It was time to shut this shit down. I pulled my arm away and adopted a bored expression. “I’m not on the menu.” Opening the bag, I withdrew nine hundred Euros and waved it in front of her. “Talk.”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair sulkily. “I heard rumors of an arms deal going down in two weeks. Supposedly, word got out and they are moving it to a port off the coast of Spain.”
“Why would we care about an arms deal?” Evie pipes up.
Antonia finally turns her full attention to my—to Scarlett. “Because the man you’re looking for. He’s the courier.”
I blew out an annoyed breath, no wonder the agency wanted to interrogate this guy. He could be the key to taking down a major crime ring. So, why did Scarlett’s superiors want him dead?
“You should know,” she added, “my contacts also tell me this man isn’t only dealing in weapons.”
My stomach sank. I knew what was coming, but I hoped I was wrong.
“He’s deep into the slave trade as well.” Definitely what I hadn’t wanted to hear. I still didn’t understand how anyone could think him more valuable dead than alive.
We thanked Antonia for her help and returned to the car. Once inside, I faced Evie. I needed answers. “What possible reason could your people have for wanting him dead, rather than alive to spill his secrets?”
She chewed her bottom lip as she considered my question. I wanted to reach out and remove it, but I waited, keeping my hands to myself. Finally, she seemed to make a decision.
“He’s got a noc list.”
I rear back in surprise, almost slamming my head into the window behind me. “How many?” I croaked.
“Every operative in southern Asia.”
Fucking Hell.
A noc list had the real identities of agents working under non-official cover, ones who didn’t have official ties to the government. Spies like Scarlett.
I fought the need to drown in my fear for Evie’s safety. This wasn’t the time to let my training go.
“I still don’t understand the kill order.”
Evie ran an agitated hand over her head and down her smooth pony tail. “He has a photographic memory. The list is in his head. We can’t take the chance, Alex. Not even within The Company. There could be a mole, and the lives of all those agents and their families would become targets and they would be picked off one by one.”
I shook my head in denial. “A mole?” I asked skeptically. “This isn’t the cold war, Scarlett. You know as well as I do, the likelihood of a mole in the agency is slim to none.”
“And yet,” she argued, “somehow this guy got a look at a list of black operatives.”
Her point was valid, but I couldn’t swallow the bitter idea of a traitor within our ranks.
“Thus, my bosses want him eliminated.”
I finally understood their rationale, but I didn’t agree with it. I wanted this guy alive. I was going to bleed everything he knew out of him, a drop at a time. There was a reason I was the one given the tough interrogation assignments. With me, everybody talked.
Chapter 7
Evie
I’d tried to forget about the dreadful woman’s actions all day. I’d been successful at pushing my anger down and focusing on the task at hand, but it was more difficult than it should have been considering I’d never had an issue keeping my emotions out of a mission in the past. Then again, this was my husband we were talking about. It wasn’t a normal op.
After spending the day hitting one dead end after another in our search for Heron, once we were back in the safety of a hotel room—at the Grand Hotel Palatino this time around—I let my irritation get the better of me. I finally blurted out the question which had been on my mind ever since her hand had landed on top of the bag my husband had been holding in his lap. The bag which rested right over his cock—or my cock, I should say, since I considered it my personal property. The little blonde was damn lucky we were on a mission and needed information from her, because it was the only reason I hadn’t broken every finger in her hand.
I was staring out the window and doing a sweep of the prime view we had of Rome’s rooftops when the words popped out of my mouth. “If I hadn’t been there, would you have given her the payment she really wanted?”
“Would you care to repeat that?” Alex’s question was a deep purr as he stalked across the room towards me. His reflection was clear in the glass of the window. His body was coiled tight and his muscles were bunched, as though he was ready to strike. “Because I must have heard you wrong. There’s no way in hell my wife just asked me if I’ve betrayed her by fucking another woman in the course of a mission.”
I swiveled on my heel, jerking my chin up as I stared him down. I wasn’t about to back down, not after what I’d heard that little whore whisper into his ear. “You’ve worked with Colin the entire time I’ve known you, and he certainly seemed to think you would have taken Antonia up on her offer. What am I supposed to think?”
He stopped inches from me and wrapped his hands around my upper arms. My hands went up, palms out as I held him back. “You should damn well know better, Evie.”
As little as a day ago, the thought never would have crossed my mind, but things had changed since then. “There’s a lot I don’t know about you, Justice.”
“I could just as easily say the same about you, baby. But you don’t hear me accusing you of fucking your way to a kill.”
“We both know how you would have reacted if some guy had lain his hands on me and told me my pussy was payment enough for the intel he could offer, since one of my co-workers had told him I’d be down to play!” I tossed out recklessly.
My accusation seemed to break his restraint and he pounced. He went to lift me over his shoulder, but I countered by dropping my arms to my sides and completely relaxing them. I shook my hands a little and envisioned my arms extending from my shoulders down and deep into the earth.
“Shit,” Alex huffed, struggling with my weight. “I pick you up all the time, but it’s like you’re impossible to lift. How the hell are you doing it?”
“Your Evie might be willing to let you haul her around, but you’re going to find that Scarlett’s not so easy to manhandle.”
“Manhandle?” he growled, bending low and digging his shoulder into my stomach as he successfully lifted me into the air. “Every time I touch you, it’s with love in my heart.”
He punctuated his statement with a swat on my ass before tossing me onto the mattress and swiftly following me down, covering me with his body. If I’d really wanted to get away from him, there were several moves I could have made. But I didn’t try a single one of them, not even those which wouldn’t hurt him. I’d poked and prodded at the beast, and I wanted to stick around to enjoy the show.
“You’re the only woman I want,” he snarled. “There hasn’t been anyone else for me from the moment I first saw you.”
The honesty and love shining from his eyes helped to soothe my wounded heart. “Then why did Colin tell Antonia you’d be interested?”
“I haven’t even worked that closely with him since they moved him overseas. Then he had to go dark on a mission so I haven’t talked to him at all until this mission. And he knows me better than that.” His voice softened. “I don’t know what the hell he was trying to pull, but I’m going to find out. You’re even sexier than usual when you’re jealous, but I’m not about to let his little game stand if it hurt you in any way.”
“While you’re at it, let him know that I’m a dangerous woman to cross,” I mumbled, embarrassed by my show of insecurity.
“I’ll handle him.” Alex’s tone was firm, brooking no argument.
I cocked my head, studying his expression and trying to discern why he was so adamantly against the idea of me getting into it with Colin. “I’m a notorious assassin. I can handle him just as well as you can.”
“As far as Colin is aware, your presence here is a total coincidence,” he pointed out. “One I haven?
?t even positively confirmed, and I’m not sure I want him knowing differently.”
“Don’t you trust him?”