from Jones.
Her bones are delicate, but strength radiates through her.
I want to sink my teeth down into her throat, bite my way up to her ear.
This pull to her on such a visceral level is something I don’t really understand at all. I figured putting her firmly in the daughter box as we get the fuck out of Dodge would help me keep it in my pants, but her looks still burn into me.
They’re complicated ones that hold both longing and dislike. The ones where her eyes tell me she clearly wants to run, but also hold the fire to fight.
And even now, the alternating push and pull commands her where she’s both trying to snatch her hand back and tilt her hips toward me.
But I keep my brain on the question. “I knew you’d have a fucking SIM card. Fuck, I hate stupid. ”
“I’m not stupid. I graduated Oxford at seventeen, thank you very much.”
Shit. I hadn’t read over the education of Ms. Price. But the similarities eat at my brain. I graduated Cambridge at eighteen. Smart enough to go, and a way to isolate from others older than me. Fuck the CIA. They must have sent her even earlier than me.
Then again, I hadn’t hacked anything. I was actively recruited, and when I wanted to turn it down because of Sylvie, I was pushed.
I shut that shit right down because I can’t get caught up in my past. Not now.
But the pain isn’t something that goes away.
Not Sylvie. I’d loved her. We were fucking teenagers; of course, I did. But the pain of losing her has been dulled by life, by time. I doubt we’d have made it more than another year or so, anyway. Maybe a little longer because of Dakota but…
The Dakota pain. Those lost years. That gulf between us.
It doesn’t go away.
I let pretty, young Calista go and step back, scooping up the packages.
From there, I get us a car back to the apartment. Not a word’s exchanged between us. But there will be.
I’m biding my fucking time.
Who the fuck in Estonia is texting her about the Collectors?
My apartment building has state-of-the-art security built in. No one gets in or out without me knowing, not even if I don’t come back here for years. I don’t keep close tabs on the building, but I keep enough to know it’s uncompromised. Once we’re inside, I toss the bags down and ask the question I held off on spewing at her.
“Why did you run from the CIA if you weren’t guilty? ”
She swallows. “Someone got into my work. I received a threat.”
“And you didn’t report it?”
“They were looking at me funny, Smith. Questions started coming up about my agent. And what could I say? That he asked me to keep his going deep a secret? I know how that looks and?—”
“What was the threat?”
“Just like the one you made… it was against my brother.” Her voice drips with dislike. But behind that dislike is fear. “A photo.”
That’s a threat all right.
“And what about Estonia? The Collectors?”
She’s quiet. Then she breathes out, pulling off the ugly wig that failed epically to make her less attractive. “A source and I don’t know. You snatched the phone before I could investigate.”
Calista’s lying. It permeates the air. But lying about what and why is the intriguing part. Is there someone the government’s interested in who was a Collector? Is a Collector?
I’m guessing yes, because there were plenty before we decimated them, and there are enclaves now. Rich people who think they can do anything, who want more than they should, are dangerous, and always watched on some level.
But the Collectors operated for years without being torn apart. Until the Knights. Until they dared touch my daughter.
I study Calista, how she swallows like her nerves are picking and poking away at her throat. How she moves like her limbs aren’t her own.
She’s nervous. Scared. And angry.
“So you just decide to fuck around like you can do anything?” I say, poking the bear. “This isn’t a game. Anyone could follow you. ”
“No one is.”
She never saw me, so doubtful she’s even aware who is out there. I shrug, noting the thread of panic in her tone. “We’ve been lucky. The earlier rain cleared the streets. Made anyone following either disappear or easier to spot.”
“I know,” she says. “I’m not an idiot. Just let me go. I’ll?—”
“What? Turn up at a designated time and place as long as I let you do your thing?” I ask.
Because the thing is, the Collectors, or someone involved with them, might be at the center of this. I don’t need to know what the weapon does. I can guess at the usual suspects interested in it.
And maybe she’s the one who got her agent snatched so she could sell blueprints, or just information. It’s not a far stretch for someone like her to put all the scattered pieces together—scattered pieces the CIA uses to protect—and sell to the highest bidder.
Like someone in the Collectors. Someone who escaped our big purge.
Calista Price with her skills and youth would be perfect to carry that out.
Throw in the brother as the reason why she did it if she’s caught?
Perfection.
I cross over to her. She flinches but stands strong. The air crackles as I get close, a pull to each other that neither wants. A pull we both want to dive into.
“Tell me,” I say, capturing her chin and tilting it. There’s more than one way to pursue prey. I bring my mouth close, skimming over hers. “Tell me what you know.”
“Even if I knew something,” she whispers, her lips seeking mine. I don’t even think she’s aware of it. “Telling you the tiniest thing amounts to treason. ”
I slip an arm low on her waist and she flows up into me. I’m fucking hard. This girl makes me beyond hard. She’s like a fucking walking ball of freshly minted hormones masquerading as human.
Fuck, do I remember that feeling.
Right now, it’s a living nightmare.
But I slide my tongue up her throat anyway, loving how she arches for me, an offering and a submissive move that makes my blood burn.
Everything about her is hedonistic. “Withholding’s treason.”
“You’re no longer part of the government.”
“Neither are you. Not since you ran. Also treason, by the way.”
She shudders a breath and her fingers close on my lapels. I’m not sure if she’s clinging or trying to push me away, or if it even matters. What I do know is she’ll be wet if I head down south.
I stay above the border of her because we’re not even close to finished.
“You’re taking me in. So why not just do it?”
I lift my head, rubbing a thumb over her mouth and she shudders, the tip of her tongue touching my flesh. “Before that message today, you weren’t in a rush, and now you are.”
I slip my thumb into her mouth, and her lips close around me. She licks and sucks and makes me harder than I’ve ever been, something I didn’t think was possible.
“I just?—”
I press down, cutting off her words, opening her mouth and pushing in deep. Her eyes are a wild storm.
“Think hard about what you’re going to say.”
In and out, in and out. I thrust slow and deep into the wet, sucking depths of her mouth, basking in the way her tongue slides against my invading thumb.
“Because here’s the thing. And we’ve touched on it, but it bears repeating,” I say. Something made her not want to go back, and I’ve got to fucking say, a place like Gitmo is not high on my list of tourist attractions. “In all honesty, I don’t care what you did or why. Curious, but not really a burning need to find out the truth. Money’s my motivation. And that makes me dangerous for you to cross. I’m not a zealot, I don’t have an agenda, and there’s no one I’m loyal to.”
I move in and dip my tongue into her mouth. She trembles.
“You’re selling secrets? You’ll pay. You’re working with some group for other reasons? You’ll pay for that, too. But we’re going to this fucking event because someone was watching you. I don’t care if it’s the Germans or Russians—you’ll do better in their hands than you will some unstable new country or with a rich fuck who wants to rule the world.”
I bite her, just at her ear, and place my mouth at the canal’s opening. “You’re lucky that you being handed over means I get paid. So we’ll work together. We’ll look like the Hunts, father and daughter. I’ll do my business, and then we’ll get the fuck out and back on US soil. Behave and your brother lives.”
Releasing her mouth, I raise my head.
Truth and lies.
Manipulation and temptation.
I tell her just enough. But this event will give me insight about what I’m up against. That’s the “business” I’ll be conducting. Reconnaissance. Even with her wig and new passport, things can still go very wrong. It all depends on who’s lurking. And how much she wants to run.
“Let me go.”
“You and I will get along a lot better if you play nice. The Collectors? ”
Calista goes still, then she turns, her movements jerky. “I don’t know them. Just… I’ve seen the name show up.”
“In the papers?”
Her eyes flick to me as she moves around the room and gets herself a drink. She wants out more than she wants that drink. But I let that slide. “Chatter. Just… chatter, and then that text message I received.”
I know from what I’ve read that her agent was deep undercover because his identity and his handler’s identity are redacted from the case file. Everything except Calista’s name.
There’s something not right about this whole thing. Maybe it’s how her role is so redacted on paper or the crimes of her youth. Or else it’s just my nose for trouble warning me.
“Wouldn’t be enough. You’re CIA and you got scared enough or suspicious enough to run when you knew how it would make you look.”
“I can’t trust you.”
“No one else is here, Calista.”
“I need my phone.”
“Not happening.” Last night, I went through everything, but getting into her phone or computer is impossible. For me. Probably for most.
“I need yours. I…” She takes one step toward me. “Please.”
The phone isn’t my personal one, but it’s set up like it is. Anyone getting their hands on it has a whole lot of rich asshole crap. Calls and conversations. I don’t think she can do much damage with me standing here. So I unlock it and hand it to her.
She makes quick work of opening something and hands it to me. A cloud storage with screenshots.
The type of screenshots that are enough to land her in the kind of hot water that burns down to bone .
“Fuck.” The threats like the picture she got of her brother. Gossamer thin and innocent until you think about it.
Pictures of her working. Lunch. Dinner. Going out. Coffee. Or statements like “I hope you enjoyed your caramel latte.”
Tiny things no one would take seriously. Tiny things that make her look incompetent and the cause of a leak.
And the thing is, maybe it is Calista. She’s clever enough.
Not my problem. I need to get her home and collect my pay.
I close down the cloud and pocket the phone. “Good thing we’re leaving as father and daughter?—”
Suddenly, she shoves me and darts for the door. I grab at her, dragging her away from the lock as she tries to pry it open. Calista can’t get out, but it pisses me off, lights the fires of the chase in me, and I tackle her down to the ground.
She struggles, fighting me, inviting me, her thighs parting, hips thrusting up. I coil my fingers in the silk of her colorful hair, wrenching her head back so her jugular’s exposed, and I’ve got her pinned.
The weight of me presses into one of her thighs and I thrust against that inviting softness there. Her breath comes in panting sounds. I glare down at her.
Her eyes glitter, the mother of storms coming. I scrape down on her pounding pulse, my teeth exposed, my touch light. I don’t want to mark her. Yet. I want to feel the reined-in power, the violence of response in her.
“I told you,” I murmur, “I’ll take and not give a shit. Calista, that means one fucking thing.”
“That you’re a pervert out to make money off me?”
I flash her a smile and lick her jugular, making her moan. This time when I lift my head, everything goes still.
“It means,” I say, “that there will be consequences.”
“Like?”
“This.”