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“He won’t know you’re gone,” Micah promised. “He should know I’ll be more careful of you after the attempt. That I’d keep you at least hiding in the apartment. He’ll make a move to get in and then we’ll have him.”
“Unless it works out as it did in Russia nearly five years ago,” Jordan pointed out. “His mark was secreted to a safe house and a double placed in his home. Orion still found him. Orion killed a CIA agent and wounded another before taking the spy he was after. That spy was found in an abandoned warehouse two days later. The method of murder coincided with Orion’s.”
Micah stared back at Jordan furiously as he felt Risa’s gaze slicing into him.
She turned to Jordan. “What do you believe would be best?”
Jordan leaned back in his chair and stared back at her with all the somber compassion and sincerity of a cobra preparing to strike, Micah thought.
“My opinion is that we follow our present plan. Orion’s wounded. Traffic videos on the overpass close to where the attempt took place lead us to suggest he’s wounded. It appears Micah’s bullet caught him in either the ankle or the foot. Blood on-scene supports that suggestion. We have possibly one to two weeks before he’ll consider himself in shape to make another attempt. That will give the two of you time to appear confident of your safety at this point. Micah will begin taking you out in public. His background states that he enjoys taking his women dancing and enjoying the evenings with other couples. It was our plan to give Orion a chance to strike or to penetrate your apartment once again in a controlled setting. I believe we should follow that plan.”
“And what was yesterday?” she asked as Micah watched her fists clench at her sides.
“A fiasco.” Jordan grimaced. “He got past our surveillance of the car. He can’t get past an agent in your apartment.”
She turned to Micah and he felt his entire body tense with the look on her face.
“Why doesn’t your agent like this plan?” she asked. “If hiding a mark in a safe house doesn’t work, then why attempt it?”
“I’m not certain,” Jordan stated. “I could let you discuss this with him if you prefer. I have a meeting in an hour. I’ll return this evening and see what the two of you have decided. How does that sound?”
Jordan was the dirtiest, most conniving bastard Micah knew, and that was saying a lot, considering Micah had once thought he had the corner on that particular talent.
Jordan rose from his seat, took a sip of his coffee, and turned to Nik. “I’ll need you with me for this meeting.”
Nik nodded and left the room as Risa continued to glare at them all.
“I’ll make you pay for this one day, Jordan,” Micah said coolly. “Be watching for me.”
Jordan’s answer was a slow grin. “I’ll be sure to, Micah. I’ll see you this evening.”
Risa watched as Jordan left the room, her mind and her emotions thrown into confusion as he disappeared into the living room and a few seconds later the sound of the door heralded his exit.
There hadn’t been a time that she had seen that man that it had been good news. She turned to Micah then, and felt that well of anger burning inside her reignite.
She couldn’t remember ever being this furious, this hurt. Even Jansen Clay had never hurt her in quite this way. Her chest felt tight with the betrayal, tears locking in her throat as she pushed back the impulse to sob out in fury.
“I have work to do,” she stated, moving around the opposite side of the table and heading for the doorway. “I’m sure you can find something to occupy yourself.”
“Is that the only way you know how to deal with your anger, Risa?” he growled at her. His voice was deep, frustrated.
Poor baby, he was frustrated. Too damned bad.
“Last I heard, murder was illegal.” The sound of her own voice was less than comfortable.
“And the last I heard, hiding from danger could be deadly,” he stated, his voice oh, so damned cool. Superior. Arrogant. His arrogance lay around his shoulders like a particularly comfortable article of clothing. And it pissed her off.
“Who exactly has been hiding?” The rush of anger-powered adrenaline that surged through her had her fighting back the need to scream.
She didn’t let herself get angry for a reason. Getting angry meant facing the fact that she was helpless against something. That something else in her life was controlling what she did, how she acted. It meant she wasn’t in control of the situation and therefore her life. And she was sick of outside forces controlling her.
“You hide, Risa,” he stated, his black eyes remote as he stared back at her. “You hide from the memories the same as you’re content to hide in this apartment. It took you six years to get the courage to even find a lover.”
“And just look at the prime piece I found,” she had to snarl back in reply. “I waited all these years for a liar, a manipulator,
and a coldhearted bastard. Lucky me.”
It rose inside her then. The fact that she had been manipulated, that others had lied to her, that Micah had used her own arousal against her the night before she had been shocked with the fact that her life was in danger.
