Secret Agent Reunion

The door whooshed open behind her, and she faced the tall, broad-shouldered man who entered.

She went completely still. Then a cold pit of rage formed in her gut. The numbness that had filled her center for months was swiftly replaced with a tight knot of pain.

She walked up to Mitchell Lama and punched him, snapping his head back with the force of her blow.

“You son of a bitch. You’re not dead.”

Chapter 3

Mitch was not about to let Dani land the second blow. He encircled her fist, stopping her jab mid-swing and, for good measure, snared her other hand. Not that his actions would necessarily stop Dani if she wanted to exact additional punishment. He’d seen her in action and knew she could hurt him if she still desired.

But she didn’t desire more, it seemed.

Instead, she rose up on tiptoe and whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Why? It seemed like such a simple question and yet…

“I lay dying in your arms and you couldn’t confess the truth.” His tones were low in the hope that the assorted bugs in the room wouldn’t pick up the exchange.

“The truth? That I was the Sparrow? We worked too hard to manufacture that identity, no matter how much I wanted to tell you the truth,” she shot back, inching higher on her tiptoes to get right up in his face and hiss the words.

“The truth is that your actions led to the death of Prince Reginald and nearly got my old partner and your sister killed,” he replied calmly, anger at the deception she had perpetrated for the year that they had been lovers making him want to hurt her the way she had hurt him.

In front of his eyes her spirit deflated. She yanked her wrists from his grasp and stalked back to the table, where she plopped into one of the leather library chairs. It creaked and rocked for a second before she stilled its motion and said in a much louder voice, “You can’t expect Mitch…Agent Lama and I to carry out this mission. We can’t work—”

“You can, Dani. You have no choice. SIS believes that both you and Mr. Lama are dead. You’ve fallen off their radar, and so…”

“You basically have two highly experienced agents with new identities that no one will be expecting,” Mitch confirmed. He walked to the table and took a seat opposite Dani.

“Exactly. Like Lazarus, the two of you are risen again for this assignment. After it is completed, I will assist you so that you may do whatever you want. For now, however, I need you to find out who is behind these attacks,” Lazlo said, and since they apparently had no say, he continued with his report on the background of the operation.

“As I mentioned, all these troubles appear to have started in Rome. After recovering from his wounds, Agent Lama indicated to me that he had suspicions that someone within our group was also possibly leaking information.”

Dani shot Mitch a quick glance, then looked at the speaker as she asked Lazlo, “Why the suspicions?”

Irritation made Mitch snap. “I am here, you know. You can ask me.”

Dani faced him and laid her hands on the surface of the table. “So, Agent Lama. What clued you to a possible problem within your organization?”

“Besides getting gutted?”

Her fingers tensed on the tabletop, and a frown flashed across her features before she restrained her emotions. Had it possibly been concern he had seen for a moment? he thought before he continued.

“My partner, Aidan Spaulding, and I had been trailing Kruger, who your crime organization—”

“SNAKE,” Dani jumped in.

“SNAKE?” Mitch asked, confused by the name.

A wry smile swept across her full mobile lips as Dani replied. “Sorry. It’s an inside joke at SIS. We called them SNAKE for short—Syndicate of Nasties, Assassins, Killers and Evildoers.”

“So, that old SNAKE acronym is still alive and well?” Lazlo asked. “In my day it stood for something else. I assume it still refers to the old Dumont family group?”

Mitch also chuckled. “SNAKE. I like it. Who are the Dumonts?”

“We believe Maximilian Dumont ran the crime organization for years. He recently passed away and we’re not sure who is calling the shots now. My job was to infiltrate and identify the current power, plus try to get the goods on them,” Dani explained.

“SNAKE and the Dumont family go way back,” Lazlo said. “I had a run-in with the family years ago. With the son and daughter.”

With a nod, Mitch continued with his earlier explanation. “SoAidan and I were trailing Kruger—the SNAKE courier—because a Lazlo client believed that his competition was illegally selling conflicts diamonds, which Kruger was transporting. We reported Kruger’s location to Lazlo. When we went to take him, however, Kruger was already on the run.”

“Someone from SNAKE gave me his location. SNAKE hired the Sparrow to eliminate him because he’d ripped off one of their clients,” Dani added, surmising that Kruger’s whereabouts had come courtesy of the Lazlo Group leak.

Mitch didn’t need to say that it had also allowed Dani to find him in one of the side streets leading away from Kruger’s hideout after he had been knifed and left for dead.

“SNAKE’s knowledge of Kruger’s location just supports Agent Lama’s theory that someone in our group may have leaked the information either to SNAKE directly or to someone at SIS. It’s possible the Lazlo leak also provided information related to the Silvershire affair as well,” Lazlo jumped in. “I can see already that bringing the two of you together will be quite helpful in discovering what’s going on.”

“We need to somehow interrogate Kruger,” Dani said, and Mitch agreed with a nod.

“That may be difficult. First of all, everyone believes you’re both dead and I don’t want to reveal your existence at this time. Second, SIS may not be willing to allow anyone from our organization to interview him.”

“Kruger is Ground Zero as far as we know, Corbett. If we can identify his contacts over the course of those few days, we may be able to determine who was feeding him information,” Mitch advised and watched as Dani seconded his assertion with a quick bob of her head.

“Mitch and I can assume different identities for the briefing. Plus I’m sure that a man with your connections can arrange for a short interrogation,” Dani added, her tones saccharine.

Silence came across the speaker. Then, “You and Elizabeth are quite alike, Dani. She said much the same thing to me some time ago. I’ll see what I can do.”

The plasma monitor shut off as did the phone connection, leaving Mitch staring at Dani across the width of the conference room table. It might be only four feet, but he knew that the chasm between them was much greater than that.

“Are you prepared to work on this assignment together?” he asked, unable to read much into her body language and facial expression.

Dani slowly rose from the chair, her gaze trained on him as if she was actually contemplating refusing the mission. But then her green eyes darkened, and a grim smile came to her face.

“I let something personal interfere with my assignment once before. It not only nearly cost me my life, but my sister’s. I won’t let that happen again.”

Mitch didn’t know how to react to the statement. That there was still something personal between them—something that could still bother her—was clear. That she thought she could shove it aside rankled.

What bothered him the most, however, was that he still cared what she thought and how she felt after her year of lies. After discovering, as he had lain dying, that she was the Sparrow.

Needing to build his own defenses, he nodded and slouched back in his chair, trying to seem disinterested as he said, “Who says anyone wants it to get personal again?”

Miserable, cold-hearted bastard, Dani repeated with each jab, punch and kick as she pounded the heavy bag in the gym, working out her frustration over the earlier meeting with Mitch.

Miserable, deceiving, alive son of a bitch, she thought, as with a final punch, she sank down onto the mat and leaned against the wall. Bringing her knees up tightly to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them, buried her head there and began to weep.

Mitch was alive.

How many times in the three years since his “death” had she wished for just that thing? Wished that they might have had a chance at a life together? A life without SNAKE and guns and violence and death.

How many times had she pictured the two of them, living in Leonia in a home near her sister, Elizabeth, whom she fondly called Lizzy Bee. Children running around them along the gardens and shore much as she and her sister had done before their parents’ deaths.

She wasn’t sure such a life was possible for her now. Maybe it never had been, she thought, and swiped at a tear only to scratch the skin of her cheek with the exposed edge of the Velcro along the wrist of the boxing gloves she still wore.

She snagged the edge of the glove’s wrist-wrap with her teeth while drawing a shuddering breath and pulled it open. Then, she tucked the glove under her arm and removed its partner.

As she stood she swiped the remnants of the tears staining her face and vowed not to cry again over the things she couldn’t change. Tears hadn’t brought back her parents. They hadn’t brought back Mitch….

Well, at least they hadn’t brought back Mitch during the three years when she had cried for him regularly. But now…

The door to the training room opened, and Mitch walked in.

Dani hurriedly dashed away the last of her tears, turned and executed a series of bare-handed blows against the heavy bag, although not as powerfully as before due to the absence of the gloves. The last thing she needed was to break something, she thought, watching Mitch’s approach from the corner of her eye.

When he stood about a foot away, hands tucked into the pockets of his tight jeans, she asked, “Is there something I can do for you, Agent Lama?”

She never broke the rhythm of her routine, nor directly faced him, and yet there wasn’t a thing about him that didn’t register.

He seemed more muscular than he had before. Bigger. His shoulders broader beneath the polo shirt that hugged them and the well-defined muscles of his chest. On his right arm was the intricate tribal tattoo that she had found undeniably sexy and dangerous when she had first discovered it beneath the elegant suits and clothing that Mitch generally wore.

His hair was a trifle shorter around his ears, but longer up top and stylishly gelled into slightly punkish spikes that brought out the sun-streaked highlights mixed in with the brown.

Again, not as elegant as the haircut she had known him to wear, but she liked this one more—it framed the strong lines of his face better and brought attention to his eyes. Startling slate-gray eyes that were following her every move and darkening with what she suspected was annoyance.

“We need to talk, Dani.”

“Talk?” She shot the bag a punch, slightly harder than the ones before, and faced him. “You have more from Lazlo about the mission?”

Mitch released an exasperated sigh. “It’s not about the assignment and you know it.”

What she knew was that she was torn between easing against him and having him take her into his arms and kicking his ass for breaking her heart.

She did neither.

Instead, she crossed her arms and inched her chin up a bit—not that by doing so she would make much of an impact. At six-foot three, Mitch had quite some inches on her average height as well as at least one hundred pounds more of muscle.

“I believe that you said you didn’t want it to get personal again, Agent Lama.”

“I don’t,” he replied curtly and then dragged a hand through his hair, making the spikes even more pronounced.

Pulling one hand from his pocket, he held it out palm up in a pleading gesture and leaned toward her to emphasize his point. “There’s a lot that went on between us. Some good. Some very good. But a lot really bad as well.”

Truthful, if not a bit blunt, Dani thought as Mitch went on.

“Whatever it was is in the past. Now we’re partners. I need to be able to trust you to watch my back. You probably need the same from me.”

A reasonable request, and even though what she was feeling toward him right now was major dislike, possibly bordering on hate for his deception, she had always intended to watch his back. That he had thought otherwise just added to her pique.

“I’m a professional, Mitch. Like it or not, you are my partner. I will guard your back, and I expect that you will guard mine.”

He straightened away from her then and tucked his hand back into his pocket. With a shrug of those broad, thickly muscled shoulders, he said, “Right.”

He stood there for a few seconds more, seemingly unsure of what to do next, until he yanked his hand back out of his pocket and thrust it out to her, as if to seal the deal.

“So, then, we’re partners,” he said, and, at her delay, gave a little shake of his hand as if to urge her on.

She looked at that hand and then up to his face, where myriad emotions played across his normally neutral features. Neutral because, as secret agent types, they couldn’t afford to allow their emotions to show to the enemy.

But as she shook his hand, his emotions were clearly etched on his face for her to see. Confusion. Regret. Desire, banked well behind the other two.

The handshake that lasted longer than it should have confirmed the final emotion wasn’t just on his part, and they both abruptly pulled away from the handshake.

Dani rubbed her palm and the back of her hand, almost as if she could wipe away the remnants of the one disturbing emotion that had been communicated with a simple handshake. With a curt bob of her head, she confirmed the agreement. “Partners, but that’s it.” She tucked her chin down and walked out of the gym.

Chapter 4

Troy Dumont sat back in his chair and took a sip of the Johnnie Walker Blue in his glass. The taste of the scotch was smooth but with some bite as if to remind him that it was older than he was.

Months shy of twenty, he had nevertheless seen more of the world than most others his age. Done more than most, including killing a man. How else did you learn to run one of the world’s largest crime syndicates if not by getting your hands dirty every now and then?

Although he had never met his grandfather, Maximilian Dumont, he hoped that he had inherited some strength from the man who had gone from being a mercenary to building a worldwide empire of assassins, gun smugglers and other assorted criminals.

Troy wanted to show his mother, who had inherited control of the syndicate after her brother’s and father’s deaths, that he could one day run their organization as well.

Taking another sip, he considered his mother as she paced back and forth while talking on the phone. A very important call had come in from one of their informants, interrupting their after-dinner conversation.

Annoyance flared through him at how often work pulled his mother away. How, for most of their lives together, one thing or another had always managed to interfere—although he understood just how much control was necessary to maintain power over such a vast network of bad asses. Control that his family kept in a number of ways, including elimination of anyone who got in the way—like Corbett Lazlo and his annoying band of do-gooders.

In the past few months his mother had grown more determined, almost fanatically so, to rid herself of the Lazlo Group. Lazlo’s well-known agency had been a thorn in their side for quite some time, but lately, the Lazlo Group activities had managed to create even more problems for them. He didn’t think the Lazlo Group had been smart enough to figure out the various sources of the Dumonts’ illegal gains, but recently they had unwittingly slowed the flow of money from different Dumonts’ illegal. gains, but recently they had unwittingly slowed the flow of money from different operations.

“Fils de pute,” his mother, Cassandra, nearly screeched and he shifted forward in his chair, determined to find out what had set her off.

“Find out what Lazlo wants with Kruger and where he’s taking him,” she said as she reached one end of the room and whirled, then paced back to the other side, her long legs carrying her back and forth swiftly. Her slender body vibrated with anger.

“I don’t care how difficult it will be. You’re well paid to get this information for us.” Her French accent intensified in tandem with her anger.

Her green eyes narrowed to tight slits as she shot him a glance. Realizing she had her son’s full attention, she sent him an apologetic smile.

As the person on the other end of the conversation signed off, she snapped the cell phone shut, dragged a hand through the long, wavy strands of her auburn hair and walked toward him, the lines of her body elegant. Graceful. Dangerous.

“Je suis si désolée, chéri. Something unexpected came up.” She cradled his jaw and stroked the line of it, her hand smooth against his skin. A mother’s gentle touch.

He leaned into it and covered her hand with his, needy for her affection. She was all he had in the world, having never known the rest of his family. Grandfather. Uncle. Father. All dead before he could meet them. “It’s fine, Maman. I just wish…”

Troy didn’t have to finish. Cassandra seemed to know just what he wanted.

“Once this is done, mon fils, we’ll have more time together.”

He had heard her say it before, and, in general, she had kept her promises to him. For as long as he could remember, she had juggled the demands of the syndicate with those of motherhood in order to give him her attention.

When he had become old enough to learn about the business, she had begun to teach him much as her father had taught her and her brother.

Corbett Lazlo had been responsible for his uncle’s death, and so he could understand his mother’s current desire to see the Lazlo Group suffer. In their world, payback was common. Almost demanded. You didn’t survive if you let others tread all over you.

But this ongoing vendetta with Corbett Lazlo was getting…tiring.

“You’re losing sight of the bigger picture when it comes to Lazlo.”

She pulled her hand away and walked to the bar, poured herself a drink. When she sashayed back toward him, she said, “You can’t understand—”

“I know he killed your brother.” He downed the last of the scotch, wincing as the burn worked down his throat.

His mother sipped her drink and considered him over the rim of her glass before she said, “It’s more complicated than that.”

He shot to the edge of his chair, placed his hand on her arm and applied gentle pressure to lower her glass. “So tell me why you want to hurt Lazlo so badly.”

“He’s disrupted our financing.”

“Merde. You sent the Sparrow after Kruger because he was stealing from us. We needed a new courier anyway.”

“That operative in Prague—”

“Would have taken forever to figure out how that organization was funneling us the money. This is about something else.” But as his gaze met his mother’s, he realized she was not about to reveal what drove her lately. What had been compelling her for the past three years and invading their time.

“When you’re ready, Maman. I’m sure you’d tell me if it was something I should know.”

“I would, mon coeur,” she said. She cradled his cheek again and leaned forward, kissed his forehead. “I promise you, Troy. This has nothing to do with you.”

When Dani had been an agent with SIS, they had footed the bill for an apartment in Rome close to the Villa Borghese. It had been home base for her when she wasn’t traveling the world, capturing bad guys in her disguise as the Sparrow. During her non-spy times, she would “work” at the offices of a financial services company located not far from the Coliseum. The company provided a front for the local SIS headquarters and agents.

She had met Mitch years earlier at a bar not far from those offices. The attraction had been physical at first. Mitch’s size and good looks had immediately snagged her attention. But after a few hours in his company, she had liked his humor and forthrightness.

During the dates that followed whenever he was in Rome, Mitch had mentioned that he worked for a private investigations firm and needing to be careful, she had used her SIS connections to confirm that he was employed by the Lazlo Group. She had also seen his military records and realized that behind the good looks and elegant clothing was a bona fide hero. Not that Mitch had ever bragged about his Silver Star or Purple Heart.

For the next year, she had come to learn more about the complex man he was and had fallen in love.

Now they were back in Rome together, but the Lazlo Group had decided she and Mitch would stay a good distance away from either of her old locations as well as the Lazlo Group office while they were on their mission.

The Albergo Santa Carmela hid on a small street in Rome’s Trastevere section, painfully close to the spot where she had found Mitch bleeding to death nearly three years earlier. One part of her didn’t understand why someone would chose a location bound to stir the emotional pot for both her and Mitch. Another part of her—the spy part—acknowledged that as a base of operations, the tiny hotel was close to perfect.

The street on which it was located had defied discovery even to locals, and the hotel boasted only twenty rooms, all on one floor and opening into a central courtyard. Easy to secure and with quick access for escape. If there was anything that made the hotel not perfect, it was the rather solicitous and eager staff, who had too many questions and paid too much attention to the supposed newlyweds checking in for a two-week stay.

Dani pasted a smile on her face as Mitch encircled her waist and with a playful wink, confirmed their status to the older woman behind the front desk. “Yes, that’s right. We’re on our honeymoon, so I hope you’ll understand if the Do Not Disturb sign is on the door often.”

The woman tittered and handed Mitch two keys for the room. “Non lei disturbano, mai you do not want to miss seeing la citta eterna,” the clerk replied, wagging a pudgy finger in emphasis.

Mitch friskily jostled Dani before bending his head and nuzzling her cheek. “Oh, we’ll see the la citta eventually.”

What she wanted to do was give him a shot to the ribs, but decided a different punishment would be better. She turned and whispered against his lips, “Eventually, amore,” and kissed him to shut him up.

Like most rash actions, it backfired on her as Mitch returned the kiss, leaving no doubt about just how well he could kiss and how it still affected her. She was soon clinging to his shoulders and opening her mouth against his until the excited squeal of the hotel clerk ripped them apart.

“Il amore will soon have the bambini for you.”

Mitch coughed and shifted back a bit from her. “Not yet, signora. I’m not ready to share my wife with anyone.”

The look he shot her made her pulse race, but she tamped down her unwanted desire. Taking the keys from the surface of the front desk, she motioned with them to one of the side exits. “The room is…”

“A la sinestra,” the clerk advised.

“Grazie, signora,” she said and quickly turned left toward the room, wheeling behind her the modest-sized bag with her clothes and equipment. Mitch followed, a decidedly bigger suitcase trailing behind him.

Dani had chuckled when she had first seen the bag, which confirmed to her that Mitch’s status as clotheshorse was intact. When they’d been together, no matter where they went or what the occasion, Mitch had always been sartorially splendid.

So unlike her usual dress when she had worked for SIS. At her home base, she kept to staid, dark business suits and mannish tailored shirts, which fit her cover as a financial services advisor. While on a mission as the Sparrow, she would tone down her appearance even further, going so far as to wash a dark brown rinse into her hair to kill the auburn highlights. The clothes she wore while on an assignment were likewise dark and drab so as to not attract attention.