“I want you out of here. Stat. Excuse yourself. Head for the bathroom and sneak out. Go find James.”
She pressed her lips into a tight line, looking aggrieved, probably because he was deflecting her questions, but she didn’t comment on that. Good, because he wasn’t going to get into an argument with her. “Isn’t it going to seem weird if I disappear? I can handle this,” she assured him, snuggling against him, caressing his hair, as if they were dancing and murmuring inconsequential things into each other’s ears. Just two lovers cuddling. “I might be a pain in the butt and too loud and vocal for your taste, but I know when to keep my mouth shut. You don’t have to worry about me screwing up. We dance. Mingle with your…friends and in half an hour I say I’m not feeling well and you take me home.”
A lot of shit could go down in half an hour. The hairs at the back of his neck were already prickling as it was, his instincts all yelling at him.
Alex Ayala, his undercover name, was never in Boston. He favored the sun and the south, where he conducted his business as a facilitator. A broker of sorts. Connecting buyers with sellers, all big movers and shakers. Overseeing the deals and offering integral turnkey services. Of all his aliases during the years, this one had been the most effective, enabling him to shut down several big operations without blowing his cover. Jack wasn’t about to start fucking up now.
“I’ll entertain David and you excuse yourself,” he ordered as the song ended. Exxum had been watching them dance, so there was no way to sneak past him. Steeling himself, he walked toward David, keeping Elle’s hand tight in his grip.
“Alex, have I introduced you yet to one of our most generous benefactors?”
Jack turned to the newcomer and froze.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Joaquín Maldonado, this is Alex Ayala and his lovely date,” Exxum said.
Jack nodded in greeting and shook Maldonado’s hand.
“Alex Ayala, finally. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Then Maldonado addressed Elle, taking her hand and kissing it. “A pleasure. You look vaguely familiar. Have we met before?”
Chapter Thirteen
Time stood still. Jack could hardly hear a damn word, the way his ears were roaring. He, who had taken part in countless undercover operations, always cool as a cucumber, was about to lose his fucking shit. His gut feeling was to grab Elle and run the hell out of there. Thank God Elle was more rational.
She smiled, not flinching under Maldonado’s scrutiny or his touch while his lips brushed her hand. “I have one of those faces.”
“Which kind is that?”
“A common one,” she answered, not missing a beat.
The bastard’s expression lit with a grin. “Oh, I wouldn’t call your face or any part of you common.”
“Thanks. It’s the dim light here,” she confided. Jack could tell from the pulse in her wrist that her heart rate was sky-high, but she was joking and pretending to be relaxed. “Makes a woman more mysterious. Smoky. Then you see her in daylight and kaboom, you have a heart attack.”
Maldonado broke into laughter.
“I’m impressed, Alex. Finally a woman with looks and brains. Where are you seated? I’m sure we can rearrange the setting to include you,” Exxum said, throwing a glance to one of his associates, who flagged someone of the staff. “Joaquín is at the same table.”
Nico parked the car and, taking in a deep breath of cold air, walked toward the hotel where Maldonado was attending a fund-raiser for abandoned dogs. What he was doing there, Nico had no clue, because his employer couldn’t give two fucks about animals, abandoned or otherwise, much less travel to the other end of the country to spend a whopping ten grand on a vegan diner.
Either way he was glad for the reprieve, short as it might be. Boston was a welcome change of scenery, seeing as how he spent most of his time in the Caribbean or in the jungle overseeing the labs.
Florida was bad enough; Hawaii on top of that had been overkill. Next vacation he had, he was taking his Russian ass to Murmansk.
It was a stroke of luck that Maldonado was in Boston, because as fate would have it, the person they were searching for was from there. After Donald, all he had to do was go online to several professional directories and people-finder apps and bada bing, bada boom, in two seconds flat he’d found an Elle Cooper in the BU student directory who resembled Marlene. An Elle Cooper who had been enrolled in UF for a year a while back, and who had worked for the same airline as Marlene. Once sure he had the right girl, it had been a matter of going to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Man, people had no clue what they were doing when they uploaded all of their lives. How exposed they were. How easily they could become prey. He’d get accounts on those social media networking programs as soon as fucking never.