Alec's Royal Assignment (Man On A Mission Book 3) Read online

  She shook her head. “I had a brother who died when he was a baby. Then there was me. After that, my mother could have no more children. But I have a younger cousin—had a younger cousin—who was like a little sister to me. I have not seen her in many years.” She folded her lips together as if she had intended to say more but wouldn’t.

  Alec knew better than to ask her for an explanation. Not yet, anyway. Not with that closed, forbidding expression on her face. So he cast around in his mind for a new topic of conversation and settled on, “I know there’s not much crime here, but aren’t you—I don’t know—a little worried about being out alone this early? I mean, you were obviously on your own in the dark and the mist for some time before we met up. Most women I know wouldn’t risk it. Not in the States, anyway.”

  Angelina didn’t say anything. She slowed slightly, and before Alec knew it, she had grabbed his arm, braced herself, and he found himself flat on his back on the grassy verge beside the path, with Angelina kneeling on his chest, one forearm against his throat.

  Despite having the wind knocked out of him, the minute he caught his breath he began laughing. He couldn’t help it. “Okay,” he said, admiration leaching into his voice. “You’ve made your point.”

  She scrambled up and held out her hand to assist Alec in rising, and he took it. But instead of letting Angelina help him up as she expected, he tugged sharply, pulling her down on top of him again. He rolled over swiftly, taking her with him, until she was wedged tightly between his body and the ground. She squirmed, but he had her pinned neatly by his weight and the firm hold he had on her arms. “Never assume a man’s no longer a threat,” he warned her softly. “Unless he’s dead.”

  She stopped struggling then. He gazed down into her face, watching the play of emotions that flickered over it, and was surprised. Chagrin—what he’d expected to see—wasn’t followed by anger at how he’d turned the tables on her. Instead, it was quickly replaced by acceptance of a hard lesson learned. Alec had a feeling Angelina never forgot anything she learned, especially anything she learned the hard way.

  Part of him wanted to stay like this, feeling her strong body beneath his the way he’d imagined the day before, but he was too much of a gentleman to take advantage of the situation. He jumped to his feet, pulling her up with him.

  They dusted themselves off silently. Then, still without saying a word, they resumed their jogging. But something had changed between them. Alec couldn’t put his finger on it, and he wasn’t sure what it meant.

  “You are good,” she said finally, surprising him once again. Her tone was admiring, the compliment sincere, not grudging as he would have expected.

  “So are you.”

  She shook her head. “With some men, yes. But not with you. You are like Captain Zale. I took you by surprise, that is all. I cannot expect to do that again.”

  The sun was rising over the mountains now, dispelling the river mist and painting the eastern sky with a rosy glow that reflected off both of them. Angelina was silent for a moment and then said softly, diffidently, “I do not believe your older brothers have all the looks in the family.” Totally out of the blue. As if the subject had never been changed. Her serious blue-gray eyes met Alec’s, and he could see what that admission meant to a woman like her.

  He stopped so suddenly she didn’t realize he was going to—he didn’t realize he was going to—and she kept running for a few steps. Then she halted, turned and faced him. “What is wrong?” she asked. “Why have you stopped?”

  Why did you say that? He wanted to ask, but didn’t. For the first time since he’d been a callow teenager, he felt unsure of himself. Unsure of the woman he was with. Angelina was so different from all the women he’d known—except maybe his sister—that he didn’t know what to make of her.

  The blood was suddenly pulsing through his body. His fingers tingled, his breath ran ragged. Not from running. His body had never felt this way after running. This was an awareness. A sudden, urgent need to eliminate the distance between them. To make her tell him what she meant by that seemingly innocuous statement and the enigmatic expression in her eyes. To touch her. Ravage her. Leave his mark on her.

  She didn’t move when he did. Another woman would have quailed at the male intensity in his face. Another woman would have retreated. But Angelina wasn’t like any other woman. She wouldn’t back down. Ever. And something in Alec responded to that knowledge. Fiercely.

  She was in his arms before he knew it. They were both damp, sweaty, both fighting for control of themselves, and each other. Her body was firm and hard against his, as he’d known it would be. But it was soft, too, a softness so totally unexpected it disarmed him.

  Their lips met, but not in a kiss. No, definitely nothing as tame as a kiss. This was war between them, their mouths fused as if they were both firing shots over the bow in a take-no-prisoners stance. Hunger roared through his body, and an aching need to give her back just a tiny fraction of what she was giving him.

  Then it was over. Angelina tore herself out of his embrace, and Alec watched as she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, as if she was removing the taste of him from her lips. As if she could wipe out the memory the same way.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked him finally.

  “Because you wanted me to.” It sounded arrogant put that way, so he added, “Because I wanted to.”

  “That is not true.”

  “Which? That I wanted to kiss you?” One corner of his mouth twitched upward into an engaging grin. “I wanted to. Oh, yeah, I definitely wanted to, since the first moment I saw you.”

  She shook her head. “Not that. You said I wanted you to kiss me. And that is not true.”

  His grin faded and he held her gaze with his steady one. “Yes, you did,” he told her, accepting the truth even if she refused to acknowledge it. “You wanted to know what it would be like. We both did. And now we know.” And nothing will ever be the same again.

  * * *

  Aleksandrov Vishenko sat in his luxurious pied-à-terre in the heart of Manhattan, sipping at his snifter of Courvoisier L’Essence, pondering ways and means. He’d been contacted—through secure channels—by Prince Nikolai Marianescu, the king of Zakhar’s cousin. The cousin who’d failed so miserably eighteen months ago to dethrone the king and take his place, and who now resided in a prison cell.

  The king’s cousin had named most of his coconspirators in the plot to kill the king—including two of Vishenko’s henchmen—but he had not dared to name Vishenko himself. Now he was trying to use his previous silence—and the threat of disclosure—to force Vishenko to do his bidding. The prince wanted revenge on Zakhar’s royal couple by assassinating their precious son who was not yet a month old—the heir all of Zakhar had prayed for.

  Crown Prince Raoul was vulnerable, the prince insisted. There was a perfect window of opportunity coming up for him to die a very public, very gruesome death his parents would never recover from. The perfect revenge.

  Vishenko smiled to himself, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and reluctantly came to the same conclusion as the unfortunate prince who thought he still had leverage from within his prison cell. It was a false assumption, but Vishenko was not going to say so. Not yet.

  He had his own reasons for wanting the child dead, and they had nothing to do with vengeance. Only expedience. A means to a desired end.

  He didn’t want Zakhar’s king dead—not anymore—despite the ongoing risk of his illegal activities being exposed. Despite the fact that the Russian Brotherhood, the Bratva—a branch of which Vishenko headed in the US as well as Zakhar—cared nothing for the monarchy. Any monarchy. Or any government, for that matter.

  The king was good for Zakhar, and therefore good for Vishenko—that was all he cared about. Stable governments meant stable economies, which were greatly beneficial to his various leg
itimate enterprises all over the world, including Zakhar. All his legitimate Zakharian enterprises had prospered these past few years under the king’s rule. And he was nothing if not a pragmatist.

  He just wanted the king...distracted for a time. Wanted the king’s attention focused elsewhere, just long enough for Vishenko’s men to wind down the operation that threatened to expose his identity.

  The arrival of the American embassy’s new regional security officer, Alec Jones—who the current RSO insisted was incorruptible—had prompted the Americans to suggest shutting things down immediately.

  He couldn’t do it. There were women in the pipeline, and the operation was just too profitable to bring it to a screeching halt. Especially when it had just been expanded six months ago. If the new RSO was truly not susceptible to bribery—and Vishenko was by no means convinced of that, since he believed every man had his price—then perhaps Alec Jones could be...nullified...in another fashion. The Americans would balk, of course. Corruption was one thing in their minds. Murder was something completely different.

  So perhaps it would be better to do as the Americans wanted and shut things down...for now. A few more weeks—that’s all his men needed to wrap things up and put the operation in Zakhar on the shelf. It could be dusted off later and reinstated if circumstances changed. If not...well, there were other European countries, after all. It would just be a matter of bribing the right officials.

  Aleksandrov Vishenko had operated in the shadow world for years with few people the wiser, reaping the rewards that came to a man who had no scruples. No morals. It would not have been a bad thing if Prince Nikolai had dethroned the king of Zakhar and taken his place, for then Vishenko would have had the new king in his pocket.

  Not to be, he thought with a fatalistic shrug. Prince Nikolai was in jail and would remain there. Which meant Vishenko was safe...for now. But that could change.

  So the little crown prince had to die. Unfortunate but necessary. And when he did, Prince Nikolai would die, as well. Wrapping up that loose end, making it appear a suicide, would be tricky. But no more impossible than other deaths Vishenko had successfully arranged over the years, including deaths inside prisons. No more impossible than killing the crown prince.

  There is one more loose end I must eliminate, he reminded himself coldly, clinically. This one would be harder to accomplish than killing the two princes—man and child—because he at least knew where they were. It was different with Caterina. She had run six years ago, vanishing into thin air, and had never been found despite the bounty he’d placed on her head. He’d agonized at first—unnecessarily, as it turned out—that Caterina would take the evidence she’d compiled against him to the feds, and he’d lived in fear for nearly two years, waiting for the ax to fall. Waiting to be arrested. Tried. Convicted. He’d finally relaxed...but not completely. His men had continued searching for her, to no avail.

  Caterina had been a grievous error in judgment—two grievous errors, he admitted. Letting her into his life...and letting her live to tell. I will not be secure until all three are dead, he thought as he savored another sip of brandy. Prince Nikolai. Crown Prince Raoul. And Caterina Mateja.

  Chapter 3

  Alec sat quietly in a small conference room with only the secretary of state, the king of Zakhar and a man who’d been introduced as Colonel Marianescu, head of internal security. Though nothing more was said, Alec knew Colonel Marianescu was the king’s cousin as well as his closest confidant and adviser. The fact that only four men were in the room was a dead giveaway something extremely confidential was going to be discussed.

  The king opened by thanking both Americans for being there. “I asked for this private meeting with you, Mr. Secretary,” he said, his steely gaze fixing on the secretary of state before moving to Alec, “and with your embassy’s new regional security officer, to tell you I had more than just a personal reason behind my request for a new RSO at the embassy in Zakhar. I wanted to speak to you both in person—privately—to explain.”

  The king’s lips tightened. “We have heard rumors of corruption and fraud at the US embassy here in Drago related to trafficking in women.” His flint-eyed expression left no doubt how he felt about this. “Prostitution, Mr. Secretary. Forced prostitution. The queen is incensed, and rightfully so—any decent person would feel the same. And the word is this corruption at your embassy is occurring at high levels. Possibly even the highest levels.”

  The secretary of state looked shocked. “I can assure you, Your Majesty, that—”

  The king cut him off. “I do not want assurances from you, sir. I believe you are sincerely shocked by this allegation. Nevertheless, if the rumors are to be believed, Zakharians are involved...as both predator and prey. And there are whispers the Bratva may have a hand in this, as well.”

  Cold anger was coming off the king in waves. “I want this crime syndicate stopped now. Not a year from now, or two years from now, after an investigation finds proof that holds up in a US courtroom.” He glanced at Alec again. “The Drago police force is already on the case, but that investigation can only go so far. By bringing in a new RSO, whatever is going on at the US embassy will be stopped. Now. I am sure of it.”

  He drew a deep breath and forcibly relaxed. Then he smiled faintly at Alec. “If I could trust you with my sister’s safety, Special Agent Jones—and I did—I believe I can trust you in this.”

  The allegations disturbed Alec, but he wasn’t shocked. This wouldn’t be the first time someone in a position of trust within a US embassy was accused of visa fraud, although he wouldn’t have thought the embassy here in Zakhar was a likely target for people desperate enough to pay under the table to obtain a US visa to escape the conditions under which they lived.

  But trafficking in women was different. Luring Zakharian girls and women to the United States for prostitution—and there was a premium paid for pretty blondes, of which Zakhar seemed to have more than its fair share—was a completely different prospect, and Alec could see all too easily how it could be true. Especially if the Russian Mafia—the Bratva, or Brotherhood, as it was euphemistically called—was involved.

  If the king was right, that meant he was walking into a hornet’s nest when he took over as RSO tomorrow, because he’d have to start an investigation without any idea how far the corruption went. Without any idea who could be trusted...and who couldn’t.

  That’s just dandy, Alec thought but didn’t say. He’d long ago learned the control diplomatic protocol demanded of his tongue. Thanks ever so much, Your Majesty, for handing me an assignment right in the middle of a secret war zone.

  “Who knows of this?” he asked the king.

  “Who knows that I know? Only my closest, most trusted advisers. The queen, of course, and my cousin,” he said, indicating the man who sat so impassively next to him. “Two of my bodyguards, who were with me when I was first informed. And the three policemen who immediately brought this to Colonel Marianescu’s attention, as they should have—this is a threat to Zakharian national security. And now you.

  “To the best of my knowledge, no one at the embassy has any idea. That is why I allowed the world to think I was merely acceding to my sister’s insistence I do something to help you, Special Agent Jones, after the unfortunate incident in the Middle East. If I had requested the US replace the current RSO for any other reason, suspicions would have been raised. Suspicions I had no intention of raising.” The king smiled that faint smile again, a smile Alec was starting to understand. “Everything dovetailed nicely.”

  Alec nodded, following the logic, and his admiration for the king rose a notch. He’d heard a lot about him from Princess Mara—some of which was secret from most of the world—and of course he’d studied up on Zakhar, its politics and its king when he’d received his assignment here. But he hadn’t expected such astute political awareness, such adroit handling of a situation t
hat might have stymied a lesser man.

  He thought about ways and means, his mind racing. Then he turned to the secretary of state. “Since we have no idea how far the corruption goes, I don’t dare trust anyone currently at the embassy—not even the ambassador. Not yet. So I think the best approach is to ask the agency to lend a hand in the investigation.”

  “The agency?” The secretary of state looked doubtful, even though the agency had been created in secret after 9/11 to do what neither the FBI nor the CIA had been able to do before that tragedy, and had quickly established itself within the secret confines of the US government.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time the State Department and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security asked for their help,” Alec reminded him. “The DSS borrowed Trace McKinnon from them when Princess Mara started teaching in Colorado, remember?”

  “Wouldn’t the agency’s presence raise the alarm? Isn’t that exactly what you’re trying to avoid?”

  Alec shook his head. “Not if we ask the agency for McKinnon. I’ve worked with him before, and frankly, he’s the best of the best. He’s already in Zakhar, with a perfectly legitimate reason for being here totally unrelated to any kind of investigation.” He nodded to himself, seeing the plan take shape in his mind. “We’re friends. He’s related to the king by marriage. It would lend credence to the rumor the king pulled strings to get me here for personal reasons. Suspicions would be lulled, not raised.”

  He looked at the king, almost excited at the prospect of working with McKinnon again, even on something as troubling as this. “I think that’s it, Your Majesty. The perfect solution. The agency’s the best at this kind of covert investigation. And they’re authorized by Congress to act both within and outside US borders, so we wouldn’t be overstepping any legal boundaries. That’ll be critical when it comes time to prosecute these guys. I know that’s secondary as far as you’re concerned, but—”