Chapter 1
Savvie slipped the diamond cascade earring into her right ear, screwed the back in place and stared at her reflection in the hotel mirror.
She’d pinned up her sandy-blond hair and tucked it beneath a bleach-blond wig. The wig had been fashioned into a loose French twist with long strands hanging around her cheeks.
Expertly applied makeup made her gray-blue eyes appear mysterious and seductive.
The figure-hugging black dress followed her curves, down past her buttocks and then fell softly to her ankles, effectively hiding the knife strapped to her left leg.
A slit up the right side exposed her toned calf and much of her thigh.
Beneath the dress, she wore a lightweight pair of black boyshort panties.
As she touched a hand to the diamond necklace that matched the cascade earrings, she nodded. She looked like a million bucks, like she belonged in the posh Setai Miami Beach Hotel.
All part of the persona she’d assumed for this mission. Her last. After successful completion, she’d hand in her resignation and retire at the ripe old age of thirty-one. That was at least sixty-seven in assassin years. Her handlers wouldn’t be happy.
If she had to, she’d disappear and create a whole new name and life somewhere in the boondocks like Kyla, who’d made it out.
Barely.
Kyla was happily living in Montana with a man who was crazy about her.
Savvie sighed.
What would it be like to live a normal life? Could she, after all the training she’d gone through to become a lethal weapon for the US government?
She’d made up her mind to leave a week ago. She was tired of being alone. Tired of always looking over her shoulder. Tired of killing, and she was determined to get out before one of her targets made a target out of her.
Unfortunately, before she could tell her superiors of her plan to leave the team, she’d been handed an assignment, briefed on the target and knew too much to say, Never mind. I quit.
And after reading the man’s dossier, she couldn’t walk away.
For all appearances, Marcus Caldwell was a playboy, living off his family’s wealth via a trust fund established by his grandfather.
He jetted around the world in one of the fleet of planes belonging to the family, spent his summers on the French Riviera and hobnobbed with all the uppity-ups of society.
What the people of the nose-bleed strata of society didn’t know was that Marcus had blown through his trust fund by the time he’d turned thirty-five. Worse, his family had refused to pay for his lavish lifestyle and had told him to figure it out for himself.
And he had.
Within less than six months, he’d set up a corporation buying and selling high-dollar art and antiquities as a front for the exploitation and exportation of women into the sex trade.
Savvie’s intelligence sources had caught him on video feeds making deals with foreign nationals known for their participation in human trafficking.
If caught in the act, Marcus’s family connections would guarantee a get-out-of-jail pass, free of indictment or sentencing.
The current estimate of the number of women taken just from the US was over one hundred in the past year, with many more than that from other countries.
He’d sent some of the women in shipping containers aboard cargo ships bound for Europe, Africa, China and Russia.
Unfortunately, one of the cargo ships had encountered rough seas and lost a container with over a dozen women trapped inside it.
Savvie’s hands clenched into fists, imagining the terror they must have experienced as they’d drowned. At the same time, they were the lucky ones to have died quickly rather than being sentenced to a living death of being drugged and raped for the rest of their existence.
Her last mission as a trained assassin was to rid the world of the monster, Marcus Caldwell.
Having been trained to maintain complete control of her emotions, heart rate and breathing, she wasn’t prepared for the unexpected flutter of nerves in her empty belly.
If she believed in intuition, she’d be hesitant about this mission. As an assassin, her assignments were performed solo. On the rare occasion, she got a little help from their computer geeks, but her computer skills were as good.
Still, the fluttery feeling persisted.
Savvie frowned. If shit went sideways, she had no backup. The US government would disavow any knowledge of her mission or the existence of a government-run team of assassins.
She was on her own.
With ten minutes to spare, she paced the room. She pulled out her burner phone and stared down at it. If she could talk to anyone, who would it be?
Savvie shook her head.
No one.
Her eyebrows pulled together.
Or…maybe Kyla? Of all people, she’d understand Savvie’s reservations.
It was two hours earlier on mountain time.
She entered the number she’d committed to memory and typed.
Savvie: Hey
After a brief pause…
Kyla: ?
Savvie smiled. Kyla wouldn’t recognize the burner phone number.
Savvie: SS
Kyla: What’s up?
Savvie: Last job
Kyla: They’re letting you go?
Savvie: I’m turning in my resignation after this
Kyla: Do they know?
Savvie: Not yet
Kyla: Watch your back
Savvie: Will do
Kyla: Worried about the job?
Trust Kyla to see through her text. Savvie hadn’t contacted her in months. Not knowing what to say, she didn’t.
Savvie: …
Kyla: Let me know when it’s done
Savvie: Will do
Kyla: GPS?
Savvie sent Kyla the map code for her location.
Kyla: Break a leg
Savvie: Thanks
Feeling a little better after her short conversation with Kyla, Savvie deleted the messages, lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and left her hotel room. She strode down the hallway in her black Jimmy Choo platform sandals and descended to the lobby.
Savvie had studied the hotel and her target over the past five nights. Like clockwork, the man arrived at the bar at nine-fifteen and ordered a bourbon neat. By ten-thirty, he’d leave with the most beautiful single woman in the place, taking her up to see the view from his penthouse suite.
Savvie had hacked into the security system and infected it with a bug that, with a signal she could trigger from her cell phone, would freeze the video feeds to display the same image for an hour. If the security team rebooted the system, the bug would bring up the same images.
An hour would be more than long enough to get up to Caldwell’s suite, take him out and get the hell out of the Setai and her life as an assassin.
As she entered the bar, she glanced at the clock on her cell phone.
Nine-eleven. She had a few minutes to get into position.
She chose an empty stool at the center of the long, mother-of-pearl bar and smiled at the bartender.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“I’m waiting for someone,” she said.
He nodded and turned his attention to another patron.
People drifted in, dressed to the nines. The Bar was one of the places to be in Miami for the fashionable, wealthy and wannabes.
As predicted, Marcus Caldwell arrived wearing black trousers, a black button-down shirt open at the collar and studded with diamond cufflinks. He’d slicked back his dark hair with as much, if not more, product as Savvie had used to get her hairstyle to stay in place.
His gaze swept the room before zeroing in on the bar.
Savvie sat half-turned with her back to the bar. As soon as Marcus’ gaze reached the bar, she crossed one leg over the other, the movement opening the slit halfway up her thigh.
She knew the moment his glance landed on her leg. The man’s eyes flared, his lips quirked up on one side and he made a beeline for the bar and her.
Savvie pretended to look at her cell phone, watching Caldwell’s movement from beneath her lashes. She didn’t even look up when he stopped beside her.
He cleared his throat.
Savvie lifted her head, her eyebrows rising.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.
“Why?” she asked. She couldn’t be too eager, or he might lose interest.
“Because you’re a beautiful woman, and I want to get to know you.”
Why don’t you jump off a cliff and save me the effort of killing you?
Tamping down her desire to spit in the man’s face, Savvie tilted her head. “What if I don’t want to get to know you?”
He chuckled. “Good point. But what’s it going to hurt? And you’ll get a free drink for your trouble.”
“I can buy my own drinks,” she said, giving him a little tug of resistance before setting the hook. “If you buy my drink, will I be obligated to answer all your questions?”
He smiled. “You aren’t making this easy, are you?”
She forced a smile, hoping it looked natural. “No.”
Caldwell’s lips twisted for a moment as he studied her. “What if I buy you a drink and you only have to answer three questions?”
Savvie narrowed her eyes. “Only three?”
He nodded.
“Okay. I’ll have the Five-star Gold Martini.” She arched an eyebrow in challenge. The drink she ordered was the most expensive one on the menu.
Caldwell nodded to the bartender. “A Five-star Gold Martini for the lady and my usual.” His voice was louder than necessary for the bartender to hear. He probably wanted those people seated around them to know he was spending over a hundred dollars for a single drink.
The guy was an asshole, spending blood money on a damned drink.
Savvie swallowed bile at the thought of the women whose lives had been stolen from them by this man.
The bartender made a show of mixing her drink with Remy Martin Louis XIII Cognac and Grand Marnier Centenaire. He poured it into a gold-rimmed martini glass, sprinkled 24-carat gold flecks over the top and settled it on the mother-of-pearl bar top in front of her.
He quickly poured bourbon into a whiskey tumbler and laid it on the bar for Caldwell.
Savvie lifted her glass. “Salut.”
He lifted his tumbler. “Salut.” He drank his down in one swallow, set the empty glass on the bar and commanded, “Another.”
After taking a small sip, Savvie set her glass on the counter. “Question number one?”
Caldwell tapped a finger to his chin. “What’s your name?”