On the Edge Read online

  While his criminal activities had thus far subsidized the legitimate Anetakis interests well enough to keep them out of a public bankruptcy scandal, the women hemorrhaged money. He’d have to step up the smuggling to finance four women and nine children set loose in Monte Carlo.

  He thought of the orphaned teens from Iraq coming in the following day. War-torn countries were gold mines of forgotten children, but it wasn’t exactly a prime shipment. If he ordered the next group to be younger, the profit would be significantly higher.

  Bile burned the back of Hector’s throat, and he tried to knock it down with a gulp of seltzer water. “Why don’t you wait a few months, Mother? We can all go for the Grand Prix.”

  “Nonsense. We’ve had an invitation.”

  The bile persisted, forcing him to clear his throat almost violently. An invitation. The proof he’d managed to hide his father’s sins. Olivia Anetakis attended charity functions with the top of society’s food chain. Hector’s sisters and brothers-in-law were often photographed by glossy magazines, while their children were tabloid stars.

  “Then of course you must go,” Hector said in a voice that conveyed none of the turmoil churning his stomach. “I can’t spare a month, but perhaps I’ll join you for a weekend.”

  Once he’d set up another shipment. He’d need younger blondes to maximize profit. Riskier, but unavoidable if he was going to keep his mother’s heart unbroken.

  So while he smiled warmly at the woman he adored, Hector Anetakis silently plotted his further descent into soullessness, hated his father, and hoped like hell every last Devlin Group agent was now dead.

  —

  Tony shoved it all down—the confusion, the shock, the godawful pain—and pushed himself to his feet His only somewhat rational thought at the moment was that Konrad Ludka was the deadest motherfucker to ever walk the planet when Tony got his shit pulled together.

  He blinked, trying to focus his vision through the plaster dust and blood and focus his mind on what the hell he’d been doing.

  The mouse. He’d had the mousy hacker.

  She was crumpled on the floor, her breath an obscene wail coming out of her lungs. She didn’t appear to have any obvious trauma, and she was mostly clear of ceiling and wall debris. That meant he’d probably fallen on top of her, and if he’d broken one of her ribs, it could be impaling a lung.

  He tried to block out the shouting and screeching going on around him and attempted to remember the first-aid training Devlin—Rossi—insisted they all undergo. He didn’t remember jack shit about collapsed lungs.

  Then he remembered how the mouse had gone down. The whistling breaths and pale face. Asthma. He rolled her to her back and felt her pockets, finding the inhaler. He wasn’t sure how it would work with her unconscious, but he waited until she exhaled, held her lips closed over the opening and depressed the thing as she inhaled. Waited. Repeated. The wailing abated to a whistle, and then a hand landed on his shoulder.

  “I’ve got her, man,” Jack Donovan said. “Ambulances are coming.”

  The rest of the numbness began falling away as he watched Donovan pass the mouse through the window to Connor O’Brien. Hell to pay, he thought. He didn’t care if they called themselves the Devlin Group, the Rossi Group or the freakin’ Sunshine Band, some serious ass was going to get kicked.

  “Medic!” Gallagher screamed, and Tony’s heart froze in his chest. He’d never heard the cool-under-pressure Gallagher panic before. “Jesus Christ, I need a fucking medic now!”

  Tony turned. Gallagher was digging through a pile of rubble from which one arm and three legs were protruding. Tony figured it had to be Rossi and Phil. The support guy whose name he hadn’t been able to recall before—Arijit Maheshwan, he remembered now—was laid out a few feet to the right. The largest chunk of door had hit him in the head and he was already gone.

  He rushed over to Gallagher and together they cleared the debris. Rossi had some serious head trauma, multiple bleeding wounds and splinter impalements, but he also had a pulse. O’Brien and Donovan helped Gallagher lift him and carry him toward the window.

  Tony knelt next to Phil. They’d worked together many times, and he knew the support tech had a wife, two kids and a mother with Alzheimer’s. Now he had blood bubbling up and running out of his mouth.

  “Hey, man,” Tony said, gripping the man’s hand. “Help’s coming, so you stay with me, okay?”

  “Wanted….field.” Phil’s throat worked, and Tony didn’t have the heart to try to keep him quiet. “Kick ass…like you.”

  “Hey. You kicked serious ass, my man. Without you, I’m just a blind idiot running around with a gun. You’ve saved my life. You’ve saved a lot of lives, man. You helped get Rossi’s kid back. And you just saved the lives of a lot of little girls down there in Texas. If you wanted to be a bad-ass hero, man, you’ve done it. More than once.”

  “Tell…my wife…hero. Girls…” Blood geysered up, splashing over his face. “…love them…forever.”

  “Phil, hang on. Phil…shit.”

  —

  Charlotte glanced around her backyard, separating her people from the neighbors and passers-by who had spilled in, assuring anybody who’d listen 911 had been called and help was on the way.

  She saw Carmen, brushing broken glass from her bleeding palms. Several agents herding the shaken support staff toward the far back of the yard. Three members of support missing. Konrad Ludka. Alex. Tony. She’d seen Gallagher, O’Brien and Donovan go back in.

  Her house was a loss, but at least the modifications she’d had made—especially to the interior walls—would limit the damage to her property. And as soon as the master alarm registered the explosion, she knew every bit of data in her office had gone poof. The electronics fried and the small amount of actual paper had incinerated in specially wired filing cabinets.

  Charlotte turned to Rogers, whose job in support included acting as pilot. He looked a little stunned, but he wasn’t bleeding anywhere. “You hurt?”

  “I’m good.”

  She fished her key out of her skirt pocket and tossed it to him. “Take my car and go lock down the bird. If it’s compromised, fry it.”

  Sirens reached an ear-piercing level, and then the yard flooded with rescue personnel, but Charlotte sidestepped them. She’d had the wind knocked out of her when Gallagher tossed her out the window like a sack of freaking potatoes, but she wasn’t hurt.

  And if Alex was…if Alex was hurt, she had a show to run. She gestured to Marge, the older woman who lived and breathed numbers and who primarily handled all things accounting, but was a well-rounded team member. “Your cell working?”

  Marge checked it and nodded. “Kind of strange about Ludka having to leave the room right then. You want me to call in a passport flag?”

  “I do. And I don’t have to tell you trust just became a big issue. I might have to come to you—and only you—a lot in the near future.”

  Marge smiled and patted her substantial hips. “Good thing about me is I’ve always got my big-girl panties on.”

  Charlotte smiled, but it died when Alex Rossi was passed through the window. She couldn’t see specifics, but she could see the others’ faces, and it was bad. Really bad.

  “You want me to call Grace?” Marge asked.

  “No. Gallagher or I will do that. Right now you get going on that flag. Passport, credit cards, ID, cell GPS, everything. And make it loud, Marge. I want him to sweat before he dies.”

  The next person out the window came through in a body bag, and Charlotte took a deep, shuddering breath. She hoped it wasn’t Tony, then immediately felt guilty. One of their people was dead, and it shouldn’t matter who. But she couldn’t stem the relief when she saw his face appear. His eyes met hers briefly, then turned back to the business of passing another body bag through the window.

  Two ambulances pulled away, one bearing Alex and the other Janet, their shy but brilliant hacking queen. With the immediate emergency almost under control,
she knew it was about time for the questions to start.

  She caught Gallagher’s eye, empathizing with the shattered emotions in his glance. As the sirens faded in the distance, he made his way to her, and with every step she could see his cylinders start firing again.

  “We need to rabbit,” he said in a low voice.

  “Who’s in the hole?” As she’d told Marge, trust was a little iffy right now. They’d never had a Devlin Group agent double-cross them.

  “Me, you…Tony. You got support you trust?”

  “Marge is in and she’s quiet about it. How about Carmen?”

  She watched hesitation flicker over his features. It was no secret he’d had a thing for Carmen for a long time. “She and Ludka did a job together about a year ago, and they’ve stayed pretty friendly since. Think of something legit, but off-site, for her to do. I’m going to the hospital. I’ll call you with an update and get the rabbit hole info then. I hate leaving you with this, but…”

  She managed a weak smile for him. “I can handle this. You, on the other hand, have to call Grace.”

  “Shit.”

  —

  By the time they were gathered in Charlotte’s rabbit hole—a ritzy penthouse apartment in one of the most exclusive residential buildings in the city—Tony was flat-out exhausted.

  Gallagher, Charlotte and Marge were in the living room with him, the women each running laptops. Gallagher held an ice-pack to one cheek, and he kept probing at his split lip with the tip of his tongue.

  Grace Nolan Rossi had been damn near out of her mind when she arrived to find her husband in emergency surgery, from what Tony had heard. And Gallagher had taken the brunt of her anguish without trying to defend himself. The way Tony had it figured, if Rossi didn’t make it, they should frisk Grace before letting her talk to Gallagher again.

  Tony cut his eyes to Charlotte. The flirtatious sexpot was gone, leaving in her place a lean, mean agency-running machine—who just happened to have great legs. But he understood how she’d switched gears, as he really wasn’t in the mood anymore, either.

  For sex, anyway. He was definitely in the mood to kill somebody—somebody like Konrad Ludka. He’d have to settle for shooting him, though, because right now Tony couldn’t even drag his ass out of the chair.

  One of Marge’s laptops beeped and she started clicking and typing so fast Tony waited for her fingers to get tied up in knots. That was one of the reasons Tony spent so much time on the phone with Charlotte giving updates and such—he couldn’t type for shit.

  Marge stopped and held up a hand, as if asking for silence even though nobody was talking. “Konrad Ludka flew to Logan. A ticket from Boston to Athens was reserved for a Victor Humboldt and paid for with a corporate card issued to a minor business interest under the Anetakis umbrella. Said business is based in New York City and leases a black Escalade.”

  “You’re a goddess,” Gallagher declared.

  Marge actually blushed. “The flight’s already in the air. Janet would have found it faster, but the asthma and the shock…”

  “We couldn’t have moved on it, anyway,” Tony pointed out. “We all need a night’s sleep and a big breakfast before we go trying to bring anybody down.”

  Gallagher took a deep breath and shoved his hands through his hair. “Okay. We’ve crossed paths with Anetakis before—”

  He slanted a sideways look at Charlotte Tony didn’t miss. Nor did he miss her pale cheeks and pressed-together lips.

  “—but only in retrieving certain higher-profile packages. Then Alex decides he’s going to put him out of business. Sends Jones in to infiltrate with Ludka in support. A few months later, we lose comm with Jones and Ludka’s seen—after Jones goes down—arguing with presumed Anetakis personnel here in New York. An hour later, Ludka drops a bomb in our office.”

  “Rat bastard,” Tony muttered, which was about as much as he had the energy for. Jet lag was setting in.

  “Speaking of rats,” Gallagher said. “We’re it for now. You are the only people I can trust right now. This mission’s now on a need-to-know basis and nobody else needs to know shit.”

  That woke Tony’s mind up a little. Interesting that the man hadn’t included Carmen Olivera in his little circle, considering how badly he’d wanted in her pants for a while. Probably not the right time to ask, though.

  “Marge,” Gallagher said, “you’re here on Charlotte’s say-so, in case you were wondering.”

  “I was…kinda. Why me?”

  Charlotte looked up from the laptop screen she’d been studying. “Two reasons. After the blast, you picked up, dusted off and dove right back into the job. But mostly, because I was watching faces while Alex made his announcement, and you already knew.”

  “What, that Sean Devlin didn’t exist? I figured that out years ago. Mostly the way the money was handled—number patterns being my first love, you know—and then common sense.”

  “And you never said anything,” Charlotte said. “Even to me.”

  “It was obvious after some thought you already knew. I was pretty sure Gallagher had to know, too. As long as it never affected a job, which it didn’t, it wasn’t my business. I’d made up my mind, though, if I thought it would put agents at risk, I’d call Tony.”

  Tony let that sink in and it boosted his spirits a little to know this smart, savvy woman considered him a solid go-to guy.

  “It came into play during the Contadino thing in a big way,” Gallagher pointed out.

  Marge shrugged. “That was a messed-up business. And even Alex Rossi didn’t see that one coming.”

  Charlotte gave a brittle laugh. “Even I didn’t see that one coming, and I know what you all had for breakfast your first day of kindergarten.”

  She looked at him, then, and Tony had to look away. Yeah, she knew everything. No doubt his very extensive records had detailed how he hadn’t gotten to go to his first day of kindergarten because he didn’t have a permanent address in the district—just wherever his drunk mother parked the car they were living in. And he sure as hell hadn’t had breakfast.

  “Anyway,” Charlotte continued, “that’s why you’re in, Marge. And that’s why you’ll be lead support—okay, the only support—while I’m in Greece.”

  Tony and Gallagher exploded to their feet at the same time, shouting over each other. Tony didn’t pay any attention to what the other guy was saying—all he knew was there was no way in hell Charlotte was going after Konrad Ludka. And then what was she going to do? Go bat her eyelashes at Anetakis and ask him to pretty please stop killing her friends?

  She ignored him, though, and poked Gallagher’s chest with one crimson fingernail. “I can get to Anetakis. You know why.”

  “Rossi will skin me alive if I send you back there, Charlotte. You are not qualified to go in there.”

  “You can’t get to him. None of you can get to him. But I can. I’m the only one with the necessary qualifications to get inside, and you know it.”

  Tony stifled an urge to signal for a time out. Obviously something was going on here that only Charlotte and Gallagher knew about. And, dammit, he was getting pretty freakin’ sick and tired of having shit held out on him.

  “I’m going,” he said quietly, but they both turned to look at him.

  Charlotte actually laughed. “Come on, Tony. Look at you. You’re a cowboy, and there’s no way in hell you’re going to blend in with billionaire Greek playboys.”

  “I can blend with anybody. Since you know what I had for breakfast my first day of kindergarten, you should know that.”

  “Shut up,” Gallagher ordered. He sat and stared at his hands, and Charlotte and Tony both backed off, letting him run scenarios. That’s what he did, and nobody did it better.

  “Marge,” Gallagher said after about five minutes of pondering, “call Rogers and have him get the bird ready. Flight time oh-seven-hundred hours to Athens. Charlotte, you’re not going alone. I can’t let that happen. Somebody can go with you, posing as a bodyguard.
But I need to be here to clean up this mess and…wait with Grace and Danny.”

  “No,” Charlotte said. “This isn’t Tony’s kind of job.”

  “It is now. Casavetti, you—”

  “You think I can’t do this?” Tony demanded of Charlotte.

  There was no apology in her eyes. “I think it’s…not exactly your element.”

  Well, son, how does it feel to know you’re such a worthless pile of refuse, ain’t nobody in the whole world who wants you?

  “I’ll meet you at the bird at oh-six-thirty hours. Bring my suitcase, and send any specifics I need to know to my handheld.” He grabbed his coat and his carry-on bag and walked out of Charlotte’s decadent penthouse suite.

  Chapter Three

  Charlotte stood in the shadow of the Devlin Group’s heavily customized Bombardier jet, concentrating on not looking as jittery as she felt.

  As exec admin for the Group, she was accustomed to having a full plate. But now the stuff on her plate was piling up, sliding onto the table, spilling onto the floor and out the door. Her life currently resembled the meatball from that old song.

  She looked at her watch. 0625.

  Five minutes. He wouldn’t be late.

  Her gear for this job was already stowed. Rogers and his freelance co-pilot were taking care of pre-flight issues. Janet, their wonder-hacker, had been released, but was taking a few weeks off. Alex was out of surgery, still under and still fighting for his life. She wasn’t thinking about Hector Anetakis yet.

  That left thinking about Tony. After his grand exit the night before, Gallagher had mentioned she’d really pissed him off. She’d nodded, but that wasn’t it. She’d pissed him off, yes, but she’d also hurt him.

  Her flirtatious fantasies had been buried in the rubble of her house, and she didn’t bother to dig them up. There was no doubt in her mind Tony Casavetti didn’t like her very much right now. And the situation wasn’t going to get any better any time soon. She and Gallagher had hashed out situations for another hour after he’d left, and she could just imagine what Tony’s reaction to the bullet points of the plan she’d sent him had been.