Chapter Nine
Danny ignored the vibrating phone in his pocket. Hip against the stateroom desk, he pretended not to pay attention as he paid attention to the whispered conversation across the room between Sonja and what he gathered was her number two, Paul. Sonja had the good sense to keep her voice low, but the big, bulky guy couldn’t speak quietly to save his life.
Someone named Austin was being brought on board, being brought here, and Paul was not happy about it. Several conclusions Danny drew from that: not every exit was barred; Austin wasn’t a typically Irish name; Austin was a typically twentysomething name; and Paul didn’t want Danny in the same room with him.
Because it’d blow their cover? Danny was increasingly certain that was exactly what the IRA story was. A cover. Nothing he’d overheard in the past fifteen minutes away from the deck-side crowd gave Sonja’s supposed motive any credit. No mention of the cause. No more talk of blood and revenge, thank God. And no checking in with someone up the chain of command. Sonja wasn’t taking orders from anyone. She, and she alone, was giving them. Not to say she couldn’t be the top of the food chain, but if that were the case, someone in law enforcement or the press would have flagged her as IRA by now.
“Give me five,” Sonja said, cutting her eyes at Danny. “To assess him.”
A year and a half ago that sort of thinly veiled threat might have made him nervous. Not so much anymore, now that he’d been tied up, turned out and married to the most frightening woman he’d ever met. He fought not to smirk.
Ten Months Ago
The first time Mel tied him up, she did so to make an assessment of her own.
He was feeling smug after his date with a paralegal who’d taken over for one of the suspects on Aidan and Jamie’s case. He’d charmed, he’d distracted, he’d followed Jamie’s install instructions to a T. The next time she logged on to her firm’s VPN server, the files Jamie needed would automatically copy and download to his probably very unsanctioned remote server.
Give him a secret society badge. He was official.
What he got instead was a pair of handcuffs hurled at his chest as soon as he walked through the cabin door of his private yacht. His hands shot up, instinctively catching the cold metal cuffs, which were nowhere near as cold as the voice that followed.
“Chair. Now,” Mel ordered.
He glanced up and across the main cabin to the eating area next to the kitchen. Beneath the crystal chandelier, Mel sat with her side to the dining table, one elbow resting on the glass top. Dressed in a pencil skirt and sleeveless blouse, miles of flawless brown skin were on display, glowing enticingly under the chandelier’s low, seductive light. Using her foot, encased in a stiletto that should be illegal in all fifty states, she pushed out the wrought-iron chair beside hers. “Daniel!” she snapped, redirecting his gaze from where it’d roamed up her bare calf. “Sit. And cuff yourself to the chair. Now.”
He smirked. “Kinky, I like it.”
Mel liked to exert control during sex. He’d expected as much when he’d finally grown the balls to pursue her. And he’d had no objections, the sex being out of this world. But she’d never gone so far as to restrain him before.
She tapped her toe against the chair, demanding he get on with it, and his cock gave a very interested jerk. Shrugging out of his suit jacket, he tossed it on one of the cream-colored leather couches, added his phone and wallet to the pile, and ditched his socks and shoes while he was at it. He’d take off his belt too, if he didn’t think it too presumptuous, and if he didn’t enjoy it so much when Mel unfastened it for him. Striding over, he snapped one of the cuffs around his wrist, wound the other through the metal slats of the chair, slipped his wrist into the open ring, and used his hip to shut it. He settled back in the chair, hands cuffed behind him, legs spread, erection nowhere to hide and pitching an impressive tent in his dress slacks.
Not one bit of shame.
Lifting hooded eyes, his confidence stuttered at seeing the cold brown ones staring back at him. For the first time since entering, he considered that maybe he’d read this entire situation wrong. He wasn’t a fool. He knew he’d just done something illegal for Jamie. Was the icy tone, the hard eyes, the cuffs because Mel was arresting him? And not in a sexual way. If that was the case, bluffing seemed a better game plan than self-incrimination. “You wanna tell me what this is about, chica?”
“It’s about trust.”
“Kink is about trust.”
“You’re right. But this isn’t about kink.” She uncrossed her long legs and stood, gliding around behind him. Good thing or bad thing? Jury was still out. “It’s about you going on a date tonight with another woman.”
Bad, then. He tried turning his head to glare up at her. “For your mission.”
Her fingers dove into his hair, forcing his face forward again. “Did you ask me before you made the date with her?”
He gritted his teeth—half pissed off, half turned way the fuck on. “I was thinking on my feet.”
Leaning over behind him, her warm breath blew right in his ear. “Or were you thinking with your dick?” She slid a hand down his front, over his shirt, as the other cinched the cuffs tighter. His cock strained against his zipper, pendulum swinging toward turned on. She wasn’t proving the point she thought she was.
“My dick only has one thing on its mind,” he said. “And. That. Is. You.”
“Exactly what happened on your date tonight?”
And back to angry the pendulum swung. “You don’t trust me!”
Reaching both arms over his shoulders, she began unbuttoning his dress shirt. “If I’m your handler, I need a debrief.”
“You don’t trust me,” he repeated, jaw clenched, holding on to his anger despite the exquisite torture of her nails scraping across his skin.
As if sensing his struggle, she flattened her hands, palms smoothing up his torso, and dropped an achingly tender kiss just behind his ear. “I’m trying, Daniel. Give me a reason to.”
Her hands went back to work, gliding down his torso, all the way to his belt, and just like that the pendulum was all the way to turned on. He was putty in her hands. He lolled his head back on her shoulder, closed his eyes and fumbled his way through a timeline of the evening’s events. “Dinner at Danko. Back to her place for a drink.” Nails, painful where they shouldn’t be, and he rushed to explain. “She tried to make a move, and I claimed a work emergency. Needed to check my email on her computer. Then I did the thing.”
“The thing?”
“Jamie’s install.”
She resumed unfastening his belt and zipper. “And when it was done?”
“I told her I had to go to the office.”
Mel’s warm hand slid inside his pants, skating over his aching cock. “Did you kiss her good-night?” She raked her nails up his length, the friction through his boxers causing him to groan. “Did you promise her another date?”
“Fuck no,” he grunted, hips rocking up, chasing her touch.
Lips teased the crook of his neck. “Why’s that?”
“Because I already have a woman.”
She bit down on his tendon and his hips flew off the seat. “Try that again.”
“Because a woman already has me.”
Her hand dove inside his boxers, fist closing around his cock, and finally, finally, giving him the stroke he craved. “That’s right, Daniel. You’re mine.”
He opened his eyes. The brown ones staring down at him were no longer cold; they were liquid fire. “You trust me now?” he panted.
Dragging a hand behind him, she tightened the cuffs once more. His cock swelled, leaking, begging for release. She smirked. “Let’s get kinky.”
Present
Cocking his gun, Paul handed it to Sonja, seeming to think the extra firepower was necessary, never mind her assault rifle. He blustered out, the door banging closed behind him. Sonja approached, setting Paul’s gun on the ink blotter and claiming the captain’s chair, legs crossed.
Danny could have reached for the handgun on the desk, but Sonja had the rifle in her lap, and a gunfight wasn’t what he was here for. He needed to stall, to give Mel time to get on board, coordinate with Jamie, and get his people to safety. And he needed to gather information. He put on his Don Juan Danny smile again. “Not how I imagined running into each other again.”
Sonja tapped a nail against the rifle barrel. “A lot’s changed over the years.”
“Like you in the IRA.”
“Like you in a committed relationship.”
He sent up a quick prayer for forgiveness, then leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
A satisfied grin spread across her face. “I knew you couldn’t lock the playboy up.”
Another prayer. “You know me well.” He slid off the side of the desk and came around the corner, resting back against the edge closest to her, only a few inches away. “Come on, Sonja. Tell me what this is really all about.”
“The Talleys are traitors.”
“How? None of us were ever IRA.”
“A traitor to Ireland.”
Eyes catching on the polished wood case, thinking of the empty space within, his previous calm slipped a little. “I lost a brother to Ireland.”
She moved the rifle off her lap, standing it upright on its stock against the desk. She laid a hand on his thigh closest to her and met his eyes, real sympathy in her gaze. “I know how much he meant to Aidan, and to you. I’m sorry you lost him.” And there was real sympathy in her voice too. He’d told her multiple times over the course of their dalliance how much he wished he’d had a chance to know his oldest brother, how much Aidan missed him, how his one memory and the few family pictures they had of Sean weren’t nearly enough.
Disgust, confusion, anger, opportunity all warred inside him. He didn’t knock her hand off, the latter winning out. “Since when are you IRA, Sonja?” he asked, and she cast her gaze aside. “Were you recruited in London?”
Her hand stilled and one side of her mouth pulled tighter than the other, a tell he recognized from some of her more spectacular boardroom negotiation bluffs. And from negotiations in the bedroom as well, when she’d tease about what she really wanted. The next words out of her mouth would be a lie.
“I am, that’s all that matters.”
So she was not. He was sure of that now.
He played along, hoping to trip her up, to learn the real reason she’d hijacked his family’s party. “All right then,” he said. “You’re IRA now. What does the IRA want with us?”
“Revenge.”
“With blood? I thought those days were behind them.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” she parroted back at him. She dropped her hand and slid back in the chair, elbows braced on the armrests.
“What can I do to stop the bloodshed, then?” It was a question he needed the answer to, IRA or not. Hired mercenaries were onboard his ship, scaring unpredictable partygoers. Anything could happen. “These people are my family, my employees, my guests. I don’t want them hurt.” They were his responsibility.
She raised a perfectly manicured brow. “Taking over the business, are you?”
He continued to press, not letting up, not getting distracted. “Tell me what you really want, and we can all avoid more loss. There has to be something you want more than blood.”
She stared him down, coming to a decision, deciding how much longer she wanted to play this bluff. She turned over her cards. “We want Steele.”
For half a second, Danny blanked. He had no family relatives named Steele. Then his brain caught up. Steele, as in Remington Steele. Not a relative but Jamie’s onboard computer program, named after a fictional detective, as was his habit. The program that made it easier for TE’s clients to book and track their shipments, request priority unloading, and pre-clear customs.
This hijacking wasn’t an act of revenge, nor an act of terrorism. It was an act of corporate sabotage and theft. Perpetrated by the IRA or by Lynch Shipping? Danny guessed the latter. And he also guessed the millennial headed this way had something to do with it. A hacker—to copy the program or to destroy it? Well, news flash, he had a better hacker.
Before he could say anything, though, Paul burst back into the room and Sonja’s gaze shot to him. Danny twisted his torso to see the meathead giving him an evil glare, probably for sitting too close to his boss.
Sonja didn’t seem to care. She stood, bringing them even closer, though her gaze was fixed on the merc and her hand had closed over the business end of her rifle, ready to yank it up at the ready, if need be. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Our two men at the entry point are down.”
“Down how?”
“One was shot in the arm, the other knocked out cold.”
Danny rotated back around and ducked his chin. He had a feeling he knew where this was going and he didn’t want Sonja or Paul to see him smile.
The real one. Not the Don Juan Danny one. The Mr. Cruz one.
“Any indication who?” Sonja asked.
“A woman. She left behind a pair of high heels and a note, in blood.”
“What’d it say?”
“Feliz Navidad.”
Danny bit his tongue, hard.