The Temptation Read online

  We cleared the table in seconds. Within ten minutes, the bunch of us had the dishes, pots, and pans cleaned and put away, the counters wiped down, the floor swept, and dessert on the table.

  Mama had made two huge pans of wicked good apple dumplings and that was gone in no time.

  I leaned back and put my hand over the diamond piercing in my bellybutton and the tattoo that surrounded it as I gave a happy sigh. “Thank you, Mama. That was amazing.”

  She beamed at all of us. “God gave us the lot of you. That is the greatest blessing Keegan and I could have.”

  “And we’re fortunate to have parents like you.” Rori smiled at Daddy them Mama.

  “As much as we all pulled growing up, it’s incredible that they let us live,” Ryan said with a grin.

  Everyone laughed. After we cleaned up the dessert dishes, we headed out for our usual after-dinner family basketball game.

  As we walked out, I slugged Rori’s arm and she winced and rubbed the spot. “Watch it,” she said.

  “Just wanted to see if you’d tip over,” I said with a grin. “You’re too thin.”

  Even though we didn’t have a lot in common, I loved my sister and it was fun teasing her.

  “Now you sound like Mama.” Rori frowned but I knew she was taking my kidding in stride.

  I walked with her out onto the porch. Willow, Ryan, Zane, Evan, and Troy were waiting for me. Sean had disappeared like he normally did these days. Inwardly I frowned. He’d always wanted to be in the middle of things from the time he was just a little kid. Hopefully he’d grow out of this moody stage soon. Rori never played basketball with us. Might break a nail.

  “Come on, Lex.” Zane dribbled the ball. “You’re holding up the game.”

  I jogged down the stairs and Zane snapped the ball to me.

  It was good to be home. It was good to have family who would always be there for each other.

  And now I was going to kick some ass.

  Chapter 5

  Charles

  Charles licked his lips as he stared at John. He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep John from noticing that they were shaking. Charles looked at the U.S. flag behind John and the photos of the man with various dignitaries.

  To the left a flat screen television showed a major news station, but the sound was turned down.

  “I want her,” John was saying. “I want you to serve her up to me. If you don’t get her, I’ll have your life and—”

  He tossed eight-by-ten black and white photos on the table.

  Charles felt blood drain from his face as he looked down at the pictures. “Where did you get these?” He barely managed to get the words out.

  “The Man had them sent over as a little insurance that you’ll do your job.” John gave a tight smile. “To keep guys like you in line who might double-cross him or me.”

  Charles’s throat worked as he stared at the photos. Each one of them showed him with a different prostitute. In the first photo, he was wearing women’s lingerie and in the others he was bound and gagged while any number of things were done to him. In one he was being flogged, in another he was hogtied, and in another he was taking it up the ass by a prostitute with a strap-on dildo while he was sucking the nipple of a second prostitute.

  “Do you want these released?” John asked with a cool expression.

  “Please, no.” Charles shook his head. “My wife, my kids—”

  “Not only will your wife know, but so will everyone else.” John shoved the photographs closer to Charles. “I will release them if you don’t get me that woman.”

  Charles swallowed hard. “How do I get her?”

  “Doesn’t matter how you do it.” John sat in his luxurious leather chair, leaned back, and steepled his fingers. “I let you know what I want, and you figure out how to get there.”

  Charles’s gaze fell on the photograph of John shaking hands with the President of the United States. Charles wondered how he’d ended up in this office at the beck and call of such a powerful man, a man who knew the President on a first name basis.

  It was women of course. John had learned of Charles’s weakness and had brought him in, supplying him with women who fulfilled his fantasies. He loved to be tied up and at the mercy of a strong female. His wife would never have believed he had these secret desires much less a fetish for wearing women’s lingerie.

  And here he was, facing exposure if he didn’t deliver.

  “Is there a problem?” John asked, his lips tight as he began gathering the photos and putting them into a large manila envelope.

  Charles shook his head.

  John slid the envelope across his desk to Charles. “Keep these as a little souvenir.”

  He reached out and grasped the envelope, his heart beating fast.

  “And just so you know,” John said, “those aren’t the only copies.”

  Bastard. Charles clenched the envelope, likely warping the photographs. They seemed to burn through the envelope to his hand.

  Out of his peripheral vision, he saw something on the TV that caught his attention. When he looked at the screen shock made his skin prickle.

  Along the bottom of the screen ran a ticker:

  Randolph Eckstrom, head of the NSA, dead at fifty-one.

  “Turn it up,” Charles said, his throat dry.

  John was already holding the remote and he increased the volume.

  “…found dead in a hotel room,” a female newscaster reported. “Sources say that Eckstrom was bound to a bed and gagged in what appears to be a case of bondage with a prostitute gone bad.”

  Charles shuddered and glanced at John who had blanched. “His warning shot,” John muttered so low that Charles wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.

  “Eckstrom is survived by a wife and three grown children.”

  “The Man did this,” Charles said as he turned to John. “Some kind of message.”

  For a moment John didn’t answer, as if weighing what he should say. He gave a single nod. “He’ll make more examples of everyone involved if he feels that person betrayed him.” He narrowed his gaze. “You should be concerned, Charles.”

  Charles swallowed. “Whatever you need done, just tell me and I’ll do it.”

  John gave Charles a hard look. “Get her.”

  With a sharp nod, Charles backed away, turned, and walked out the door.

  Chapter 6

  Over my dead body

  The room is hot. Stifling. I struggle against my bonds but I can’t budge.

  Fear grips my insides so tight I feel as if I might bleed inside as I watch him bring the knife to my gut.

  He slices into my skin and I cry out then grit my teeth as he begins to carve his initials into my belly. Hopelessness and fury combine as he cuts into me. I’m going to kill him the first chance I get and I imagine snapping his neck.

  When he’s finished, he sets the bloody knife aside and picks up a bottle of ink. Horror tears through me as he injects the tattoo ink into the initials, making it permanent.

  I want to kill him so badly I can taste it. One careless move and I’ll destroy him.

  But I’m helpless to stop him from branding me, and I want to throw up. This is worse than any beating I’ve ever taken. Worse than all the torture I’ve endured.

  And then he dissolves and reforms, taking the shape of an enormous snake. Its forked tongue darts out as it stares at me, its mouth wide, poison dripping from its fangs.

  It strikes and I scream.

  I woke up screaming, holding my hand to my belly as I sat up in bed. My hands shook as I pulled up the T-shirt and looked.

  The diamond piercing sparkled in the sunlight that poured in through my window. The Chinese symbol for dragon was tattooed across my belly, hiding Cabot’s initials. Nick had done that for me, had taken me to a tattoo parlor to hide the horrid initials that would only serve as a reminder of the sick man who had captured me.

  Before I had killed him.

  I pushed my hand thro
ugh my hair and took a deep breath. He could never hurt me again.

  Too bad I couldn’t kill him twice.

  I shook off the nightmare and slid out of bed. My dreams had become random, going from one thing relating to our case to another. This nightmare about Cabot. Another one about the poor girls taken into sex slavery. And dreams about Bachmann who was responsible for it all.

  The sick, sick man I intended to take down.

  I stumbled into my bathroom and pushed my messy hair out of my face. I missed the days when Nick slept with me and held me when I had nightmares of the past, nightmares of when I’d been a sniper and an assassin. With him holding me, those dreams had become less frequent. Now other nightmares plagued me and I wished Nick and I were still together.

  No. I’m strong. I don’t need Nick.

  I braced my hands on the small porcelain sink and stared at my reflection. I had my father’s green eyes and dark hair and had been told I look like a pixie. A tough, deadly pixie. Those who lived after calling me a pixie never did so again.

  It was beginning to drive me crazy, how my thoughts kept going back to Nick. Even if I did have strong feelings for him, he lived in Arizona now. I wasn’t leaving Boston, my home, and my family. So what did he want from me?

  My heart felt like a tight fist was squeezing it and I couldn’t get Nick out of my mind. All of the times we had spent with each other, what we’d been through together, had made us close. With him gone I’d felt like a part of myself was missing.

  But love?

  And now it was Monday morning and I was going to have to face him again.

  With a deep breath I forced the thoughts away. I was tough, disciplined, and I could handle this.

  I splashed cold water on my face, which seemed to chase away remnants of my nightmare. I headed for the kitchen for some Captain Crunch and found that all I had was maple and brown sugar oatmeal. I mentally added cold cereal to my grocery list, which consisted of Guinness, Mountain Dew, pecan sandies, and a few other random things. The phone was my best friend, food only a dial tone away.

  Once I managed to drag my butt out of the house, I headed to HQ, driving from Southie to Boston in my black Jeep Cherokee. I usually listened to the news while I drove, but today I just didn’t feel like it.

  RED, the Recovery Enforcement Division, was a clandestine branch of the NSA. Only a few bureaucrats knew it existed, including Senator Jeanette Shelton and the President. Not even the VP knew of RED, much less the President’s cabinet members.

  The rest of the list of those aware of RED included a federal judge, a federal prosecutor, and the head of the NSA. No one else should know about it.

  During the drive my thoughts wanted to return to Nick and I had to keep telling them to shut the hell up.

  When I arrived at RED’s HQ, I guided my Jeep into the parking lot of the five-story building. It had an interpreter services sign outside, serving as the agency’s cover. I wore jeans, athletic shoes, and a white T-shirt with a white eyelet blouse over it that hid my shoulder holster and Glock.

  Once I reached the lobby, I nodded to the receptionist who gave a slight smile of acknowledgment. Past the doors behind the receptionist was administration where Special Agent in Charge Carter was probably playing solitaire, counting away the days until his retirement.

  Carter was ultimately responsible for every aspect of RED but I doubted he had a clue as to what the hell happened on a day-by-day basis. Our SAC let the ASACs—Assistant Agents in Charge—for each department handle everything and then our SAC took credit for all we did.

  At the elevators I placed my hand on a fingerprint scanner and within moments one of the elevator doors opened.

  Would Nick be here already? Nerves bounced around in my belly. Damn it. Since when did seeing Nick make me nervous?

  The elevator passed the second floor—narcotics and weapons trafficking; the third was technology theft; the fourth, terrorist activity and organized crime. And then the elevator stopped on my floor, human trafficking and sex crimes.

  Outside the elevator was a black tiled catwalk above a chrome and glass control center. A blue glow reflected off the shiny surfaces from the countless screens and monitors in Command Central, CC, which was below the catwalk.

  Directly in front of the elevator was a set of metal stairs that led down to the CC, which was outfitted with the highest level of technology in the world. That included technology that no one outside RED had a clue about. We employed the best developers as well as formerly infamous hackers—who had disappeared from the scene once employed by RED. And of course we had many who weren’t well-known at all but who were among the best of the best.

  Within the CC were multiple team centers for every operation currently in progress. Along the wall to the right, the only breaks in the flow of smooth black granite were doors to several private conference rooms. I turned to my left and walked along the glass-walled offices for all Team Supervisors, including my office.

  At the end of the row was the office of our ASAC, Karen Oxford. She was tough, fair, and had no obvious sense of humor.

  I walked past offices for the Team Supervisors. Lee’s and Taylor’s were first followed by Nick’s, which had stayed empty since he left. The door was closed and it looked like lights were on, but it was hard to tell with the floor-to-ceiling blinds drawn. I almost paused to knock on the door, but forced myself to continue on to my own office. Beyond my office were Karchner’s, Martinez’s, Armistead’s and Blomstein’s and then Oxford’s at the end.

  When I entered my office, I turned on the lights and closed the door behind me then pressed the button on my desk that buzzed the blinds closed. I wanted privacy. Needed privacy. Soon enough I’d see Nick and I wasn’t sure I was ready.

  In one corner of my office was a punching bag that I used to work off stress and in the back closet were a few changes of clothing including workout clothing. A couple of chairs were in front of my desk and I had a few family photographs on my credenza. Other than my huge computer monitor along with the keyboard, there wasn’t a whole lot in my office. I like to keep things simple.

  I sat at my desk and scooted up my chair. As I looked at my desk, images came to me of all the times Nick and I’d had sex on it. Wild, crazy, animal sex.

  Trying to force the pictures in my mind away, I logged onto my computer and pulled up Bachmann’s files and key information for Operation Big Bad Wolf. My palms still stung a little, but I’m a fast healer. My knees hadn’t been bothering me at all.

  A knock at my door had me raising my head. The knock sounded like Nick’s. I don’t know why I felt that way, but I was sure it was him.

  “Come in,” I called out and waited for the door to open.

  Nick stepped inside and my heart melted at the sight of him. His gorgeous blue eyes met mine and I took in the features that I knew so well. I’d missed him more than I’d realized, and I knew it wasn’t just the sex… It was more than that. A lot more.

  His jaw was dark with stubble and his hair had a slight wave to it. He wore a dark blue T-shirt and over that he wore a long-sleeved shirt to hide a holstered weapon. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His Levis were snug in all the right places and he wore a pair of athletic shoes.

  He closed the door behind him and walked toward me. Words wouldn’t come to me, which wasn’t like me at all. I was always ready with some kind of smart remark, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  He braced his hands on the back of one of the chairs in front of my desk and he held my gaze.

  “Have you heard the news about Eckstrom?” he asked, breaking the spell that had held me hostage.

  I frowned. “I didn’t listen to the news this morning.”

  Nick pushed his hand through his hair. “He was found dead in a hotel room downtown.”

  My eyes widened and I stood. I felt off balance. “What happened?”

  “He’d been playing tie-up games with a prostitute,” Nick said. “They
still don’t have all of the details, but right now they don’t think it was murder although they’re not ruling anything out.”

  “Eckstrom was one of the only people to know about RED.” Not to mention our orders came through him. I thought about the chain of command and the few involved in RED’s existence. “The President is going to have to fill in Eckstrom’s replacement with the details.”

  “Which may or may not go well for RED,” Nick said.

  I nodded. “If the new head doesn’t think we should be kept secret from the public or other members of the government, this could mean trouble and we could all be out of a job. It could even create a national scandal.”

  Nick pulled out the chair he’d had his hands braced on and he sat. “For now, why don’t you fill me in on Bachmann.”

  “I was just pulling up the files.” I had trouble changing my train of thought as I moved my gaze from his. I focused on my monitor and turned it so that he could see, too. A clear photograph of Bachmann, aka Hagstedt, was on the left side of the screen with a series of stats on the right. “This is what he looked like before the girl broke a glass vase and carved up his features. No doubt he had to have plastic surgery, and if he did we have no idea what he looks like now. She took off a piece of his ear and I don’t think that’s repairable.”

  That day was clearly etched in my mind. I had been undercover as a madam involved in a business heavily into the sex slave trade. I had escorted three beautiful young women who had been handpicked for Bachmann. The girls had been brought into the United States from China under false pretenses and sold as sex slaves.

  My cover had been blown and Bachmann had been about to shoot me when one of the girls nailed him across the face with the glass object.

  I continued, “He was formerly a well-known wealthy playboy in Switzerland who owned a ski lodge and a chocolate factory. All the while he was the mastermind of a multi-million-dollar sex slave trade operating around the world. Now he’s wanted in multiple countries thanks to RED.” Of course no one knew that RED was key to the whole operation, and that was fine with us.