Loreth White - The Heart of a Renegade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my editor—Susan Litman,

for continuing to believe in me.

And to Johnny Onefeather, for the brainstorming.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

Jessica Chan scrambled under the drooping boughs of a giant hemlock, her camera bag dragging through needles and loam, heavy wet branches drenching the thin fabric of her blouse.

Shaking from cold and nerves, she huddled tight against the base of the tree and peered through the curtain of branches as two Asian men emerged from the apartment building across the street.

They stopped, looked down the road for her.

Her heart stalled as she saw the glint of steel in one of the men’s hands.

The knife that had just killed her friend Stephanie.

The blade that had been meant for her, not her friend.

For a terrifying moment Jessica thought they’d seen her. She shut her eyes, telling herself it was not possible. The winter night was black as pitch, cloud low, freezing rain falling. There were no lights in the park.

One of the men cursed violently in Chinese and her pulse raced.

There was no doubt in Jessica’s mind—they were members of the Dragon Heads Triad.

And she was certain they would kill her because of what she’d seen—and photographed—in Chinatown that morning, because of the images still undeveloped on the roll of film in her Minolta camera.

She clutched her camera bag against her chest and watched as the men moved down the street, disappearing into the alley where Stephanie’s body lay.

Shivering violently, Jessica remained hidden under the hemlock branches in the park for hours, the image of the men knifing Stephanie rolling in a sickening loop through her brain.

Stephanie Ward had been Jessica’s closest friend, her only friend in this new city. She had invited Jessica to come to Vancouver from the U.K. to start afresh, offering Jessica a job at the small Canadian television station where she worked.

Jessica had been so grateful. Three years after her brutal kidnapping ordeal in China, she had finally abandoned psychotherapy and drug treatments, and her hallucinations hadn’t occurred for a while. She’d thought she was finally getting her life back on track.

Until she’d gone shopping in Chinatown that morning.

Until she’d seen—and photographed—Dragon Heads kingpin Xiang-Li, a wanted man in several countries, along with the unnamed man responsible for the pharmacological torture that had nearly destroyed her in China three years ago. A man Jessica called The Chemist.

Those two men had stolen her life. One of them was a man no one would even admit existed.

Jessica had gone straight to cops. She’d told no one else about her photographs apart from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but somehow the Triad had still been tipped off.

They’d ransacked her apartment, taken the negatives and prints from the one roll she’d already developed, then come for her. Too afraid to return to the police, Jessica had run to Steph’s apartment with the second roll still undeveloped in her camera.

The men must have followed her, been waiting in the dark alley for her to come out. Because of Stephanie’s height and coloring they must have mistaken her for Jessica when she’d borrowed Jessica’s raincoat and nipped out for cheesecake. They’d realized their mistake when they’d pulled the hood back from Steph’s face and looked up to see Jessica standing on the balcony. Watching in horror.

Tears finally filled Jessica’s eyes. Steph was dead.

And it was her fault.

It was well after midnight before Jessica finally dared leave the cover of the hemlock. The temperature was plunging and icy needles of rain stung her face. She was shaking uncontrollably, the first stages of hypothermia setting in, confusing her mind.

She had nowhere to go. No one to trust.

Not even the police.

Her cell phone was in the pocket of her coat—on Stephanie’s body. So was her driver’s license and her keys. The RCMP were going to be looking for her in connection with murder now. And she was being hunted by one of the biggest—and deadliest—Chinese organized crime syndicates.

There was only one person in the world who might be able to help her. Giles Rehnquist, her old colleague in Shanghai, would believe what she’d seen. He’d know what to do. She just had to reach a pay phone and call him in Shanghai.

Before the Triad got to her first.

Luke Stone hunched over his shopping cart, black wool hat pulled low over his brow, eyes trained on the woman.

A blast of steam roiled from a vent in the sidewalk, disappearing with a white hiss into the frigid February night, but not for one instant did his focus stray from the woman standing alone outside the phone booth.

She was underdressed for these temperatures, shivering as she rubbed bare hands and checked her watch. He noted the heavy camera bag slung over her shoulder.

It was definitely Jessica Chan, ex-BBC foreign correspondent, Shanghai bureau. Here in Gastown at the appointed booth, at the allotted hour. His principal.

Luke no longer accepted close protection gigs. Not since he’d failed to protect the most important people in his life—his wife and unborn child. It was written right into his contract with the Force du Sablé, and he’d refused this job point-blank. But they’d told him he was the only person who could reach Jessica in time. Without Luke’s help, she would die.

Tonight.

Luke hoped to be rid of her in a matter of hours. Then he could get back to life the way he liked it. Alone.

The nearby steam clock released a sharp whistle and she jerked round, her straight, waist-length hair shimmering under the neon of the store sign behind her as she spun to face his direction. Her skin was pure porcelain in the eerie light, her exotic eyes glittering. Even from his position he could see they were the color of fine single-malt whiskey. With a small punch to the gut Luke realized the lady was startlingly beautiful. And very, very frightened.

She had reason to be.

Not only were the cops after her, she was being hunted by one of deadliest Asian gangs in existence. Now the CIA wanted her, too—ever since she’d placed a call to undercover CIA operative Giles Rehnquist based at the CNN bureau in Shanghai two days ago.

That phone call had cost Rehnquist his life.

And that’s why Luke was here now, to bring her in and to hand her—and the film in her camera—over to the CIA before she died, too.

She didn’t know yet that her “journalist” friend would not be there to take the call she was about to place. To the best of Luke’s knowledge, Jessica Chan had no idea Rehnquist was CIA.

It was almost 11:00 p.m. now, the time Rehnquist had told her to phone him from this booth, and a dank fog was crawling up from the docks, fingering through the historic brick alleys that led off in all directions.

Luke tossed a can into his cart as he inched closer. The sound caught her attention and she shot a look directly at him, missing what had just snared his interest—an Asian man in a leather jacket lingering just beyond a pool of light that spilled from a restaurant window.