Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(57)
She paused, and he could tell she was thinking something through.
“It seems likely our waitress roofied your water after she found out we were agents—otherwise why is she dead?”
“Maybe the drug dealers saw her talking to us and thought she was snitching on them,” Dominic suggested.
“I guess.” Compliant and agreeable, Ava was obviously tired.
He polished off his food and restrained himself from licking the plate. Ava put her food down, half eaten. He eyed it. “Are you finished? Can I have that?”
She gave him a smile. “You gave me cave man portions so sure. I’m going to grab a shower and pass out.”
“Don’t use all the hot water. I’m next.”
She nodded and hit the minuscule bathroom while he finished his beer and her food, and forced his mind away from the knowledge a wet, naked Ava was standing just a few feet away.
He thought about the siege. Milo was the unknown factor in this dynamic. The guy could start killing the others as soon as his knives were sharpened to his satisfaction. Dominic had requested all the files from Milo’s prosecution. The prison psychiatrist had prescribed medication to help control his paranoid fantasies and they claimed the results had been extremely effective, but Milo wasn’t getting his meds while they were barricaded inside that kitchen. Who the hell knew what that would do to his mental state.
The door to the bathroom opened a crack. Ava poked her head out, fingers curled tight around the door.
“Sorry. Could you pass me a towel, please?”
Dominic started. So much for getting his overactive imagination under control. Her wet hair was dripping water onto the floor and her naked shoulder taunted him like a fourteen-year-old boy.
“Of course.” He went over to Ava’s bag and pulled out a towel. He grabbed his while he was at it, and fresh boxers and a t-shirt to sleep in.
He held the towel out so she could take it. “Here you go.”
She let go of the door to grab the towel, but the damn thing started to swing open. Dominic stuck his foot to stop it.
God. Even the idea of seeing her naked was stirring his blood. Dammit. “If you’re finished in there, how about you get dried and dressed out here while I grab a shower?”
“Good idea. Just give me a second.” She came out wrapped in a towel that hit mid-thigh. Her shoulders were bare. Perfect collarbones emphasized a long, slender neck and pointed chin. She was brushing her wet hair completely unaware that she looked absolutely stunning. “It’s all yours.”
If only.
Dominic hated himself for being turned on by this woman, this rookie agent. But there was nothing he could do about it right now except not get involved. They were stuck with each other.
He went inside the tiny bathroom, stripped off and turned on the cold water before stepping under the freezing spray. Anything to get his body under control and his blood cooled.
Chapter Sixteen
Ava woke in the middle of the night disorientated and confused as to where she was and why she was sleeping on the floor. Slowly her night vision made out the slivers of light coming through cheap venetian blinds. Muted sounds of police radios crackled in the distance.
She was in the trailer near the prison just outside Buffalo. She rolled over and tried to get comfortable, but no matter what, she was wide awake.
Yesterday had been traumatic, but she’d got through it without Sheridan suspecting anything was amiss. Hearing Gino-the-snake’s voice had whipped her back to the night her father died. The long, tedious months of living in safe houses with a team of US Deputy Marshals protecting them from threats of intimidation and death before she’d been called to testify against the man.
Gino had shot her father and then smashed the same gun into her face and kicked her as she lay unconscious on the floor, left for dead. They were to be examples in the tough Greek community as to what happened if you didn’t pay “protection” money. Her mother had found her alive and called the FBI rather than the cops because she had a cousin who had a cousin who worked for the FBI in New York. That cousin of a cousin had turned out to be a man named Vangelis Stamos—who’d had a profound effect on Ava’s life from the day they met.
Van was the man who’d persuaded her terrified mother that the only way they’d get justice for her husband was by pretending little Emmeleia Stophodopolis was dead—until she turned up and testified in court. Emmeleia had her own white coffin and her name was engraved on her father’s tombstone. Van had talked her mom into changing their identities and entering the witness protection program. Considering it meant leaving behind her entire life, this was not a minor undertaking.
Ava’s mother was her hero. She’d sacrificed so much to keep her kids safe while still standing up to the bad guys.
Van had helped them when they’d moved. He’d suggested a small town just outside Portland, Oregon, where many of his relatives lived. The tight Greek community had helped hide them and also supported them by giving her mother a job and a place to live.
Then the court case had happened. DNA and ballistics evidence, combined with photographs of Emmeleia’s injuries, of her father’s brutally slain body, and her unshakable eye-witness testimony had been enough to convict Gino and one of his associates. That associate, a man who’d only recently been initiated into the crime family, had rolled on the others and enabled the Feds to dismantle the entire corrupt empire as well as landing most of the players in prison for life without parole. To say Ava’s real identity was unpopular with Cosa Nostra was an understatement. But no one knew who that girl was anymore. No one. Not even Dominic Sheridan.