Secret Agent Reunion. Caridad Pineiro
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“Is there something I can do for you, Agent Lama?”
Mitch seemed more muscular than before. His shoulders broader beneath the polo shirt that hugged them and the well-defined muscles of his chest. On his right arm was the tattoo that she had found undeniably sexy and dangerous when she had first discovered it. His hair was shorter, but framed the strong lines of his face better and brought attention to his eyes. Startling slate-grey eyes followed her every move.
“We need to talk, Dani.”
“Talk? You have more from Lazlo about the mission?”
He released an exasperated sigh. “It’s not about the assignment and you know it.”
What she knew was that she was torn between having him take her into his arms and kicking his backside for breaking her heart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caridad Piñeiro was born in Havana, Cuba, and settled in the New York metropolitan area. She attended Villanova University on a Presidential Scholarship and graduated with honours. Caridad earned her Juris Doctor from St John’s University and became the first female and Latina partner of Abelman, Frayne & Schwab.
Caridad is an author whose love of the written word developed when her fifth-grade teacher assigned a project – to write a book that would be placed in a class lending library. She has been hooked on writing ever since. Articles featuring Caridad’s works have been published in various magazines and newspapers. She has appeared on Fox Television’s Good Day New York, New Jersey News’ Jersey’s Talking with Lee Leonard and WGN-TV’s Adelante Chicago. Caridad was also one of the Latina authors featured at the first-ever Spanish Pavilion at the 2000 Chicago BookExpo America. Caridad’s novels have been nominated for various readers’ and reviewers’ choice awards, including awards from Affaire de Coeur, Harlequin Books and RIO. Danger Calls was a 2005 Top 5 Read from Catalina magazine and the first book selected for Catalina’s cyber book club.
When not writing, Caridad is a mum, wife and lawyer. Caridad also teaches various writing workshops and heads a writing group at a local bookstore. For more information on Caridad’s books, contests and appearances, or to contact Caridad, please visit www.caridad.com.
Dear Reader,
When I was asked to write the story in which this heroine first appeared, More Than a Mission (May 2007), I was also asked to leave the status of “the Sparrow” in question. I was delighted! Why? Because I totally fell in love with the relationship between the two twin sisters, and because I knew there was more to Dani and the story of why she became “a world-renowned assassin.” Since writing More Than a Mission, many readers have asked whether Dani was actually dead and also, how I could redeem Dani if she had killed or aided in the death of the Prince of Silvershire. I won’t give anything away, but I hope that by the time you finish Secret Agent Reunion, you’ll understand the demons that drove Dani and sympathise with the choices she made.
Why did I choose such a hard road for Dani? I see the news every day, and the toll that drugs take on our society is immense. I wanted to make a point that even recreational drug use comes with a price you may not see – the thousands of people who die as a result of drug-related activities, much like Lizzy Bee’s and Dani’s parents. I hope you’ll enjoy not only this action-packed story, but also the romance between Mitch and Dani, since they have become two of my favourite characters.
Caridad
Secret Agent Reunion
CARIDAD PIÑEIRO
This book is dedicated to all my wonderful
nieces and nephews – Brendon, Deanna, Erika,
Jonathan, Lauren, Peter, and Vincent – I love
you all! You’re the best.
Chapter 1
Only someone who had come back from the dead truly knew how deadly distractions could be.
Danielle Moore had let personal feelings get in the way of a top-secret mission over a year ago and had nearly lost her life. So she kept her eyes glued to the man—six feet two inches of thick muscle—as he charged at her like a linebacker after a quarterback, arms outstretched to trap her in his embrace.
Dani used his momentum against him, sweeping him aside with a matador like step. Turning quickly as he stumbled by, she snapped an elbow to the back of his neck and dropped him to the ground. Before she could totally incapacitate him, another more compact man charged at her from the opposite side of the room.
She pushed off the first man’s fallen body and came up ready for action, but as she did so, something pulled along her midsection. A twinge of pain followed, but she tamped it down. She couldn’t allow physical discomfort or weakness to divert her attention.
As the smaller man shoved past his rising friend, she released a sharp dropkick, catching him squarely in the chest and rocking him backward, where he immediately tripped over the larger man. Both men sprawled to the ground in a messy heap.
Dani stopped, placed her hands on her hips and laughed as they tried to untangle themselves and resume their attack.
“Come on, boys. Is that the best you can do?” she teased in fluent French.
After months of training together, the three of them had developed an easy camaraderie. Even now, when the men couldn’t seem to contain Dani as her physical strength and martial arts prowess returned rapidly, they accepted her superior abilities good-naturedly.
Her current physical state was quite different from what it had been nearly three months ago, Dani thought.
After being shot and lingering in a coma off and on, she had emerged long enough to approve the removal of the bullet that had lodged precariously close to her spine. Three months after that, she had finally been well enough to begin physical therapy and try to get back into shape.
She had a new mission waiting for her, after all. At least, that’s what the enigmatic man by her bedside had intimated to her so many months ago.
Dani now knew who that mysterious angel was—Corbett Lazlo, the elusive powerhouse behind the Lazlo Group, a private agency known for handling the most discreet and sometimes dangerous of missions. A group well known to her from her time with the Secret Intelligence Service, or SIS, the British equivalent of the CIA and the agency at which she had worked as the Sparrow, a world-renowned assassin.
Only she hadn’t really been an assassin. All her supposed “kills” had been taken into SIS custody so that SIS might find out more information about an elusive crime organization they called SNAKE, which they suspected of being responsible for a number of illegal operations.
She had let her last mission get personal. Her actions had resulted in the death of the prince of Silvershire and had nearly caused her death and that of her twin sister. SIS had been less than pleased that, in her quest to find her parents’ killers, she had messed up the mission in Silvershire, the small European island kingdom she had called home at one time. With her cover as the Sparrow possibly blown and an international incident brewing, SIS had tossed her out.
Lazlo, who had also been thrown out of SIS many years earlier, was the man she had to thank for keeping her alive. He was the one responsible for the medical treatment that had worked a miracle and brought her back from the dead.
He had taken her into his agency and told her that he would let her know when the time was right for her to be reborn and go out on another mission.
She felt mission-ready now and sensed that somehow Lazlo would know that.
He seemed to know everything about everyone while she, like most of the people she had met within his group, knew little about him. To her surprise, few had even seen