stopped at any cost.”
“Mom can be a tough piece of business.”
“I know. The hardest part was knowing she was right. Kane is…”
Charity watched her and Sasha found she couldn’t say what she was thinking. That Kane had slipped past the control that all good agents had. It was the only thing that stopped an agent from crossing over to the dark side. The only thing that made you keep working for a system with faults and foibles. A system that was inherently fallible because it was made up of humans who made mistakes. Who were tempted and easily lead astray at times.
Charity reached out and gave Sasha a quick hug. “I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks. I’ll handle this.”
“You always do.”
“You going to chat all night or can we get back to work?” Justice called.
Charity gave her partner the finger, then turned and walked away from Sasha. Sasha watched her go then headed toward the Land Rover where Orly and Kane waited for her. She needed every shield she had in place. She wasn’t taking Kane to Ano until she had some answers, and knowing Kane, it wasn’t going to be easy to get them.
Sasha paused outside the vehicle then realized that she was acting like a wimp. Not a wimp. Just a woman. One who wasn’t ready to have another fight with her husband.
Kane had brought endless complications to her life. All of the unrest stemmed from his presence. Even her last mission, which had gone horribly wrong, was tied to him. She’d been distracted by the new man in her life.
She’d been weaker than she normally was because her life had been so full in those first few months of their becoming lovers, and Sasha had forgotten the truth she’d always known. That life didn’t work out for the best just because you wanted it to.
She reached up and opened the back door. Kane was bound similarly to the men he’d helped her apprehend. The image made her heart squeeze in her chest. She could see how uncomplicated her life in Leeds really was. And how her soul craved that solitude.
Her soul also craved adventure, but not like this. She climbed into the command vehicle. A thin piece of tinted bulletproof glass separated her and Kane from Orly. Orly had the vehicle in motion as soon as Sasha shut the door.
She sat down next to Kane in the back seat. He wouldn’t look at her and she felt an explosion deep in her soul. And part of that explosion was guilt. Rationally she knew she’d had no other choice. Kane couldn’t risk his life and the lives of other operatives to appease a villain like Townsend.
If he hadn’t gone crazy none of this would have happened.
“Did you give Orly the microchip?” she asked after a few minutes had passed. All of the data from the STAR list had been coded onto a computer chip. Easy to transport, easy to hide.
He didn’t say anything.
Nice. She thought. She didn’t want to have to rough up Kane to get information from him. And he knew it. He knew she couldn’t do it. But there were other avenues at her disposal. Avenues she’d never use with any other man but she could with Kane.
She leaned closer to him, pressing against his side. She rubbed her hand down his chest and felt his breath quicken. Her own senses stirred to life. It had been too long since she and Kane had made love. She refused to let this be anything other than a simple seduction to get information.
“Sasha, don’t,” he said.
Finally he looked at her, and what she saw in his shuttered gaze made her heart beat faster. He wasn’t immune to her, but then sexual compatibility had never been their problem. It was the emotional stuff that always caught her unaware. And it did tonight as well. Everything she’d felt for Kane converged, the lust, the anger, the hurt, the disappointment, swirling inside her head and making it impossible to divorce herself fully from the situation.
Just be an agent. But she couldn’t be—especially when she was so close to him that she could feel his warmth and feel the brush of each exhalation against her shoulder. She shifted farther away from him, lifting one hand to brush back her hair but encountering the black leather of her mask.
“You’ve left me no choice.”
“Really?” he asked in that silky voice of his that never failed to make her respond.
She’d started a game she had little chance of winning. “Really.”
“And we all know you’ll do anything for the Company.”
If only that was why she was here. Did Kane really think the only reason she’d come after him was because of her job? How little he knew her. She wryly acknowledged to herself that she’d never really let him know her. But it hurt all the same that he hadn’t tried. “I’m not doing this for the Company.”
“Then who?” he asked, arching one eyebrow.
She said nothing. This was her interrogation not his. She was the one asking the questions. She wanted to know what was going on. Who was the hostage? Where was the hostage being held? Why had Kane taken the STAR list and did he still have it?
But he persisted. “Me?”
Suddenly it was too much. “Don’t say it like that. You know I’d do anything to save you.”
“Do I? Then why am I living in London while you stay in Leeds?”
“You’re the one who moved out.” And she’d never really understood why he left. She’d put distance between them after Dylan was born. But only when she’d realized how intense the love she felt for her son was. She couldn’t stem those feelings, and having more than one person to care for made her weak—vulnerable. Something she could never really afford to be. She still had powerful enemies out there looking for her.
Of course, she hadn’t really done a good job of not caring about Kane, witnessed by tonight’s events. And the man didn’t even realize it.
“Yes, I did,” he said quietly.
She didn’t want to have this discussion. Not now. Maybe not ever. “Just tell me where the information Ano wants is.”
He tipped his head back against the window and closed his eyes. “I don’t have it.”
“Dammit, Kane. HMIA says you do.”
“I meant on me.”
“Where is it?” she asked. She wasn’t going to play games with him. Very few of her adversaries had ever made her want to lose her cool the way Kane did.
“Going to rough me up?” he challenged, waggling his eyebrows at her. He was a charming man most of the time. She was tempted to kick Orly out of the van and drive away. Go get Dylan and just disappear with Kane. But that was only a dream.
“Do I really have to?” she asked. Maybe she should have taken herself off the mission. Maybe she wasn’t the woman she’d always believed herself to be.
“What if I said yes?”
She
