rel="nofollow" href="#u50857f26-5f39-546f-83f8-1a3c8f9077a3">THIRTEEN
Dominican Republic
Friday, 16:00
“What is she doing here?” Army Sergeant Major Doug Richardson hissed out a breath as three guys crowded around him in the commandeered apartment, his Delta Force teammates.
Doug put his eye back to the viewfinder. The glass-fronted bistro across the street was next door to a swanky hotel. The eatery was the current location of their target, who sat at the crowded restaurant bar with his aviator sunglasses on like some kind of hotshot movie star. Doug felt his teammates gather around him—Barker, Hanning and Perkins. The fifth member, Franklin, was positioned in the hotel lobby.
Doug had to be mistaken. Was it really her? Surely there were other women in the world with that stride, with the same dark—almost black—hair that caught the light like that?
But there she was.
She glanced around the restaurant like she was looking for an empty seat. Of course the only one available was the stool beside the target. She had no idea who this guy was. Or that this was a golden opportunity for his team to observe Christophe Parelli conducting business. And there she was, right in the middle of it.
The woman he’d met a handful of times was quiet and well-spoken—not the type to smile like that at the man who had financed her brother’s murder.
Their team had hoped Parelli would meet with the person he worked for. In an ideal world, the guy would be here to meet the person known only as the Raven.
Years of team effort would pull together in a result that brought them the mysterious head of the crime syndicate they’d been chasing for what seemed like forever. The idea that Sabine might be Parelli’s contact was insane. Doug wasn’t even going to entertain the idea that she might be the Raven, because that meant everything he felt was wrong.
At the funeral she’d stood alone beside her brother’s grave while the wind had whipped her hair around her face. The weight of her grief had about killed Doug. He’d almost missed the strain when she was handed the folded-up flag, but it had been there. If anyone touched her, it would have broken the tight hold she had on her emotions.
That was two weeks ago now, and Doug hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since. Though he’d had an instinct that this mission was going to go wrong, the last thing he thought it might be was her. She was supposed to be at home, grieving the loss of her brother.
Not in the middle of the operation to bring down the man who killed him.
Doug growled, then simply said, “Sabine.”
* * *
Sabine Laduca settled herself on the stool and signaled the bartender. Her stomach churned, but she pasted on a smile. “Diet soda, please.”
She smoothed down the skirt of her dress and walked her mind through her training. Her whole adult life had prepared her for this moment, and she could not screw it up. Years of instruction with the CIA, coupled with years of missions that took her all over the world and tested her beyond her skills... It all came down to now.
The man beside her was handsome enough, she supposed, if you went for the overly styled Mediterranean-playboy type. That wasn’t Sabine’s thing. Her type ran more toward a gorgeous Delta Force team leader with almond-colored skin.
The man who seemed to always be on her mind was the perfect mix of a tall African-American army general and a beautiful Caucasian woman. She’d seen a picture of his parents only once and didn’t know too much about them, but it was easy to tell he’d been given the best features from both.
Unlike her.
Sabine shifted in her seat and shot the target a cordial smile, like she was perfectly content with her own thoughts.
It really was too bad that life threw a wrench in every single plan she made. Not so much disrupting her dreams, but more like completely obliterating them. Just not this plan—please—because this mission was more important than anything she’d ever done.
Contact with the target wasn’t sanctioned, but she needed Parelli’s fingerprint to gain access to his hotel room. There were other ways she could have gotten it, but there was no way she was going to pass this up.
This was her chance to look in the eyes of the man who had financed her brother’s murder.
Despite being a fully trained agent for years, she’d never killed anyone. It almost seemed fitting for this man to be her first. Except that revenge would be way too easy. Sabine wasn’t after quick and painless; her broken heart cried out for the complete destruction of everything this man held dear—which for this guy was money and nothing else.
Retrieving the hard drive from his computer was only the first step of the plan. Her handler’s instructions were clear: no bloodshed and no emotions—just get the computer data and get out. The tech guys he passed the hard drive to would do the rest of the work.
She glanced at the target and realized he’d pulled his sunglasses down his nose with one finger and was taking her in. Sabine pursed her mouth and put on her best British accent. “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
He flashed his bleached teeth. “This is the Caribbean. Unless it’s hurricane season, it’s always lovely weather.”
She laughed, trying her best to sound charmed. Her phone rang, stalling what she’d been about to say. It took everything in her to hold back her surprise at the number on screen, but she smiled as though delighted.
“Hello?” How long would it take him to ask why she’d put on a British accent?
“What do you think you are doing?”
She blinked. That was all the reaction she allowed to the fact that he’d roared. “Is everything okay, darling?”
“No, everything is not okay. Get up and leave the restaurant. Now.”
He knew where she was. Sabine transferred the phone to her other ear. Hopefully the target hadn’t heard Doug shout. She wasn’t about to let the Delta Force soldier interfere in her CIA-sanctioned mission. Too bad he was still yelling, which meant she couldn’t get a word in. Didn’t the army know that an operative was going to be here?
“You have no idea what you’re in the middle of.”
And he had no idea that she wasn’t