Page 7 of Toxic Vengeance

You just don’t want to believe it was all a lie.

No, he sure as shit didn’t. He’d known all along that there was more to her than she’d let on. That she’d held a lot back. But he’d never once suspected that she might be a trained killer. A straight-up assassin.

How the hell had he missed it? That drove him crazy. He’d gone over everything that had transpired between them again and again in his mind, looking for clues, for answers. Trying to see clearly with the benefit of hindsight. It hadn’t helped.

His cell phone rang on the nightstand. His CIA handler’s number showed on the screen. “Hey,” he answered, impatient for a solid lead. “Got something?”

“Maybe,” Rod said. “We think she’s been trying to reach someone in the intel community.”

“Who? What agency?”

“The person she’s contacted is retired CIA. Might be a former handler or something, we’re still looking into it. Our tech people traced the origin of a recent email from our female suspect to the former officer from mainland Ukraine about five hours ago.”

His pulse picked up. “Where in the Ukraine?”

“Near Odesa.”

Dammit. He was way too far away to get to her before she left. “Nothing else?”

“Afraid not. Except…”

“Except what?”

“Anything else you want to tell us about your previous interaction with her?”

“No.” He kept his voice even and his tone calm, made sure he didn’t blurt it out or sound defensive. Until a few hours ago, he hadn’t realized what she was. Back when he’d initially reported Eden to the Agency, he’d thought she was simply a flight attendant.

The cover she’d used had checked out, with him as well as the CIA. As a contract officer he hadn’t felt the need to disclose that he’d continued to see her in a romantic capacity after that initial weekend together. He hadn’t been obliged to disclose anything else about their involvement since he’d been merely doing recon for another job at that point, and she hadn’t been part of it.

Unless she had been, and you were too stupid to realize it.

Shit.

Rod grunted. “You’ve heard of the Valkyries?”

Zack went completely still. It even seemed like his heart stopped for a moment as cold rippled beneath the surface of his skin.

Oh my God.All of a sudden it all made a terrible kind of sense. Including the brand on her hip that she’d said was a stupid drunk decision back in college. It was far from that—a symbol of what she was.

“Yeah,” he finally answered. Elite female assassins trained for a CIA black ops program. It had supposedly been shut down a while back…unless it hadn’t. Things weren’t black and white in the intelligence world, and government agencies used the gray in between to their advantage, contract officers like him included.

“All indications point to her possibly being one of them. The Agency’s trying to locate any of them that might still be alive. So if you hear anything or make contact with her again, you need to let us know asap.”

Zack’s heart beat faster, a hard, uncomfortable rhythm as the implications hit home. “Understood.” He had no illusions. If the CIA saw the remaining Valkyries as potential threats, they would be treated as such and eliminated to sanitize the situation. And if he tried to interfere on “Eden’s” behalf, he would be fair game as well.

Either way, they’d be watching him more closely now.

“Good,” Rod said. “Where are you headed next?”

With Terzi’s death, his contract for this op was officially over, but he still had to file an official report and they’d no doubt want him to follow up any leads on Eden. “Frankfurt. Flight leaves at 11:00 tomorrow.”

“Have a safe trip. I’ll be in touch.”

Zack leaned back on the pillows he’d stacked against the wide headboard, then pulled up the only picture he’d kept of Eden from a secure file accessed with his laptop. She’d been camera shy, not wanting him to take any photos of her. Now he knew why.

He’d snagged this one candid shot of her when she hadn’t been looking after dinner together one night in St. Petersburg. She was standing on his hotel room balcony railing in profile to him with the city lights below illuminating her. She was laughing at something he’d said, he couldn’t remember what now.

God, just looking at it was a kick to the gut. She looked so happy. So relaxed and carefree—and insanely sexy.

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