Against the Dark (13 page)

Kitty sat next to her. Kitty was quiet, but she didn’t seem stupid. Borgola had to be paying them; she couldn’t imagine voluntarily sleeping with a man like Borgola. Though she supposed if you were to have sex with a man like that, it was better to have another girl there—it would be less horrible than to be alone with him, and you could talk about how creepy he was afterwards. If Macy and White Jenny were with her, they’d totally dish on Borgola. The snaky-smooth voice thing. The alcohol-laded cocktails especially for the ladies. The volleyball net in the pool.

The two men were lost in conversation. What did guys like that discuss? Cole’s glass was empty. No doubt he’d dumped it with perfect deftness.

Cole was good at things. Maybe this could work out.

Cole didn’t like Borgola’s smug attitude; it was the attitude of a cat toying with a mouse. But they wouldn’t be having cocktails together if Borgola had discovered the trackers in the diamond bags. Why the attitude, then? Was Borgola vetting Cole for even more upward movement? The fake identity Dax’s people had created would be bulletproof. Could it be
too
bulletproof? That was sometimes a flag.

Or maybe Cole seemed too capable. Borgola always needed to be the most powerful man in the room by miles.

Cole yearned to get up and stretch his long legs, but not while Borgola sat, and not while Borgola showed him that attitude. So he kept them tucked under his chair, a submissive posture, all the better to comfort a sadistic megalomaniac.

Laughter from the pool. The women had started up the game of pool volleyball, Angel and Kitty against Kendra. The blondes seemed a bit buzzed; that had been grain alcohol in those drinks. Borgola loved people helpless, impaired. He really was a fucking piece of work.

Maybe Borgola had something up his sleeve. It didn’t matter. All systems were go until Cole or Angel were physically prevented from handling this mission, that is, injured or dead. It wasn’t fair to Angel, but there it was. She’d taken the risk to rip off Borgola in the first place.

If things went well, Borgola wouldn’t even know he’d been compromised, and Angel could return to her life. They’d “break up.” The Association would take over the boat, then let the Feds step in for the glory and the red tape

Squeals sounded from the pool. Angel was expertly playing her role, even though she clearly had a thing about being the center of attention. Angel was a total professional when it came down to it.

Borgola watched the game with a glazed expression. He never seemed to tire of seeing women spring out of the water, wet breasts bouncing, hands overhead to smack the ball. Borgola liked seeing them play topless most of all. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but the night was young. Cole would try to prevent it, but if it came to it, Angel would play topless. She was made of strong stuff. She didn’t think she was, but she was. He loved that about her.

Cole worked with lots of different agents in the field, and you got to be a good judge of who would come through and who would freeze. Angel was the kind to come through. He wanted to tell her that, suddenly. He wanted to be alone with her and hold her and tell her about how if you felt scared of a thing and did it anyway, it meant you were brave and strong.

Borgola smiled over at him, swirling the ice in his drink. Cole grunted his approval of the women, doing his best impression of a leering thug. Borgola would see this as a gift, one that he’d engineered. Even this was a kind of logistics—supply, transport, pretty girls performing at optimum output while affording the two of them the privacy to discuss perimeter rounds. Borgola hadn’t even had to command them to play; the hookers simply knew his preferences and made it happen. Optimum output with optimum efficiency. The grain alcohol, the volleyball, the dinner with Cole, just a sequence of resources nested inside a larger sequence. He could put an equation to it if he wanted.

Everything was logistics.

Angel laughed and played, water glistening on her flawless skin. Her dark hair was piled on her head, and the shiny little beads and things in her hair caught the late afternoon sun like jewels. Some strands had begun to fall out, sticking wet against her skin.

And good Lord, that suit. Cole hated that he was appreciating her now in this little show that Borgola had arranged, but she was hot in that suit—he’d meant it when he’d told her that. She looked beautiful playing volleyball, but it was her spirit that got him. Much as Borgola might wish to degrade her with this, Angel’s spirit shone through.

Damn.

He let his eyes blur, tried to stop seeing her, focused on the dapples of light on the water. She, too was logistics—a commodity to be expended in the procurement of the files. A thief, just a low-level Borgola. If it was between her and the boat, he would have to choose the boat.

He needed to be okay with that.

Borgola droned on about the new post-robbery security arrangements. Some parts of the roof and the storm gutter would now be electrified when the alarm system got set off.

Nice.

Cole felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. It wouldn’t be anything important, certainly not news of the diamonds being moved. The only man who’d move them was sitting with him.

At exactly five, Borgola stood and snapped his fingers and the volleyball game ceased. The women emerged from the pool. Borgola took one on each arm.

“Dinner in thirty minutes,” Borgola said, eyeing Angel.

Cole quickly wrapped her in a towel, rescuing her from the man’s gaze. “You hungry?”

She smiled. “Starving.”

They watched Borgola walk off with Kendra and Kitty.

“Whatever he’s paying them, it’s not enough,” she said.

“Everybody’s got their price,” he said.

She pulled the towel around herself. “Even me, apparently.” Meaning the blackmail.

“Even you.” He needed to keep that in mind.

She pulled the towel tight, a determined look on her face. “You know, you didn’t have to do this. I could’ve stood up to it.” Meaning he didn’t have to put the towel around her. She could’ve stood up to Borgola’s view of her.

He’d done it for himself, he realized. Well, that needed to stop.

“Noted.” He checked his messages. The aunt had been freed. Good. It would be gratifying to tell her. Right before dinner, he decided. A good-news shot in the arm to brace for more Borgola.

“I know this is going to sound weird, because I know we were the entertainment out there, but it felt good to move around and blow off some steam instead of having to talk to him.”

“What will help you now?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Alone time in the room? Pushups? A smoke? Different people have different ways of pulling their heads together, and it might be a long night.” He’d been about to say
different Associates.
Like she was one of them.

She squinted. “I’d like to call my friends. It’s stupid, but I’ve never done anything like this without them. And they’ll want to know I’m okay.”

Cole handed her his phone. “This is secure. Be quick. Stay by the table and you can speak freely. There are no listening devices here.” The table by the pool tended to be Borgola’s deal making haven.

He wandered over to the other side of the pool to let her have some privacy. She wanted to download with her criminal girlfriends. He respected that—not the criminal part, but the girl power streak in there. The girlfriends would give her the news about the aunt, of course. He’d looked forward to telling her himself, but it would be nice for her to get it from them.

A few minutes later she was heading toward him, grinning. “Aunt Aggie’s free. And two of the Flesh Boys seem to be in the ER.”

“Imagine that, darling,” Cole said. “That should teach them to nab sweet old aunts.”

“Thank you, darling.” She handed the phone back to him, looking thoughtful. “How did Borgola seem to you?”

Cole pocketed the phone. “Smug and sly.”

“Could he suspect?”

He looked her in the eye. He wouldn’t lie to her now. “There’s a chance.”

She asked, “Is whatever’s in the safe worth risking your life?”

That was always the question. Macmillan had asked it too, more or less. It was so much easier to ask a question like that from the outside of a mission, when you hadn’t established the relationships, worked a system of favors, laid the groundwork.

“It has to be this way,” he said simply.

“Why?”

“It just does.”

The inner edges of her eyebrows drew together in a question. “But is it worth your life?”

“I can’t leave without what’s in there, okay?”

“That sounds like a yes,” Angel said.

“What I’m telling you is that we’ll handle it.” They needed to pull it out, and he needed to not have to choose between her and the mission. It seemed such an obvious choice: all of those kids versus one woman, but then he’d look at her and his heart would swell and the logic of it would go to hell. He slid his hands over her arms. “We’ll go in like lightning. In and out. You know the drill—you handled it fine the other night. I’d know if he knew anything real.”

“You’d know if he knows anything real? As opposed to, like, if he has
unfounded
suspicions?”

Yes, he was putting her in danger. He could stop it now. God, how he wanted to. Panic rose in his chest as his control slipped away. He forced his mind to the kids on the boat. They would’ve gotten on with such hope in their hearts, only to be shoved into containers like animals, transported across the ocean toward vile, painful deaths. Those kids needed him to stay objective. He fixed on Angel, tried not to see her, gripped her arms more tightly. “You need to stop questioning my decisions, got it? You entered the game when you ripped him off and you got caught. This is a better outcome than what you’d have with anybody else on his team catching you.”

“Was that a yes?” she pressed on, undaunted. “Do you mean to go for this no matter how bad the odds are? Is it a suicide mission? I’d like to know, that’s all.”

“A suicide mission? Do I seem that self-destructive to you?”

“You’re answering a question with a question.”

He tightened his grip. Was he losing focus? Did his beautiful safecracker hear his clicks? Did she have his number?
Was
it a suicide mission? “Do I seem out of control to you?”

The sharp planes of her face softened. She put her hands on his arms, regarding him intensely. What was she seeing? For one mad, wild second, he thought she might kiss him.

He sure as hell wanted to kiss her.

“Let’s go,” she said, finally. “I need to get out of this stupid suit. Now that the dancing bear show is over.”

“Was that a yes?” he whispered.

She watched his eyes, looking wistful, almost, then tipped her head to the side—a shrug that didn’t quite reach her shoulder. “Yeah, that was a yes.”

“It won’t come to that.” He was being foolish. They both knew he couldn’t promise that.

The silence descended, heavy with reality.

“One more question,” she said.

He braced himself. He’d try to answer honestly. He owed her that.

She smiled, warmth flooding her eyes, flooding his heart. “Darling, can Borgola be any creepier?”

He snorted.

“The way he talks,” she whispered. “And the volleyball in the pool?”

“I know, darling.”

“Seriously. He might be one of the worst men I ever met.”

“He may very well be,” Cole said. The truth. “Come on.” He slung his arm around her neck as they headed into the place and through the living room. They turned down into the barracks wing. He kissed her hair. All part of the show.

But not.

Back in the room she showered and changed and Cole checked the trackers. Still no movement on the diamonds, but he hadn’t expected it; Borgola would be otherwise occupied for this little break.

Dinner was every bit as excruciating as cocktail hour. The girls were drunker. Hands dove back and forth into crotches on Borgola’s side of the table. Cole hoped one of the girls wouldn’t go down on Borgola while he was eating. He thought they’d be on decent behavior, but you never knew with Borgola; the man didn’t bother with rules. He didn’t have to—he was surrounded by sycophants, he had dozens of cops and officials on his payroll. Nobody dared to mess with him. Cops had gotten evidence on him from time to time, but they’d always died for it. And the evidence generally disappeared or got compromised.

But the Association would mess with him. Cole would mess with him.

Angel played along, laughing loudly, talking brightly. Seeming drunk.

She’d brought a purple dress, a gorgeous strappy thing. He’d worried it wasn’t glitzy enough for his persona’s girlfriend, but when she put it on, she was stunning. Cole the lowlife security guy would fall at her feet. Needless to say, it was an easy role for Cole the Associate to play.

She was even more beautiful when the talk turned to her interior design career. He’d assumed it was a front, but she came to life when she talked about it. It wasn’t a front; it was a passion.

She talked about how every project she did started with something of the client's: a hobby, a favorite chair, heirloom art. She talked about how design, the way she did it, was about discovery and amplification of what the homeowner cherished in their heart, their inner beauty, but blended with the architecture and the Southern California landscape. She talked about echoing the mood of the architecture of a place. Her talk made Cole see Borgola’s decor with new eyes. He’d accepted it as another classy, upscale home, but he realized now that she’d hate it.

He wondered if she dreamed of doing her interiors exclusively someday. Why wouldn’t she? Surely she had enough money from the thieving business to quit.

“And what is to be discovered here?” Borgola asked her. “What do you think about my place?”

She surveyed the room thoughtfully. “Well, you obviously had it quite lavishly designed. I think you like the finer things in life. It says you have very sensual tastes, but with your own twist.”

“I like to shake it up,” Borgola said.

“Yes, you’ll do what you want, even if it puts people off,” she said. “Because other people, that’s not who you decorate for, unless it is to challenge them.”