HOT Valor (Hostile Operations Team - Book 11) Read online

  This man wasn’t even fifty yet. How much more gorgeous could he possibly get?

  “And how do you plan on helping me, Kat?”

  She darted a glance at the nearby tables. They weren’t full yet, but they were filling quickly. Perhaps this place had been a mistake. She’d been enticed by the romance of it, the jazz music, the name. Two Sisters. She was pretending to be her own sister, so why not? The whimsy of it had struck her.

  A fatal flaw, as Dmitri would have said to her back in the old days. Dmitri Leonov had dominated her life then. He’d been her mentor, her handler. She did nothing without his approval. Until she’d fallen in love with John Mendez. Oh, she’d gone too far then. Gone right over the edge of what she’d been supposed to do and taken a leap beyond imagining.

  She’d paid for it in the end. But what about Johnny? Had he paid too? Or had she been the only one whose heart had shattered beyond repair?

  “Kat?”

  She shook herself. She’d been lost in memories and emotions she’d thought she’d buried long ago. “I… yes, sorry. I was thinking of Valentina.” She cocked her head. “Do you have the locket?”

  He reached into his jeans pocket and produced a silver locket she recognized. Her heart stuttered to a stop before lurching forward again. She had to stop herself from reaching for the smooth oval necklace.

  He hit the catch and it opened. When he turned it to her, she had to bite her cheek. A locket was such a silly thing to own in these days of cell phones and instant photos. It had been the only thing of her mother’s she’d possessed. She’d given it to him the night before she’d disappeared. It had been an impulsive gesture, and she’d often wondered if it meant anything to him. If he still had it.

  The answer was before her. Her photo stared back at her, faded and small. Valentina Rostov.

  She reached for it but he pulled it away. His eyes flashed hot as the veneer of his civility shimmered.

  “This is mine,” he clipped out.

  “That was my mother’s before it was Valentina’s.”

  “I know.” His eyes narrowed. “She never mentioned you. Why not?”

  Kat swallowed. “We were not always close.”

  “Twins are usually close.”

  Her pulse kicked. “Who said we were twins?”

  He tipped his chin at her. “Identical twins—or this is a ruse.”

  Oh God…

  “Twins can be separated, raised by different parents—”

  “Valentina was an orphan.”

  “Valentina was an FSB agent. She said what she was told to say.”

  His eyes narrowed. But they still burned. “And how would you know that if you weren’t close?”

  The hole was getting bigger. Deeper. Pretty soon she wouldn’t be able to see the sky anymore. She shoved herself to her feet.

  “We need to get out of here,” she said. “Staying is dangerous.”

  He didn’t move. His gaze skipped over her, caressing her curves. Heat prickled beneath her skin.

  “Why would I go anywhere with you? For all I know, you’re setting me up. You and Leonov. Is he the one who killed the ambassador?”

  A shiver rolled in her belly at that name. “I don’t know who killed Levkin. But it is no concern of mine. You need to come with me. Now.”

  “You’ve given me no reason to trust you.”

  Infuriatingly stubborn man. “And I’ve given you no reason not to. There is a safe house nearby. Ian said to tell you a name if you resisted.”

  “Again with the names? What is it with you spies?” He rose to his full height, and her throat went dry. He looked tough, angry, intimidating. And delicious. “It better be a good one.”

  “He said it was. He said the name is Phoenix.”

  Chapter 5

  Phoenix.

  Mendez knew that name. It was the name of a well-placed CIA agent—but one whose identity he didn’t know. If Ian knew the name, then he was definitely on the inside. And Phoenix was most likely his handler.

  Son of a bitch, he hated these games. He’d gone into black ops because there was a mission and a goal. There were measurable results. Let the spies get the intel and parse it out. Let them play their games.

  Now he was in the middle of the fucking game. He didn’t like it. But he had little choice except to play it out and see where it led.

  “Let’s go,” he said, indicating that Kat should lead the way. He threw a few bucks on the table and followed her through the restaurant, checking his six as he did so. They passed through the shadowed corridor that led onto Royal Street. She stopped at the entrance and glanced around. So she wasn’t as green as she’d appeared to be when she’d walked into the Court of Two Sisters earlier.

  He let his gaze slide over her ass encased in slim-fitting jeans and down to the heeled boots she wore before going back up to the sleek black hair that skimmed her shoulders. She was slim and gorgeous, and she set his pulse thumping in a way it hadn’t in a very long time. He could smell her scent, lilacs and vanilla, and he had a dark urge to dip his mouth to her neck and lick her skin. Would she taste like Valentina? Would he solve the mystery of who this woman was if he did so?

  She looked and moved like Valentina. And yet he couldn’t discount her story about being Valentina’s sister. Russian politics had always been treacherous, and truth was not necessarily the safest option.

  Besides, what was the alternative?

  That she was Valentina, which meant she’d lied to him so long ago. That she’d deliberately walked away and let him think she was dead. It would be a monstrous betrayal if so. Anything was possible, but the woman he remembered wouldn’t have done that to him.

  A year ago, Dmitri Leonov had taken great pleasure in telling him that Valentina was alive. Still didn’t make it true, no matter how much Mendez might wish it. Dmitri could have been fucking with him, knowing that Valentina had a twin out there somewhere.

  Kat stepped out onto the sidewalk and he followed her, but not before sizing up the street in both directions. There were the usual tourists, the street performers, the gawkers, and a steady stream of cars. New Orleans was a feast for the senses at any time. It was also the kind of place that made it hard to notice anything out of the ordinary, precisely because nothing was ordinary.

  Kat stepped to the side to wait for him. When he reached her, she gave him a smile that was so like Valentina’s it kicked him in the chest. She wore a black silk top that clung to her slim curves and made him tighten the reins of his self-control. When she curled her arm into the crook of his, he thought he might come unglued. Something electric zapped into his blood, his bones. His cock. Guilt speared into him at the reaction.

  “We should look like tourists,” she said, her voice husky with her native Russian. It wasn’t as pronounced an accent as Valentina’s had been, but time and distance could have dulled his memory.

  Not likely.

  This woman had not spent the past twenty-one years in Russia. So where had she been? And why was he just now meeting her? If she’d known who he was, she could have found him. And if she really was Valentina, she had no excuse not to have done so.

  They strolled with purpose through the streets, crossing blocks and making their way north. When they reached Bourbon Street after taking a circuitous route, she turned away from the direction of the bars and crowds and kept going until they were almost to the Marigny. He went along with it because he wanted to know where they were going and who she really was—and who she worked for—but the Sig Sauer at his back and the knife at his ankle were there if he needed them.

  She ducked down an alley and inserted a key into a gate. They passed into a courtyard and she closed the gate firmly. Then she let out a breath.

  “We’re here.”

  The courtyard was small and surrounded by wrought iron galleries. Kat took the steps up to the second level and hurried down the length of a gallery before slipping through another door. This one led into a small apartment furnished with an
antique rug, an oversized couch and chairs, and a galley kitchen that ran along one end of the room. There was no hallway, only a door that he assumed went to a bathroom. Which meant the couch was probably a bed and this was a studio.

  It was old, with tall ceilings and ornate plaster and an exposed brick wall on one side of the apartment.

  Kat went over to the kitchen and turned on a Keurig. She spent a good amount of time fussing with it before she turned around again. Nerves?

  “Coffee?”

  “No.” He stalked the confines of the apartment, looking for listening devices or cameras. Not that he’d find the good ones if they were here. Not without equipment. But any clunky attempts and he’d know it.

  “We can talk here,” she said. “It’s safe.”

  He snorted. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I’m not going to take your word for it.”

  She shrugged and pressed the button to make her coffee brew. He didn’t miss that her fingers trembled as she reached for it.

  “Are you FSB or SVR?” In the old days, the KGB would have covered everything. Today, the Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service were the main Russian organizations.

  Her head whipped around, her eyes widening. “Why would you think that?”

  “You said that Valentina was FSB. How would you have known unless you are too?”

  She glanced away as the coffee maker gurgled. “She told me.” She waved a hand as if to stop him from asking another question. “It was a long time ago. Does it matter?”

  “Right now everything matters.”

  There was a bump outside on the gallery and Mendez whipped out the Sig, gliding over to press his back to the wall.

  “It’s the neighbor,” Kat said. “He drinks.”

  Mendez ignored her, listening for any movement that indicated someone was coming inside. He might be fascinated with Kat and her story, but he couldn’t let down his guard for a moment. There was too much at stake.

  Nothing happened for a long while, so he holstered the weapon at his back and stalked over to look out the opposite window. The street was mostly quiet, though the occasional tourist wandered along the road, clutching a map and pointing at the buildings.

  “How do you know Ian Black?” he asked. She hadn’t answered him earlier and he wanted to know. It was a safe enough topic if there were listeners. Not so much for her probably, but for him it was fine.

  She hugged her coffee cup in both hands as if she needed the warmth. But she didn’t flinch or look afraid. In fact, she looked resigned. As if she’d made up her mind about something.

  “I was FSB, you are correct. But that was a lifetime ago. I have worked with Ian on a few projects.”

  “Why did you leave yourself in the open for so long at the restaurant?”

  Her lips tightened. She didn’t like that he’d called her out on what she’d done.

  “Because I wanted to put you at ease. I thought if I were not a professional, you might trust me more quickly.”

  “I don’t trust you at all.”

  She sank onto a chair and arched an eyebrow. “Yet here you are.”

  “Curiosity.”

  “You cannot do this alone. There are powerful people arrayed against you.”

  He believed that was true. They’d gone to a lot of trouble to implicate a HOT team in the assassination, which took power and access. And where was Delta Squad? So far as he knew, Ghost hadn’t located them yet—and that was concerning. “Why do you care?”

  Her lashes dipped for a moment. “You cared for my sister. I believe you made her happy.”

  “And that’s enough to risk your life for me? A twenty-one-year-old romance with your sister?”

  “She said you were a good man. She loved you.”

  Those words were an arrow to his soul. He’d been in love exactly once in his life, and it hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped. He’d lost her, and now this woman with Valentina’s eyes stared at him like a ghost from the grave and reminded him of how long and lonely the years had been.

  It was too much to bear.

  He stalked over and slapped his hands on either side of her chair. She squeaked as he pushed it back until she was practically lying horizontal to the floor. The coffee cup dropped, hot liquid seeping into the floorboards. Her pulse beat like a moth’s wings in her throat, but she didn’t scream or try to get away.

  “Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t say those words to me.”

  Her eyes were liquid sky. “I’m not your enemy, John Mendez. I swear it.”

  “Then tell me the truth.”

  Chapter 6

  The truth? There was no way in hell she could tell him the truth. Not if she wanted to save him.

  Because he would hate her if he knew who she was. And he wouldn’t listen. He’d walk right out this door without regard to the danger he was in. He’d leave her here and disappear like a phantom. She wouldn’t find him again. Ian wouldn’t find him.

  If God was just, Dmitri wouldn’t find him either. Though she feared that a confrontation between them was inevitable. It had been set in stone for twenty-one years.

  And then there was Sergei. One of Johnny’s men had nearly killed Sergei last year. He’d retreated to Russia and spent months in rehab. Months learning to walk again. He was not the sort of man to forgive and forget that kind of thing. He would have harbored deep resentments, and he would have made plans.

  Plans that were now coming to fruition. Kat shivered as she thought of the years she’d spent working for that man. Years in which she’d learned what the definition of hell really was.

  “I have told you the truth,” she said, keeping her voice as calm as she possibly could. “I came to help you. Because there are forces out there that want you dead—but not before they use you to topple the United States government and take control of the Oval Office.”

  His eyes flashed with heat and fury. “Dial it down a notch, honey, if you want people to believe a word you say.”

  She growled her frustration. Of course he wouldn’t believe her. It was insane by any measure—but that was precisely what was at stake. If Sergei successfully pinned the murder of Anatoly Levkin on him, that would be the beginning of something monstrous. By the end of it, President Campbell would be in disgrace, either impeached or forced to resign, and Mark DeWitt would be president. Considering how indebted DeWitt was to Sergei, that would be a very bad thing for the world.

  And then there was whatever Sergei had planned after that. Because she didn’t believe for a moment that installing Mark DeWitt in the presidency of the United States was the end of it. There was more. They just didn’t know what it was.

  Johnny’s gaze dropped to her lips. She was lying practically on her back. His biceps popped as he held the chair above the ground. He was so close that if she lifted her head, she could lick his bottom lip.

  Liquid heat flooded her core. She knew what it was like to lie beneath him, her heart pounding and her body on fire as he drove his cock into her. No man had ever made her feel the way this one had. The sex had been incredible because the love had been extraordinary.

  In the end, she would shatter with a sharp cry, gasping for air and squeezing her eyes shut because she could barely contain all the feelings swirling inside. He would collapse on top of her, sweaty and spent, and they would lie tangled together for hours, knowing that what they wanted was impossible. She was Russian and he was American, and they both had duties to their countries.

  “I’m telling you the truth. The vice president wants you stopped. He wants your organization dismantled. He also wants you dead.”

  “That’s a lot of things for a Russian spy to know, don’t you think?”

  “And what does that tell you about who DeWitt might be colluding with, huh?” she shot back.

  She saw him struggle with it—and then he abruptly jerked her chair forward and let it go. The front legs crashed down, jarring her into a squeak. She hated that she made even that much sound. Dam
n him.

  He paced to the other side of the room, throwing his cap off and raking his hand through his gorgeous hair. He had the beginnings of a beard. Another couple of days and he’d be unrecognizable at first glance. For someone searching, they’d figure it out. But it would take a little bit of time since she’d bet he hadn’t had a beard in years.

  “So if you and Ian—and whoever else you’re working with—knew about DeWitt and the Russians, why not take him down before now? He’s the fucking vice president of the United States. A heartbeat away from becoming the leader of the free world. Don’t you think that might have been important before Campbell took him on as a running mate?”

  “Nothing is as easy as it looks, Johnny. You know that.”

  He stiffened and she realized her mistake. Dammit!

  “Say that again.”

  She decided to play dumb. “Say what? Nothing is as easy as it looks?”

  “No. My name. Say my name.”

  She shrugged though her heart knocked against her ribs. “Johnny. So what? It is your name.”

  His brows drew low. His eyes were unreadable. His body crackled with lightning-rod tension. A storm brewed behind those eyes.

  “Not many people call me that. Most would go with John or Mendez.”

  She scoffed. “I have heard you referred to this way. Fine. John it is. Or Mendez. Which do you prefer?”

  “I prefer the truth.”

  Kat sighed though her belly twisted. “How many times do I have to explain that I am telling the truth?”

  “Keep explaining it. I don’t believe you though.”

  She pushed out of the chair and went to get a towel so she could clean up the spilled coffee. She hadn’t really wanted coffee. She’d just needed something to do. She bent and blotted the liquid off the floor until it was dry. Then she tossed the towel into the sink and dried her hands on another towel. All the while she was thinking. Thinking what to say, what to do, how to get him to cooperate with her.