Chapter Ten
Lagos, Nigeria
Mercedes Raya couldn’t sleep. For the past week, she’d lain awake every night, staring at the cracked ceiling while an overworked floor fan pushed muggy air around her shitty one-bedroom flat. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw one of three faces. Dr. Claire Oliver, the puta who had managed to evade her for weeks. Jerome Briggs, the man who had failed to obtain the doctor in Martinique last month and had paid for his mistakes with his life. And Harrison Stead, who was the only father figure Mercedes cared to remember and also the head honcho at Defion. More than the others, it was his face—lips pulled into a tight frown under his gray mustache, dark eyes condemning—that kept her from sleep. Despite their close relationship, if she didn’t start producing results, Harrison would send someone to give her the pink slip.
And you didn’t walk away from one of Harrison’s firings. Just ask Jerome Briggs.
She couldn’t fail this mission like he had.
Mercedes gave up on sleep and swung her legs out of bed. Her lover was still out cold, snoring softly, face buried in his pillow, the sheets twisted around his legs. After months apart, they’d finally met up and spent the entire night drinking and fucking. Any sane person would be asleep after that.
Naked, she crossed the one-room apartment to the groaning old fridge and took out a bottle of water. The place was dismal, but it came furnished and cheap at less than three thousand dollars a year. She’d paid for the whole year up front, mostly to keep away any nosy landlords, but she hoped to God she wouldn’t be here that long.
Sebastian lifted his head from the pillow. “What are you doing?”
“Needed water. Hot as hades here.”
“What time is it?” He fumbled for his phone on the rickety table beside the bed and squinted at it with one eye. “Shit. Did you even sleep?”
“Some.” She finished the water in one long gulp, then tossed the bottle aside and walked past the wall covered with photos of Dr. Claire Oliver and all of her known colleagues. She stopped next to the window and stared out at the garbage-strewn alley below. The other reason she’d chosen this apartment over some of the nicer ones was right across the street—a blocky gray building that housed the research laboratory of a known associate. If Dr. Oliver was indeed here in Nigeria, and if she’d continued her research since Martinique, then she’d need a lab. It was the best shot at finding her, but the waiting was going to drive Mercedes mad.
Sebastian groaned and rolled to his back, shielding his eyes with one muscular arm. “Mercy, you need to stop worrying.”
She whirled on him. “You wouldn’t be saying that if it was your head on the line. Briggs—”
“Was an idiot. You’re not.” He dropped his arm and sat up. “And my head is on the line here, too. In case you’ve forgotten.”
She had. She was in a woe-is-me mood and had completely forgotten about his problems. She sighed and turned away from the window. “I’m sorry. Is Harrison still angry?”
“Pissed as hell. He’s started calling the mission in Martinique ‘The Great Fuck-up.’ I killed the wrong guy, and he doesn’t trust me anymore.”
“You’ll win him back.”
He shook his head. He’d let his dark hair grow out from the high and tight it’d been in last time she’d seen him, and the strands, damp with sweat from the heat, stuck to his forehead. He drew his knees up, rested his elbows on them, and delved his hands into that tousled hair. “Honestly? I’m not sure I want to.”
She strode over and sat down beside him, placing one hand on his knee. “Don’t start talking like that or you will end up just like Briggs.”
He scoffed. There was the cocky man with attitude for days that she’d fallen in love with. “I’m not afraid of Harrison.”
The words sent ice surging through her veins. “You should be.” The thought of losing him turned her stomach. And she would lose him if he kept talking defection. Defion was like the mafia. Once you were in, you didn’t get out. “Please, don’t start down this road.”
He pulled away from her touch and stood, grabbing his jeans from the floor. “Merce, I killed an innocent man for him. Daniel Giancarelli. FBI agent. Wife, three young kids.”
Yes, she’d figured that had still been eating him up inside after all these weeks. Sebastian was a killer, but he wasn’t cold blooded. He lived by a code, and she loved that about him. “You couldn’t have known your target would duck just as you pulled the trigger. Besides, Giancarelli wasn’t innocent. He was with HORNET, and they’re the enemy. They’re dangerous.”
“Toeing the company line. Ah, that’s so like you, Mercedes.” He shook out his jeans and stepped into the legs, covering his gorgeous ass with denim. He left the button undone as he searched for his shirt. “Ask me, Harrison’s hard-on for HORNET has more to do with his jealousy of Tucker Quentin than anything else. Quentin has the empire, the kind of power that Harrison’ll only ever see in his dreams.”
“That’s not true. Harrison has a government contract to dismantle HORNET. They’re considered a threat to—”
Sebastian snapped his shirt off a nearby chair and pulled it on without buttoning it. “To the good old U.S. of A.? Bullshit. It’s all bullshit. Open your eyes, baby. Your love for Harrison is blinding you to his faults. And he has many.”
With that, he picked up his boots and stormed out.
Mercedes sat there in stunned silence for several seconds, then scrambled to find clothes and chased him out. He was already at the lower floor. She leaned over the bannister. “What are you saying? You’re not going to complete your mission?”
He gazed up. “I’ll complete the mission because as long as Marcus Deangelo is still alive, I’m not the best goddamn sniper in the world. I haven’t fulfilled the contract and can’t have that blemish on my record. But then I’m outta here. I’m done doing Harrison’s dirty work.”
“Seb, you can’t—”
He held up a hand to stop her protest and his blue-green eyes softened like they did right before he kissed her. “I can. It’s already in the works. The only question left is will you go with me?”
He didn’t wait for an answer and left through the creaking front door of the building. Mercedes stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. And that pissed her off because she always knew what to do, always knew her next step. How dare he twist her up like this?
God. She’d known the FBI agent’s death on Martinique had shaken Sebastian. He’d been sullen and distant ever since pulling the trigger. It wasn’t like him to have second thoughts after a kill. Wasn’t like him to even think about a previous kill. And the way he was talking now? This was more than just a crisis of faith.
She wasn’t leaving Defion. And he was suicidal for considering it. And that terrified her.
He’d come around, she decided and walked back to her apartment. He’d get over this mood, complete his mission, and everything would settle into normalcy again. But until then, she also had a job to do. She returned to the window, stopping for another bottle of water on the way.
She hated the tedium of stakeout duty, day in and day out watching the same street corner. She could almost set her watch by the comings and goings below. She was familiar with every face, every cab, every bus. As mind-numbing as it was, without knowing Dr. Oliver’s exact whereabouts in Nigeria, watching the woman’s one known associate in the country was the most solid plan. She wasn’t about to go busting in somewhere with guns blazing like Briggs had. That macho attitude was what got him killed.
She pulled up a chair, rested her crossed ankles on the windowsill, and checked the time on her phone. It was after nine a.m., so she’d already missed Dr. Toby Yevgeny’s arrival. The Canadian WHO doctor was as punctual as the morning buses were late.
She twisted open the cap of her water and raised the bottle to her lips, but froze at the flash of blond hair on the street below. That was not normal. Water forgotten, she sat up and grabbed her binoculars. She focused on the blonde—a woman!—with a growing sense of exhilaration. The woman paused as she exited the building and clasped hands with the gray-haired Dr. Yevgeny. She carried a cooler in one hand and a bag on her shoulder.
This was it. The watch-and-wait paid off.
Claire Oliver had come for her research. Finally.
Mercedes pumped a fist in the air, then happy-danced over to her clothes on the floor. As she dragged them on, she went back to the window and again experienced a jolt of adrenaline.
“No. Fucking. Way.”
Down below, a man had stepped out of the shadows and into Dr. Oliver’s path. Mercedes fumbled for her phone with tingling fingers and nearly dropped it.
“Seb, you need to come back,” she said when he picked up the other line.
“I have work to do.” He sounded grumpy.
“No. You really need to come back.”
A suspicious pause. “Why?”
“Because my target just met with yours.”