Lisa Childs - His Christmas Assignment

He definitely hadn’t told his sister anything about that night.

“So he’s gone back to his old life,” Stacy continued. “To Viktor Chekov. Those people are dangerous, Candace.”

She didn’t need to tell her. As a former cop, Candace knew exactly how dangerous Chekov was. While he’d never been convicted, he had committed every crime on the books. The last news she’d heard as she’d driven out of the city had been a report that Chekov’s right-hand man had been executed. While the reporter hadn’t dared to speculate, it was clear that everyone thought Chekov was the killer.

“They’re really dangerous,” Stacy said, her voice shaking with fear. “Garek’s in trouble.”

* * *

Garek was in trouble—more trouble than he could have even imagined. He couldn’t get Candace out of his mind. And he couldn’t afford the distraction right now—not with the dangerous game he was playing.

What if he’d been followed to this meeting? He’d watched the rearview mirror and hadn’t noticed anyone tailing him. But instead of the road behind him, he’d kept seeing Candace: her blue eyes wide with shock as she’d stared up at him, her lips red and slightly swollen from his kiss.

What if he’d missed a tail? He reached beneath his jacket and closed his hand around his weapon as he stepped out of the SUV. Nobody was going to get the jump on him. But he still could have been followed. And if someone saw him with the person he was meeting...

From an alley between two buildings, beams of light flashed. On and off. On and off.

Garek glanced around the deserted industrial area. Had anyone else seen the signal?

He could detect no movement but the December wind tossing snowflakes around the night sky. Maybe he hadn’t been followed. But he still had that uneasy feeling, that tingling between his shoulder blades that made him feel as if he was being watched.

The lights flashed again. Of course he was being watched by the person who waited for him inside the other SUV. Garek glanced around once more before heading toward the alley. He moved, as he always did, quickly and silently—keeping to the shadows.

Slipping between the SUV and the building beside it, he pulled open the passenger’s door. No dome light flashed; the person he was meeting knew all the tricks of maintaining his anonymity. In his line of work, he wouldn’t have lived long if he hadn’t.

FBI agent Nicholas Rus had done a lot of undercover work in his career with the Bureau. Before Garek had agreed to work with the man, he’d checked out his background. He didn’t care that Rus was related to the Paynes—that with his black hair and blue eyes, he looked eerily like the twins Logan and Parker. The FBI agent hadn’t been raised with them, by Penny Payne, so Garek questioned his integrity. He didn’t know too many people who were beyond corruption—besides the Paynes.

“Why you acting so nervous?” Rus asked as Garek slid into the passenger’s seat. “I didn’t notice any tail coming in behind you. Did you see a suspicious vehicle?”

“No.” But that didn’t mean that he hadn’t been followed. He peered through the tinted windshield, trying to see beyond the alley.

The snow had thickened, now, from flurries to sheets of white. The mild winter was over; the cold and snow coming in earnest now. He couldn’t see anything out there anymore. But whoever was watching him wouldn’t be able to see either.

Rus sighed and murmured, “Guess you’d be an idiot if you weren’t nervous...”

“I was an idiot to let you talk me into this,” Garek said.

“You’re the only one who could do this,” Rus said. “Viktor Chekov wouldn’t have let anyone else inside, and there’s no time. We have to recover the murder weapon before he ditches it.”

“If he hasn’t already,” Garek said. “He’d be a fool if he hasn’t.” And Viktor Chekov was nobody’s fool.

Rus shrugged. “The witness says he hasn’t.”

“The witness could be lying.” Especially if the witness was who Garek suspected it was. Viktor would not have killed in front of her.

Rus shrugged again. “That’s why we need the murder weapon.”

“We need more,” Garek said. “We need an admission of guilt.” Because that witness would never testify—for a few reasons.

Rus laughed. “If you think Viktor Chekov is going to confess, you actually might be an idiot.”

“He won’t confess to authorities,” Garek agreed.

“You think you can get him to confess to you?”

“Confess?” Garek shook his head. “Threaten? Brag?” He nodded. “Yeah, I can get him to do one of those.”

A muscle twitched along Rus’s jaw he clenched it so tightly. He hadn’t been raised with his half brothers but yet he shared some of their tells when it came to stress.

The special agent asked, “Is he still having his guys check you for a wire every time you show up for a protection duty shift?”

Garek nodded. As he’d said, the man was nobody’s fool; he knew not to trust Garek.

Rus’s irritation escaped in a ragged sigh. “He’ll kill you if he catches you wearing one.”

Garek nodded again. But his life was the least of his concerns. He was more concerned about his family.

At least Candace was gone. He didn’t have to worry about her. He only had to worry about getting her off his mind so that he wouldn’t get so careless that he’d wind up dead.

Rus gripped the SUV steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “I want this guy. I really want this guy. But if your family knew that you were risking your life to help me...”

“They’re your family, too,” Garek reminded him. Actually they were more Rus’s family since he was a blood relative albeit not a legitimate one. Garek was only related through marriage, and his sister’s at that.

Rus shook his head. “They don’t feel that way—at least not all of them.”

Garek knew the Paynes well enough to know who had welcomed Rus and who hadn’t. Nikki hadn’t. But of all of the Paynes, Penny had welcomed him the most—despite his being the evidence of her late husband’s betrayal.

But that was the kind of woman Penny was—the kind who’d taken an interest in the kids of the man who’d confessed to killing her husband. She had welcomed the Kozminskis as warmly as she had Nicholas Rus.

“Give them time,” he said. While Penny had accepted Garek and his siblings, it had taken the other Paynes more time.

“If something happens to you while you’re carrying out this assignment for me...” Rus shook his head.

Garek wanted to assure the FBI agent that nothing would happen to him, but he knew Viktor Chekov too well to make any promises. “I’ll let you know when I get the evidence you need...”

If I’m alive...

Rus must have had the same thought because he reached out and squeezed Garek’s shoulder. “I appreciate your doing this.”

Garek shrugged off his gratitude and his hand. “It’s like you said. Nobody else could do it.”

“But that doesn’t mean you had to agree. You could have refused.”

He could have. He might have...if Candace hadn’t taken off on him the way she had. But she was gone and with her any excuse he might have had to not finally do the right thing—what he should have done fifteen years ago. Take down Viktor Chekov.

He pushed open the passenger door and stepped out into the snow and the cold. “I have nothing to lose.”

“Just your life...”

He softly shut the door and hurried away from the alley. He moved quickly now, not so he wasn’t noticed, but so that he didn’t freeze off his ass. Christmas was only a few weeks away. Hopefully he would wrap up this assignment before then, so that he could spend an honest holiday with his family.