LINCOLN
Lincoln excused himself from the table and headed toward the bathroom. But instead of going into the men’s room, he walked into the ladies. He locked the door and waited. He was waiting, less than patiently, for the woman that had entered to come out of the stall. And as soon as she did, Lincoln rushed her.
He grabbed her by both shoulders and slammed her against the wall. She startled and opened her mouth as if she were planning to scream. He placed his hand over her mouth even though he knew she wouldn’t. She wasn’t the screaming type.
“What thefuckis going on?” Lincoln snarled.
Only rage could overcome the shock of seeing Tahira Raji, CIA Operative, in the driver’s seat of his brother’s car. Even with a wig and dark glasses, he recognized her as soon as he slid in the backseat. During dinner, he’d inquired about her as if he was interested romantically. He learned that she was going by the name Naomi, and she’d been driving him around for months before she approached him and Lucas in the restaurant.
“Get. Your. Goddamned. Hands. Off. Of. Me!” she spat with fire in her eyes.
She tried to pull away, but Lincoln shoved her against the wall. Manhandling a woman wasn’t something he had been raised to do, but Tahira was no normal woman. There was no doubt in his mind that had he released her, she wouldn’t hesitate to cut his throat.
“I’ll ask one more time. What the fuck is going on?”
He worked at making his tone more threatening, but she was unfazed. In fact, she got the drop on him with the age-old knee to the balls. When he jerked in pain and reached instinctively for his junk, her sharp elbow contacted the side of his face. Because she thought he was incapacitated, she tried to run around him.
She didn’t get far.
Lincoln gathered himself quick enough to swing his arm and clothesline her ass to the filthy bathroom floor. When she hit the marble with a violent thud, he wrapped his fingers around her throat and balled his other hand into a fist.
“Don’t fuck with me, Lady!” Lincoln warned through gritted teeth. “I will punch through your soul!”
She reached up and clawed at his fingers. Once she realized she couldn’t pry his thick fingers from her neck, she relaxed against the floor. She mouthed the word, “Okay” and held her hands up in surrender.
Lincoln didn’t trust her, but he wouldn’t get answers if he choked her out.
He picked her up like a rag doll and slammed her to her feet. When he released her, she clutched her neck and gasped for air. He watched her struggle to breathe without one ounce of guilt. She was fucking with his family, and he had a sneaking suspicion that it was somehow connected to the fruitless mission in Mosul.
Lincoln stepped back but kept his guard. If looks could kill, he would have dropped dead immediately.
“You’re an asshole,” she sneered, massaging her neck.
Lincoln narrowed his eyes and closed the already tiny distance between them. She was going to be sorry if he had to repeat himself.
“I’m working Luca Savelli,” she blurted.
Lincoln squinted, trying to connect the dots. “What the hell does that have to do with my brother?”
When she hesitated and looked away, Lincoln grabbed her face and made her look him in the eye. The distress she was trying so hard to display disappeared immediately when she brandished a sly grin.
“You are so damn sexy,” she rasped in a hoarse whisper.
Her face twisted in agony when Lincoln squeezed her small jaw between his fingers.
“What does my brother have to do with Luca Savelli?”
“Let me go and I’ll tell you,” she bargained.
Because he was probably crushing her jaw, her words came out distorted. He loosened his grip on her face and waited for her to speak.
“Now, you know I’m trained to resist invasive interrogation tactics. But…since you have a level 3 clearance, I’ll share. Mosul was about weapons, and the Savelli family deals in weapons. The agency got a hold of some intel about a mass weapons deal that was to take place in Mosul. Supposedly, the plane was a drop. We needed to find out who the recipients were. We suspected the Russians, but it could be North Korea.”
“There was nothing on that plane,” Lincoln pointed out.
“We were wrong,” she admitted with a casual shrug. Her nonchalant attitude was pissing him off.
“Again…what the fuck does that have to do with my brother?” Lincoln growled. He was tempted to snap her neck when she blew out a harsh breath as if frustrated.
