Stolen Vengeance: Slye Temp book 6 (4 page)

Could he?

He reached out to touch her face.

She leaned away, giving his hand the same consideration someone would give a rattlesnake coiled to attack.

Nope. Seduction was not on the menu.

He said, “Just consider what I’m asking and we’ll talk more later.”

She pointed her finger, emphasizing her warning. “You come near me again and I’ll, I’ll ...”

“What?”

“Have a restraining order issued.”

“You don’t have enough information on me to do that.” Damn, the minute those words were out he wanted them back.

She dropped her finger, hurt flowing across her face. “And that will never change, will it, Dingo?” she stated quietly, which was more painful than facing her anger.

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the skin that he knew by scent.

Her hand trembled.

Did that mean she still felt something for him?

She pulled her hand back. “We aren’t going there, so don’t waste your time thinking you’ll win this argument. As for going anywhere right now, I couldn’t even if I wanted to because I’m helping someone who’s very sick and needs me right now. But to be clear, I
don’t
want to.”

One of the last times they’d had a hell of an argument was after he’d found out about her digging around where she shouldn’t have been, trying to get information on him.

A snitch had clued Dingo in that a woman from LA was asking about him.

That snitch also said that she was bumping around in areas that would get her fingers chopped off. And that wasn’t just an expression.

Valene had expected answers from him when she’d met him at dinner that infamous night, and handed him snippets of intel about an op he’d handled in Chicago in the past.

She’d expected a floodgate of information from Dingo.

What she’d gotten was a floodgate of anger.

Research worked two ways, but she wasn’t used to her research coming back to haunt her. If she’d continued sniffing around in Dingo’s life, she would have gained the attention of someone deadly who would have loved to find a connection between Dingo and any woman.

A woman they could hurt over and over.

He’d lost it that night, and the argument had been ugly.

     It only got worse the next day when she tried to make amends by returning to the work Dingo had originally asked her to do–finding out what she could on Giuseppe from birth to age twenty-one. Dingo had a pretty good profile on the guy from that age on, but he wanted to find someone from Giuseppe’s past, maybe a close boyhood friend.

Without a word to Dingo, Valene had pulled markers in her vast network of resources to turn up everything she could find on Giuseppe and, in doing so, placed herself in Santori Garcia’s crosshairs.

The head of Satan’s Garden Club had noticed her.

Dingo vanished the next day, leaving her only a note not to look for him.

Based on the cold distance in Valene’s gaze, she’d just replayed that time in her mind, too.

Without another word, she opened the passenger door and calmly stepped out, then climbed in her car.

He let her think she’d won this round.

She backed out and drove away.

The clock on the dash reminded him he had an hour and a half to reach the airport and board a flight that would get him back to Atlanta in time for the team meeting late tonight.

If he left now, would Valene be safe? Was he overreacting, when the new Satan’s Garden Club might only be some idiot trying to build a name on someone else’s street reputation?

If he missed his flight, Sabrina would make an educated guess about where he was and she’d be right.

She had rules. That’s how she’d kept chaos out of her life since her days as a six-year-old little girl dropped at a children’s home. Dingo knew her rules and respected them, just as he respected her as a teammate and friend. He was basically AWOL while Sabrina and the teams hunted for any information that would pinpoint the assassination targets Bergman had whispered before he died.

He wasn’t egotistical enough to think they couldn’t do it without him, but ... he was having a hard time doing right by everyone.

Flying to LA without cluing in Sabrina when they had an active mission was grounds for being dismissed as an operative. He’d never put himself above any of the others.

He didn’t even know for sure if Satan’s Garden Club was real this time, or that they had any information on Valene, but if there was one slim chance that this involved her, he couldn’t leave her to face a threat alone.

If this was about anyone other than Valene, he’d just tell Sabrina and she’d get what he had to do.

But Sabrina hated Valene. Not that they’d ever met. Sabrina’s hate came from watching Dingo during the dark time after he’d walked out of Satan’s Garden Club, broken.

She’d figured out why he’d taken on a suicide mission and that the reason had a name. Valene.

He’d rather cut one of his limbs off than hurt Sabrina or Josh, the closest thing he had to family. But where would that leave Valene if Satan’s Garden Club was connected to the original group and came looking for her?

Chapter 4

Why couldn’t I have become a helicopter pilot?
Valene checked her watch for the hundredth time and took advantage of a two-car gap on her right to gain ground among everyone else trying to get somewhere on LA’s Interstate 5.

How could Dingo do this to her again?

He’d shown up looking like he had back when they were first together. Gone was the white-blond hair from his last visit, replaced by thick brown locks that danced along his neckline. Add that to two days of beard, hazel eyes and a mouth carved for pleasure and he was more tempting than all the magazine cover boys on the streets of LA.

Dingo was all man.

And out of his mind if he thought she was buying that story. If there was real danger, where was his team?

Like last time.

Her heart had been leaking misery for seven years, then he’d shown up again a month ago with a team of operatives looking to stop some crazy terrorist group. Dingo had only come back because he’d needed her help.

She should have cursed a blue streak in his face.

She should have kicked him in the head.

None of that had happened, because she had no brakes when it came to Dingo. Her heart had a bad habit of taking over all thought and driving her into his arms.

Her phone played
Here Comes The Money
, the ringtone she’d chosen for Charlie, the best business connection she’d made in a long time.

She snatched up the phone. “What’s up, Charlie?”

“Did you change your mind about today’s meeting?”

“Of course not.”

“Where are you?”

How did he know she hadn’t arrived at the meet point yet? “Are you at the restaurant?”

“No, but I made the reservation, not Smith. I just called to confirm that everything was set and to give them my credit card for anything you ordered. They said no one had shown yet. You’ve got eight minutes to make this meeting. If I’ve figured out one thing about you it’s that you’re the kind of Type-A who thinks if you arrive on time you’re ten minutes late. So...where are you?”

Actually, she was down to seven minutes according to her phone, but correcting Charlie would not improve the tension in his voice.

“I’m close.” She wheeled off the interstate and forced her blood pressure to come down from the ceiling as she maneuvered through a traffic light onto surface streets. “I’m five minutes away, tops.”

“What happened?”

“I had car trouble.”  It was as good a lie as any. She’d strangle Dingo if he cost her this contract.

“This Smith guy came very highly recommended from my oldest UK contact. Uber-platinum. You told me you needed a big score. I found it. You can’t let car trouble or anything else interfere.”

Heat crawled up her neck at being chided.

She was
never
in this position. Everything she did was above reproach. Dingo had just undermined her reputation by using up the extra time she’d built in so that she’d only miss this meeting if she were abducted by aliens.

Even then, she’d make an alien wish he’d chosen more carefully.

That thought gave her an idea for shifting the topic off her time frame. “Just who
is
this guy, Charlie?”

“All I know is he’s from Italy, he’s here for a very short time and he’s willing to pay big bucks to have whatever it is he’s looking for brought to him. My guess is he represents some eccentric billionaire. I tried to find out more on him today just to have an idea of what our dollar parameters might be, but no one knows anything beyond what I’ve told you. I set the meeting in a public venue, but if you get a hinky feeling, just walk.”

And lose the best lead she’d had in forever?

Not going to happen unless this guy acted like an axe murderer on holiday. “I’m good, Charlie. You know I can handle myself. If he’s for real, I’ll close this deal.”

“Good, because if you can’t, this Smith will move on and my contact in the UK won’t be happy since he’s getting half of my finder’s fee.”

“I hear you. I’m not going to drop the ball and I appreciate all you’ve done over the past month. This will be my chance to thank you.”

“No worries, Val. I like working with you. Aram gets on my nerves. But my contact knows who Aram is so if we let this one off the hook, Aram will be standing by to scoop him.”

“That is not going to happen.” She hated being compared to Aram Pavlovsky, a five-foot-eight PITA who considered himself a Bulgarian Don Juan–she paused for an eye roll–and was her closest competition on the West Coast. Not that he was her equal when it came to Renaissance artifacts, but he was a shark at closing deals.

She’d been lucky to negotiate this arrangement with Charlie Rothschild–a new buyer in town–before Aram had gotten wind of the new arrival. Charlie brokered high-end, rare antiques, artifacts and antiquities to clients in Europe, and he was the best resource she’d had in a very long time.

He had a rep for big deals, but she hadn’t seen anything significant until now.

“Are you there yet?” Charlie asked.

Another eye roll, then she said, “Hold on.”

“Why?”

“I want to look in the back seat to see if you’re sitting behind me. Chill, Charlie. I’m close.”

“Very funny,” Charlie groused. “I’m serious about Aram. I heard he’s asking around for leads on seventeenth-century collectors. That can’t be coincidental. Don’t give him an opening again. Not on this deal.”

Son of a bitch. “If Aram sticks his nose into my business right now, he’ll get it chopped off with a few extra body parts just for good measure.”

“That’s what I want to hear. Make nice with Mr. Smith. Talk to you later.”

Mr. Smith
screamed of alias, but she’d run into people before who preferred to remain incognito.

Especially in LA.

She tossed the phone on the seat and hunted a parking space near the restaurant that was now in view. This was a quieter part of Santa Monica, where salt air from the ocean toned down the glitz.

Two minutes.

She’d lost a client four weeks ago when she missed an appointment, but her father had been rushed to the hospital with a severe drop in blood pressure.

Dad came home later that night, but by then Valene’s client had turned to Aram.

About time she had some good luck, but she wouldn’t sit back and wait on it.
“Being in the game every minute is how you make luck happen, Hot Stuff,”
her dad would say.

I’m in the damn game.

She’d close this deal for
him
, because she had no doubt about her dad considering the treatment. The day her mother had driven away, Valene had cried her eyes out, and told her dad she dreamed he was going to die and leave her.

He promised her right then that he’d never leave Valene without a fight, that he’d walk through the fires of hell if that was the price he had to pay so they could spend one more day together.

Fair enough.

She’d crawl through the fires of hell with her hands and feet bound, if only to spend one more
hour
with him.

She’d passed the restaurant entrance and was searching for a spot to park when a car pulled out of a space along the curb.

Rock star parking karma.

Definitely a positive sign.

Valene maneuvered her T-bird into the slot with a three-point parallel parking maneuver and flipped down the mirror to do a quick check.

Hair intact. Makeup not smeared.

Eyes mysteriously smoky instead of a raccoon impression. All good, right down to her freshly pressed suit.

She snatched her keys from the ignition, grabbed her purse and paid the meter before hurrying back the two blocks to the restaurant.

Rule number one: Always look the part and exude confidence.

Rule number two: Never be late.

She’d blown rule number two sixty seconds ago.

Thanks, Dingo
. Not.

There’d been a time that he would have mussed her hair and tried to run her late just to piss her off so he could make it up to her later.

And he would have. All. Night. Long.

Dingo, get out of my mind!

Hadn’t she wasted enough time on him?

Yes. Too much.

The last time he pulled something as crazy as today, he’d claimed he was concerned she had a stalker. She’d bought it, right down to going away somewhere secret with him for two days while someone “checked out the stalker.”  It turned out to be a guy Valene had given the time and place she normally ran. She’d wanted a running partner, but not someone she had to meet every day. He’d shown up twice.

She’d been so glad to have Dingo for two days all to herself, she’d let him off the hook with an ass-chewing, that he of course turned into an all night make-up party.

The real reason she’d let him off the hook was because she realized his motivation.

Dingo had been jealous.

Would he ever admit it? No. But she’d enjoyed that moment of thinking she meant more than a fling.

What about an hour ago in the van? Had Dingo pulled those shenanigans because he’d seen her with Charlie, the only man she’d had lunch with recently?

If that were true, at least breaking into her car would make sense.

Her stupid heart did a little jig over it until she recalled the last time, when she’d told him he couldn’t pull hoodwinks without staking a claim.

He’d agreed and said he’d never do it again.

That should have been her reality check. A warning flag to batten down the hatches of her heart, but it was too late by then. She’d allowed him all kinds of access, and Dingo wanted nothing permanent with a woman. He felt no responsibility when it came to her.

If that meant his little antic today had been about Charlie, then Dingo could stew all he wanted.

He’d lost his chance to have something special with her, when all it would have taken was meeting her half way.

Idiot that she was, she still missed him.

She shook off the distraction and paid attention to weaving through the flow of foot traffic going against her.

The sign for the restaurant came into view.

Searching ahead of the people in front of her, she noticed a man heading her way from the opposite direction. Men in LA dressed in everything from ragged jeans to tailored tuxedos, and drew attention just by the way they wore their clothes.

Not this man.

He topped out at just over six feet, trim build, and moved as if he could handle himself. The black suit and crisp beige shirt had the smooth lines of custom tailoring, and she’d bet from the wide shoulders that there was decent muscle hidden beneath. Nice packaging, but not her type. Obviously, her type was a rough-around-the-edges Aussie with commitment issues.

The more she studied the man coming toward the restaurant from the other direction, the more she realized the way he moved and observed everything around him reminded her of Dingo and his friend Tanner while they were on their mission last month.

Dingo? Again. Really?

Stupid man had no clue what he meant to her.

No, I’m the stupid fool for wishing he was still in my life.

She checked the strange man again and noticed his gaze bounce across people near her, then stop on her.

Hairs danced along her neck. She slowed her steps.

Where was her signature icy confidence?

She had to carve out some time for the gym this week. She needed a brutal workout that would leave her bruised and exhausted, but ready to face anything.

Not reacting like a sissy to a stranger in broad daylight.

As she approached the canopied entrance, so did he.

“Ms. Eklund?” he asked in a voice that had no accent. Like someone from the Midwest. Steely gray eyes took her in from head to toe with quick efficiency.

Good news? He was late, too.

Bad news? She didn’t like the weird feelings zinging inside her. Was this a new paranoia or some crap left over from her meeting with Dingo?

She offered her hand to what she hoped would be her new client. “Mr. Smith, I presume?”

“Yes.” He shook her hand briefly then opened the door, his face arranged into one of congeniality. “Shall we?”

Not a bad guy.

Her gut might have reservations, but she had trouble hearing any argument over her hemorrhaging bank account that was shouting, “
What are you afraid of, Valene?”

Letting her dad down.

Other than that? Nothing. Not a damn thing.

Once they were seated with water served, Smith asked the waiter to give them time to talk, then he turned to Valene.

He withdrew an electronic tablet from his briefcase and placed it on the table. “I need something priceless recovered, but discretion is as important as the value of the recovery.”