Page 6 of Kept By The Agents

"You were hoping to find someone who wasn't corrupt." He shook his head in disgust. "Well, now you're bringing us there," Brandon commanded. I was ready to jump at his tone. I had to remind myself that even though I was their captive, I didn't have to follow his orders. I did need his help though.

"Works for me," I said, feigning nonchalance. Giving Suave a bright, slightly triumphant smile, I asked, "Could you untie me please?"

He wanted to strangle me, the desire was written all over his face. But they needed me, so in the end he did as I asked and untied my bonds.

Hopping up, I sang out, "Let's get going boys. We're late."

A strong hand wrapped around the back of my neck and swung me around. My gasp died in my throat when I met Brandon's dark brown eyes. It was easy to see what he was feeling now. He was furious. "You're going to show us where this meeting is, then you're coming right back here."

The hell I was. The promise I'd made to Alyona and her family was sitting heavily in my chest. Shrugging, I tried to play innocent. "Fine." I swallowed as his fingers dug into the sides of my neck. Testing his hold wasn't necessary, he was strong enough to keep me right where I was. Ignoring the throbbing between my legs was a bit harder. I shifted, pressing my thighs together as much as I could without being noticed. It did little to ease the ache. Guilt pinched at me, it wasn't right for me to be sexually attracted to Suave's friends. Then I remembered what he'd done to me and the guilt faded away. I could lust after whoever I wanted and there was nothing that jerk could say.

Not that I wanted to be throbbing for Brandon. Living in a foreign country, immersing yourself into your work, and abstaining from sex would make any girl throw herself at the first hunks she saw. Or that was what I was telling myself anyway.

Ignoring their angry looks and my confusing feelings, I pointed over my shoulder at the door. "We should really get going or we're going to miss everything."

Brandon held onto me for a few heartbeats more, then he let me go. All the moisture in my mouth had fled, so I swallowed while I watched them go into another room. They came back out with Kevlar Vests on and packing enough heat to have my eyes widening.

"You're not planning on taking on everyone at the meeting...are you?" I frowned. "There were supposed to be a lot of people there."

"Show us where we're going," Brandon demanded. He pulled a cell phone out of the side pocket of his black utility pants.

I wasn't sure if that was some kind of uniform, but they were all wearing them, along with black t-shirts, and black boots. Suave and Weaver fell into step beside me, with Brandon bringing up the rear.

He was speaking in a low voice into the phone. "Yeah. Now. I'll send you the coordinates as soon as I get there. Until then, these will get you close. You need to hurry."

His call ended as we crept back up the alleyway toward that blood red door once more.

CHAPTER 4

Suave

There was just enough ambient light for me to check out Catalina as we walked. Her shapely ass swayed, encased in tight fitting jeans. She wasn't dressed in a way that hid that she was a woman, or an American. Maybe it was because she'd been creeping around at night. I sure as fuck hoped she wasn't wearing those jeans around this place in the daylight. Russia could be a dangerous country, especially the areas she was going to in order to get intel on the Raleka.

But then again, she'd been here for weeks now and hadn't seemed to cause too much trouble. Weaver would have known right away if she had.

I'd filled the others in on Catalina Devaroe on the way over. Well, I'd told them most of it. I hadn't mentioned the fact that I'd left her at the altar on our wedding day. Those were just unnecessary details right now.

There was a scowl on her face, her lush lips pinched. She was probably still pissed about that. It'd been ten years ago. I'd meant to go back. Explain. Things had just gotten in the way. Sure, I'd had my fun and fucked more than my fair share of women, but Cat was always the one who'd gotten away. I figured she'd get married to some other guy and my opportunity to be in her life was gone. So I'd moved on, but the love I had for her never really went away.

She wasn't going to make our reunion an easy one. Especially since I'd never told her why I'd left that day. Why I'd jumped on a plane and hadn't looked back. When you had a man knocking on your door saying, "Congratulations, you get to be a spy. Now come with me," well, that took care of the reason I'd never gone back to Maine.

I'd kept tabs on her throughout the years. When she called a few weeks ago, I went to her apartment. What I found there had nearly sent me into a rage. The place was completely fucking destroyed, and I hadn't been able to find a trace of her. I almost took a leave of absence, but then Weaver found her name in connection to what was happening here in Russia. It took us longer than I cared for to put this mission together, but it wasn't something we could jump on half-cocked. That would get us all killed. It had taken time to convince our bosses to let us look into this.

We'd been biding our time, learning as much as we could. It hadn't surprised me in the least when we figured out that Cat was investigating the Raleka, or that they were involved in some heavy shit. Their transgressions made it easy to get our agency on board once we explained things. The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation had been after these guys for years. The SVR were happy enough to work with us to take these fuckers out. This was their operation. We were here to help support them in any way we could.

We got here three days ago and managed to put a tracker on one of the men belonging to the Raleka. Weaver was following that tracker on his phone when it cut out. I wasn't expecting to bump into Cat out here on the streets. It didn't take Weaver long, once we landed, to find the hotel she was staying in. Keeping an eye on her wasn't difficult, until our subject started moving. We left her behind, assuming she was in for the night, to follow Denis Avilov.

The fact that she was here pissed me off. I knew she'd become a reporter, but she'd never done anything like this. Most of her stories had been small time shit. There'd been a few stories she'd worked on that had been moderately dangerous, petty thugs really. But an international mafia? What the hell was she thinking?

She doesn't think, not about things like this. She acts. Runs straight to the story. And in this case it's even worse because Alyona is like family to her.

Not unlike how I treated my job. That was different, though. I had my brothers to back me up. She didn't have anyone. Well, that was before. Now she had us, whether she liked it or not. And just maybe, I'd have another chance. It was probably too much to hope for, but there was no getting rid of it now.

We stopped across the alley from a dark red door. Brando was busy calling in the Russian Agents, while Weaver tapped away on his phone, trying to find out anything he could about the building we were about to enter.

"That's it. Denis went in there."

"You're sure this was where the meeting was supposed to be?" I asked in a hushed voice.

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