Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Carla Cassidy for her contribution to the Athena Force series.
The rock glittered brilliantly against the swatch of navy velvet, a sparkling gem beneath a single spotlight in the glass display case. Fifteen carats of multifaceted perfection that threatened to steal Lynnette White’s breath away…if she was breathing.
At the moment she was holding her breath and inching down a rope suspended from the large skylight overhead. She paused just before touching the display case and tilted her head to the right.
From the upstairs she could hear the sounds of the owner of the mansion snoring in his bedroom. Good. She’d gotten past the security guards outside the huge mansion and had managed to breach the electronic security system to get inside. The last thing she wanted was for the owner of the house to stumble downstairs for a drink of water and discover her hanging like a spider directly over his precious gem.
If she were like normal people she would never have been able to hear the faint snores coming from an upstairs bedroom. But Lynn wasn’t normal people.
She looked at her watch, still listening for any sound of movement inside the home. She knew the owner was an elderly, eccentric millionaire who lived alone. She hoped he hadn’t chosen this night to invite some lady friend to overnight hospitality. His household staff didn’t live in the house, but were day workers who left after dinnertime.
She checked her watch again. Ten seconds and there would be a thirty-second blip to the computer security system. She’d hacked into the security files and had programmed a fifteen-second delay that hopefully wouldn’t be detected during or after the fact.
Thirty seconds was all she’d have to cut the top of the glass display case, pluck up the gem and get the heck out of Dodge. It shouldn’t be a problem.
The smell of the house surrounded her, a scent of lemon polish and the lingering smell of Italian cooking that must have been dinner for the occupant.
She drew three deep, measured breaths as she stared at the second hand on her watch. When it read precisely 1:00 a.m., she efficiently cut the glass, pulled out the circle with a piece of duct tape, then reached into the top of the display cabinet. She grabbed the cool diamond and placed it into the pouch in her spandex top, then climbed up the rope at warp speed.
Her heart hammered as she listened for the sound of an alarm or racing footsteps. But there was nothing except the pounding of her heartbeat and the faint sound of her own measured breaths.
When she reached the outside of the roof of the three-story stone house she yanked the rope up and coiled it over her shoulder. She carefully placed the panel of the skylight back where it belonged, then headed for the edge of the tiled roof.
A peek over the side of the building would have forced most people backward, away from the steep, sheer drop to the brick patio below. But the height didn’t frighten Lynn. She’d come up the side of the building relatively easily, going down should prove no real problem.
She had no idea how long it would be before somebody would realize the prized diamond named the Star of Russia was gone. She hoped nobody would notice until morning but was aware that she might only have minutes or mere seconds to escape.
Heart still beating a frantic tattoo, she moved to the downspout that had aided her climb up the side of the building. Checking to make sure the security guards were no place in sight, she began her descent.
Like a spider she used both the downspout and the uneven stones of the facade to make her way down the side of the building.
When she hit the patio she ran like the wind, across the lush grass lawn. The dark July night embraced her, shielding her from sight.
Euphoria washed over her as she raced to the place where her car was hidden in a copse of trees in a nearby public park.
She’d done it!
Granted, it had been an easier job than some of the others she’d pulled off. But she still felt that burst of confidence and competence that filled her after every successful heist.
She pulled the black stocking hat off her head as she ran, allowing her shoulder-length, chestnut hair to fall free. She knew she was taking a chance if anyone saw her and could describe her, but if she was seen she’d look more suspicious wearing a stocking cap at this time of year.
The car was where she’d left it, the sleek muscle car her uncle Jonas had disapproved of but that Lynn had been adamant about owning. Three months ago, in a rare burst of stubbornness, she’d fought him tooth and nail until he’d given in and let her buy the bright red Mustang. Before that time she’d been driven by a chauffeur wherever she needed to go.
In the car with its slick contours and powerful V-8 engine was the one place where Lynn felt free…completely liberated from the constraints and worries of her everyday life.
No sirens chased her down the coastal road to the south of Miami as she headed for the mansion she called home. Although she longed to open up the engine and fly with the windows down and the air smelling of midsummer and ocean, she heeded the speed limit.
She wasn’t about to allow a speeding ticket to bust her now. Still, even driving the speed limit with her window rolled down, she felt that aura of freedom, of a world with no threat, of joy in the sheer pleasure of being alone. Jonas allowed her to be alone so rarely.
Smiling, her thoughts turned to the man who wasn’t really her uncle but rather her godfather, the man who had raised her in the lap of luxury but with a paranoia and an isolation that had kept her feeling like the fairy-tale character Rapunzel most of the time.
Jonas didn’t keep her in a tower, but she’d spent her youth surrounded by bodyguards, homeschooled through high school and isolated from her peers. She hadn’t questioned her lifestyle until recently, when she’d begun to feel an edgy restlessness, the need for something different.
She touched the diamond that nestled close to her heart. Jonas would be proud. He hadn’t known she was going after it tonight. She hadn’t told him her plans. It was safer that way…both for him and for herself.
It took Lynn thirty minutes to reach the gates of her home. She punched in the code on her remote, and the iron gates parted to reveal the luxurious oceanside mansion where she lived with Arturo and Rita Batista, Cuban refugees who worked for her godfather.
Jonas was rarely in residence, having business interests all around the world. Although Jonas enjoyed enormous success in his import/export business and defence contract work, his real love was the work he and Lynn did covertly for the U.S. Government.
She parked her car in the garage, then entered the house through a mudroom just off the kitchen. She moved with the stealth of a cat, noiselessly through the massive kitchen and living room. As she moved, she listened for any sound that would indicate somebody had heard her car arrive.
The security guards stationed around the grounds and on the roof would have seen her arrive home, but they would think nothing of it. They were paid a lot of money for keeping their silence concerning the comings and goings of the occupants of the house, but to be completely safe, Lynn went on random night drives all the time. Most of the guards knew she suffered from insomnia and her near-nightly drives helped her relax.
As she made her way through the kitchen and across the living-room floor she was aware of the tiny blinking lights in the walls that followed her progress. They were sensor lights programmed specifically to her and Jonas.
If she spent more than five minutes in any room the temperature would adjust for her comfort level and the artwork on the walls would change to her personal favourite pieces. The elaborate system was one of Jonas’s toys.
She paused on the first step of the grand staircase. If she allowed it, she would hear every sound the house and its occupants made…the tick of clocks, the hum of electricity flowing through wires and the drip of a faucet in an upstairs bathroom. Heightened senses were a gift with which she’d been born. At times growing up, that particular gift had seemed more like a curse. What was loud music to some became an intolerable pain to her. She often smelled what other people couldn’t, felt heat and cold more intensely than others. But she had learned to filter sensation and control her body’s responses.
She focused on a particular area of the house, the area in the back of the house on the bottom floor where Arturo and Rita lived and slept.
From that place she could hear Arturo’s deep, regular snoring. Good. She didn’t want to awaken him or Rita, who would be up before dawn to prepare for Jonas’s homecoming. Besides, as far as they were concerned, she’d gone to her bedroom around ten and had gone to sleep.
When she reached her private quarters, she went through the sitting room and into the bedroom to the canopied bed and pulled the diamond from her top. She flung herself on the bed and set the diamond in front of her on the purple-and-gold brocade spread. The gem was nearly blinding in its beauty.
She turned it first one way then another, admiring the light refraction of the utter perfection of the brilliant-cut fifteen-carat round stone.
The diamond had been in the possession of a Miami businessman named Sebastian Tyler, but he wasn’t the rightful owner of the gem.
According to what Jonas had told her, the rightful owner was a peasant woman in Russia whose ancestors had been wealthy and powerful friends of Peter the Great. The diamond had been stolen and sold on the black market to Sebastian Tyler.
The U.S. authorities had contacted Jonas to see if he could help return the diamond to its Russian owner. When he had told Lynn about it, she’d immediately begun to research Sebastian Tyler’s home to find the soft security spot.
Lynn frowned as she tucked the diamond into a velvet pouch, then placed it in her nightstand. She had done this kind of work dozens of times in the past, but lately, questions niggled at her, questions only Jonas could answer.
Questions that, at the moment, would have to wait.
Still, this was the work she loved, the work that she and Jonas did together. Although they didn’t rob from the rich and give to the poor, they did rob from the wrong and give to the right.
Throughout history, artefacts and treasures had been stolen from their rightful owners during wars and coups. Jonas researched the items and their rightful places, and Lynn did the actual recovery work.
She rose from the bed, stripped off her clothes and padded into the large bathroom. A moment later, standing beneath a hot spray of water, she tried to blank the night’s activities out of her mind.
It took only minutes to wash off the stress and climb into a pink silk nightgown. Because her senses were so finely tuned, she particularly loved the way silk felt against her body.
She shut off her bedroom light, then went to her window. It would take a while for her to wind down enough to sleep. She needed to sleep as soon as possible. She had grad-school classes in the morning.
The moonlight floated down in luminous rays, and from this vantage point it illuminated the ocean waves that crashed against the cliff upon which the house sat. It was a million-dollar view from a multi-million-dollar house.
She eyed her computer on a desk in the corner. She could download her e-mail or wander into a chat room, but she wasn’t in the mood.
As the exhilaration of the night’s heist seeped away, she was once again filled with a restless energy, a yearning for something—but she didn’t know what.
Jonas would be home tomorrow. Maybe that would help dispel the odd sense of melancholy she’d been feeling lately. When Jonas was at home it was Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year’s all rolled into one. There were presents and laughter and the only sense of family she ever enjoyed.
Surely that would take away the edginess and the caged-in feelings she’d been suffering lately. With that reassuring thought in mind, she turned away from the window and crawled into bed.
“Dammit.” Nick Barnes scowled at the e-mail he’d just received from his supervisor, indicating there had been another heist overnight. This time the take had been a priceless diamond from the private residence of one Sebastian Tyler.
Nick knew there would be no mention of the robbery in the papers. The FBI was keeping a lid on the spat of robberies similar to this latest.
The Bureau was certain that Jonas White was involved. The man had been under investigation for years for a variety of crimes, including the black-market sale of stolen antiquities and treasures. The FBI had recovered several of the stolen pieces, and each roundabout trail had led back to Jonas or his right-hand man, Richard Dunst. Unfortunately, the trails hadn’t included solid evidence that would ensure a conviction. The evidence was all loosely circumstantial. Nick knew there would be no proof, no evidence pointing directly to the man’s culpability this time either.
Jonas White was as slippery as an eel, as cunning as a fox and as wealthy as Midas. He had also been Nick’s sole assignment for the past two years.
The man had been under FBI investigation for art and arms smuggling, drug trafficking and a multitude of other crimes for years, but there had never been enough evidence for an arrest.
Seven years ago as a hotshot, new, twenty-two-year-old FBI agent, Nick had gone undercover and had worked a variety of assignments. Then, two years ago, at the age of twenty-seven, he’d been hired as head of Jonas’s security team. The plan was for Nick to work his way into Jonas’s confidence and gain access to the details of the illegal activities.
Lately Jonas had taken more of an interest in Nick.
For the past six months Nick felt as if he just might be being groomed for something big…something that would get him into a place where he could get the goods on the man, gain the knowledge to bring Jonas down.
He jumped as his cell phone rang. He closed down his e-mail program, then reached for his cell phone in his pocket. The caller ID showed the calling number as private. He flipped it open and said hello.
“Have you read your e-mail this morning?” The deep voice belonged to Nick’s supervisor and only contact while he was so deep undercover, Ray Graham.
“Yeah, I saw it. Unfortunately, Mark was out of the country last night.” Mark was their code name for Jonas. “The e-mail you sent me was sketchy…anything left behind?”
“Nothing. Just like the others.” Ray heaved a deep, audible sigh. “It’s like a ghost got in and out when the security guards outside blinked their eyes. It’s time, Nick…time to play Post Office.”
“Got it.”
Nick clicked off and leaned back in his chair. Post Office. He’d known it was coming. He left the table and walked over to the small desk next to the kitchen sink. From the top drawer he pulled out a manila folder.
He grabbed a fresh cup of coffee, then stepped out sliding doors to a tiny patio that overlooked the ocean. He sat at the small table in the shade of the overhead umbrella and for a moment simply sipped his coffee and watched the waves crash to shore.
He’d been renting this place for the past four years under the name of Walter Tyndale. There was only one person in the world who knew Nick had this small beach house, and that was Ray.
Although his family had cut Nick out of their lives years ago, he and his older brother, Anthony, had maintained strained, occasional contact with each other, but even Anthony didn’t know about Nick’s real work or this safe house.
This place was his escape, his sanity in the dangerous world he’d built with lie after lie as an undercover agent. And now he was about to complicate the situation with more lies.
He opened the file folder he’d brought outside and looked at the picture of the young woman contained within. Lynnette White…Jonas’s goddaughter.
When Nick had first started working for Jonas two years before, Lynn had been a gangly twenty-year-old. There was nothing gangly about her at twenty-two. During the course of the past two years, Lynn had physically blossomed, developing curves where there had been none before.
Up until now Nick had had very little interaction with her. A pleasant nod, a brief hello was all they’d shared in the past. But the game was about to change. She might be the key to bringing down Jonas.
He stared at the photo. It had been taken with a long lens from quite a distance away, but the lab had worked its magic to give him a photo that appeared to have been taken mere feet from her.
She’d been captured just before getting into her car after one of her classes at the nearby college. Her shoulder-length chestnut-coloured hair framed her pretty features and her green eyes sparkled with life. She was slender, but not without feminine curves.
The picture had been taken by another agent during the ordinary course of building an up-to-date dossier on Jonas. In truth Nick knew little about her other than she had been sheltered most of her life and was now a grad student in computer science at Florida International University.
He touched her face with the tip of his index finger, a flash of adrenaline spiking through him.
Even though Nick felt that he was on the verge of being invited into Jonas’s confidence, he’d known his superiors were getting tired of waiting for something to happen where Nick’s undercover job was concerned. He wasn’t surprised that they wanted Nick to turn up the heat by targeting Lynn.
Yes, she just might be the ticket to the arrest and conviction of Jonas. All Nick had to do was seduce her—become her lover and her confidant. Not exactly the worst assignment he could draw.
He knew that part of the reason he’d been tapped for this particular job was because he was young and was considered to be handsome and charming, when he wanted to be. He had a reputation for being a ladies’ man. A reputation built on the fact that Nick had enjoyed the company of a variety of women.
He slid the photo back in the folder, finished his coffee, then reluctantly went inside and prepared to leave his little sanctuary. There wasn’t much to do in preparation for leaving. He only managed to spend time here briefly and only when Jonas was out of town.
Officially Nick lived in a luxury apartment with closets filled with silk suits and Italian-leather shoes, all bought and paid for by Jonas, who was a generous employer.
Seducing the lovely Lynnette wouldn’t be easy. Jonas guarded her as if she were a precious artefact that might shatter if out of his control. But Nick didn’t get his reputation as a super agent by backing away from difficult situations.
The other thing Nick had to consider was that if he struck up a relationship with Lynn and it went bad, then it was quite possible Jonas would fire him to get him out of her life.
Nick assumed his superiors had considered this risk and were willing that he take it in an effort to move the investigation forward more quickly.
It was early evening when he changed out of his jeans and T-shirt and into a gray suit and black dress shirt and headed for Jonas’s place. He had a tidbit of information he knew would only serve to ingratiate him further into Jonas’s confidence.
By this time Jonas should be settled in and they should already have eaten the evening meal. Hopefully it was a perfect time to drop in.
As he drove toward the luxury mansion, he thought again of his new directive. Time to play Post Office. He’d kissed the prettiest girl in the sixth grade in a game of Post Office at a birthday party when he’d been eleven years old.
This game of Post Office wouldn’t be as innocent. Nick wasn’t particularly thrilled at the prospect of using any woman as a tool, but Lynnette might be the only way to get to her godfather. The stakes were too high, and Jonas White had to be brought down.
Jonas and his goddaughter lived like royalty. The mansion they called home was a self-sustaining compound complete with backup generators, intensive security and luxuries most people only dreamed about.
Although Nick had been in the house on occasion, there were many of the thirty rooms that he’d not been in, rooms that he knew contained the heart of Jonas’s illegal operations. Hopefully Lynnette White would be his key into those rooms.
He pulled up before the heavy iron gate and punched in the security code that would allow him entry. When his car went through, the gates closed behind him and he pulled around the circular driveway and stopped before the front door of the house.
He was aware of the fact that his approach had been watched by dozens of guards. As head of security, Nick had hired the men who were responsible for the safety of Jonas and the members of the household.
He also couldn’t help but notice another car in the driveway, one he recognized as belonging to Richard Dunst. Nick grimaced with distaste. Dunst had also been on the FBI radar for years. He was another man who needed to be brought down and put behind bars for the rest of his life.
Nick’s knock on the front door was answered by Rita Batista, the housekeeper. Her broad face lit with a smile as she ushered him inside the foyer. “Good to see you, Mr. Nick. I’ll tell Mr. Jonas that you wish to speak with him,” she said. Even though she’d been in the United States for years, her voice still held the heavy accent of her Cuban roots. “He and Mr. Richard and Miss Lynn are in the family room.”
She disappeared, leaving Nick to cool his heels in the foyer. Although Nick knew what he had to do where Lynnette was concerned, he also knew that particular directive would take time and finesse and would best be accomplished when Jonas left town once again and Miss Lynn would be more vulnerable.
He smiled as Jonas approached him, a hand stretched out in greeting. “Nick…how are you?”
Nick grabbed his hand in a firm handshake. “I’m fine, sir. And welcome home.”
“Thank you. I love travelling, but it’s always good to come home and touch base.” At sixty-three years old and standing over six feet tall, Jonas was a daunting figure in spite of the fact that his black hair had become more sparse in recent years. His dark eyes held not only a keen intelligence, but also a soulless quality that could chill to the bone.
He was dressed in a pair of tan dress slacks and beige-and-white shirt that probably cost as much as Nick’s little cottage.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your homecoming celebration, but I have a bit of information I thought might interest you.” Just as Nick suspected, Jonas’s dark eyes lit in anticipation.
“Come into the study,” he said, and led Nick toward the room that was most familiar. It was in the impressive study that Nick usually met with Jonas for security updates and other business.
Jonas gestured Nick into a chair in front of the ornate mahogany desk, but remained standing himself. He looked at Nick expectantly.
“It’s come to my attention through certain contacts that the Marconi family is about to splinter into two warring factions,” Nick said. He knew Jonas wouldn’t ask about his source of the information, knew that Jonas was aware of Nick’s background as the youngest son of a powerful organized-crime family in Miami.
Although Jonas had no specific ties to any organized-crime faction, he liked having an inside source inform him about what was going on and who was in power. Jonas was always looking for a way to exploit or gain strength in the underworld where he functioned.
Jonas’s dark eyebrows pulled together in a speculative frown. “Interesting.”
“My sources tell me Marconi’s right-hand man, Ricky Sanford, is disgruntled and overly ambitious and is about to set up business on his own. I’d say within the next week he’ll either be dead or in control.”
“And if you were a betting man?”
“I’d bet that he’ll take control,” Nick said.
Jonas nodded. “I appreciate you bringing this to me, Nick,” he said as Nick got up from the chair.
Jonas clapped him on the back as the two of them walked out of the study. “Why don’t you go on inside the family room and keep Lynn company for a few minutes while I have a little chat with Richard.”
Nick was surprised by the suggestion. Normally Jonas would have thanked him and walked him to the front door. He realized that his information had done just what he’d hoped it would do…move him further into Jonas’s confidence.
They walked together to the family room where Lynn sat on one end of a deep burgundy leather sofa and Dunst sat on the other end.
Lynn looked distinctly uncomfortable. It was difficult to discern whether Dunst was uncomfortable or not. Nick had never seen his facial features display any kind of emotion at all.
“Richard…we need to talk,” Jonas said and indicated the bald man should follow him back to the study. “Nick, say hello to Lynnette.”
“Hello, Lynnette,” Nick said and smiled at the beautiful young woman he hoped to seduce and use to bring down the empire of the man who had raised her.
Chapter Two
“Lynn, honey, keep Nick company while Richard and I talk in the study.”
Lynn watched in panic as Jonas and Richard left the room. She stood, a ripple of nervous energy making it impossible for her to remain seated. “Good evening, Mr. Barnes,” she forced out the words. “Would you care for a drink?”
“Sure, a scotch on the rocks would be great, and, please, make it Nick.” He smiled, a lazy, sexy smile, and Lynn felt a curl of heat unfurl in her stomach. He had the nicest voice, deep and smooth.
She moved to the wet bar in the corner of the room, grateful to have something to do. She’d never spent any real time with Nick, had only seen him on brief occasions over the two years he’d worked for Jonas. But something about him always made her nervous.
Maybe it was because the man was far too good-looking, with his thick, dark hair and brooding, dark eyes. He wore a suit better than any man she’d ever seen and the first time she’d seen him in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, her heart had stutter-stepped at the vision.
It wasn’t just his physical appearance she found appealing. Self-confidence oozed from him, and she had the feeling that he was a man who never suffered shyness or any feeling of inadequacy. Her natural shyness kicked into high gear.
She poured his drink, then walked back to where he still stood, his dark eyes watching her intently. “Please, sit down,” she said as she handed him the drink.
“After you.” He swept his hand toward the sofa where she’d been sitting before he’d arrived.
She sank down on the buttery-soft leather couch and tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach as he sat next to her, too close for comfort. The familiar shyness built to tormenting proportions as they sat for a moment in uncomfortable silence.
“How’s grad school? Jonas says you’re doing very well.”
A shaft of surprise swept through her. Jonas talked about her to Nick? For the first time she realized Nick’s position with her godfather was apparently closer than she had thought. “It’s good. I enjoy it.”
“Computer science, right?”
“Right.” She didn’t look at him, but could feel his gaze on her face. The scent of his cologne whispered in the air from his direction, an intensely pleasant scent.
She was vaguely surprised that Jonas had invited Nick to stay, definitely surprised that he’d left her in charge of entertaining him. It was a break from routine that was both unexpected and more than a little bit exhilarating.
“What else do you like to do, Lynnette, besides school?”
She forced herself to turn her head and look at him in an attempt to overcome her shyness.
She couldn’t very well tell him she loved breaking into museums and homes and eluding security guards. She certainly couldn’t tell him that she loved to run faster than the wind with a prized treasure tucked in her pocket.
“I don’t know. I enjoy meeting at the Coffee Cloister with my friends. I like designing video games on the computer. I like going for drives in my car.” He had the darkest eyes and the longest eyelashes. She averted her gaze and stared at the pattern of the Oriental rug on the floor.
“Late-night drives,” he said softly.
She jerked her head up to look at him once again. Did he know? Had he somehow figured out what she did on those nights she left the house in the dark? As head of security he would know that she occasionally sneaked out of the house when Arturo and Rita were sound asleep.
He smiled at her obvious look of panic. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Is it a guy? Are you dating somebody Jonas wouldn’t approve of?”
Her panic subsided as quickly as it had risen. “No, it’s nothing like that,” she said in relief. She felt the blush that swept over her cheeks. “I just like to take long drives at night. I have insomnia, and a drive in the car always relaxes me. Jonas is so overly protective. If he knew, he’d worry.” That wasn’t exactly true. Of course Jonas knew she left the house at night to conduct the work that was so important.
“So, no boyfriend?”
“No…there’s nobody special.”
His gaze swept over her slowly, languidly. “That’s surprising. I’d think somebody like you would have dozens of men knocking down your door. No boyfriend.” He smiled once again, that sexy smile of his. “I guess that’s good news for me.”
He had a nice smile, one that involved all his features. The centre of his dark eyes sparkled, and the chiselled lines of his face softened with the gesture. Once again she looked down at the rug as his words caused her heart to beat a strange, new rhythm.
“Ah, good. I see Lynn got you a drink,” Jonas said as he returned to the room with Richard Dunst trailing behind him. “Lynn, honey, why don’t you make me another one. Richard?”
“Nothing for me.”
As the men settled into chairs, Lynn returned to the bar. What she’d like to do was escape to her room and think about how Nick’s gaze had caused her to feel momentarily naked…and excited.
She’d like to think about what Nick had meant by his words. That’s good news for me. The words played and replayed in her mind as she fixed Jonas his usual gin and tonic.
Minutes later they sat and listened as Jonas regaled them with his latest escapades from his travels. Jonas loved an audience, but Lynn had heard most of his stories a hundred times before.
It was easy for her to tune him out and instead focus her attention on Nick. With the simple words he had spoken, he had captured her attention as he never had before. She knew he’d worked for Jonas for a couple of years, knew that Jonas seemed to be depending on Nick more and more, but that was all she knew about him.
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renee2010