Jigsaw (Black Raven Book 2) Read online

  He carried his iPad, a new phone for Sam, and a first aid kit. The kit and its contents would only be necessary if she decided to stay on the job.

  Black Raven had stripped the Amicus team, Sam included, of their telecommunication devices. At least he had tried to take Sam’s phones. She’d given him one personal one and her business phone. He needed to have a conversation with her about the phone she hadn’t relinquished.

  He’d now give her the new phone, which she’d use for personal and business calls. The phone was not smart, in the conventional sense of the word, but genius, in the Black Raven sense, designed for monitoring incoming and outgoing communications and scanning communications for interference. It was tailored to keep her, and her team, secure.

  He turned on the TV to see what the media was feeding the public. News shows were focused on the scene at Café Cliquot, where yellow tape kept the public out and red and blue lights lit the night. As he punched passwords into his iPad, his ears stayed tuned to the muffled whir of the hair dryer. He’d give her a few more minutes.

  Ragno’s team had re-routed the phone numbers that Sam used for business and personal phone calls through Denver headquarters, and he now had a list of callers for her. In addition to her father, others also had gotten the news of the Boulevard Saint-Germain bombing. The media immediately connected the dots between the ITT’s Colombian team of prosecutors and the bombing. Those in the know had received news of Eric’s poisoning, though that info hadn’t hit media outlets. Yet.

  With prior knowledge coupled with the constant intel received in the last twenty-four hours, he recognized many of the names of callers on the list. Chief U.S. Judge Theodore O’Connor—the most powerful voice on the ITT’s panel of judges. Defense Counsel Robert Brier—a forceful advocate and formidable presence in every proceeding he appeared. A few lawyers from the firm of Morgan & Associates.

  Also, on the phone Samantha pretended didn’t exist, the one that she hadn’t turned over to him, he knew she’d received calls from Senator Justin McDougall—her boyfriend. Soon to be fiancé, if media speculation was accurate.

  McDougall was a blue-eyed, tall, first-term U.S. senator from Massachusetts. He was one of three brothers, part of an American dynasty that was built upon oil. Each brother routinely made headlines, always with a photograph. They were that good looking. Justin’s twin, Jared McDougall, was a star NFL quarterback. The older of the three brothers ran the oil company with their father and starred in the oil company’s feel-good television commercials, wearing a hard hat, a million-dollar smile, and shaking hands with brawny roughneck oilfield workers as he persuaded the American public that McDougall Oil was the next best thing to God and country.

  Given the considerable wealth and business holdings of the McDougalls, and Sam’s vast wealth as her grandfather’s only heir, high society gossips and people in the know painted their likely engagement as a pending power merger, not a marriage.

  He didn’t blame Sam for holding a grudge against him, but Zeus admitted that Senator McDougall was an impediment to Sam being receptive to him. To an apology or any attempt by him to make amends for what he’d done to her. To anything. Which reinforced exactly what she’d told him in the stairwell—maybe their past really was irrelevant to today.

  Beautiful. Fucking beautiful. I’ve spent seven years thinking of her, while she forgot me the moment the door shut.

  The list of Sam’s callers was growing. It was time for her to have a phone, otherwise he’d end up being her goddamn personal secretary. The blow dryer was still going full steam, though, so Zeus sat on the couch, placed the first aid kit on the coffee table, and put his feet up beside it. He’d give her a few more minutes of privacy to pull herself together. Sam didn’t like anyone knowing she was vulnerable. Eric Moss’s dramatic death had clearly shaken her to the core, and if Zeus hadn’t slung her over his shoulder and gotten her out of the room, it would have been worse for her.

  Cyanide.

  Holy fucking hell.

  Right now he could be struggling to deal with Sam’s death. It had been that fast, and that goddamn easy for someone to get to her team.

  Everything on the room service cart had been contaminated with lethal doses of poison. At least Eric’s death hadn’t been bloody. If there had been blood involved, Sam would have been out for the count. Tough as she was, the sight of blood was her Achilles’ heel.

  When he’d received confirmation of Moss’s death, he’d relayed the news to Sam and her team. They’d been on the first floor of the safe house, having an orientation to the reality of Black Raven-style protective detail. For a second, on hearing the grim news, Sam’s crystal-clear green eyes had shown unfiltered fear and grief. If they’d been alone, he doubted he’d have cared one goddamn bit about the steels walls that past decisions and time had erected around them. Consoling her would have come naturally and he fucking-well touched people when he consoled them.

  Fortunately, she didn’t need or want his consolation. Didn’t need him for a thing that mattered, which had been–and always would be–their reality. She’d composed herself fast, turned away from him and to Abe and Charles, and comforted them with a hand on their arms and gentle words. She had braced herself for a phone call to Eric’s wife. Zeus handed her his phone for the call, stepped discreetly away, yet listened as she handled the difficult task with compassion, grace, and dry-eyed dignity.

  By twelve forty-five, she’d retreated to her own room. She hadn’t looked like she was about to break down as she climbed up the stairs. He’d left her at the doorway of her bedroom. He’d asked her whether she was okay, and her one-word reply had been, “Fine.”

  On the emotional side of things, she was a mirror image of him. It was damn plain unsettling to watch her in action.

  “Ragno?” he asked as he scanned secure intel on his iPad. The Boulevard Saint-Germain bomber had blown up with the bomb. Shrapnel had flown for a city block. Bomb mechanism disintegrated. Eighteen confirmed deaths. Many others injured.

  “Yes?” Her crisp, steady voice in his ear greeted him.

  As long as Zeus worked the Dixon-ITT job, Ragno was his. She and the team of Denver-based analysts working on security for the Amicus team would operate in real time with him. Their time zone would be the time zone where he and the team were located. They would process and analyze a steady stream of information deemed necessary to keep Sam and the Amicus team safe. They’d discard the clutter, organize the need-to-know data, and pass it to Zeus. “Can’t fucking believe we started this job by losing one.”

  “If you hadn’t followed your hunch and gotten there earlier than planned, you’d have lost four,” Ragno answered. “One went down, but you saved three.”

  Two minutes later and they’d all have been dead. Ragno was right. He pushed his frustration aside, parking it far away. Personal frustration would only get in the way. “Tomorrow’s proceedings are still a go?”

  “Despite the Boulevard Saint-Germain bombing and Moss’s death, tomorrow’s ITT proceedings have not been cancelled. Media’s showcasing the bombing. There’s an upsurge in internet chatter among various groups, some credible terrorist organizations, some not so credible, targeting the ITT proceedings.” Ragno rattled off some familiar names. Zeus mentally filed them.

  “If Dixon has his way,” Zeus informed her, “we won’t have to worry about this for long. Job’s over if Sam re—”

  “You just can’t call her Samantha, can you?”

  “No.” She’d always be Sam to him. In a move that was out of character for him, and for reasons he hadn’t realized at the time, when he first met her and she introduced herself as Samantha, he had shortened it to Sam. A pet name only he had used, apparently.

  Privately, she was his Sam. Though in reality, not his any longer, and probably never had been. Seven years earlier, her all-American patrician good looks had stolen his breath. With one turn of her head, a glance from eyes that revealed intelligent curiosity, and a quick flash of her natural,
easy smile, she’d claimed a large chunk of his heart.

  Not that he knew it at the time. It took him years to understand what had happened, because he wasn’t a man who was used to letting things like feelings filter into his life.

  “Don’t worry, Ragno. I’m fine. I’ll be even better once she resigns.” Except Zeus knew Sam, her ambitions, and the root of them, and he didn’t need new intel from Ragno to tell him those things.

  “You sound hopeful.”

  Hopeful?

  Ragno had a way of hearing things that others didn’t and she knew him better than anyone. Since saying yes to the job, each passing moment tightened an invisible tourniquet on his chest and he didn’t doubt that Ragno knew that, as well. The feeling of impending personal doom wasn’t going away as long as he was near Sam. If she resigned she’d be out of harm’s way and there’d be no reason for them to be together. He’d be able to breathe without the breath-stealing pressure that came with being so close to his biggest mistake. Hell yeah, I’m hopeful. Hope wasn’t logical under the circumstances, but he was hopeful, nevertheless.

  “Do authorities have any leads on the Boulevard Saint-Germain bombing?”

  “Not that we can tell.”

  “What about the cyanide killing?”

  “The investigation at the Hotel Grand Athens remains a scene with too many one-feather Indians and not one chief in sight. French counter-terrorist military forces, U.S. Homeland Security, and U.S. marshals all are vying for the lead. Agents Small and Lewis report that the kitchen and wait staff have all been detained and questioned. No one knows anything. The waiter who delivered the dinner was found at his station and professes to be shocked at the incident. Small and Lewis are no longer in the interrogation rooms, so we don’t have real time information. Investigative and security forces for ITT proceedings have a closed circuit communication system with heavy encryption.”

  “We aren’t in their system?”

  Black Raven had finely honed infiltration capabilities, and their skills had increased exponentially over the last year. “We’re in some aspects of the ITT system, but not security. Hold a second. Let me check with Barrows.”

  Barrows. The reason why their cyber skills now rivaled, and in many cases, surpassed, the finest intelligence agencies.

  “Zeus, we’re almost there.”

  “Great. Let me know when we’re in.”

  “Sebastian and other Ravens have picked up most of your management duties since you’re orchestrating on-site protection and not in the office. Of course, you still have Jigsaw monitoring, but Sebastian and I will keep you informed on developments with that. Your partners have left insurance matters to you, since you’ve been handling those negotiations.”

  “I saw that in one of Sebastian’s earlier emails. I’m talking with the final broker tomorrow. We’re probably only one of the few businesses right now that doesn’t need business interruption coverage due to terrorism and I’m asking that she take that out.”

  “Will they strip out the terrorism clause?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out, because the fee for it is exorbitant. With all the extras they’re slapping into the policies, the self-insurance option is looking more palatable.” He drew a deep breath. “You talked to Samuel Dixon lately?”

  “Right before he called you,” Ragno said. “Good God, but that man is tough.”

  “And?”

  “Black Raven is built for this mission. The job’s highly profitable, so that’s a consideration as well.” She paused. “But, in reality, the only sure-fire way of keeping Samantha safe is by keeping her away from ITT proceedings. Our client wants his granddaughter to resign and we’re committed to helping him. This isn’t a case where the client has no choice. Samantha Fairfax has a choice. We have to help her make the correct one.”

  “Okay.” He fell silent, listening. The blow dryer was still going full steam.

  “If you had to make a bet, what do you think?”

  He made a prediction to himself, one that resulted in his chest tightening further, but he answered, “I don’t bet.”

  “Maybe not out loud.” Ragno was quiet for a second. He heard her fingers on her keyboard as she multitasked. “But I bet you just made one. I’m betting yes. She’ll resign. Her grandfather is damn powerful. As you well know, Mr. Bodyguard.”

  Ragno was right, but Zeus wasn’t pulling the bodyguard detail for Samuel Dixon, nor the money. Given that he now had Ana, who valued the life of her father as much as her next breath, very few people in the world could have gotten him to return to paid bodyguard status. Plus, he was more valuable to Black Raven at the helm rather than in the field for extended periods. In fact, he could think of only one person for whom being a bodyguard was worth all the risks and headaches the job entailed, and she was on the other side of the door, blow-drying her hair while Rome fucking burned.

  “All right,” he said. “It’s show time.”

  “Here if you need me,” Ragno said.

  Leaving his iPad and the first aid kit on the coffee table, he stood, crossed the room, and rapped on the door loud enough for her to hear over the blow dryer.

  Chapter Five

  Even with no makeup and slightly damp hair, she was so goddamn pretty the zing-zap in his chest that came with looking at her hurt. Sleek and thick, her blonde hair framed her face in soft waves and fell a few inches past her shoulders. Long, dark brown lashes fringed her green eyes. High cheekbones accented her lean face, which was flushed from the heat of the hair dryer.

  The rectangular, matte black-framed eyeglasses that had fallen off when he’d thrown her over his shoulder in the hotel room were perched on her nose. As promised, the bulky glasses had caught up to her with the transfer of personal effects. On anyone else, they’d have been plain old eyeglasses. On her they were sexy.

  She was ivory-skinned, slim, and had a long-limbed, athletic build. Her lean, angular figure was accentuated by form-fitting leggings and a snug black hoodie that she’d zipped to cover most of a cream-colored, lace camisole. Only the top ridge of lace peaked through. It was enough to make him remember the first time he’d bent his head there, brushing his mouth over the jasmine and rose-scented valley and the pillow-soft skin of her breasts.

  Dammit.

  He could pretend that what she looked like didn’t matter one damn bit, but pretending didn’t change that she was who he dreamed of, from the moment he first laid eyes on her, until, well, fuck. Until now.

  “You should eat something.”

  She shrugged, a cool expression in her eyes. “Not much of an appetite after what happened.”

  “Food is fuel.” And you never sleep well on an empty stomach. Only one of numerous pieces of inane trivia he’d remembered about her, and one that he’d actively tried to forget in the last seven years. “With the high stress you’ll be under for the duration of the job, eating shouldn’t depend on appetite. If you’re too scared to eat now, you shouldn’t stay.”

  Making no move to walk out of her bedroom, she folded her arms and faced him, the open doorway separating them. “Shouldn’t stay? Meaning what?”

  “Resign from the job.”

  She cocked her left eyebrow in a gesture that spoke volumes. As in you don’t get to tell me what to do.

  “No. I’m not a quitter. Shouldn’t be a newsflash to you.”

  “Isn’t news. But you need to discuss your decision with your grandfather. Call him. He wants to talk to you now.” He handed her the new phone. “You’ll use this for the duration.”

  She reached for it with her left hand, flipped up the cover with her thumb, and looked at him with an irritated glance. “Seriously? This isn’t a phone. It’s an antique.”

  “Think of it as a portal. Your calls will be filtered through Black Raven. Don’t make calls from any other devices, even the phone that you’re trying to hide from me.”

  Her eyes flashed with anger. “I only call Justin through that one. U.S. Senator Justin McDougall. My
boyfriend.”

  “I know exactly who he is.”

  “Our phone calls are priv—”

  “To do this job the right way, I get to decide what’s my business. What I access.”

  “As I was saying, my calls with Justin are secure and encrypted and…” She paused, eyebrows lifted. “Absolutely none of your damn business.”

  He knew to concede the point. After all, Ragno was going to listen, anyway, and the reality was they had to be mindful of McDougall’s position. Nothing McDougall said in phone conversations with Sam could be leaked by Black Raven. Zeus knew better than to gratuitously piss off a sitting U.S. Senator. One day he’d need Senator McDougall’s vote on a hiring contract, or any number of matters. Crap popped up all the time, like the Barrows debacle for which the company had been raked over hot coals by a Senate review committee.

  “Press any button and tell the person who answers the number you want. They’ll connect you. If it’s a text, dictate it. They’ll send it.”

  “Black Raven will monitor calls? Business and personal?”

  He shrugged. “We’re providing security. Not privacy. Threats come from within and the people you may contact, as often as from other sources. You know that. You can still use the ITT server for your inter-court, official emails.”

  Her eyes searched his. “Please tell me Black Raven hasn’t hacked into the ITT servers.”

  He stared at her, gridlock focus meeting his gaze.

  “Answer enough,” she whispered, with a knowing nod. “That’s a felony—”

  “Which will never be detected or proven.”