Maverick (Elite Ops 2)

She hadn’t been pleased with the shopping.

He moved to the fallen bags and picked them up. He straightened them on the couch and noticed a scrap of violet lace that still lay on the floor. She had looked at this particular piece and he had seen the need for it in her eyes, despite her protest. With each piece he had bought, he had seen her curiosity build.

His Risa wanted pretty clothes and pretty underthings. He had seen that the night he had taken her to his bed. She had worn silk and lace beneath her dress. Silken stockings and a lacy thong. Pretty, feminine, and delicate. As she was.

And just as damned fiery.

She was killing him. He’d once heard his father say that Micah’s mother had caused him to grow gray hairs when he was trying to get her to commit to him. Micah wasn’t after the commitment, but he could definitely feel the gray hairs coming on.

ORION SMOOTHED his hand over the metal table, his eyes narrowed as he tested the strength of it. Risa Clay was a little thing, but his employer had assured him she had some strength when attempting to escape. Fear could provide an amazing amount of power, even to a fragile, delicate little woman such Risa Clay.

Patting the metal table in satisfaction, he then turned his attention to the metal bars attached by chains to the roof. He pulled himself up, but he couldn’t quite touch his chin to it. He chuckled a bit; he was obviously losing a bit of strength himself.

Ah well, it happened once a man passed that forty mark. But it didn’t take strength to do his job. It took cunning, calculation, and patience. He was still at the top of his game there. Perhaps even more than he had been in his youth. With age and experience came wisdom, he decided as he dropped from the bar and moved to test the tilt of the table he had found. He would have preferred to do this deed in Risa Clay’s home, but her new bodyguard had changed Orion’s original strategy.

He never bought the articles he needed in a way that could be traced. He stole them for the most part. This table had come from a junk dealer’s yard. Orion and managed to slip in and take it with no one the wiser. The bar was taken from the apartment he had leased. It was the clothes rod. A simple metal bar, clean of prints and ready for use. Everything in his little lair was clean of prints. He made certain it was spotless and prepared. He didn’t want the poor little thing to die in filth. She wasn’t pretty, she was really rather ugly, but from all he’d gathered, she was a kind girl. One who tried to do nothing but live her simple life.

Hell, she didn’t even cheat on her taxes.

That was frightening. Perhaps she deserved to die. Anyone that conscientious needed to be taken out before she could breed and make more moralistic little bastards for the world to deal with.

He had enough to deal with himself. The bounty on his head by several government agencies was causing him a bit of concern. His last hit, an American scientist who had nearly cracked a cure for a particularly nasty man-made virus, had caused several governments a bit of worry.

That job had netted Orion several million when it was finished. He had enough to retire in peace now, buy him a nice little island somewhere, and import several luscious little girls to take care of his needs. He wouldn’t have to work. Wouldn’t have to balance his play any longer. He could retire.

This would be his last job, he decided. The excitement had fizzled; it didn’t pique his interest as it had before. Now, it was simply a job.

When had this begun?

Ah yes, six years ago. Ariela Abijah.

He shook his head. Mossad hadn’t taken kindly to her death, and neither had her son. The boy had nearly caught up with him. If it hadn’t been for a bit of luck, then David Abijah would have managed to capture him on the merchant vessel Orion had used for his escape from Russia several years after he’d killed Abijah’s mother.

Thankfully, luck had been with him. David Abijah had fed the fishes that night. He was no longer a problem that Orion had to deal with.

But yes, this was the reason the excitement had faded. Abijah had tracked him tirelessly, especially after his father had thrown himself on a suicide bomber.

Orion shook his head. He hadn’t enjoyed killing the boy. There had been something in those black eyes that touched Orion. A strength, a flame of determination. A look very similar to the look that had been in Ariela’s eyes.

The memory of that look rather reminded him of the man Risa Clay had moved into her apartment. He hadn’t seen his eyes, but Orion had seen his face clearly. There was a stamp of determination and arrogance on it that had sent a chill up his spine.

What a bit of timing there, he thought angrily as he tapped his latex-covered fingers on the metal table.

The little wretch hadn’t even looked at a man in the six years she had been out of the asylum; now, she had a lover—a very experienced, intuitive lover. One who had disposed of the bugs Orion had placed in her apartment. After a single night at some club, a friend of a friend had managed to pick her up, and to move in with her.

He’d learned that much. And she had Navy SEALs for friends. That had caused him a moment’s hesitation when he had identified them. Retired SEALs, but SEALs were SEALs until the day they died. Perhaps even beyond. They were like a plague that refused to go away when they were riled.

He’d nearly backed out of this deal, but he’d never backed out of a deal with this particular employer. It wasn’t possible.

Shaking his head, he moved to his opened laptop and once again clicked through the digital pictures he had taken of them.

The man wore glasses; Orion had yet to see his eyes or snap a picture of them. The identification program Orion used didn’t work very well with glasses. So far, it had pulled up only five pictures and two were of dead men, Abijah being one of them.

He was going to have to talk to the programmer he had bought it from. Or perhaps not. It was his last job; he was going to make certain of it.

He stared at the couple again, tilted his head, and stared at the woman. Was that a flash of prettiness in her face as she stared up at the man who walked with her? She looked furious, yet there was a hint of prettiness there that Orion hadn’t seen before.

It had to be a trick of the light, he thought. He’d seen many pictures of her, and never had he seen this, this something that made him wonder if she wasn’t so very ugly after all.