Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [52]
“You’ll be well compensated,” she said. Even though the words stuck in her throat. Harry Thomason would see that Serafin was well rewarded for his life of blood and death. At least her old boss wouldn’t have any moral qualms about arranging for the notorious operative’s future. He would see it as Killian did: a business arrangement, and all the blood spilled meant nothing. “Assuming the intel you provide is useful. We’ll know if you’re lying, and we won’t be happy about it.”
“And of course I want to make you happy,” he said, his voice a low purr. Familiar. Unfamiliar. He’d talked to her in that low voice when they were in bed together, when she’d been drifting in and out of a daze that was half due to drugs, half to lust. She forced herself to look at him, to remind herself that he was a different person.
But in the morning light he looked far too much like the man she’d fallen in love with. His hair was darker, a little shorter, and there were lines bracketing his mouth and fanning out from his eyes. Somehow she thought they weren’t laugh lines. His skin was burnished dark from time spent in a hundred deserts, and the stubble of his beard had gray mixed in, but all in all he looked the same. Dark, mesmerizing eyes. Sensuous mouth, full of lies. And elegant, deadly hands.
She looked away again, closing her eyes. He was Serafin the Butcher, she reminded herself. He was Killian, the assassin who’d lied to her, betrayed her and tried to kill her.
He was the only man she’d ever believed she was in love with. He was her worst nightmare, her first kill, her nemesis from beyond the grave. She only hoped he was right, and that there was a mole in the Committee. Because then Killian would be dead, truly dead this time, and all she’d have to worry about was the security of her organization. A minor detail, compared to the bleeding wound that was Killian’s presence in her life.
Bastien had been sent to kill him five years ago, and it had been one of his few failures. They’d tracked Serafin down to a small country in South America, wealthy from drug trafficking and oil deposits. The prevailing government had been controlled by a dictator named Ideo Llosa, and Serafin, soldier for hire, had been his second in command and enforcer. Bastien’s cover had been excellent—he posed as a dealer in specialized weapons, and Llosa had a problem with insurgents, rebels, and anyone who disagreed with him. Bastien was supposed to come in, make the deal for biological weapons, dispose of Serafin and Llosa and then disappear.
But instead he’d come back, admitting failure for what might have been the only time in his career, and Serafin had moved on, to continue his bloody deeds. Llosa had died anyway, brought down by an unknown assassin.
Looking back, Isobel had wondered whether that was Bastien’s first sign of burnout. The first hint that he couldn’t keep on in his machinelike capacity. It had been a growing problem. In the past, operatives were killed in the line of duty or disposed of by Thomason’s brutal orders. No one was good enough to survive the amount of time it took to get burned out.
First Bastien, then Peter. Taka was getting close—it was only a matter of time before he wanted out of active work. At least he’d sent one of his tamer cousins to train.
As for Isobel herself, she’d been on the edge of disaster for longer than she could remember, and yet she still kept on. As she intended to do, until something stopped her.
But why had Bastien failed, that one time? He’d been tight-lipped, never giving a reason, but Isobel knew him too well to accept that the task had been too difficult. Bastien had been made for impossible missions.
No, there was something more to the story, something to do with the ruthless, lying, amoral monster who drove through the Spanish countryside.
If she didn’t find out soon, it might be the death of her. And she wasn’t quite ready to die.
13
Mahmoud woke up about an hour into their drive, and Isobel was half tempted to jab him with