Lazarus had not been at his lair for more than an hour before an insistent knock on his door disturbed him.

The whiff of female floral drifted beneath his nose. Sophia.

He’d been expecting her.

A jab of excitement pricked his belly. Sophia Rowland had managed somehow to wheedle herself into his waking thoughts. It had been centuries since he had been intrigued by a woman, and by such a scheming one, never. Perhaps, he mused as he strode slowly to the door, that was what he liked most about her. She was sly, with a steel-

trap mind, and she looked ahead for the greater good and was willing to make the hard sacrifices. She was also the key to his wildest dream. Control of the White House.

He smiled. Of course, the greater good for Sophia was herself. That too he understood.

He was feeling a bit festive after meeting the lovely Jax Cassidy. She had delivered vital information to him. Information the U.S. government would go to great lengths to possess. For that alone he’d become a fan and set some of his doubts about her aside. But Skarkov’s hand had sealed the deal. Most men he knew would not have had the forethought—or the stomach—to do such a thing. That she did set her apart. Yes, Jax Cassidy would do very nicely for what he had in mind. His initial concerns about her working for the organization Rowland had hired were dispelled. But did that mean Lazarus trusted the woman? No. Never. He trusted no one. She would be watched closely. Very closely.

Marcus was wrong thinking she was associated with the organization Rowland had hired. She could not have done what she’d done last night and work for Rowland. He was too Goody Two-shoes. It was why he was having problems with him now. Marcus and his obvious infatuation with the woman surprised him. He’d have to watch them, but through Jax, Lazarus would have leverage on his number one operative. And if Marcus got out of hand? Then he would be more than happy to take his little toy away.

The knocks became louder, more insistent. Lazarus laughed low. So impatient she was.

He drew the door open with great flourish. “Good morning,” he purred.

Her cool blue eyes, so much like her son’ s, glared at him. She moved haughtily past him. He closed the door behind her and locked it. Then turned and pressed his back to it. He liked it when she was angry. He liked to rough her up. She liked it too. His blood warmed.

She spun around. “How dare you!” she hotly demanded.

Her fury was palpable. His excitement rose. She had never been so angry as she was now. Oh, how she would fight him. He pushed off the door and walked toward her. “How dare I what?”

“How dare you offer a contract on my daughter! She is off limits!” She slapped him across the face. Blood shot to his groin. He grabbed her hard against his chest, twisting her hands in his fists. “Do not ever strike me again if you wish to live,” he threatened.

She yanked out of his grip only because he allowed her to.

Lazarus looked hard at her. “The contract was not up for grabs. It was given to a specific operator.” He smiled. “You might know him, you gave birth to him thirty-five years ago.”

“You are vile, Joseph. The vilest of vile!”

“That may be, darling, but you are a bitch. And you will never win mother of the year, for either of your children.”

Sophia paced the carpeted floor of Lazarus’s Oakland lair, rubbing her hands and throwing scorching glares his way. “It was not Marcus!”

Suddenly, his amusement and tolerance vanished. His suspicion spiked. A niggling of apprehension gnawed at his gut.

Of course, he couldn’t let an iota of weakness show where Sophia was concerned.

Where anyone was concerned. Suspicion was the one thing that had kept Lazarus alive and thriving for a thousand years.

Casually, he opened the lid to his humidor and selected a cigar. As he lit it, he squinted through the blue smoke and asked, “How did you hear about the contract?”

Sophia turned murderous eyes on him. “One of the people Bill hired to take you down told us she was offered the contract. But you can’t get to Grace now, Joseph. She’s in protective custody.”

Her high note of triumph angered him. If he wanted Grace Rowland, he would have her. But more than that, this news of a woman instantly had him thinking of Marcus. And Jax. Had she fooled the master?

Lazarus dropped his cigar into the crystal ashtray and approached Sophia.

“Describe this woman.”

Sophia clammed up. Such a fool she was. Lazarus reached out and traced his fingers along her slender neck, then grasped her so quickly and so tightly that she could not draw a single breath. She clawed at his hands, her nails leaving bloody wakes. When her face began to turn blue, he released her. Gagging for breath, Sophia slid to the floor.

“Describe her.”

After several long minutes, Sophia composed herself enough to stand. She glared at Lazarus but answered, her voice hoarse. “She’s a smart-ass with dark hair and big green eyes. My husband thinks she’s some kind of superoperative.”

“Does this superoperative have a name?”

“Cassidy. Jax Cassidy.”

Lazarus’s blood steamed. Was Marcus a party to the conniving bitch’s ploy? Fury filled him. He could not, would not, believe the man he thought of as a son would betray him this way!

“Does she have any accomplices?”

Sophia rubbed her throat and nodded. “Two men. Two very big, capable men.”

Lazarus pulled Sophia close to him. She flinched but knew better than to resist this time. Slowly, he caressed her neck with his fingertips. Once again, his long nails scraped light bloody furrows in her creamy skin. She whimpered, trying unsuccessfully to resist him.

“Ah, Sophia, you are so predictable.” He wrapped his fingers around her neck and squeezed. He smelled the abrupt release of her musk. “You are a whore.” He closed his eyes and inhaled her call to him. He would have her.

They were too much alike, he and she. While he had never really entertained the possibility of turning her as she so desperately wished, he could not deny, despite her weakness for her daughter, that she would make a worthy partner. Perhaps he would reconsider her request, if she would make the ultimate sacrifice.

He smiled widely and said in a low, hypnotic voice, “Tell me everything, Sophia, tell me everything and I will reward you with my blood.”

Her blue eyes darkened. He felt her body shudder in excitement and, he supposed, in fear. After all, what he offered was heady, exciting, and could be deadly if not dispensed in exact measures. “I saw Marcus at the fund-raiser. I know he recognized me,” she breathlessly said. She looked up at him, her eyes widened, and Lazarus fought a smile as the truth dawned on her. “But you knew he would, didn’t you? You sent him there. Why? To kill me? To kill Grace?” Sophia closed her eyes, then opened them. “What I don’t understand is, if he was there to hurt my Gracie, why did the Cassidy woman say she was offered the contract? He knows Grace is his half sister. Is my son so heartless? Or maybe that’s why he didn’t have her—”

Lazarus laughed low. “What? You think he felt swayed by his DNA? Called off the hit? No, Marcus doesn’t have that kind of softness in him, Sophia. You killed it long ago. More likely, this Jax Cassidy is lying about the hit. But why?”

Lazarus dug his thumbnail into Sophia’s jugular. She gasped but did not pull away. Warm, sweet blood oozed from the small puncture. “I assure you, darling, she will divulge her reasons to me.” Lazarus inhaled the scent of her blood. “And if your son . . .” He didn’t have to finish the sentence. If Marcus was playing him, he was dead. Period.

He licked the column of her neck. Sophia moaned, melding her warm, soft body against his.

“Joseph,” she begged, “please, take me, now, like you did last week.”

“In good time, darling, in good time. Now, tell me more.”

She shuddered and licked her lips, clearly struggling to speak. “I . . . tried to talk to Bill again about accepting Calhoun’s running mate offer. But he refused to entertain the thought. So, I-, I did something I thought would nudge him.”

Lazarus licked the slow stream of blood on Sophia’s neck. “What did you do?”

“Something stupid. Something very bad.”

He checked his frustration. “Darling, you are very good at doing very bad things.”

“Grace, she—she was seeing her counselor. I knew about it. I know everything my daughter does. I set up a camera in their love nest.”

He paused, then tsked. “Oh, Sophia, you didn’ t?” he laughed.

“I planted a picture of them at the fund-raiser. I made it look like it was Mercer blackmailing Bill. I thought if Bill saw them and blamed Mercer, he would step down, knowing he would not want to humiliate Grace. Then he would have no choice but to take the VP position. Because Bill refused Senator Calhoun’s repeated pleas, Calhoun has now chosen Missouri senator Nathanial Bond as his running mate.”

“But there has been no announcement,” he bit off, furious she would do such a thing, thereby compromising all he had worked for, and then not inform him.

“They won’t make the announcement until right before the convention next week.”

“So there is still time. Time to change Calhoun’s mind.”

Sophia drew away from him. “What are you saying, Joseph?”

“There is still time to convince William.”

“But how,” she said, eyes wide, “can he? When Bond has accepted the nomination.”

Lazarus stared at her, knowing she knew the answer. And was counting on Lazarus to do what needed doing. And he would.

“I suppose, then, Bond will have to step down.”

Sophia laughed caustically. “That power monger won’t step down. He’s all but flaunted it in our faces.”

“Leave that to me, my dear.” He smiled down at her. “Now, what are we to do about those nasty pictures?”

Smiling, Sophia kissed the edge of his mouth, then slowly licked his fangs, making him shudder. “Alan LeVech, the man Grace was seeing,” she whispered. “He’s dead. Murdered. His wife too.”

“Such a tragedy, and just when they had had such a lovely dinner in the city, too.”

Sophia stiffened. “You killed him? You already knew?”

Lazarus dipped his head to her neck and licked the blood there. “My darling, I know everything. I’ ve known about your daughter and her dirty little secret for months. It’s my job to know everything. Never doubt that.” What he hadn’t known, however, was that Marcus not only was sleeping with the enemy, but he’d fallen for her as well. Why else would he have instructed her to eliminate Grace before he’d talked to Lazarus about bringing Jax in?

“Why did you kill LeVech?”

“Because, as you know, I don’t care for loose ends, and he had the potential of being a very costly loose end. Now those pictures you let slip, even if they leaked, portray nothing but a deviant taking advantage of a young, innocent girl. LeVech takes the fall, not Grace, and not your husband.”

“But don’t we—”

“We want Rowland to be VP, you fool,” he snapped, “and what would be a smudge on a senator’s career would destroy a VP candidate.”

“What do we do now?” she asked, closing her eyes as his warm breath caressed her skin.

“Right now, I’m going to take what you so selflessly offer, and then I will return the favor.”

And later he was going to pay the honorable Johnny Mercer a visit and make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Several hours after leaving Marcus, Jax tried to fall asleep. She couldn’ t. Visions of Marcus and their last conversation kept her awake. They had crossed an emotional line, both of them. They were no longer pitted foes but champions of patriotism—just on different teams. But his team not only did damage to innocents but it also threatened the security of the government of the United States of America.

The Solution had to be destroyed. That meant Lazarus and his operatives.

Including Marcus. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling. Would Marcus have been so beholded to the colonel if he hadn’t held Marcus’s humanity in his hands? Was he really so much like Lazarus, or more like her? Could he be convinced to switch sides?

“Jesus!” When had this become so complicated? She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to blot out the image of Marcus lying dead at her feet. He wasn’t the monster he wanted her to believe he was. He had a soul. She’d seen it! If he hadn’ t, he couldn’t have felt the things he felt. He wouldn’t have shared like he did. He would not have been capable of the tenderness he showed her.

He would have let her shoot his half sister and his witch of a mother, too.

Her cell phone vibrated. “Cassidy,” she said as a yawn caught her.

“Hey,” Shane said. “How’d it go?”

Jax smiled. “The cadaver hand was a brilliant idea. Lazarus bit. He bit at the altered intel on the laptop too. I’m in. Next time I see him, it’s adios.”

There was a slight pause, then he finally said, “Nice work, Jax.”

She smiled, then realized why. He’d used her first name for the first time since she had met him.

Her smile deepened, and she felt as if she really had arrived. She respected the hell out of Shane. She was pleased it was reciprocated.

“Did Godfather let you know the agent posing as Skarskov has been successfully extracted and the shit is hitting the fan all over Mirov’s empire?” he asked.

“No, but he said they were working on it. I’m glad to hear they got him out of there. It’s a win-win all around.”

“I’m getting ready to head over to City Hall, then I’m going down to the San Mateo coroner’s office. The autopsy should be done on the LeVechs. Get some sleep and call me when you wake up. We’ ll meet and compare notes.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Jax hung up, wanting to go with Shane to roll Mercer, but knowing she’d be better served resting up for her next encounter with Marcus and Lazarus. Besides, Shane could handle it.

As for Marcus . . .

She turned on her side and stared at the empty space beside her. Smoothing her hand against the sheet, she closed her eyes and imagined Marcus’s hands stroking her body and his gentleness followed by his unbridled passion. She caught her breath. She wanted to go there again.

She opened her eyes. Perhaps something could be arranged. Perhaps if they found a way to help him out from under Lazarus’s thumb, there could be hope for him. But until she knew that, until Lazarus was dead, she couldn’t risk it.

Bottom line, her job was to eliminate Lazarus and anyone who got in her way. If the colonel didn’t call in the next forty-eight hours, she’d find a way to get to him, and then end this.

Another mammoth yawn caught hold of her. Hours ticked by until, finally, Jax was able to quiet her brain and sleep.

The ringing phone woke her. She fumbled in the darkness for the handset, muttering about her damn wake-up call.

Whoa. Darkness? She shot out of bed and looked out the window. Shit! It was past sunset. She’d missed twleve calls on her cell. She yanked up the hotel phone.

“Cassidy.”

She held her breath, waiting for the blowup that she instinctively knew was coming.

“Shane’s missing,” Dante said. “He hasn’t checked in since he left for the mayor’s office this morning.”

The blood drained to her toes.