He’d have to take a closer look. The idea sent a surge of interest into his groin. His one-eyed snake didn’t care if the bathing beauty was a icy-hearted killer.
Sometimes he wondered how men lived to adulthood, let alone old age, with that much concentrated stupidity dangling between their legs.
Two: Naked Chick was a distraction to engage his attention while the ambush moved in on him. The come-and-get-me way she’d presented her body for him in the poolhouse was one mother of a distraction. A sexual spell. The way her skin gleamed when he’d dragged her up, the jewel-like reflections on the disturbed water. It was magic.
Yeah. Sudden death could be so magical.
He guided her through the door and into the main house. Nice and easy. He didn’t need to be aggressive. She wasn’t fighting him. In one swift move he cuffed her slender wrists together behind her back, hooking them to the banister of the spiral staircase. He hadn’t lost his touch.
He stepped back, ran his eyes over her body. Wow. Whoever sent her must have a big budget. The girl was fucking amazing. He forced his mouth to close and went back to his situation analysis. Concentrate.
Three: Naked Chick was an expendable sex worker with no clue, and this was a perverse test from the big boss to see how Arkady behaved. Just the kind of game Zhoglo might play with a new guy to get a feel for his weaknesses.
Which would mean he was being watched. All the more reason not to lose his cool. And if he was careful, he might even get the upper hand. Worth trying.
“Who sent you?” he asked softly in Ukrainian.
She blinked, big-eyed. “Huh?”
She sounded American. Not likely, not for a job like this, Nick thought. “Who sent you? Tell me who sent you here,” he asked, in Russian this time.
No response.
He tried again, in Chechenyan, Estonian, Moldovian, Georgian, in case she was a ticking bomb sent by one of Zhoglo’s business rivals. He tried Hungarian and Romanian too, just in case. The big Z might have pissed off Daddy Novak. These psycho dudes were not known for their loyalty when billions of dollars were at stake.
Not so much as a spark of comprehension on her face. Just the appearance of shivering terror. But she was a professional, after all.
They’d picked their bait well, if bait she was. Stop-your-heart pretty, with all those pale, soft curves, huge green eyes. Just how Nick liked them. Not too skinny. Old world, Eastern European type of gorgeous, not a stringy Malibu beach babe.
He especially loved the mouth. The plump, parted, quivering lips made him speculate briefly about what her sexual specialty must be. She must be stellar at giving head.
He felt sort of honored. If he rated a top-of-the-line call girl to lure him to his doom, he must have hit the big-time when he wasn’t paying attention.
He wondered how old she was. He guessed twenty-three, twenty-five, max. Couldn’t have been in her current profession for long. That radiant-innocence vibe couldn’t be faked. Innocence faded real fast.
The visuals were perfect. She was still gleaming with water that trickled from her hair and ran down her body. Drops of water clinging to the dark fuzz between her thighs. Full tits, shown to advantage. Hey, cuffs were fun. Tight nipples. Helpless whimpers.
Nick dragged himself back to reality. Like hell she was helpless. She probably had a coil of wire fastened into her hair to garrotte him the second he turned his back.
“Who are you? And who sent you?” he asked in English.
“I’m, ah, Becca Cattrell,” she quavered, her voice high and thin.
“Becca Cattrell,” he repeated. “Who the fuck is Becca Cattrell?”
She shook her head, eyes wide. “Ah…me?”
“Not funny.” He tipped her chin up. “This isn’t a game. Who sent you?”
“M-m-marla sent me,” she gasped out.
“Yeah? Did she? Who’s Marla?”
“My b-boss,” she stammered out. “At the club.”
So Marla was a madam. OK. That was part of the puzzle, but not the part that interested him. “Why did this Marla send you to me?”
“Look, all she said was I could use the pool,” the girl quavered. “She told me th-th-that you were nice!”
Nice? She sounded betrayed. He chewed on that for a moment, staring at her. “I don’t know anyone named Marla,” he said. “And guess what? I’m not nice.”
“Oh.” She blinked like a trapped bunny.
He squelched a foolish impulse to trust her. “Wait here.”
Like she had any choice. He loped back into the security room to check out the infrared. Did a slow, steady sweep with the thermal imager, three hundred and sixty degrees. Nothing suspicious. He did it again. Nobody out there with warm blood and a beating heart except for wild animals.
He flicked another switch that showed two different camera angles on the spiral staircase and studied the girl from both sides. Her wet hair hung down, hiding her face. She was trembling. He had to get her warmed up.
No, he told himself sternly. He didn’t. Chivalry could get him killed. He had to think like Zhoglo. No heart, no conscience, no compassion. Cold as a cadaver in a meat locker.
He studied her body. She didn’t have the taut, nervy musculature of someone trained in hand-to-hand. She looked soft, touchable. Built for pleasure, not a sinewy, streamlined killing machine. He was tempted to rule out the possiblity of her being an assassin. But he really did have to search her first.
He hesitated as he went by the linen closet, then yanked out a towel, cursing himself for the soft-headed idiot that he was. He decided to add to his stupidity by grabbing the space heater he saw under a shelf. What the fuck did it matter if the assassin and/or call girl was a little more comfortable while he interrogated her? Zhoglo wasn’t watching. At least he hoped not.
The girl eyed him warily and Nick realized how strange he must look to her, carrying a goddamn space heater and towel like a cabana boy. Fuck it. He plugged it in, aimed a blast of hot air at her. She stiffened as he gathered a handful of her hair and twisted it gently to squeeze the water out, then let it fall.
Thoughts of that garrotte flashed through his mind. He ran his fingers through her wet, silky hair, trying to intuit the tricks a naked female assassin might use to conceal the tools of her trade.
Her hair was amazingly thick and soft. No garrotte wire in it.
She shivered at his touch. No earrings, rings, necklaces, anklets, bracelets, toe rings. She made a wordless protest as he ran his hands over the deep curve of her waist, up her back. Nothing taped up there. Then he moved between those soft thighs, another popular place of concealment. That provoked a squawk of outrage and a furious wriggle. He ignored both.
Nick brushed the edge of his hands up under her tits, which were more than full enough
