Page 3 of Every Last Breath

Although they shared their mom’s sea-green eyes, his were sharper than broken glass.

She glanced at the out-of-focus pictures splashed across the digital display. A peculiar tightening crawled through her chest.

“The asset is hostile to government agencies and considered dangerous. Use your import/export cover. The story is we have a pharmaceutical company that is an interested buyer looking to profit from a new vaccine for this supposedly deadlier virus strain.”

No-brainer why the chief wanted her on this. Maddox was fluent in Russian, asset recruitment was her forte, and her personnel file noted her past familiarity with the Reznikovs.

Familiarity was a pasteurized, watered-down version of the truth that only Castle was privy to and she never wanted the others to know. Especially not her boss. She shook off whatever it was that had coiled her muscles and let out the breath she’d been holding.

“Questions?” Castle asked.

“We’ve got it,” she said.

Her brother folded his action-figure arms. “Keep it simple. Get it done.”

Simple and easy were rarely the same, but this job was do or die trying.

* * *

Rosslyn, Virginia

12:35 p.m. EDT

Everyone loved vacations. People worked hard most of the year so they could unplug for a week or two on a sunny beach on a tiny island. Burning through money, clogging arteries with decadent meals, filling dead time thinking about the holes in their lives, lazing about with no sense of purpose—all in the name of freaking fun.

Everyone except Cole Matthews.

He exited I-66, and the iconic spires of Georgetown University came into view. Hitting the Key Bridge, an artery connecting northern Virginia to DC, he crossed the Potomac River.

The hot thrum of his motorcycle echoed his simmering annoyance. This was his first day of vacation since he’d been a graduate student. One week of forced leave per the boss’s orders after Cole had lost his temper and mouthed off to a douchebag, a.k.a. a wealthy client who refused to follow his security detail’s instructions, endangering not only himself but Cole’s men.

Cole had called it straight. The boss knew it. But for appearances’ sake, and since the client was always right even when clear-cut wrong, Cole’s penance to appease the rich putz was unpaid downtime. Or anger management—the one thing that sounded worse than a damn vacation.

He glanced at his side mirror, checking his six—an occupational habit—and would’ve sworn the same white SUV he’d spotted two blocks from his Arlington town house was now three cars behind him.

Was someone tailing him?

He wasn’t sure. The SUV didn’t ease too close on his rear, giving him plenty of space, keeping other cars between them and preventing him from catching the license plate.

Controlling security and neutralizing threats was how he earned a living at Rubicon Inc. Best way to identify a tail was to do an SDR—surveillance detection route—with a spotter verifying you were being followed. On his own, he’d have to bait them into giving themselves away. Stall at a green light, take four consecutive right turns, enter a one-way street going in the wrong direction. Something to test their patience and coax them to slip up.

Exiting the bridge, he cut left onto Canal Road NW, headed away from his originally planned destination. The picturesque neighborhood of Foxhall was a cluster of densely packed million-dollar homes laid out in a triangle. Plenty of bottlenecks and light midday traffic.

Cole snaked deep into the heart of the neighborhood. He passed charming Tudors and immaculate lawns. Taking two sharp rights, he swerved down a street that choked into the kind of cul-de-sac that snuck up on you. Parking in front of a walking path sandwiched between two houses at the curved bulb end of the street, he waited.

He lifted the helmet’s visor and sat, with the engine idling. The soft growl of his bike washed through his ears. His eyes stayed trained on the intersection and his grip tightened on the handlebars, squeezing so hard his fingers grew numb.

No cars passed. No white front bumper edged to the corner, giving the driver a peek.

Heat radiated from the asphalt in palpable, bubbling waves. The sweltering June sun roasted him in his leather riding jacket. Perspiration licked down his spine like a warm, slimy tongue, to the pocket of skin between his kidneys.

Still, he waited, his annoyance cranking to a quick boil.

The heavy beads of the Buddha prayer necklace he wore on days when he didn’t carry a gun were like an anchor against his chest, grounding his focus.

Maybe he was being paranoid. Mandatory leave was screwing with his head, but it was just the first of ugly things to come. Every unfortunate event that’d happened in his life had occurred in threes, an escalation from bad to worse to epic shitstorm that threatened to put him in the grave.

And always during a godforsaken heat wave.