New Orleans, LA

The Court of Two Sisters was a New Orleans legend and tourist hot spot. Mendez arrived an hour early and scored a table in the courtyard. It perched near the aged brick wall and gave him a view of people arriving from both the Royal Street and Bourbon Street entrances. He moved his chair until his back was facing the wall and studied the patrons. He tugged the ball cap he’d bought last night down over his eyes and sipped at the coffee the waitress brought him. It was strong, laced with chicory, and hot.

He waved off the suggestion he hit the buffet and kept his eyes on the diners. No one seemed suspicious or out of place, yet he still performed the mental checks that were second nature to Special Operators.

He scoped out possible escape routes, potential trouble spots, and noted precisely how many doors there were as well as the winding iron staircase leading to the gallery above. The wall behind him was artfully crumbling, with plants and vines growing along its faded bricks. It could be scaled, however, and quite easily. There was a fountain in front of him that tinkled musically. The pool at the bottom of the fountain was big enough to become a weapon if necessary.

There was also a canopy of blooming wisteria vines overhead. They weren’t held up with magic but with wire. Wire could be useful.

He stifled the urge to yawn. It had been a long drive and he’d barely made it in time to find a spot and catch some z’s in the car before heading into the city. He’d changed plates three times on the way down, and now it was time to ditch the SUV. He’d have to wipe it clean before he dumped it, and then he’d have to find another way to travel.

But where was he going next? That he did not know. He had some ideas, but nothing fully formed as of yet.

He’d lurked in a diner early this morning that had a television blaring a news channel. The assassination of the ambassador and speculation as to who did it was story number one. No word of a missing Army colonel, or indeed of a man named John Mendez. Then again, he didn’t expect that DeWitt would orchestrate a public manhunt.

The people coming for him would not announce they were doing so.

Still, he didn’t need to stand out more than he already did as a tall, muscled man with a military high and tight. He’d bought the ball cap. He’d also bought jeans and T-shirts, though he kept the Army combat boots. They were comfortable, and he could kick some serious ass with them if necessary.

He hadn’t shaved since yesterday and he had a nice scruff going. Another couple of days and he’d have the beginnings of a beard. In the old days, when he’d still been an operator, he’d had longer hair and a beard. You didn’t have to have a regulation haircut in Special Ops because they made you stand out too much. Grow that shit long, get scruffy, blend in.

But it had been a few years since he’d been in the field. He’d been in charge of HOT for about eight years now, building it into the elite organization it was. You didn’t do ops when you were begging Congress for funding and overseeing the program.

He’d missed ops, but he’d also known that it was time. He didn’t necessarily believe it was a younger man’s game—and hell, he wasn’t quite fifty yet—but it took a seasoned warrior to build the unit. That had been him.

Had being the correct word. He was no longer commander of HOT. He was a fugitive with a price on his head. He was also a man with a past waiting for the answers to a mystery he’d never stopped thinking about.

And maybe that was a dangerous thing. Dmitri Leonov knew how to lure him. This Kat did too, whoever she was.

Mendez felt the locket burning a hole in his jeans. He wanted to take it out and look at the portrait, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t take his eyes off the entrances.

She arrived fifteen minutes early. He knew it the instant she walked through the gate from Bourbon Street. Recognition clocked him like a hammer to the brain. It took everything he had not to jump to his feet and go to her. Kat—Ekaterina—had shoulder-length hair the color of onyx rather than red, but in every other regard she was Valentina’s twin. The ice-blue eyes, the way she carried herself, the shape of her nose and mouth. She was twenty-one years older than the woman he remembered, and just as stunning.

She stood in the entrance and let her gaze slip over the courtyard. Confusion and anger punched him in the gut. She looked like Valentina, but she didn’t act like her. Valentina understood how to size up a room immediately and how to avoid bringing attention to herself. This woman seemed oblivious.

Perhaps she literally was Valentina’s twin, though Valentina had never mentioned her. Then again, that wasn’t so unusual considering how perilous Moscow had been in those days.

He debated whether or not to tip this woman off to his presence. It turned out to be unnecessary. She smiled at the waiter and then strode his way. When she reached the table, she pulled out a chair and sat down without a word. Her pulse thrummed in her throat.

Interesting.

“Are you certain you’ve come to the right table?”

Her chin notched up. “I am. You are he. You are Mendez.”

Her voice stroked against his memories. So familiar, and yet not.

“How do you know?”

“She described you.”

“It was over twenty years ago. Things have changed.”

“Not so many things,” she said, her blue eyes that were so like Valentina’s glistening with a hint of tears.

What kind of surreal hell was this?

His jaw was granite. “What do you want from me? And how do you know Ian Black?”

Her tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip. He cursed the flare of interest that sparked inside him. She’s not Valentina. Is she?

“I want to help you, John Mendez. I want to help you because my sister would have wanted me to.”