The Dom Who Loved Me (Masters and Mercenaries #1)(2)

Fuck me shoes. Damn. Any woman who wore those shoes had a streak of the unexpected. He wondered what her underwear looked like. Something delicate and lovely?

Suddenly interested in the case, Sean sat up, flipping through the file looking for any pertinent information. It was well put together, filled with carefully thought out analysis. It almost certainly hadn’t come from that prick Lincoln. “Matt Wright runs a temp agency?”

Lincoln was guzzling down coffee. It gave Gene a chance to respond. “Yes, one of the largest in Texas. His base is in Fort Worth, but his people work all over the state, as well as Louisiana and Arkansas. A couple of years back, he started brokering deals with temp agencies in India for information technology services. He’s branched out to include everything from temporary white collar workers to janitorial services. He’s been very successful.”

“Who is this?” Sean slid the photo of the woman in stilletos Gene’s way.

A smile tugged at Gene’s thin lips. He pointed to the woman in question. “Grace Hawthorne, Matt Wright’s admin. She’s worked for him for six years.”

“Nice shoes.” Liam’s accent sounded flat and Midwestern.

Sean stared at him for a moment. Liam wouldn’t want to give the U.S. government a damn thing to tie him back to Ireland. Only a select group of people got to hear his native lilt.

Liam wrinkled his nose, obviously dismissing the photo. “The rest of her is a bit boring, but it looks like she’s got nice breasts. Is anybody going to have to pork the assistant? She’s older than my usual.”

“Asshole.” Sean stopped just short of punching him. The Irishman wouldn’t know a real woman if she slapped him across the face, and given his predilections, that had probably happened numerous times. Sean enjoyed Liam’s company, but he was a jerk when it came to women. If a woman wasn’t barely eighteen and serving hot wings in shorts that rode up her ass, she wasn’t really female to Liam. Sean far preferred women over girls. If Liam wasn’t eager to take Grace to bed, Sean would be more than happy to.

There was a lot of boring back-and-forth. He ignored it and stared at the picture. Later, he would read Grace’s bio, all the little numbers, facts, and dates that made up her life, yet told him nothing about who she was as a woman. He wished there was a picture of her without the sunglasses. He’d like to know what color her eyes were. Green, he bet, or hazel. Her skin looked very fair, almost luminous. She’d pulled her darkish hair back in a pony tail. In the picture, her style appeared somewhat nondescript, just like everything about the woman. Except those shoes.

“You suspect that Wright is laundering money for his brother’s group?” Liam’s question brought Sean out of his thoughts and reminded him there was a job at hand. He flipped the file closed.

“Suspect is all they can do,” Ian murmured. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be here.” He turned his icy blue eyes to the elephant in the room. “And what does the CIA want with Mr. Patrick Wright?”

Lincoln gasped, but managed to hold on to his coffee cup. Sean turned his attention blatantly to the “lowly assistant” in the expensive shoes. Now that Sean really looked at him, he noticed the man’s watch was a Rolex. Another tell.

The man in question flushed deeply. “I should have changed my shoes.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. You look like a spook.” Ian spit the words, as if that was the worst thing a person could be.

“He’s not a spook.” Liam yawned as though the entire conversation bored him. “He’s a paper pusher.”

The man in question sighed and leaned forward. “Look, you guys are all ex-military or ex-agency. You know the drill. You’ve worked for us in a quiet capacity before. Feel free to refer to me as Mr. Black.”

“Original.” Sean had known several Mr. Blacks over the course of his military career, and he’d learned not to trust a single one. The CIA always protected the identities of its agents, even from the military personnel who did their dirty work.

This particular Mr. Black seemed unfazed by Sean’s disdain. “I’ll leave a cell phone number in case you need to contact me. I’m not officially here, and if anyone asks, I’ll disavow any and all knowledge of this operation.”

“Yeah, you types are good at that.” Sean heard the bitterness in his own voice. He knew what it felt like to have his own CO stand in front of a military judge and flatly lie about the men he was charged to lead.

The spook ignored him. “The CIA is interested in certain connections Patrick Wright potentially made on a trip to Chile a few years back.”

“Drug cartels?” Liam asked. He seemed much more interested now.

“Jihadist groups. They’re popping up all over South America, and it seems they have mutual interests with our homegrown terrorists. I can’t prove anything, but I believe Wright is potentially acting as a go-between to facilitate meetings between the South American groups and the Earth League.”

“That’s a pretty big leap,” Ian frowned as he studied the man in front of him.

Mr. Black sighed and seemed a little weary. “You’re not the only one who thinks that. No one believes me. Until I have concrete proof, I can’t do anything. Because my proof is more than likely here on American soil…”

Sean knew this drill well. “You need someone without the strictures of the Agency. Why not the FBI?”