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Warbucks’s connections and the information and hardware he was getting his hands on was beginning to concern not just the United States but also allied nations. The power behind Warbucks had already shown itself in previous sales. The theft of the items, their movements, and their subsequent sales over the years had led back to connections to six families. Families with enough power around the world to bring down any law enforcement agency that came after them. But even more, there was enough power that each investigation into Warbucks’s activities had been betrayed and/or stopped in its tracks.
High-ranking political officials had died searching for answers, as had agents, investigators, and bureau directors of more than one law enforcement agency across the globe.
That kind of power could eventually result in complete global warfare or financial meltdown if it wasn’t stopped.
“Bailey has connections into each of the six families,” John continued. “And we know for a fact that she’s running her own op into Warbucks. Her years at the CIA were peppered with various searches into each sale Warbucks made. We also have a file taken from Orion the night he was killed. That file included her picture and copies of e-mails sent to the assassin each time it was suspected he would cross her path. He was paid well to make certain he skirted around her rather than killing her. She had a no-kill order attached to her name that went out to not just Orion, but also several terrorist organizations. Warbucks is drawing her in. She knows it, and now we know it.”
“She could be involved,” Nik injected.
Jordan shook his head. “The families she’s tied to are the connection. The Serborne fortune goes to charity, billions and billions of dollars if Bailey Serborne dies without an heir. That’s the key to her good health and welfare to this point. She has no heir. That fortune is still up in the air, as well as the power that backs it. Until there’s a way to claim it, Warbucks will not allow her to die. Instead, its been determined that he’s going to partner with her, or develop a relationship with her instead.”
The monitor changed from the missile firing to a dozen pictures of the reigning patriarchs of each family Bailey was connected to.
“You’ll receive files on each family,” Jordan informed them. “But of the twelve, we’ve narrowed down what’s considered the four most likely, and we believe Bailey has narrowed that number down even farther. Read over your files, acquaint yourself with each family and their ties and connections into the Mideast deal coming up as well as their oppositions to it.”
“And if you can’t seduce Miss Serborne into helping you?” Travis Caine arched a blond brow as he stared back at John. “Just because she was enamored of Trent Daylen five years ago doesn’t mean she’s going to fall into John Vincent’s arms now.”
John scowled back at him. “She’ll do her part. She wants this as bad as we do. One of the men on your list is Ford Grace, the man she suspects played a part in not just her parents’ deaths but also a childhood friend’s some years before. Bailey wants vengeance. She missed out on Orion, so she’s now returning to the source.”
She had let them have Orion, hoping that when she returned to her former life and her place in society, no one would give it a second look. That she could find her own justice, in her own way. She had been drawing Warbucks in, waiting for this chance.
The satisfaction for her would have been much more profound. However, there was no way Bailey could have possibly been aware of the extent of Warbucks’s crimes or power. She was after the man who hired a killer, not an international terrorist.
“How much information are we giving her?” Noah asked, his blue eyes concerned as he watched John.
“Everything.” John glared back at Jordan, very well aware that his commander was opposed to that. “She won’t be aware of anyone involved but myself and Travis, but she’ll be aware of the operation as well as the implications of failure.”
The others nodded, though Jordan continued to stare back at him coldly. John wasn’t always in agreement with his commander’s tactics. Jordan liked to keep his secrets, and he liked to keep knowledge of the unit completely hidden.
He was still pissed that Noah’s and Micah’s wives were aware of not just the unit but also its operatives. He considered each one of them weaknesses. Which, in all likelihood, they were. But John often wondered if that wasn’t what made both Noah and Micah as efficient as they were. They had a reason to return from a mission, a reason the rest of them didn’t have or had lost.
“We have Ian and Kira as backup as well as Kell Krieger and Macey March,” Jordan informed them. “Ian and Kira are playing within the upper crust of the rich and famous while Kell and Macey are working within the security details of two of the families. I’ll make certain you get reports as information comes in.”
“Travis and I have checked in to one of the hotels in Aspen,” John told them. “We’ll be moving into Bailey’s mansion within the week.”
“Confident bastard, isn’t he?” Nik grunted, bringing a round of chuckles from the other men.
“Convinced,” John informed them all coolly.
He knew Bailey, he knew the desire was still there, just as strong and just as hot as it had ever been. It hadn’t gone away any more than his need for her had gone away.
It had begun five years before, only months before his “death.” When he had met Bailey on a joint US–Australian operation. He’d commanded the small team searching for pirates, and Bailey had been the CIA’s agent in charge. They’d struck sparks from the first second, and within days those sparks had grown to full-blown lust.
They’d had one night. One night that h
e had never forgotten, never gotten out of his mind. A night that haunted him until he wondered if it would eventually steal his sanity.
Seeing her in Atlanta had nearly destroyed him; letting her go had torn his heart out. He hadn’t told her in Australia what she meant to him—that he’d seen the end of his bachelor days in her eyes. And then fate had taken the choice from him. Trent Daylen had died and John Vincent had been created from the ashes. And John Vincent had no right to Bailey Serborne.
Fuck.
He clenched his fists and moved from the table once more as the other men read over their files and discussed various aspects of the operation as it stood.
Everything hinged on Bailey and her decision to accept him as her lover. She wasn’t an agent who would sleep with any man for a mission. She might pretend to, and she could be a damned good actress. But John didn’t want an act, he wanted the woman. Just one more time. Just a few nights to store inside his soul and hold him over in the bleak, lonely days to come.
She was like a ray of sunshine that he hadn’t known he’d missed until Atlanta. Until he had looked up and seen her haunted green eyes, her hollow expression as she watched Micah and Risa leave their apartment building.
He’d known why she was there. The assassin Orion had been hired to kill Risa, an assassin suspected to have been involved in her parents’ deaths, and proven to have been involved in her cousin’s death in Israel. She’d lost everyone in her life, and she had hungered for vengeance, for absolution. It had been a hunger he’d had to deny her.
