A Love For Always Page 4

  At that, Agnes Buchanan smiled in that sage, all-knowing way.

  “Sometimes you don’t realize what you’re looking for is right in front of you,” Nana said as she covered Sylvie’s hand with her own. “See him, Sylvie, because he sees you. Fear of making a mistake with you held him back all those years. Don’t be afraid to trust him with your heart. But then again, a man like him, when he decides the time is right, I don’t think he’ll leave you with much choice.”

  *****

  Cosmetic drugs? That’s it?

  Nate leaned back in his chair, relief and consternation warring within him. It was Monday morning, and the first order of the day was following up with Caitlin about a favor he’d requested over the weekend. Travis’s wife was an analyst for the NSA, but she had interesting extracurricular activities. She called herself a digital forensic investigator. She’d become BSI’s unofficial hacker. Travis wasn’t happy with his wife’s less than legal activities. One would think as the eponymous owner of the company, he’d have more say. In truth, he could only agree his wife was the best out there and it made her happy to help. She covered her digital footprints very well, and during rare occasions when she got into trouble with authorities, Admiral Benjamin Porter—an ally within the CIA, and Beatrice’s father—was always at hand to bail her out. In a way, Cade Bowen was right because Nate was currently looking at the DEA’s case file on the Asian Crime Syndicate (ACS) and Sylvie.

  The drug in question, Glutathione Derivative Enzyme (GDE) was a synthetic reproduction of the tripeptide Glutathione—a powerful antioxidant. GDE was a popular street drug in Japan, and Japanese pharmaceutical companies were in a race to reproduce the cosmetic pill, but failing. The going rate was 3000 yen a pop, which was roughly translated to 25 USD a pill. Nobody knew its source, but the DEA’s Japanese informants were pointing to a brilliant biochemist living in the Nagano Prefecture who was under ACS protection.

  Nate clicked further on the drug data. His brows shot to his hairline. Though it was used mostly by the Japanese to maintain flawless ageless skin, it had been used for treating cancer, liver disease, Parkinson’s, and a host of other ailments. It also contained trace amounts of ephedrine, which made it in violation of the Controlled Substance Act. Other than that, it was a fucking miracle drug.

  This disturbed Nate for many reasons, because if there were any truths to its claims, big pharmaceutical companies all over the world would pay attention. He looked at the latest entry in the case’s activity log and sucked in a breath.

  * April 15, Monday. Dulles International Airport Sakura Airlines cargo. 10 p.m.

  Tonight.

  Dammit. Nate scanned the entries. Sylvie had bi-weekly cargo pickups. Aged Soy sauce, sake, Okinawa salt . . . and ramen noodles? Nate thought she made them in-house, although now that he thought about it, he recalled a conversation with her regarding a company in Japan who manufactured custom-recipe ramen noodles. He shook his head at her tenacity for perfection and wondered how she landed in this mess.

  A rap on the door interrupted his thoughts. The door opened and Travis stuck his head in.

  “Now a good time?”

  Both of them had a brief conversation about promoting Ed Shephard to managing partner last week.

  “Yeah.”

  Nate cracked his neck from side to side to relax some tension in his body. Too early to already be this wound up, especially with a busy week ahead, not including trying to keep a certain stubborn chef out of jail.

  Travis strode into the room. Travis Blake had been Nate’s friend since high school. They went into SEAL training together, but Nate had to stop in the middle of BUD/S because his father got sick. After his father passed away a few months later, Nate joined the Army Special Forces and did a couple tours before he was snatched up by the CIA. Travis, meanwhile, had a long career with the Navy SEALs, and made it into its elite unit, DEVGRU—more popularly known as SEAL Team Six. His friend’s personal life was the stuff of movies. Travis was a shell of himself when he thought his wife Sarah had died in a car accident. It turned out to be an elaborate cover-up by a bad seed within the agency. Sarah was alive. Caitlin was Sarah with no memories prior to the accident—not her childhood, not her work for the CIA, and not her life with Travis. Nate admired the tenacity with how Travis made sure he wasn’t losing his wife a second time.

  There was a lesson there.

  Travis dropped a folder on Nate’s desk. “Got this back from our lawyers. The contract for Ed including added benefits.” This amounted to a sizable increase in salary plus profit sharing.

  “He wanted to have the weekend to discuss with Em,” Nate said. “We have a meeting at eleven.”

  “I’m pretty confident he’ll accept. It would mean less traveling. He’ll be more involved in high-level negotiations with clients,” Travis said.

  Both of them chuckled. This was the part most of them hated because they preferred action and planning, not talking to sell their services. That was why they worked closely with Beatrice, who owned her own security consulting company and added another level of screening.

  “Well, at least I’ll have some help looking at contracts now,” Nate looked at Travis accusingly.

  Travis raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry, bud. Got a baby in the house. Besides, I thought you loved staying late at night.”

  “Got other things on my mind right now,” Nate muttered. “I need more time for personal stuff.”

  Travis frowned. “Giselle?”

  Nate shot his friend an irritated look. “We broke up Thursday.”

  “What? Didn’t you have a date?”

  “I was running late, she got pissed, cancelled the date, and gave me an ultimatum.”

  His friend gave a low whistle. “Wrong move.”

  Nate shrugged.

  “So why the urgency now to cut back on your hours when you don’t have a woman to wine and dine?”

  Again, Nate shrugged.

  His friend, though, was astute. “Hmm … so what was this task you couldn’t wait to set Cat on?”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “You know Cat. Not even a damn hint,” Travis said, not without exasperation.

  “Go, Cat,” Nate smirked.

  “So, will you tell me? I hate to torture it out of her.”

  His smirk turned into a chuckle. He knew what form of torture Travis was thinking about. He still debated about telling Travis about Sylvie, especially since he hardly had a handle on the situation himself. Even though the drugs she was smuggling weren’t cocaine or any prescription drugs, the DEA still deemed it worthy to plant an undercover agent. That bugged him. Nate would need allies he could trust, and there was no one he trusted more to have his back than Travis, but he would have to start from the beginning.

  He looked at Travis. “How much time you got?”

  *****

  Sylvie checked her rearview mirror.

  She was being followed.

  It was Monday at 11:00 p.m., and she had just left the cargo area of Sakura Airlines. She was worried for a second she was going to get caught because the regular customs officer wasn’t working that night. The GDE pills were stashed in between double-panel cardboard walls of the boxes holding stacks of freshly made ramen. The x-ray showed a beehive cellular structure that gave the illusion of additional padding. Cargo pickups were every two weeks, but her drug smuggling happened once for every three pick-ups. This translated to six GDE shots for Nana.

  The transaction was simple.

  After picking up the cargo, she met her contact, Hiroshi Mori and his minions at their rendezvous point. They extracted the pills from the boxes—a simple operation of slitting one corner and pulling out the entire sleeve of pills. Then they’d hand her one vial of Nana’s medicine.

  Sylvie shuddered at the thought of the meeting. She’d known Hiroshi since her apprenticeship in Japan nine years before. He was the ward of her father and saw himself as the next in line to take over the ACS leadership. He a
lso saw himself married to Sylvie, although he had a strange way of showing interest since he had paraded women in front of her. Obviously, he wasn’t prepared to give up his harem. After eighteen months in Japan, Sylvie returned to the U.S., thrilled to leave the unwanted suitor behind. He’d shown up a year ago and those feelings of unease returned. He visited her restaurant often, and even had a woman or two hanging by his side as he flirted with her. Total sleaze.

  She checked her tail again. Judging from the silhouette and shape of the headlights, the car was still on her. Time to cut her losses and hope Hiroshi was amenable to the change of plans.

  She sent him an audio message.

  “I can’t make it tonight. I have unexpected guests.”

  “Unexpected guests” was a duress code Hiroshi and she had established.

  Her phone rang immediately. Of all the stupid moves . . .

  Nevertheless, she answered immediately.

  “Are you sure?” Hiroshi’s annoyed voice crackled over her phone. The signal wasn’t too good either.

  “No.”

  A heavy sigh, a few seconds of silence, and then, “When?”

  “Tomorrow, but I’ll have to text you the time.”

  “I am not happy with this delay, little sparrow,” Hiroshi said softly. “Remember whose life is on the line.”

  Nana’s.

  “Understand this, Hiroshi, I’m doing all this for Nana, not for Daddy’s little empire, and especially not for you. Nana will not be happy if something happens to me. The last thing I want is to upset her. We do this my way, or you can hang up, our business is concluded, and you will never call me again.”

  She regretted her words instantly. She had a penchant for running her mouth. Sylvie held her breath at the continued silence from the other end of the line.

  “You continue to rebuff me.”

  “Stay on point, Hiroshi.”

  “Don’t you know you were always meant for me?” he continued silkily. “I will allow you your little rebellions. Text me with the time tomorrow.”

  The phone went dead.

  She wanted to scream and throw her phone out the window; instead, she checked her rearview mirror again. The tail was gone.

  She groaned. Maybe she did overreact. Well, too late to call Hiroshi back. She had passed the exit for their rendezvous, and after that annoying conversation, she didn’t have the stomach to see him. She steered her Cherokee toward Sapporo Ramen. The parking lot was deserted since the restaurant was closed on Mondays.

  The ramen needed to be stored in the walk-in cooler. She propped all necessary doors open to haul in her cargo. It took a couple of trips. After depositing the last of the boxes on a shelf, she debated whether to rip the sleeves of pills out. She wasn’t too worried about it losing efficacy in cold temperature, it was more of wanting to separate the offending items from something she’d worked so hard for.

  Finding a box cutter, she proceeded to saw off the side of one box. She’d seen Hiroshi do it and didn’t think it would be too hard. Removing one corner, she pried the double cardboard walls apart and tugged on the card. She pulled the pills a quarter of the way out. The sight of the illegal items sent a prickle up her scalp. She paused. A few items remained in her SUV. She better bring those in and lock up before extracting all the pills.

  Movement at the entrance of the cooler startled her.

  “What the fuck, Sylvie?”

  Nate.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Nate couldn’t believe his eyes. Even when he had expected it, the sight of Sylvie excavating the incriminating pills sent his anger skyrocketing.

  “What are you doing here?” she squeaked. Deer in the fucking headlights. There was no other way to describe her expression.

  “I think the better question is, what the fuck are you doing?” Nate asked in as calm a tone as possible. His insides were screaming to throttle her.

  “I . . .” Her eyes lowered to a spot on the floor. “I need to close the door.”

  “I already did that,” Nate said. “We’ll talk about you leaving the door wide open for anyone to walk in later. Right now, you have some explaining to do.”

  “This is none of your business,” Sylvie fired back, her arm slashing over to the exposed card of pills.

  Oh, hell no.

  Nate took two menacing steps forward. His hands still itching to wrap around her throat. It was either that or haul her against him and kiss some sense into her.

  “I believe I’ve earned the right to your business,” Nate growled. “Seeing that I intercepted two DEA agents trailing you and sent them on their way.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “They’re on to you.”

  “How did you even figure out all of this?” Sylvie asked incredulously before her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Wait. Is all this reconnecting with me a part of some damned agency op—”

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” Nate snarled. “I’m trying to help you. Suffice to say, when I decided to reconnect with you, I did a background check.”

  He wasn’t about to blow Cade’s cover. Yet. He’d intercepted the DEA agent and his partner earlier tonight, and they’d had quite a shouting match on the side of the road. It was a wonder a state trooper didn’t pull over to investigate. Nate saw an update this afternoon of a possible sting operation on the case log. The plan was to trail Sylvie to her rendezvous point and see if it was prudent to execute the sting. Arrest her and her contact and force Daichi Yoshida into a corner. Nate wasn’t having any of that.

  “So I wasn’t imagining the tail?”

  Nate raised a brow. “You knew?”

  “I called off the meet.” Sylvie was shaking her head in disbelief, and then as if a thought occurred to her, she stilled and lifted her gaze to Nate. “Wait. Why would they listen to you?”

  “They had no choice. I already put a wrench in their plans. I’m sure I’ll be catching flak from their higher-ups in the morning, but I’m not letting you become a pawn in someone’s agenda. I have no idea why they’re expending resources on a drug that doesn’t figure in their schedule of penalties. Ephedrine is a chemical listed under the Controlled Substance Act and, as far as I know, regulated from state to state.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.” His anger dissipated into a need to comfort her. To assure her he was going to take care of her. She looked so vulnerable right now with her face marked in anxious lines. She gnawed on her bottom lip. “Tell me the truth. Am I going to jail?”

  Ah, fuck.

  Screw tough love. He had planned to put the fear of God in her so she’d think twice about doing anything this stupid again. Because whatever was going on, Nate was sure he had a solution. He’d protect her, as well as Pru and Nana.

  The fear and confusion in her eyes flayed him.

  “C’mere.” Nate reached for her and dragged her tiny frame into the circle of his embrace. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, clinging to him like a lifeline. He had to duck his head considerably lower to whisper by her ear, “You are not going to jail. Ain’t gonna let that happen. But you have to help me. You have to stop now.”

  “I can’t,” she mumbled into his shirt.

  “Why the fuck not? Is your father holding some kind of threat over you?” Damn, she was shivering. “Let’s get out of this chill box. And, firecracker, I want to know everything.”

  After determining the restaurant was not a safe place for talking, Nate decided to take care of the drugs in question. First order of business was disabling the security feeds and then extracting the pills. Afterwards, he marched Sylvie straight to his Suburban, surreptitiously checking the surroundings. She got into the SUV without putting up a fight. She seemed resigned, drained. This bothered Nate because he had never seen her this defeated, and he hated it. Tightening his jaw, he rounded the vehicle and got into the driver’s seat. He tossed the pills to the backseat.

  “What will you do with those?” Sylvie asked tonelessly.

  “I’ll decide when I know
the whole story.”

  Sylvie made a sniffling acknowledgement and looked out her window. Nate sighed, and started the car. He was taking her to his house. On the drive home, he thought he spotted a tail, but the suspicious vehicle took the ramp two exits before his. He mentally calculated routes to his house from that exit. It would take an extra twenty minutes. He had to remain vigilant, and he would definitely raise hell if the DEA decided to bust his house tonight.

  When he was on his street, Sylvie turned to look at him. “You still live at the same house?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you taking me home afterward?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nate—”

  “Don’t fight me tonight, Sylvs,” Nate said gruffly. “The situation is volatile right now. I don’t want you out of my sight.”

  Her body stiffened. “What do you mean? I thought you said—”

  “Shit. I don’t want to alarm you.” He rubbed his face with his hand. “Just . . . let me think.”

  Nate frequently operated on gut instinct, and his gut was usually right. He didn’t regret fucking up the DEA’s plans, but there were too many unknowns for his liking. He was less worried about the DEA and more concerned about Sylvie’s contact because Nate planned on keeping the drugs out of their hands.

  He punched the button for his garage and zipped his SUV in right beside his Ferrari. Sylvie slid out of his vehicle. She was so tiny; it was a wonder he didn’t need to boost her up into his SUV in the first place.

  Sylvie had been in his house countless times, though not in the last fifteen months. Well, she was back, and if he had his way, she wasn’t leaving.

  *****

  “Looks the same.”

  Her eyes roamed the expanse of Nate’s house. There was no question it was a bachelor pad. Leather seats, widescreen TV, and what looked like an expensive surround-sound system.

  “Is there an approval there somewhere?” Nate remarked, walking into the kitchen.

  “I’m just stating an observation,” Sylvie replied. “You still use a cleaning service?” She marveled at the uncluttered space. Nate had never been a slob, but he hadn’t been a neat freak either. He was just, well, a guy.