He was fucking pissed. Mendez slipped through the streets and alleys of New Orleans, making his way back to where he’d left the SUV. He needed to wipe the vehicle down and ditch it somewhere. Then he’d have to steal another one.

The phone in his pocket rang. He jerked it out and answered. “Yeah.”

“What are you fucking doing?”

Mendez snorted. “This is what it takes to get you to call? You could have avoided all this bullshit if you’d told me yesterday what was going on. You think DeWitt plans to bring down Campbell through me? You could have mentioned it.”

Ian Black growled on the other end of the line. “No, I couldn’t. I risked enough calling you in the first place.”

“Who the fuck is Phoenix?”

“I can’t tell you that, Colonel.”

“Is that your handler?”

“I think you know the answer.”

Yeah, he knew the answer. He’d known in his gut for years that Ian wasn’t out in the cold. He had a very elaborate and secret setup, but he was still very much a CIA asset. His Bandits weren’t though. Mendez would stake his left nut on that. The Bandits were part of the cover—they really were mercenaries.

“Does Phoenix know you’re talking to me?”

“Phoenix plays by the rules, whether the rules make sense or not. And the rules say you should be in custody.”

“Why did you warn me?”

“Because you aren’t guilty—and more importantly, I won’t let DeWitt take the highest office in the land when I know how dirty he is. He’s connected to the Russian mafia. Sergei Turov funneled a lot of money into his campaign, if you haven’t guessed by now. Can you imagine DeWitt in charge of the United States military and the nuclear arsenal? Hell fucking no. We’re on the same side, you and me—I think you know that by now.”

“I’m one of the few who do. And yeah, I’ve had my suspicions about DeWitt and Turov for a while.” He hadn’t seen any evidence of the money trail, because that wasn’t HOT’s mission, but he remembered how chummy DeWitt and Turov’s predecessor, Grigori Androv, had been. It was only natural that DeWitt would continue that relationship with Sergei Turov. Especially if he were indebted to the mafia boss.

“They’re a dangerous pair,” Ian said.

Mendez kept an eye on his surroundings as he walked. The French Quarter was alive with tourists. The laughter from Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, aka bar, was loud. A mule-drawn carriage clopped to a stop and a waitress came out to take orders. Only in New Orleans.

“Hard to tell which one of them hates me more,” he mused.

Ian laughed. “You have a winning way with assholes, Colonel.”

“It’s probably safe to assume they’re working together on dismantling HOT. Sergei has no love for us after last year, that’s certain.”

He’d left the US a broken man, thanks to Double Dee’s bullet. He’d recovered, but he obviously hadn’t forgotten. And with Open Sky, the hacker group he controlled, putting together false information for HOT’s servers would have been easy. He just needed someone with access to the SIPRNet to install it. DeWitt?

Nah, probably someone in DeWitt’s office. For deniability.

“Turov’s also a patient man,” Ian said. “The kind who works on the long plan rather than the immediate-gratification model. This is precisely the kind of thing he would orchestrate.”

Because Turov was a mastermind. DeWitt was simply an opportunist.

“Lucky me. I should have let my sniper kill him last year.”

“Probably. Look, I need you to go back to the safe house. I’d rather nobody find you wandering the streets and haul you off to DC—or Moscow—to disappear into a prison cell.”

“Or the bottom of the ocean,” he said wryly.

“That too… John, I’m asking you to go back. Please.”

“How long have you known Kat?” Mendez asked.

He could still smell her perfume as if she were standing beside him. When he’d pressed her chair back and shoved his face into hers, he’d been unprepared for the tidal wave of need that assailed him. She brought up memories and long-buried emotions. She also confused him. He’d wanted to strip her naked and fuck her hard and long. He’d wanted to hear her moans and feel her pussy gloving his cock. He told himself she wasn’t Valentina, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t stop the mental image.

Not quite what he needed to be thinking about with his life falling apart around him.

“A few years. She was a Russian agent, but now she works for me.”

“Are you certain of that?”

Ian snorted. “Yeah, I’m certain. She has no love for the Russians.”

“What do you know about her, besides that?”

“I know enough.”

He didn’t like the prickle of jealousy that tickled along his spine or speared daggers into his heart. “You fucking her?”

“I shouldn’t answer that because it’s none of your goddamn business—but since it seems important to you, no, I’m not. And I never have.”

And there went relief, chasing after jealousy. She’s not Valentina. But was he certain of that? Really certain? His brain rebelled at the idea she could be because of what it would ultimately mean.

“It’s not important. I’m just trying to figure out what your agenda is.”

“My agenda is to prevent a power-hungry asshole from destroying our country for the sake of his ego. That’s what I fucking care about.”

Yeah, Mendez cared about that too. DeWitt might only be an opportunist, but he was still dangerous. Especially if Turov was pulling the strings. “He’s not the president.”

“Not yet. Look,” Ian began. “I need you with me on this. I need your skills on my team. I need your knowledge of Sergei Turov and Dmitri Leonov, and I need you to work with Kat. Together, we can stop them.”

“Why would I work with Kat? You used her to get me down here. Beyond that, I don’t know any reason I need to see her again.”

He didn’t want to see her again. Didn’t want to keep thinking about getting her naked or wondering if she really was Valentina’s twin—or if the truth was much worse than that.

“Kat used to work for Turov. She knows things about him that could be useful.”

His stomach was stone. He didn’t like the idea that she’d worked for Turov. That bastard was slimy. He corrupted everything he touched. “If you have her, then you don’t need me.”

“John.” The tone of Ian’s voice made him crash to a stop. “It’s you and Kat. That’s all I’ve got right now. I’m assembling a team—but it takes time.”

Mendez couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The man had a ton of mercenary contacts and all he could come up with was an Army colonel who’d technically deserted and a former (so she claimed) Russian spy?

“What the fuck do you expect us to do until then? Sit around in New Orleans and wait for you to come up with a plan? Not my style, Ian. Not happening. I won’t wait for them to find me.”

“Look, I know it’s not easy. I don’t have answers and I didn’t have a lot of notice on this shit going down. I just need you to wait a bit longer. I won’t leave you hanging. Have I yet?”

Mendez closed his eyes. Son of a bitch.

All the times Ian had been there when Mendez needed something for his HOT operators. The ops, sanctioned and unsanctioned. The times he’d pulled the boys out of a sticky situation.

Mendez owed the man and he knew it. “I seem to have a missing HOT asset. I need to know where they are. Find them and I’ll work with Kat.”

He could almost hear Ian sigh. “Deal.”

“You might want to wait a second. There’s more.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“I want my name cleared when this is over. I want back in, and I want my organization returned to active status.” Might as well ask for the moon.

Ian was silent for a long moment. “I don’t intend to give you anything less.”

* * *

Kat paced. Ian had told her Johnny was coming back, but she wouldn’t believe it until she saw it. After he’d disappeared earlier, she’d called Ian right away. He’d told her he would handle it.

And he had. Fifteen minutes later he’d called and told her to stay put, that Johnny would be back in a couple of hours. She glanced at her watch—she wore one out of habit rather than need—and watched the second hand tick toward the two-hour mark.

“Screw this,” she muttered, picking up her Glock and shoving it into the hidden holster at her back. Her silky tank top hung to her hips, obscuring the weapon. She marched to the door and yanked it open, ready to go searching for the man who confused her and made her ache at the same time.

“Going somewhere?”

She gasped at the unexpected mountain of male flesh standing on the other side of the door. “What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “I could have shot you.”

He pushed her backward into the room and kicked the door closed. “You weren’t ready, Kat. If I’d been an assassin, you’d be dead.”

She hated that he was right. Shame boiled beneath her skin. She was an experienced agent, not a green recruit. She knew better.

But her emotions were on edge, and that wasn’t a good thing. She had to work to get them under control before she did something even more stupid. “It won’t happen again.”

“I hope not. Seems as if it’s you and me right now. There’s no room for errors.”

Her face was on fire. He dropped a backpack onto the floor. In his other hand was a bag that emanated delicious odors. She lifted her gaze to his, blinking to clear her thoughts. He grinned, and her pulse throttled higher at the way it transformed his face.

Belatedly, it hit her that he’d stopped for takeout. The man was being hunted and he’d stopped for food.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.” He walked over to the living area and put the bag on the coffee table. “I picked up a couple of roast beef po’boys.”

Her mouth watered. The smells were divine. He sat on the couch, legs spread, and opened the bag. He calmly unwrapped his sandwich and bit into it. He left hers sitting on the table. She came over and snatched it, sinking onto the chair opposite and unwrapping it. The bread was soft and crisp at the same time. The beef was moist, covered in gravy, and dressed with tomatoes and lettuce. The first bite was heaven. She might have moaned.

When she looked at Johnny again, his eyes gleamed as he studied her. He was assessing her, cataloging her, comparing her to his memory of Valentina. Her mouth went dry as she considered the repercussions of him figuring out the truth.

And then she told herself it wasn’t going to happen. She simply had to maintain the fiction. They hadn’t been lovers in over twenty years. They would never be lovers again. He wouldn’t know if she didn’t let him know.

“You’re a lot like her,” he said softly.

Her gut twisted. “We had the same parents. We came from the same egg. Of course I’m like her.”

“So you’re admitting you’re identical twins now, huh?”

She shrugged. “I never said we weren’t. I was simply annoyed at your assumptions and accusations.”

“And yet she never mentioned a twin. That’s what I don’t understand.”

Kat dipped her gaze to the sandwich. Tried to look nonchalant. “So she didn’t tell you everything. Big deal.”

“She told me about her parents. About the orphanage she went into when her mother died. She told me that her father was sent to a labor camp for dissidents and that she joined the army to prove she was loyal to the ideals of the party.”

“Yes, this is all true. We both did. We didn’t talk about each other because we were ordered not to. For all you know, I replaced Valentina on some of your dates—to test the theory we could do it, of course.”

Oh, what bullshit. And yet maybe he would believe it. Maybe it would make things easier and make him less suspicious if she screwed up.

His gaze narrowed. “Did you?”

“I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

He finished his food and crumbled up the wrapper. “Dmitri Leonov told me last year that Valentina didn’t die. What if you’re really her and you’re just running a con on me?”

Her heart was stone. Dmitri had told him that? Of course he had. He’d twisted the knife because he could. Because he’d wanted to do damage.

“Dmitri Leonov is a con man and a psychopath. He’d say anything to hurt you.”

“You do know Dmitri. I wondered.”

She shrugged. Inside, her emotions roiled. “He was our handler. Mine and Valentina’s. He’s a sick fuck and I hate him. Whatever happened to Valentina—he’s the one responsible for it.”

And that was utterly the truth. Dmitri had forced her to make a choice all those years ago. She’d been young and in love and scared for her life. Scared for Johnny’s life—and for the new life they’d created. She’d made the only choice she could, and not a day went by that she wasn’t haunted by it. By what could have been if only they’d been different people.

That choice had sent her into a hell that she was still trying to escape. It was still the only choice she’d had though.

“Did you see a body?”

Her throat was as dry as a desert. Tell him yes and he’d stop questioning it. But he’d have other questions, and that was a dark, spiraling hole she didn’t want to go down. “No.”

“Do you believe she’s dead?”

“Yes.” She dropped the unfinished sandwich on the table. “Enough. I don’t want to talk about this. It is over and done. Today is what matters.”

“Fine. Today is what matters.”

He got to his feet, his big body looming over her in the small apartment. The afternoon light slanted through the shutters and caressed his body, highlighting all that glorious muscle and masculinity. He was still the most delicious man she’d ever known. His dark eyes speared into her and her heart skipped a beat. She had to drag her mind back to the present rather than reminiscing over the past and how right it had felt to be in his arms.

Too much had happened since then.

“I don’t trust you, Kat. Betray me and I’ll take you down hard. Killing a woman isn’t against my religion.”

“If I wanted to betray you, I could have done it already.”

“Unless you’re taking orders from Leonov. He’d want to kill me himself—and he’d enjoy using you to torment me first.”

“I am not here to torment you.”

His eyes grew darker. “But you do all the same.”