Alec's Royal Assignment (Man on a Mission 3)

His jaw tightened, and he knew in his heart of hearts he had only one final argument to put forth. If it didn’t work, if he couldn’t convince her... He held her gaze with his intent one. “If I could fight this battle for you, I would,” he said, meaning every word. “But I can’t. Only you can do it. Only you can stand up to the evil these men represent and say, ‘This stops here. This stops now!’”

She bent over, covering her eyes with the heels of her hands. At first he thought she was crying as she dragged one ragged breath after another into her body, and his resolution was shaken. How the hell can I ask her to do this after what she’s been through? he thought. And how the hell can I judge her if she refuses?

But when she finally raised her face to his, her eyes were dry. Dry, but with a determined light in them that reminded him poignantly of Angelina. “You’re right,” she said. “‘I am only one, but I am one.’ I will testify. And I’ll give you all the evidence I have. I’ve kept it hidden for six years, thinking someday I might find the courage to use it against him.”

Cate glanced down at her hands for a moment, at the scars on her wrists, and her mouth trembled. But then her lips tightened into a firm line. She breathed deeply, and Alec watched as her slender, patrician hands formed into tightly clenched fists. Somehow he knew she was remembering—and fighting the fear that memory created. Then she looked up and beyond him at something only she could see. “Someday is today,” she whispered. Then her eyes met Alec’s—blue-gray eyes that were so like Angelina’s—dauntless courage reflected in their shining depths. “Someday is today.”

Chapter 18

Five weeks later, Alec stood at the window of his office in the embassy, hands in his pockets, staring out at nothing. Would they ever have all the answers? Probably not, he admitted to himself. You almost never got all the answers.

They still didn’t know who’d killed the king’s cousin. The investigation into his murder inside the prison was ongoing. The Zakharian police were relentless, and he knew they weren’t giving up anytime soon. The working theory was that Vishenko had ordered the hit. They just didn’t have any evidence. Not yet.

What they had found—and Alec couldn’t believe the Zakharian investigators at the time had missed it—wasn’t really evidence in Prince Nikolai Marianescu’s murder. But there had been a connection between the prince and Aleksandrov Vishenko dating back to the assassination attempts on the king and the woman who was now Zakhar’s queen. The prince had been arrested, tried and convicted without anyone knowing that Vishenko could very well have been involved in that plot. Even if he hadn’t played an active role, he’d probably given it his blessing. And if Prince Nikolai had succeeded in taking the throne, Vishenko would have owned him—something a career criminal at Vishenko’s level would have wanted.

Another thing they didn’t have all the answers for—not yet—was the connection between Vishenko and Sasha Tcholek. Angelina was adamant that Sasha just wasn’t the kind of man who was motivated solely by money. So there had to be something else involved—maybe some kind of blackmail involving his family, Angelina theorized—to make him turn traitor. That investigation was still ongoing, too.

And the four gunmen arrested in the sting at the safe house where Cate hadn’t been? They’d been Vishenko’s men, no question. The FBI had identified them as members of the Bratva, all with long criminal histories. But none of them were talking. Surprise, surprise, Alec thought cynically. Frustrating, but only to be expected, as all four had lawyered up immediately so they couldn’t even be questioned.

But that didn’t matter, because one slight woman with more courage than all the men who worked for Vishenko combined was going to bring him down and put him away for life. The joint DSS–agency task force was combing through the documents Cate had turned over, and they were dynamite.

Alec glanced at his watch and realized he was going to be late meeting Angelina for dinner if he didn’t get a move on. He had a table booked for six o’clock at Mischa’s—their restaurant—and he couldn’t be late, tonight of all nights.

Because tonight, after dinner, he was going to tell her. His conscience had been bugging him for weeks, practically since the day they returned from the States. But yesterday had been the final straw. Angelina had taken him to the royal cemetery, to the tomb of the first king and queen of Zakhar. He’d seen the movie, King’s Ransom, so he knew the story. He even knew the English translation of the Latin inscription carved on the tomb. But he hadn’t known just how much those words meant to Angelina until she’d whispered, “Two hearts as one, forever and a day.” Then she’d turned to gaze at him, her heart in her eyes. And his heart had shredded.