LITMIR.BIZ

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he’d never get the chance to avenge Johanna.

      He asked, “What about the prisoners?”

      “It’s too early for a body count. It’ll take days to sort through the rubble.”

      Merrick didn’t need to wait days to know they wouldn’t find Holic Reznik among the dead. Cyrus had him. The question was, why? The assassin’s mangled hands made him as useless as a one-legged frog in a jumping contest.

      Merrick hung up the phone and dressed in jeans and a black sweater. As he walked past the window he saw it was still snowing. The Potomac was as gray as the sky, as gray as the day he’d left Cyrus in that minefield in Prague.

      Chapter 2

      For fifteen months Melita had been confined on the barren islet Despotiko. Some days it felt as if she would die there. She felt that way tonight as she hurried along the goat trail back to the monastery. For weeks she had been slipping out after dark in search of someone to help her escape the island.

      The village was three miles away, the harbor lined with boats. She could stow away so easily. The problem was convincing one of the fisherman in the village to risk it.

      What she needed was a gorilla with brass balls and a death wish. That’s what one of the fisherman had told her tonight. But there was no gorilla on the island, and that meant outside of growing wings, she was not getting off the island.

      It was almost dawn and she couldn’t get caught outside the periphery. Melita picked up her pace and crested the rocky knoll. She heard the sea rushing the rugged shoreline, and up ahead she could see Minare. The monastery’s tall tower in the moonlight.

      The first guard she slipped past was dozing against a rock. The second, too busy taking a leak off the rampart to notice her. Number three had left his post altogether.

      She moved through the flower garden, almost home free. Ten feet from the back door she saw a shadowy figure step onto the stone path. At first she thought it was Hector, but her bodyguard—and more importantly, her friend—was supposed to be inside keeping watch over the long corridor that she had to slip past to reach the stairs that would take her back to her bedroom in the tower.

      She was about to softly speak his name into the darkness when the shadow revealed himself. “Restless again tonight, Melita?”

      The heavily accented voice stopped her dead in her tracks. It was her father’s houseguest, Holic Reznik.

      He sauntered toward her with the grace of a stalking panther. He was smoking a cigarette, and he held it awkwardly in his disfigured hand a few inches from his lips. Both hands had been damaged in a shoot-out he’d been engaged in months ago. Holic was an assassin, and the maiming had been the result of a scrimmage with two government agents. It had cost him two fingers on his right hand, and the thumb on the left, as well as extensive nerve damage.

      For a number of weeks she had watched him from afar, wondering why the assassin had arrived and decided to stay. At the moment that question didn’t seem as important as the one affecting her breathing right now. Did he know where she’d been tonight? If so, did he know that her trips to the village were forbidden?

      “I asked you a question, Melita. Restless?”

      “I like taking walks before dawn,” she said. “It’s the quietest time of day.”

      His lips curled around the cigarette, sucked hard, then sent a cloud of smoke into the warm island air. “I rise early myself, but for a different reason. My hands pain me. They keep me up at all hours.”

      His Russian accent was colored with a sharp German influence. Sharp like his unnatural eyes, set deep into his sockets. Even though his dark complexion and masculine features would easily attract women, when Melita looked at him all she saw were his eyes—black soulless eyes…the eyes of a killer.

      On the other hand, when he looked at her, she got the feeling he was stripping her naked one piece of clothing at a time.

      Holic was in his early forties, not overly tall, with short, thick black hair in its early stages of growing out.

      Hector had warned her that Holic was a randy womanizer, and that she should avoid him. That was just what she intended to do.

      Melita forced herself to take two more steps. “I need to get inside.”

      “Before a guard spots you and reports it to your father?”

      That wasn’t going to happen if she could get inside in the next five minutes. She’d learned the guards’ routine. Names, schedules and who took their job seriously. She knew which guard drank too much, who snuck off to the kitchen for a late-night snack and who couldn’t keep his eyes open past midnight.

      She’d planned her trips accordingly, and for several weeks she’d been able to slip away and return without anyone the wiser.

      Until tonight.

      “I’m not forbidden to take walks,” she challenged.

      “An extremely long walk tonight,” he offered.

      “Have you been following me?”

      “Of course. A man seeking an advantage does what he must. You are persistent. A commendable quality. But the villagers will not help you escape your life here.”

      “I have no life here.”

      “Perhaps I can make it more meaningful.”

      Spoken like a man who thought he had the miracle cure for what ailed every woman.

      “Do you know why I’m here?” she asked, wondering just how close a friend he was to her father, or if it was strictly business.

      “You’re being punished for bad judgment. I’m in agreement. Taking a common guard as your lover was in poor taste.”

      He relaxed his stance, his confidence overflowing. His open white shirt revealed that he shaved his chest, and the painfully tight fit of his jeans confirmed that his miracle cure for what ailed a woman, ailed him more. She was surprised that he could walk in such a state.

      “The villagers are too frightened of what will happen to them if they show you any mercy. As they should be. There would be no leniency for the fool who helped the Chameleon’s daughter escape him. But perhaps I know of a way you could regain your freedom.”

      He smiled, then reached out and stroked her cheek with the back of one of his disfigured hands.

      Even though his hands were an obvious handicap to him, she’d seen him out on the target range every day. He was still a superb marksman. Speed was perhaps the only flaw in his execution.

      When he began to trail his fingers down her neck she pulled away. “I believe your…way of helping me would only serve you. I suspect that’s why you haven’t told my father about my late-night walks?”

      “I see no reason to alarm him about something that isn’t going to happen. Well, at least not without my help.”

      “So if I share your bed, you’re prepared to forget you saw me this morning, is that it?”

      “I’m prepared to forget it, and give you a future elsewhere.”

      “My father would kill you if he knew what you’re suggesting.”

      “No doubt, he would. Your lover suffered an agonizing death. Did he scream much? I was told your father made you watch.”

      Melita refused to let his cruel words rattle her. She was used to her father using Nemo’s violent death as a tool to control her.

      “You’re wasting your time if you think you can blackmail me into your room after midnight.”

      “One night would never be enough.” He glanced at her bare feet. “I’m curious if this rebellious spirit follows you into the bedroom, or if last year you were the victim of a silver-tongued playboy when you surrendered and lifted your skirt for Nemo.”

      He

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