As if Hannah had ever helped out on the farm.

Casey had set her sights on more attainable targets. Unfaithful men. Hard to aim much lower than that.

Abbie had loved her dad and his farm. She would one day prove he hadn’t committed suicide and left her mother destitute.

Stu swallowed hard, the sound loud in the car. His fish lips narrowed and turned down at the corners. The shoulders of his navy Brooks Brothers suit slumped. “I, uh, may have given you the wrong impression about my intentions.”

Nice try, Stuey, but no free deals today. “Oh, I think I understood exactly what you were saying.” Abbie had an evil side that rose to the surface in the presence of assholes.

He studied her a moment, his eyes flickering with unchecked worry. “About that deal…”

She wanted to smile, just a little, but this was not the time to gloat. Not when she had Stuey dangling by his short hairs. “I want the raise you offered-” Never leave money on the table. “-and the flex schedule, and…”

Stu’s frown deepened with each demand. He leaned forward slightly. A sign in her favor.

“I want an invitation to that fund-raiser tomorrow night.”

His lips parted, some objection hanging there.

What wouldn’t fly? The money? Okay, Abbie could bend on that one, but not the flextime or getting an invitation to the fund-raiser. She had to enter as a guest and not as someone connected to the media. She doubted Gwenyth Wentworth, who avoided the media, would knowingly allow an investigative reporter inside.

Brittany was of the same social class. Not a threat.

Abbie would never be one of them and posed one hell of a threat to the Wentworths. Every passing hour decreased her mother’s chance of recovery from whatever ravaged her body.

“I’ll find the money to give you a raise and approve your schedule, but there is no way I can get you into the Wentworth event,” Stu said almost apologetically, as if he would dearly love to ease his balls out of Abbie’s fist. “Brittany’s using her grandfather’s invitation. She isn’t even taking me.”

“Not good enough.” She relaxed her grip on the steering wheel with great effort and started tapping her index finger. She wanted to give him the impression that she had her own limit on patience. She’d never considered blackmailing anyone, and this didn’t constitute blackmail so much as forcing Stu to take stock of the blank pages in his moral code book.

Thanks to Dr. Tatum, who had been her mother’s doctor for as long as Abbie had been alive, she now had a glimmer of hope, a chance to save her mother. Tatum had told Abbie about how her mother had made visits to the Kore Women’s Center for thirty years.

Three decades of secrets. Tatum had handed Abbie a weapon to bargain with that no public relations firm could spin.

Blackmailing Stuey was the least of what she’d do.

Stuey shrunk back, staring at her with the fear of a weasel that had chased dinner into a snake hole.

Abbie stopped tapping the steering wheel. “I’d hate for our little discussion to get out in public.”

“I can’t, Abbie. I would, but I can’t…”

Bullshit. Stu could make this happen. “Why not?”

“Because the only way you could go is if Brittany doesn’t. Any chance of getting her invitation and giving it to you would end up with her thinking something was going on between us. We’d both lose our jobs. Can’t do it.”

Chapter Three

Could the mole inside the Fratelli de il Sovrano sending BAD intel be trusted? Or was tonight’s mission at the Wentworths’ annual March fund-raiser an elaborate setup to expose BAD’s agents?

Out of instinctive reflex, Hunter checked for the 9mm he didn’t have due to the metal detectors he’d have to pass through. He felt naked without it. The sigh he let escape sounded noisy, a testament to the whisper ride of a stretch limo.

“We’ll be there soon, Mr. Thornton… Payne… the third, Your Highness, sir,” came from the wiseass in the front seat driving a limousine so new the leather had a robust scent.

“Fuck. Off.” Hunter was in no mood for anyone’s crap tonight. He had enough on his mind without dealing with the dickhead driving. That sixth sense of his stirred to life with an antsy feeling he couldn’t finger the reason for, but not from concern over executing tonight’s mission. If the mole’s intel was solid, trustworthy, Hunter would walk away one step closer to someone he’d hunted for four years.

The assassin who killed Eliot.

A valid reason to feel edgy.

He would have volunteered to lead this op tonight for that reason alone, but the choice had been made for him before he entered BAD’s mission room. Hunter’s credentials-having been born with a silver spoon in his hand to flip Cheerios across the room-put his name at the top of the list.

A derisive chuckle rumbled from the driver’s seat.

Hunter wished again for a weapon but wouldn’t actually use it on the cretin playing limo driver.

Not worth ruining a tux with blood splatters.

“What’re you so pissy about?” BAD agent Korbin Maximus looked more like a corporate bodyguard stuffed in a dark suit than a reserved limo driver. Mexican genes mixed with who knew what else to give him his muscular six-foot-one build and eyes that were more black than brown. He laid heavily on the barrio accent that came and went with need. “You get the cherry assignments with champagne, limos, and women… how tough is that?”

“Yeah, my life’s a cakewalk,” Hunter muttered, unwilling to engage in another round with Korbin after the argument this morning in Nashville. The muted ding of Korbin’s phone followed by quietly spoken words meant Hunter might be spared any further conversation for the rest of the ten-minute ride to the Wentworth mansion. They both knew tonight’s plan and their jobs, so the less said for the duration of this trip the better.

Hunter could hold the peace but doubted Korbin would.

Cherry assignment? Not from his vantage point.

The team should be thanking him for having the juice to pull an invitation to this fund-raiser with one phone call, not giving him grief over refusing to take a female BAD agent as a companion.

Some might see his assignment tonight as just another advantage of being one of only two Thornton-Payne heirs.

Hunter loathed spending an evening enduring mindless chatter from the perpetually self-consumed almost as much as dealing with the damned media that hovered with a vulture’s eye for opportunistic misery.

But he’d attend fund-raisers every night for a year if it meant the chance to find Eliot’s killer.

And he’d do it for Joe Q. Public, BAD’s director. Joe had brought him into the organization seven years ago when they met in a complicated situation that should have ended with Hunter’s death.

A male snitch in Poland, known only as Borys, had saved both Hunter and a female CIA agent from being made while deep undercover inside the Russian mob. Four months later, the CIA cut a deal with the same crime family to trade Borys for information.

When Borys disappeared before the exchange could be made, the CIA cornered Hunter. Joe pulled off a maneuver to save Hunter’s neck that would have impressed a wizard.

The CIA allowed Hunter to walk away as long as he never interfered with one of their operations again.

If they ever located Borys, Hunter’s life would be worth less than the snitch to the agency.

Entering the Brugmann home four years ago could have resulted in a breach of his agreement with the CIA if not for Joe’s quick action. Unbeknownst to Hunter and Eliot, a camera at the back of the safe had filmed both of them. Mere hours after the FBI’s raid on Brugmann’s property, a team of BAD agents stole the film from an FBI evidence locker before the CIA had a chance to review the images.