THREE

One years Later

IT WAS A WORLD BAILEY HADN’T expected to ever enter again. She had left home

fifteen years before, vowing she would never return. After her parents’ deaths seven

years ago, there had never been a reason to return.

She stood beneath expensive crystal chandeliers, outfitted in a brilliant emerald

designer dress and high heels, with emeralds and diamonds at her throat and ears.

Diamond pins held her hair in place and a single emerald ring graced her hand as

she lifted a champagne flute to her lips to sip.

Not cheap champagne here. This was some of the best she had sipped in her life.

Perhaps better than her own coming-out ball when she had turned sixteen and her

father had definitely splurged on that.

She stared around the ballroom, let the orchestra’s music drift around her and

pretended it was just another assignment. That she was still with the CIA, that the

op she was on was blessed by its director, and that backup would be waiting if the

shit hit the fan.

She knew better. In this world there was no backup. There was just Bailey

Serborne, the Serborne heiress. The prodigal daughter without a family to welcome

her back into the fold. Only the enemies surrounded her here.

“Bailey, how good to see you again.” She lifted her cheek and allowed yet

another vapid smile to cross her lips as a kiss was brushed against her cheek.

Janice Waterstone. She was in her sixties and still looked forty. Plastic surgery

and cosmetics could accomplish miracles.

Janice was one in a long line of welcoming elite in attendance at the Serborne

mansion, which Bailey had reopened a year ago.

She’d returned home, supposedly with her tail tucked between her legs, her

pride smarting from her dismissal from the agency. And the dismissal was nothing

more than the truth; she could still hear her director screaming at her in his office.

Milburn Rushmore’s face had been neon red, flushed and perspiring, he’d been so

pissed at her.

“It’s good to see you again, Janice.” The smile was as patently false as the other

woman’s.

Janice was no more happy to see her here than Bailey was to be here. It was the

social lie that mattered, though, the persona, the facade presented to the world.

The Serborne fortune was one of the twelve largest in the world. In more than

three hundred years it had never dwindled, only grown. And her family had always

remained in the top tier of the social elite. The cream of the crop so to speak.

American royalty.

She stared around the ballroom, remembering her mother’s balls here. The

exquisite parties, the months of planning that had gone into them. Angelina

Serborne had been an exacting hostess. Her parties were always enjoyed, and

invitations were always envied.

“You have quite a crowd here.” Janice looked around with a smug smile. “I

believe I even saw Sheik AbdulRhamadin and his bodyguard. Not to mention

several of this year’s hottest actors.”

“Every invitation was accepted.” Bailey shrugged her bare shoulders.

“Of course they were.” Janice blinked back at her. “A Serborne invitation hasn’t

been issued in seven years. No one was going to miss this party, even if it was such

short notice.”

In other words, it hadn’t been planned a year in advance.

“I’m home. I wanted to remember the good times,” she stated simply. “Mother

loved the parties.”

Janice paused at the mention of Angelina, then finally nodded as though her

thoughts were pleasant for a change.

“Angelina and I used to plan her parties together.” Janice sighed. “I’ve missed

her.”

Bailey finished her champagne. It was instantly snagged by a waiter and

replaced with another. Reminiscing about the past wasn’t on her list of priorities

tonight.

“Pardon me, Janice, I see someone I need to talk to.” Bailey excused herself

before making her way across to the room to her nemesis.

Some men were so power-hungry that they would do anything to achieve the

position they sought. One of those men was Raymond Greer, a former CIA overseas

operative.

Raymond had managed to slide into the elite by the way of marriage to one

Mary Grace Altman, a widow he’d met on a European cruise while undercover.

Bailey wondered if Mary was aware that at one time, she was the former agent’s

mark.

Raymond stood an easy six four, but he lacked the breadth and muscle that

would have made his height attractive. His face was shaped rather like a weasel’s,

and she could honestly say she had never seen a real smile cross his lips.

“Hello, Raymond, I’m glad you could make it.” She stepped up to the former

agent and continued softly, “You’ve done very well for yourself.”

“Not all of us are born into wealth.” His smile was tight, almost angry, as he

spoke back just as softly. “Some of us definitely have to work for our retirement.”

Bailey’s brows arched as she glanced several feet from where they stood from

Raymond’s delicate wife.

Mary was one of the sweetest people Bailey knew and one of the few who

understood the word sincerity. She was a sister to one of the men Bailey hated most

in the world and the aunt to the girl who had once been Bailey’s dearest friend.

“Some things should never be considered work,” she stated softly as she turned

back to him.

He glared back at her.

“Really, Raymond, I’m your hostess, don’t you know you’re supposed to kiss

my ass.” She brought her glass to her lips to hide her own gloating smile. “You’re

letting your roots show, my friend. That’s considered impolite.”

“What do you want?” He ran a hand over his thinning brown hair, and his hazel

eyes flickered back to her in suspicion.

Bailey shrugged at his question. “We should be friends. We’ve come from the

same world in some ways. The same dangers. We could trade war stories.”

Not in this lifetime and she knew it. Raymond despised her for her birth, just as

she despised him for his arrogance. But that arrogance had been an inborn trait of

his. He was finally where he had felt he had belonged all along. It didn’t matter

how he’d had to lie, cheat and perhaps even kill to get here.

Raymond’s gaze narrowed on her at her suggestion. “Funny, you were never

interested in discussing anything with me before.”

She smiled at that. “We never had anything in common before. We’re both a part

of this society; we see each other often. We should make the best of it.”

“You’re not interested in returning to the agency then?” he asked her, a hint of

calculation in his voice and in his gaze. “After a year I’d assume you’ve missed it.”

It was a question she had been asked several times over the past months since

returning home.

“You don’t have to insult me,” she informed him coldly. “I think we’re both

aware that’s never going to happen.”

Let him get his strikes in. She could handle them as she had never been able to

before.

“Because you were fired.” He smiled in gloating satisfaction.

Bailey gave a low, light laugh. “I quit. Rushmore just felt he should fire me in

retaliation. Haven’t you heard? He didn’t like having someone on his team who

didn’t believe he had a direct line to God.”

Raymond’s brow arched curiously at that. She was repeating his own insults

concerning Rushmore.

“Figured that out, did you?” he asked smugly. “I did warn you, Bailey.

Rushmore believes he’s above the rest of us. One of these days someone should put

him in his place.”

“Six feet under,” she muttered before directing another tight smile in his

direction. “If you’ll excuse me now, Raymond, I need to mingle. We should talk

again later, though.”

She moved away from him but glanced back, giving him the impression that she

was considering more than a bullet through his head. She was considering much

more.

Bailey had worked a year to incorporate herself back into the society she had

run from so long ago. For twelve months she had lied, schemed and worked herself

to the point that she knew Orion’s employer, Warbucks, would contact her soon. He

would have to. Only Bailey could supply information he needed now. Information

that would lead him to a prize she knew he had all intentions of selling.

As she greeted her guests and sipped at her champagne, the image of her parents

flashed through her mind. Ben and Angelina Serborne had been gracious, enduring.

Her mother had smiled with genuine amusement or fondness; her father had had a

deep belly laugh that never failed to make others laugh in turn.

Her father had been a patriot. A man dedicated to his country and its freedoms. It

was a dedication she knew had ended in his and her mother’s deaths.

She should have returned sooner, she thought as she stared around the ballroom,

took in the bright colors of the evening dresses, the dark tuxedos. This was Aspen’s

winter finest, and mixed with them were six families who were part of a very elite

group of powerful men. The richest of the rich. The most powerful. The most

corrupt. She should have returned years ago and learned the secrets she was only

now beginning to realize. Secrets that would avenge her parents’ deaths.

There were reasons she had left home at eighteen, and turned her back on a

fortune that would take four lifetimes to even put a dent in. She had walked away

from her parents and everything she had ever known in her life because of the

corruption and deceit she had seen here.

There were reasons why she was back now. One was to find the man responsible

for the death of her parents. The man who had paid an international assassin known

as Orion to kill them.

She couldn’t ask Orion himself; he was dead. Taken out by an unknown group

of soldiers or agents and killed in his bed. A shadowy force that didn’t even have a

name. The same group that had kidnapped her in Atlanta.

There were layers upon dark layers here, and she meant to uncover each of them.

She would uncover them and learn Warbucks’s identity. When she did, then she

would have her revenge. As she hadn’t had on Orion.

The thought sent a chill up her back as she forced it away from her. She’d

walked away from Orion, knowing, even as she fought the knowledge, that she

didn’t have a chance of taking him on her own. She would never get the

information she needed without returning here. She just hadn’t expected exactly

what she had found once she came home.

“John Vincent. What the hell are you doing in Aspen?”

Bailey swung around at the male exclamation. Ian Richards and his wife, Kira,

were in Colorado for vacation. The ex–Navy SEAL had married one of the nation’s

most sought-after heiresses, Kira Porter, giving him entrée into some of the most

exclusive parties.

And there, shaking hands with the burly ex-SEAL, was John Vincent. Every

background check she had done on him had shown him as shady in his dealings as

well as his business. He was a suspected hardware, information, and arms broker to

terrorists and drug cartels. A middleman who ensured a smooth and honest

transaction among thieves. With that cover, it was only fitting that he would know

Richards, whose father had been one of the most notorious drug cartel rulers alive

until he was killed several years before.

Ian was accepted here because he was a SEAL, because drugs were as prevalent

as the champagne that flowed like water, and because his wife was one very rich

heiress.

“It’s been too long, John.” Kira was accepting a kiss on her cheek from lips that

Bailey dreamed about much too often. “Where have you been hiding?”

Bailey watched as John’s head lifted, glimpsed his laughing gray eyes, and ate

every detail with her senses. The strong slope of his brow, the bridge of his nose,

those kissable lips and broad cheekbones. Sun-bronzed flesh stretched over the

broad planes and angles of his face as a dark overnight growth of beard shadowed

his jaw.

He looked like a pirate. Like a man who took what he wanted and laughed at the

opposition. He looked like exactly what he was supposed to be. Dangerously

charming.

“Bailey, there you are.” Ian turned his head to her, a smile lighting his

handsome features as she moved toward them. “Come meet a friend of mine.”

Meet a friend of his. Ian had been part of the Atlanta operation, though Bailey

had glimpsed him only once or twice in the operation itself. Kira had been there as

well, but Bailey had always suspected that the other woman was much more than

she had ever presented herself as being. So many layers, and they were all

converging here.