Chapter 29
Mia watched out the windows of the sleek black sedan carrying her up the winding road to the Lamonts’ ShadowDance Club. Being a well-trained DEA agent and having worked undercover on this case for almost two years, she knew full well what was at stake. She also knew it was all going to come down to whether or not her message had gotten to the man she’d walked away from to protect. Christ, every time she even thought about that night, it felt like someone was reaching inside her chest and yanking her heart out with their bare hands all over again. Even though she knew she had to distance herself from Dylan Marshall for his own safety, it had nearly destroyed her to see the look of utter disbelief and defeat in his eyes that last night, and to know she was responsible for that look of desolation being there. He was the only man she’d ever loved, and she knew there would never be another man in her life. No one else could ever possibly live up to her sweet memories of their shared hopes, dreams, and passions. Sighing inwardly, she had prayed a thousand times he’d received and understood the message, he was a master at puzzles and had worked as a cipher and code breaker for years. Now if he’d only gotten the message, she knew he’d know what she was trying to convey. Holy Christ, what were the odds that the woman she’d helped in Las Vegas would end up at ShadowDance? Damn, talk about karma coming back to bite you in the ass. What was it they always said? Something about no good deed going unpunished…yep, that about summed it up all right.
Mia just hoped Dylan was still the tenacious investigator she’d always known him to be and that he still cared enough about her to have pushed hard enough for the answers.That’s an awful lot of hopes you’re betting your life on there, Melita. Straightening in her seat, she glanced over at Nikolai Petrov. Now here was one totally evil man, and how Cal Robertson had ever gotten mixed up with the Russian mob was a mystery to Mia. From the bits and pieces she’d been able to put together, it seemed that Robertson had hidden a cache of diamonds in some trinket he’d given to Katarina McKay, then proceeded to whip her so badly during a scene that Mia had helped her escape. When Cal had gone to ShadowDance, instead of just attempting to retrieve the diamonds, the egotistical sadist had decided to take Kat also, and she’d shot him for his trouble. Likely no one had made too much of an effort to save his sorry ass after what he’d put Kat through, it served the little weasel right if anyone were to ask Mia.
Cal had stashed Mia in a local hotel room with one of his cronies, and as soon as word had come down that Cal was on ice at the local morgue, the guy had tossed her in the trunk of a car he’d stolen from the hotel parking lot and they’d been back in Vegas in a matter of hours. Mia had been amazed that they’d kept her alive until she’d realized she was their ticket into ShadowDance, she was the only one who knew what Katarina looked like. They were no doubt counting on Alex and Zach allowing Kat to see her friend and welcoming both Mia and her “date” with open arms. Mia wasn’t taking any chance that her tiny friend would be taken by the sexual predators she’d been tracking for two long years. As it turned out, the “Big Boss” himself had decided he’d left this particular clusterfuck up to his minions one too many times and he was personally escorting Mia to the annual Submissives’ Masquerade at The ShadowDance Club. Mia was to point out Katarina and engage the other woman in conversation, then finagle an invitation to stay at the mansion for the weekend.
Mia looked down at the dress she was almost wearing.No shit, calling this sheer piece of fabric I’m barely draped in a garment is a pretty huge fucking leap of the imagination.It would be more accurate to call it a see-through shirt that has been ripped to shreds. Why do Doms think it’s cool to dress women in clothes that look like costumes for some Middle Ages slave girl? Well at least your tattoo is plainly visible, can’t imagine Dylan missing that since he was there when it was inked.Not likely any man in the room was going to miss the deep indigo dragon on her lower back, the dragon’s tail wrapped around nearly to her navel, and the fire he was breathing wrapped around from the other side. It really was too distinctive for undercover work, but it had been a gift from Dylan, and she had never been able to bring herself to have it removed.
Petrov didn’t seem to know much about the lifestyle of Ds, but he was a ruthless bastard who didn’t hesitate a moment to use pain to guarantee a woman’s cooperation. As they pulled up to the security gates, he reached over and squeezed her upper thigh so hard she’d cried out. His warning had been clear, no talking unless it was directed toward their goal.We’ll see, ass hat, you’re about to walk onto a playing field I know a whole lot more about than you do. You think you’ve got this one all wrapped up, give it your best shot, because it’s game on, baby.As they passed through the gate, it would have looked like any Dom keeping his hand possessively on his submissive’s leg, a basic form of restraint to anyone monitoring the security cameras. What Petrov hadn’t seen was her quick hand signal, now she hoped her little “Heads up, boys” signal hadn’t been missed by Dylan and whoever he’d brought on for tonight’s little dance with the devil as she’d been thinking of it for the past several weeks.
* * * *
Grayson had kept his face glued to the front gates monitor, hoping to get some advance warning that their target was on-site. “Fuck, Matthews, get over here. I think we’ve got her, and she gave us a signal, hang on, I’m running it back.” Dylan was behind Mitch Grayson in the time it had taken him to blink. Christ, she was really here? “Is that your woman?” Mitch had hearing the sheriff’s thoughts for days and hadn’t needed anyone to tell him about these two’s shared past.
“Jesus fucking Christ, what’s she almost wearing? That’s her, and you’ll have a positive the minute she exits the vehicle if she hasn’t had that dragon tat removed. Run it back and slow it down, I want to see the signal again.” They watched it replay several times when Dylan leaned back and sighed. “We each had a hand sign for ‘I love you’—that was hers to me.” God, he felt like he’d been deflated then filled with a happy gas in the blink of an eye. They’d had dozens of hand signals, things they’d worked out during long, boring stakeouts, and of all those, she’d used this one? Damn, was it possible? Was he lucky enough to get another chance with the woman who still held his heart?
“Let the team know we’re good to go and find out who that bastard is, he’s got his fucking paws on my wife.” Dylan hadn’t ever been able to refer to Melita as his ex-wife, and he sure wasn’t going to start now that she’d used her one second of opportunity to say “I love you” with a hand signal she’d known only he would recognize. No, there was no chance he was going to lose her a second time.
Mitch Grayson gave him a knowing look. “I know who he is, that is Nikolai Petrov, he’s a high-ranking official in the Russian Mafia. Fuck, I have calls to make. Jesus Christ, this thing’s just got about a thousand times more complicated.”
Grayson was typing furiously on the computer and talking on the phone at the same time, and Dylan watched in utter amazement at how the man could have two completely different cognitive lines of processing at the same time and not miss a single beat. Hell most men he knew couldn’t watch a ball game and listen to their wife and know for sure an hour later what she’d said. Every man on the security team was being given a sitrep via their comms, and the security surrounding Katarina’s suite on the second floor of the mansion had just been doubled. Now that they knew who they were dealing with, they held no illusion that the bastard was alone. When a man saw one cockroach, he knew there were a hundred others lurking in the woodwork. It wasn’t going to be a simple “snatch back” because it was a fairly safe bet that Petrov had spent a small fortune to have people already inside and in place. Talking to himself, Mitch’s muttered words echoed the thoughts of every former black-op team member working tonight. “Yep, what we have here is a regular SNAFU, boys, oh yeah, situation normal, all fucked up!”