Shannon McKenna Bundle: Ultimate Weapon, Extreme Danger, Behind Closed Doors, Hot Night, & Return to Me. Shannon McKenna
to Val from within, create a diversion during a rescue attempt—it was streamlined, it was perfect. It made sense. It beckoned to her as the intelligent, practical solution. And if she managed to kill Georg in the process, so much the better.
Her arms tightened around him. “Why’s he taking so long?” she complained.
“He’ll be here soon. He’s dealing with that agent. Maybe Janos is taking longer to eliminate than Hegel anticip—”
Crash. The door burst open. Val took in the tableau on the bed, and dove toward Georg. His grimace of rage made his face almost unrecognizable.
Georg flung her away from himself with a hoarse shout. Tam rolled off the bed and thudded to the floor.
Val leaped on top of him. Crack, a pistol in Val’s hand connected with Georg’s face. Blood spattered and flew, along with a couple of teeth, arcing across the coverlet. Georg’s leg whipped out, his foot connecting with Val’s jaw. Val spun away, bounced off the wall, and came right back at him with a roar, crashing into him. The two men toppled off the bed and grappled on the floor, Val on top.
A smashing blow to the nose, and Georg lay limp, eyes closed, blood streaming over his mouth and chin. Val raised his hand to chop down—
“No!” Tam lunged, grabbed his arm to block the killing blow. “Stop! You idiot!”
He stared at her. “What do you mean, stop? Is this not what we agreed? Was this not the plan?”
“No! He’s going to kill Novak!” she whispered fiercely. “Soon! In days! This is our chance, Val! To save Imre! Listen to me, goddamnit!”
Val stared at her, panting. Struggling with the powerful instinct to conclude his kill. His eyes were tormented with confusion.
“Do not kill him.” She enunciated the words very clearly. “Not yet. Use him first, you fucking idiot! Why do you think he’s not already dead by now? Why do you think I was naked in a bed with that freak in the first place? What, do you think I pull stunts like this for my health?”
Val stared at the unconscious man, his huge fists shook. “Novak?” He repeated the name helplessly. It was all his mind could take in.
“Georg has a plan to kill Novak. Soon! We could use it,” she said. “I’ll stay with Georg, and let you know when he—”
“No.” His hand clamped over her forearm. “You’re not staying.”
“Calm down, Val,” she soothed. “Be professional. Take advantage of the situation. Don’t be a baby. This way, I can feed information—”
“No. Shut up, and put on your fucking clothes.”
The fury in his voice rocked her back. She stared into his hard face, feeling slapped. She knew that look. That judging look that pushed her away from him, and said whore.
She hadn’t even had sex with that hideous turd, but she would pay the price anyway, just for having been willing to do so. And for Imre’s sake, too. She was such a fool. Such a goddamn fool.
Well, and so. Fuck him, too, then. Fuck them all.
She got up, deliberately flaunting her naked body, and pulled on the clothes Georg had made her remove. She grabbed Georg’s automatic pistol and holster from the dresser, checked the cartridge. Full—fifteen shots. Better than nothing. She stuck it in her purse.
As soon as she was decent, briefcase and purse in hand, he dragged her out of the room. Three men were sprawled in the hall outside. All of them unconscious. Val hauled them into the room and left them there in a bleeding heap.
He dragged her into the stairwell, and they sped down, barely staying on their feet. The ground floor had a door that led out to a side street. A little blue Vespino waited. Val swung his leg over it, waited for her to climb on behind. His eyes dared her to make a snide comment.
She had to struggle not to laugh. After all the blood, all the drama, a sky blue Vespino? It was an anticlimax, buzzing around the hills of San Vito on a mini-scooter, like a couple of thirteen-year-old in-namorati looking for a place to smooch.
But Val’s thunderous face discouraged laughter.
András bent over the hotel room door, the lock pick hidden by his big hand. The antique locks of the old hotel were laughably easy to pick.
He had just arrived in San Vito. Old Novak had gotten nervous, not surprisingly, and sent András to secure the situation. This job would begin with a candid conversation with Ferenc, their spy in Georg’s organization. The man’s usefulness was beginning to erode, despite the generous sums they paid him. Jakab’s bloody delivery in the cardboard box had rattled him. The time was fast approaching when Ferenc would need to be recycled into some fresh use. But not quite yet.
The man sprawled on the bed with an ice pack on his face sprang into the air when the door swung open. His face was grotesquely bruised and swollen. His reddened eyes widened.
“Oh, fuck,” he moaned. “No. You.”
“Me,” András agreed, strolling into the room.
“You’re insane to come here!” Ferenc whispered hoarsely. “I might not have been alone! The others could come back any time! Do you have any idea what would happen to me if Luksch realized that I am the—”
“But he hasn’t yet.” As if he gave a shit.
“You don’t understand,” Ferenc said urgently. “Luksch is suspicious of all of us ever since Jakab was killed! Ever since Novak found out about PSS and the woman, he knows that one of us is—”
“And did you not take this into account when you cashed the check?” András reminded him gently. “All of the many, many checks?”
“But…but he will kill me,” Ferenc whined. “He will—”
“Shut up.” András grabbed a chair from the desk, and rested his bulk on its spindly legs. “From the condition of your face, I assume you have met Janos?”
Ferenc’s face darkened. He struggled to his feet off the bed.
“He took us by surprise,” he said sullenly. “You should see the other men. Iwan’s ribs and collarbone are broken, Miklós is in the hospital with head and neck injuries. Hegel, too. Hegel’s lucky to be alive at all.”
“Hegel is in the hospital?” András was startled. That was remarkable enough to stop him from shutting off the man’s prattle with his fist. He knew the man, from Novak’s own dealings with PSS. It would take a great deal to get the better of Hegel. “What hospital?”
Ferenc’s face furrowed as he struggled to remember. “I Santi Medici,” he said after a doubtful pause. “I think.”
“His room number?”
“How the fuck would I know?” Ferenc grumbled. “I didn’t send the man flowers. And you should leave. Immediately, before Luksch—”
“What name is he using?”
Ferenc gaped stupidly. “Who?”
“Hegel, you dickbrained idiot,” András said, with saintly patience.
Ferenc hid behind the ice pack. “It was an American passport. Mike something. Fowler, I think. Mike Fowler.”
András filed it all away, his foot tapping thoughtfully on the carpet. “And how did he locate the woman and the PSS agent?”
“He had a GPS tracer on one of them. Don’t know which one. Christ, this hurts. That bastard broke my nose. I saw Hegel running the program on his laptop a couple times, monitoring them.”
“Where is his hotel room?” András got up, took a step toward the bed.
“It’s a floor above this one,” Ferenc said sulkily, hanging his head. “He had to be next to the stairwell. You have to go,