Dangerous Secrets by Lisa Marie Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

past fifteen years, he’d been personally responsible for death and misery on an unimaginable scale.
    Twelve-year-old Moldavian girls kidnapped and sold into the sex trade, used brutally on an industrial basis and dead by twenty. Mountains of AK-47s put into the hands of SierraLeonean child soldiers barely big enough to carry them. Cut heroin guaranteed to kill the poor sick fucks shooting up on the streets of a hundred cities.
    Nick was going to take him down. Oh yes. It was what he did. What he lived for. He’d dedicated his life to taking down the bad guys and Vassily Worontzoff was as bad as they come.
    Pity the road leading to the destruction of Worontzoff ran right through this beautiful woman sitting across the table, smiling at him.
    “So.” He put his fork down and leaned forward slightly. He could feel the heat of the candle flame against his face. “What do pretty girls do in Parker’s Ridge? What are the local attractions?”
    Charity shook her head. It was physically impossible, but it felt as if her scent covered him when she moved, as if it were a fine, pearly powder.
    Head. Out. Of. Ass. Now!
    “Parker’s Ridge isn’t Manhattan, Nick,” she said, with a gentle smile. “The pleasures here are more provincial than you are perhaps used to. Still, we do have some attractions. And there’s always Vassily Worontzoff’s musical soirées. He manages to attract world-class musicians to our little corner of the world.”
    Not by a flicker of his eyelashes did Nick betray any emotion. He furrowed his brow, clueless businessman trying to place a name he knew he should know, but didn’t. “Worontzoff,” he said, frowning. “Isn’t he that Russian…Russian what? Musician? Dancer?”
    “Writer.” Charity laughed. “Russian writer. A very great writer, the author of Dry Your Tears in Moscow , one of the great masterpieces of twentieth-century literature. Each yearhe is nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. And he would undoubtedly have won if he had continued writing, but he never did. He was one of the last of the dissidents sent to a Soviet prison camp. After he was released, he never wrote another word.”
    Her face and voice had turned serious. She looked down at the tablecloth, tracing a pattern with a pink-tipped fingernail. She looked up at him, gemlike eyes gleaming with emotion.
    “And he won’t talk about it, either. He’s a wonderful man and we’ve become friends since he’s moved here. As a matter of fact, he’s having a musical soirée this Thursday evening.”
    Oh God. Nick felt his heart nearly stop. Friends. What the hell did that mean? Was she fucking him? It was bad enough that she’d spend next Thursday in Scumbag Central, without him having the image of Charity spending time under Worontzoff, those slender legs wrapped around the fuckhead’s hips…
    This was bad shit. He didn’t even want to think about it. This was worse than Consuelo’s chest of toys, way worse.
    Nick looked at her carefully. She met his eyes, her gaze calm and serene. He relaxed. If she’d been Worontzoff’s lover, she’d have shown some sign. A little blush, evading his gaze, a slight smile. Something. But there was nothing.
    So, she wasn’t fucking the bastard. Good.
    Not that he cared.
    Much.
    Jesus. Oh, shit.
    The short hairs on the back of Nick’s neck stood up. He’d just been handed an opening—an honest to God opening wide enough to drive a Humvee through—to insinuate himself into Worontzoff’s house, as Charity’s guest. It wasa goddamn huge window of opportunity, it was why he was here and not in the smelly surveillance van and the first thing that flashed through his mind wasn’t How do I wangle an invitation into Worontzoff’s house but Is Charity fucking the guy?
    He’d been completely sidetracked from the mission. Pow! It had been punched right out of his head. Being sidetracked went against every single ounce of training he’d ever had, not to mention it being an