On The Rocks (39 page)

But as she went to thumb in the code that
would get her to Rachel Hayford, Kizzie eyed the keypad a little
closer. The keys were gently raised bumps, the numbers clear on a
gray background. Each had a thin, translucent ring around it, like
they should be backlit to be seen in the dark.

Was the door already open?

Killing the connection to Rachel, she dove a
hand into the high slit of her dress. Slipped her Beretta from the
holster. Clutch under her arm, she tugged back on the handle of the
door and peeked inside. In the dimly lit room, a tall figure ducked
behind the desk.

Gun up, Kizzie rolled out of the doorway and
pressed her back to the wall.

Her two tags were upstairs doing the
electric boogaloo. So who was here? Sabine?

She sniffed.

Sniffed again.

Caught a whiff of a familiar scent. Spicy
cologne.

She risked another glance around the door at
the same time a head popped out from around the edge of the desk.
“X?”

Xander let out a breath so huge she felt the
draft where she stood. Kizzie lowered her weapon and ducked inside.
Pulled the door so there was a gap big enough to get out in a hurry
if she had to.

She looked around the office, eyes falling
on the safe standing ajar behind him.
That’s
where Abrahan
had disappeared to when he’d been on the phone with Metis. Not a
panic room, but a vault.

Xander hunched over a laptop on the desk,
fingers dancing over the keys. The muted blue glow from the screen
fell across his face, showing his brow pinched in
concentration.

And then it hit her. “
You’re
buying
the NOC list?”

“Something like that.”

“I can’t let you have it.”

He glanced up at her. “Why not? You guys
already have a copy.” That dark brow lowered, and he went back to
focusing on the computer.

She strode across the marble floor a couple
paces and stalled. “I’m serious, Xander. Hundreds of thousands of
lives are at risk if that list gets out.”

“Uh huh.”

“
My
name’s
on that list,
X.”

“I know,” he said indifferently.

Dom or not, she couldn’t overlook this.
Couldn’t let Xander walk off with the NOC list and sell it. Kizzie
lifted her Beretta and trained it on him. Shook her head slowly.
“Please don’t make me do this.”

Xander looked up from his work at the
computer and leveled his tired gaze on her. “You’d be doing us both
a favor, baby. Then at least this relationship would be easier to
understand.”

The tapping on the keys started up again.
Kizzie stood in the center of the room, holding a gun she had no
intention of firing. Her arm lowered and she took in a breath.

Xander was just as confused about their
relationship as she was, and it was kind of nice to know she wasn’t
alone in that boat. Since they were sharing this canoe, maybe if
she started paddling, he’d pick up an oar.

She checked her phone. Both targets were
still at the party. Now wasn’t the time for this, but it needed to
be said. And since there was no easing into it, she blurted it out
like she’d just won Bingo.

“Lennox was the third guy I ever slept
with.”

Xander’s fingers slowed on the keys and he
turned his head to her as she approached. That feeling of being
naked in front of him —really naked — came over her and she
almost backed away from what she was saying. She eyed the laptop.
Saw he was working to break into Abrahan’s password screen.

She forced herself to find the words and
continued. “Second sexual experience. First time I got a choice in
the matter.”

The typing stopped altogether and Xander’s
fingers curled to fists.

Kizzie wanted to just tell him these things,
but they’d been buried so deep for so long it was like exhuming the
dead. Nothing good came from digging up old bones, and it took a
shit ton of work to bury them again. Get the dirt packed down, the
earth level.

A buzz started from somewhere, but she was
locked in. Couldn’t stop now or she’d never get it out.

“He was my first mission partner, and he
taught me a lot about being an agent. Trained me. I was numb well
before I got to The Point, X. Numb when I left. Numb when I got to
him.” She curled her shoulder toward her ear. “Somehow, he got
through… made me laugh. I admired him.

“Then, he abandoned me on a mission. He blew
my cover as part of the training, and I came pretty damn close to
dying. He’s actually supposed to be on the phone with me right now,
as a backup, but he’s decided to bail on me again. That’s who
Lennox Tate is to me.”

Kizzie turned to look out the window where
the expanse of black went on forever. Came back to him. But Xander
didn’t look like he was up for chatting, so she shoved an oar in
his hand.

“This is the part where you say why you hate
Lennox, and then we both have a
big
laugh about how stupid
this argument was,” she prompted.

Two people in the canoe, two people
row
the canoe, dammit.

Xander cleared his throat. “Lennox took
someone I loved away from me.”

“Your last sub?”

When Xander just stared at her, Kizzie
nodded. She knew she was right and would be satisfied with the baby
step they’d just taken. Xander liked discussing his last sub about
as much as he liked yammering on about his wife, so she wouldn’t
press.

But that reminded her…

“You asked me what I want.” Kizzie glanced
at the ring on his finger. And without her consent her hand went
out to stroke the back of his. Came close to that gold band and
pulled back like she was touching a hot coal. Being his sub was
enough. Had to be. How could she want more than what she was
getting?

“Sometimes a ring’s just a ring, Kizzie,” he
whispered.

“Maybe for you. But for your wife, I’m sure
it holds a lot more meaning.”

He chuckled, muttered, “Holds a lot more of
something…”

Frowning at his comment, she dug in her
clutch. Hooked the wedding ring that didn’t belong to her and never
would. “Your wife left—”

The door slid open with a bang, and both of
their heads snapped up.

Naima came through the doorway.

At gunpoint.

FUCK
.

THAT’S ALL Xander could come up with as the
lights came up in the office. Behind the elder Galletti, one of his
freakishly large guards held a gun to Naima’s head, shoving her
into the room with the help of the muzzle. The terror in her eyes
was real— understandable given she was sporting a bodyguard for a
backpack and had a cannon kissing her temple.

He never should have let her come. Even
though she knew the risks. Even though situations like this were
exactly what she’d signed up for when they first met many, many
years before, he shouldn’t have let her come. If anything happened
to her, it would be on his head.

And he couldn’t live with that.

Provided, of course, he lived at all.

Abrahan instructed his guards to “Check
them,” and Xander tracked the two burly men as they peeled out of
formation, guns drawn, one coming at him fast like a gorilla on
‘roids, the other stalking over to Kizzie.

Her hands lifted at the exact moment his
did, but her eyes stayed on the new men filing into the room.

He cursed again.

If he wasn’t careful, this whole thing could
go downhill fast.

Of course, the way things looked right now,
the best he could hope for was downhill slowly.

“There a problem, Abrahan?”

“We shall see in a moment,” he said,
smiling.

The guard yanked on Xander’s arm and started
in on the rough pat down. Hard hands clapped up one leg and down
again, jostling him. Other side, up the calf, his knee, his thigh,
and then just a smidge too high.

Xander flinched. “Whoa. One of us is
enjoying this too much, and it’s not me.”

The search came to a halt with a sharp shove
in the back. Xander jolted forward a step, moving closer to
Kizzie.

It seemed every eye in the room was on her
as the guard behind her performed his check, and the asshole took
extra measures to be thorough. He started at her head, gentle pats
in her hair, down the side of her neck, over her shoulders…

His hands disappeared, smoothing down her
back. And then forward as he skimmed up and around the swell of her
hips. And now up the loose bodice and under her breasts. He stopped
there, whispered something only she could hear.

Kizzie braced and the guard chuckled. A
growl started low in Xander’s throat. His fists balled and quick
breaths punched out of his open mouth.

He might not live to see tomorrow, but
tonight, this man was going to die.

A smile on his face, the guard crouched
behind her. Those beefy palms grazed up Kizzie’s bare leg, in no
hurry, lifting the long skirt of her gown as he went.

Xander’s heart stopped. She wasn’t wearing
any panties because some idiot Dom got the idea to rock them as a
pocket square.

He inched forward, but Kizzie shot him a
sharp glare through narrowed eyes. Her gaze darted away, as hard
and deliberate as if she’d pointed, and then came to rest on his
again. Ever so slightly, she shook her head.

Swallowing down his rage, Xander checked on
Naima. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks, and as she looked at
him she mouthed, “I’m so sorry.”

He inhaled a deep breath. All he could do
for either woman right now was be patient and stall. Shut down the
emotion. Forget that Naima was pregnant. Forget that Kizzie had
been raped and could be over there reliving those moments.

The fucker with his hands on her had reached
Kizzie’s thigh holster. Her gun was already in the guy’s waistband
as she’d been holding it when the goons came in. He palmed her
inner thigh. Unfastened the holster slowly, like it was a garter
belt on his wedding day. Yanked her knife out of the case and
tossed it across the room.

Abrahan caught it. Chuckled. “That’s not a
knife.” He tossed it to the guard behind Xander, stepped over to a
set of drawers. Then he presented what he’d retrieved with a
flourish— a wicked-looked serrated blade. “
This
is a
knife.”

He spun toward Xander, motioning with the
sharp tip. “You two seem to know each other. You and this… porn
star. Perhaps you aren’t a porn star at all. Perhaps you are a
spy?”

Sanzio lifted a weapon and pointed it in
Xander’s direction. Which brought the count to two different men
with a gun on him. One on Nai, another on Kizzie, Abrahan with a
knife and three extras on set with nothing to do.

Perfect.

“I told you not to trust the
forasteiro
, didn’t I,
mano
?”

“You did,” Abrahan said calmly. “But hush
now,
maninho
. Allow our guest to explain his presence in my
office.”

Sanzio rocked from one foot to the other.
Antsy.

Antsy folks and guns were a bad
combination.

Xander eased his head out of the path of the
muzzle, leaving only the one pressed to the back of his head in the
running for a kill shot.

He risked a look at Kizzie, wanting to go to
her. Then Naima, and though the sentiment was the same, the feeling
was different.

He stayed put. Shrugged. “Wanted to fuck a
porn star. I knew my wife wouldn’t come looking for me down
here.”

“So you broke into my office?”

“No. Door was open.” The subtlety of that
statement hit its mark, and Abrahan eyed his guards. Then his
brother.

“The door was open? I don’t believe
that.”

“So you think I tampered with your retinal
scanner
and
keypad? Did I also figure out the combination to
your vault?” Xander turned and indicated the open door behind
him.

Abrahan’s face paled.

But it didn’t go as pale as Sanzio’s.

“I’m a lot of things, Abrahan, but I’m not a
thief. Your man just checked me and found nothing. I told you. Just
wanted to fuck a porn star. Thought I’d impress a pretty girl with
your amazing view.” A nod to the guard holding Naima. “Take your
hands off my wife.”

“Is she a spy?”

“You’ll have to ask her,” he said, motioning
to Kizzie. “We didn’t talk much.”

“She means nothing to you?”

A casual step closed the gap between he and
Abrahan. Xander chuffed a breath through his nose and grinned. “Not
a thing.”

His gut tightened right along with the ache
in his chest.

“You won’t mind if I kill her then.”

He risked another step. And then one more.
Close enough to lunge if necessary…

Xander looked back at Kizzie. Their gazes
locked. “She was a half decent fuck, but not worth getting blood on
my shoes.” Something shifted in her gaze and he looked away.
“However, if that’s what it takes to move forward with this
partnership, give me the knife and I’ll gut her myself.”

Abrahan stepped away, calling for a gun, and
Sanzio threw his hat into the kill Kizzie ring. “It should be me
who does it,
mano
.”

“No. Our friend here will do it.” Abrahan
slapped the pistol into Xander’s hand.

Three asses to save and only one gun,
compared to eight men, all of whom were carrying. A shootout was
suicide. They’d all be dead before he chambered a round.

So there was only once choice.

Shoot Kizzie.

Eyes on task and without hesitation, Xander
pulled back the slide of the Glock and pressed the barrel to her
forehead.

He squeezed the trigger.

Click.

Kizzie flinched.

Naima screamed.

He squeezed twice more.

Click. Click.

Kizzie’s breath thundered in and out her
nose and she looked up at him with murder in her eyes.

“Are you done testing me, Abrahan! Huh?”
Xander barked. Some of that anger he’d had to contain seeped
through, giving credence to his words. “Is this how the entirety of
our partnership will work?”