LITMIR.BIZ

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my mind, Filip. A little entertainment to pass the days at sea will lighten our moods.”

      Filip turned.

      When his soulless eyes locked with hers, Allegra kept her face as expressionless as his. She had no idea what he would say or do.

      Her training had taught her to never show weakness. But today Filip was in control. He had been since they’d fled Nescosto as it crumbled into the sea.

      He could let these men take her, and they would use her as unconscionably as they used their guns. And if he chose to pass her from one to another, no amount of protesting would stop them.

      If she was entertaining enough perhaps she would survive. If not, she could be tossed overboard.

      Chin high, her backbone straight, Allegra waited for the ugly one to make his move, promising herself she would endure whatever ill plan he had for her.

      “Leave her be. The woman is mine.”

      Filip’s words were spoken with the same authority that made him such a dangerous adversary to his enemies, and a feeling of relief washed over Allegra.

      He held out his hand to her. “Come, Allegra.”

      He hadn’t touched her in three days, but now he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into the protection of his muscular body.

      He was a head taller than her five-seven height—an Adonis with wild black hair, high cheekbones and a pair of dark eyes that were as unpredictable as his moods.

      Lazlo pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. Allegra saw that it was a newspaper clipping. Filip dropped his arm from around her and took the paper.

      “A little something to fuel the fire inside you,” Lazlo said.

      Filip scanned the information, and as he did, Allegra craned her neck. It was from an Italian newspaper confirming the death of Yurii and the fall of Nescosto.

      The photo was horrifying, the devastation catastrophic. More important the article revealed who had been responsible. The NSA was claiming victory for the insurgence.

      Filip crumpled the paper in his hand and tossed it overboard. Allegra moved away from him and went to stand at the railing. Behind her she heard him exchange words with his comrades, and in a matter of minutes the two men returned to the jet boat.

      Lazlo spoke to the captain, then followed his friend below. They were back within minutes with duffel bags slung over their shoulders, they boarded the Stella di Mare once more.

      This time, the man named Lazlo headed into the wheelhouse. The powerful twin engines began to sing, then the luxury yacht quickly moved out.

      Allegra remained at the railing, the warm tropical breeze lifting her dark hair around her shoulders as the yacht picked up speed. Yurii was dead, and he’d taken the details of their secret assignment to his grave. She questioned whether Filip was privy to the mission’s details. If he was, how long would it be before he shared them with her?

      She had no phone. She’d left everything behind when she had fled Nescosto. But if Filip hadn’t assured her that they were on the same page by the time they reached land, then she would find a way to contact Cyrus.

      She was deep in thought when an explosion rocked the yacht, pitching her into the railing. When she regained her balance and turned around, orange flames and billowing smoke were rising up out of the sea. Filip was holding a detonating device in his hand, and the Sera Vedette was gone, as well as its captain.

      The death of Yurii Petrov made newspaper headlines across the country. The Washington Post must have been lacking news on Wednesday, as they dedicated the entire front page to the incident, and bored the public with a lengthy profile on an international criminal no one was aware existed—no one outside the criminal elite and government intelligence.

      The article listed Yurii’s many atrocities beginning with money laundering, and ending with his affiliation with the Red Mafia. A color photo of Nescosto, Yurii’s headquarters, ate up half the page. If not for the caption, the once sprawling four-story villa built into a sheer rock face along the Amalfi Coast would have been unrecognizable.

      The NSA claimed credit for the takedown. They were vague on the details, but that was standard when the special operations group, code-named Onyxx, was involved—they were the invisible spooks no one talked about.

      The news story ended with a brief statement from France’s Department of Foreign Information and Counterespionage. The SDECE reported that two of their agents had died in the siege.

      It was the first Onyxx Agent Ashland Kelly had heard that another intelligence agency was undercover inside Yurii Petrov’s citadel at the time he’d planted the explosives, sending Nescosto into the sea. There had been a window of opportunity to escape before detonation—a small window. Had he known about the French agents, their lives could have been spared.

      Too bad the left hand hadn’t informed the right hand what the hell they were doing. But it was rare to find two agencies willing to share information, let alone work together. The only two who came to mind at the moment were Onyxx and EURO-Quest.

      Ash tossed the paper on the couch in his Washington apartment and headed for the shower. When he climbed out, he saw that his boss had left a message on his cell phone. Dripping wet, he tucked the towel around his hips, reached for his phone on the sink, and hit voice mail.

      “Did you see the morning paper? Burgess Stillman from the SDECE is on his way to Washington. Before he gets here, we need to talk. My office. As soon as you get this.”

      Ash headed into his bedroom, dropping the towel in the doorway. He dressed quickly, then left the bedroom wearing jeans, a black V-neck sweater, and his lucky cowboy boots.

      On the way to the kitchen, he glanced out the window. It was snowing this morning—big, wet winter flakes that made the November day as gray as his socks. He liked hot weather—desert hot—and he’d never gotten used to the inconvenience of winter, or the dampness that accompanied it.

      He made his morning pot of tea, poured a cup to take with him, and grimaced over the fact that there was no time to quell the hunger in his belly.

      Thinking about how good a fried egg sandwich would taste, Ash went out the door with his tea, pulling on his brown leather jacket, his shaggy, sandy blonde hair still wet, his jaw unshaven.

      The snow wouldn’t stay, that was the good news. But it would make the morning commute to headquarters slow. The traffic was already backed up as he pulled his green Jeep out of the underground parking lot, the cars resembling an ant march to a picnic.

      He joined the march. As much as he detested crowds and smog, he drove through morning rush hour like a cultured city boy instead of a man used to the hot wind in his face on a dirt road in Mexico.

      Ash entered the front doors at Onyxx headquarters forty minutes later. He stepped inside the elevator just as the doors were about to close, and came face-to-face with Burgess Stillman.

      He’d never met the SDECE commander, but he’d seen pictures, and heard the rumors about the forty-year-old Frenchman. Six-six, two-sixty, with a silver crewcut, Stillman looked like the kind of guy who ate roadkill for breakfast and asked for seconds.

      “Ashland Kelly.” Stillman looked him up, then down. “You’re thinner than your profile stats, mon ami. Merrick must be working your ass off these days.”

      “Excuse me.”

      “I don’t accept excuses, Kelly. You’ll learn that before this is over. I have two dead agents, no bodies to console the families, a superior climbing up my ass, and no way to amputate the hemorrhoid. Not yet.”

      Ash opened his mouth to defend the mission that had cost the SDECE two agents, then closed it. It had been a straightforward assignment. Get in, get out, and leave nothing standing once Petrov’s data had been hijacked, and they’d rescued the female Quest agent, Casmir Balasi.

      “You got blood on your hands,

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