The bastard Jansen Clay. Noah prayed he was burning in hell now.
“Live Wire, be advised, mark is bearing on your location,” he spoke into the mic attached to his wrist as Risa’s cab patted into the predetermined checkpoint. “Maverick is four doors down and coming in cold.”
Four cars back and cold as ice. The man had to be made of computer chips.
“Ease in,” Jordan ordered softly. “Let’s see we have interest.”
“Orion wouldn’t be that sloppy,” Micah stated as the cab turned into the club’s receiving area and drew to a stop.
Seconds later Noah pulled in behind the cab, and he and Micah watched as Risa stepped from the vehicle.
Micah saw her face, each exquisite detail, and felt his body tense in familiar, but unwanted arousal and interest. It had been happening ever since they had started this op and he had been ordered to tail her. She’s a mark, he reminded himself. A very vulnerable, very innocent mark, he had to remember that.
But the mark looked like an earth angel. Dressed in the bronze and brown, her sun-lightened hair swaying about her shoulders, her expression equal parts fear and valor.
He fought his body’s reaction to her, fought his interest in her. He was here for one purpose: to capture that bastard Orion, and Risa Clay was a means to that end. As he had told Noah, tonight was a meet and greet, nothing more. A little chitchat, a dance or two, and tomorrow she would be forced to realize her world was changing. She had become the hunted, and Micah was her only chance at survival.
As she entered the club he stepped from the car, adjusted the black evening jacket he wore, and followed behind her at a sedate pace.
She was simply beautiful. Micah had seen her before, several times, though Ctimiv she was unaware of it. She was friends with the wives of the Durango team, all of whom were based in Atlanta.
Each time he had seen her, he’d been interested, attracted, but in a very objective manner. Her innocence and vulnerability touched something in him that hadn’t been touched in years. She made him ache to take the pain from her eyes, and that was very dangerous for a man like him.
“Maverick, mark is in place,” Jordan announced. “Go in naked. Black Jack in place to take your cover.”
Micah slipped the receiver from his ear unobtrusively and unclipped the mic from beneath his jacket sleeve. Palming them, he slid in close to Travis Caine, the former MI6 agent, dropped them into the pocket of his jacket, and continued across the room.
Micah paused before heading to the table. Standing at one of the support columns several feet from the table when Risa was now taking her seat, he let himself draw in perhaps the final moments where he would see her expression unguarded.
There was fear in her eyes. Her body was stiff with it, and her gaze shadowed with it.
She looked around the room, glanced over him, and Micah waited.
Her gaze passed by him again, then again. On the third pass she lingered as he continued to watch her, allowing his gaze to memorize those features just before her eyes met his.
A jolt of power flashed through him. Her light blue eyes flickered with interest, fear, then interest again, as though she wasn’t certain which she should feel.
He let his gaze continue to hold hers, let his mind reach out to her, soothe her, ease her. He used his eyes rather than his expression to calm the fear that he knew would be rising within her.
Micah knew the power of a look. When two people touched from across a distance, that touch could be frightening, wary, or a stroke of gentleness. He stroked her gently. He never let his eyes dip below her chin; rather, he let himself take in every nuance of expression, every shift of each facial motion, the flicker of her lashes, the shadows in her eyes, the tension in her small body.
She was like a bird ready to fly. Poised at the edge of her seat, her body stiff and prepared to run.
Easy, little bird, he thought, letting his thoughts touch his gaze. There’s no pain here; there’s no fear.
He stroked the delicate line of her jaw with his gaze, then came back to her eyes. He let her inside him, let her see into the soul and the parts of him that were just a man, just a lover willing to touch her in gentleness. He let her see there was nothing to fear if she let him close to her.
Eyes were more than the windows to the soul. They could lie as well. And Micah was a consummate liar. But as he stared into her wary gaze, he found himself wishing he could be more. That he could be the man she needed in truth, rather than in deception.
She blinked, and he saw the minute softening in her gaze. It wasn’t surrender and it wasn’t desire, exactly. It was a hint of interest mixed with caution and resolution. She had made a decision. Now he wondered what that decision was.
He moved forward slowly, holding her gaze, too aware of the eyes that were watching. Cere"0%There were four members of the Durango team here along with their wives. Clint and Morganna, Reno and Raven, Kell and Emily, and Ian and Kira, who spent part of the year in Atlanta or wherever they were needed with the team. The other part they spent at their home in Texas. Macey was currently doing something somewhere with his fiancée, Emerson.
The couples pretended to be unaware of the tension that sizzled across the distance between him and the very delectable Risa Clay. He saw concern in their gazes, though, protectiveness in the shifts of their bodies.
This woman was their friend, and one they worried about. They were as uncertain about this mission as Noah was, and Micah understood that concern. What they didn’t know was that the wary little creature watching him so closely had nothing to fear from him.
He realized in that moment that Risa Clay had become more than the means to an end for him. She was a tool created for his hand. A weapon he would mold to respond to his every move. She was the very path he must walk in order to exorcise the ghosts that haunted him. And for that reason alone he would see that she came to no harm.
She was bait. He knew it. Tomorrow she would know it. And tonight would be his only chance to ensure that he was there when his enemy attempted to strike.
Micah had sworn years before that he would be the one to wield the weapon that would bring Orion to his death. Six years Micah had been haunted by that vow. Haunted by the death of his mother and, six weeks later, the death of his father.
Risa was his chance to cut the heart from the assassin who had destroyed his family and ruined the life Micah had dreamed of for himself.
It was time for payback, and Risa was his only connection to the bastard.