Smoke and Sin (The Perfect Gentlemen 4)

Gus started to open her mouth, but Roman reached for her hand. If Kemp worked for the Russians, he didn’t want to reveal that they knew he was the likely traitor. The agent was still a possible lead, so they couldn’t do or say anything to tip their hand yet. And she’d talked about redundancies. Kemp might not be the only treasonous bastard.

“Can you give us a name?” Gus asked, her mouth a flat line.

“I don’t think you’d like the possibilities I would throw out,” she said. “But I don’t have anything concrete. I only know that someone is leaking intel, someone very close to the heart of power. Zack Hayes knew about Maddox Crawford’s flight. He wasn’t the only one.”

“I knew,” Roman admitted. “But I certainly didn’t kill Mad. Neither did Zack.”

“So you say.” The woman turned directly to Gus. “Follow the trail. Constance Hayes was shoved into this hospital to shore up perceptions and shut her up. Her loving family ensured she couldn’t leave until she was ‘better.’ But she didn’t bounce back the way they thought she should. When she would no longer hide the truth about her past, she became expendable. And she was terminated. The truth is on those tapes.”

“Her stories about the dead baby are true?” Gus asked, horror all over her face.

“I believe so. I suspect the incident goes back to when the president was merely an infant.”

“Do you know who Sergei is?” Roman asked. Even forcing the question out of his mouth made him a little ill.

“Sergei?” Gus looked up at him.

Damn it. This meeting would end with one pissed-off girlfriend if he wasn’t careful. He hadn’t mentioned the name because he hadn’t been ready to drag her that deep into the danger, not until he knew something more concrete.

Through the shadows, the woman looked his way. “Isn’t that the question of the day? I wish I knew who Sergei was. I believe that’s the code name for the traitor in the White House.”

“Natalia Kuilikov talked about Sergei. She loved Sergei.” He couldn’t stop thinking about that woman. According to Connor, she’d talked about how Sergei would fix everything. Had she been talking about a sleeper agent? Or her child, taken to replace the one Constance Hayes had inadvertently killed?

He had to consider the possibility that she’d been talking about the man the world knew as Zachary Hayes, president of the United States.

The woman shrugged. “I can’t give you more on that. We need to listen to those tapes.”

“How do we find them?” Gus asked. “How can we be sure they still exist?”

The woman in black took a step back. “We can’t be, but I believe they’re still here in this village. Nurse House had a daughter. Talk to her. See what she knows, and don’t let her shrug you off. I suspect she’s got those tapes. Her mother took them as collateral, then found out the Bratva didn’t appreciate her demands. I think her daughter knows where the tapes are. She lives a few minutes away. Get her to give them to you. Then you’ll learn the truth.”

Did he want to know the truth? If that meant having one of his friends implicated? His illusions stripped away? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything except he hated this.

“If these recordings are so important, why don’t you retrieve them yourself?” Roman challenged.

“Unfortunately, my reach doesn’t extend everywhere, and it won’t be as easy as simply asking. Alas, I don’t have Ms. Spencer’s charm.”

“You’re obviously not the same contact who met with Lara and Everly.”

“It’s best to spread the information around, not to leave too much in the hands of any one person,” she explained.

Roman frowned at her. He’d been so focused on this woman and her yarn-spinning that he hadn’t been paying attention to their surroundings. Suddenly, he had the uncomfortable feeling they weren’t alone. He couldn’t explain the instinct, but he also couldn’t deny it. Someone was in those nearby woods, watching. Waiting.

“How many of you Deep Throats are there?” Gus demanded.

There was a small pause. “As many as required, Ms. Spencer.”

Now that he thought about it, there had been small pauses before the woman’s every response. As though she was waiting on something—or someone to coach her on the proper reply.

“Are you wearing a wire?” Roman was done playing games. If she knew something, she’d better damn well stop talking in riddles. And if she had some Oz behind her curtain, it was time to rip that sucker back. “Is there someone else out here?”

He couldn’t stand the thought that someone was watching their every move. It worried the hell out of him.

The woman stepped back. “Be careful, Ms. Spencer. Calder will always choose Zack over you. Always. Even if it means your life. Haven’t you lost enough because of this man?”

With that, the informant disappeared, darkness swallowing her up.

Fuck. He was sick of this crap. He would catch that woman and haul her back to London, let Connor find out what she really knew.

Roman lunged, but he’d already lost her in the shadows. Worse, he was more convinced than ever that they weren’t alone. His heart pounded in his chest. She could have a gun or a partner. Either could be deadly.

It didn’t matter anymore. He wanted more than riddles. He wanted the whole tangled mess of this conspiracy over, and that meant quitting the bullshit and getting down to actual business.

“What are you doing?” Gus reached for his arm.

He sidestepped her. He wasn’t going to allow her to sway him. This was precisely why the bastard who was running the show chose to approach the women. They wouldn’t take drastic measures. He was sure Gus wanted to talk to this infuriating woman more, but Roman already knew it wouldn’t get them anywhere.

He followed the informant deeper into the darkness. As he reached the top step

, the door to the crypt closed. He growled and gave it a mighty shove, but it wouldn’t budge.

Anger flashed through his system. It pulsed and snaked around him. He pounded a fist on the stone door. “You think I won’t stay here until you come out? I will. Hell, I’ll go get the police, and we’ll have a long talk.”

“She’s gone,” Gus said, her voice resigned.

“How? We have to get inside that damn crypt. Then she’ll tell me every goddamn thing I want to know.”

“There’s a tunnel inside.” Gus stared at him, her face as blank as a doll’s. “Just like the house we’re staying at in London. I read a pamphlet in our room about the ghost tours the cemetery gives during October. One of the highlights was this crypt and the secret passage the Brits used to move spies around during World War II.”

She’d known that and not mentioned it before now? “Where does it lead? We can catch her if we’re fast enough.”

Gus shook her head, her arms encircling her middle as though she was cold. “I didn’t read that far. But she’s gone. I can’t believe you scared her off. I had questions. This was my meeting, Roman, and you took it over, like you take over everything. The Hitman. You killed my chances to get answers, all right.”

He didn’t have time for this. If they couldn’t find the woman, then he wanted to search the woods to see if he’d been right. Had her accomplice been here, watching them all along?

He jogged down the steps and stared into the tree line. “I know you’re out there, you motherfucker. You think you can mess with me? You think I won’t find out who you are?”

He heard a pinging sound. A whoosh of air passed his ankle. The ground to the left of his foot shifted, vibrating under his loafer.

Someone was there. Someone was firing a gun at him.

“Roman!” Gus yelled.

A red dot appeared in the center of his chest. Roman stood stock-still, utterly frozen. A laser sight. He’d seen them used before but never had one pointed directly at him. His heart sawed with fear.