Face of Danger Read Online Free Page A

What do you expect?”
    “Greatness,” she replied without pause. “There are companies doing what mine does and making millions. They’ve got multiple offices and hundreds of investigators and bodyguards and security specialists on their payroll.”
    “And that’s what you want?” Somehow, the dream of big business just didn’t fit this skater chick. The raw ambition, like so many things about Vivi, surprised him.
    “I always want to be the best,” she told him. “I don’t like to do things half-assed.”
    “I respect that, but”—he placed both his hands over hers, damning the electrical charge he got every time his skin made contact with hers—“you’re not starting with Cara and your body-double idea.”
    She snapped her hands away. “You can’t tell me what to do, Lang. No one can.”
    Obviously.
    “Give me one good reason why not,
other
than the fact that I don’t look like a movie star, as you’ve pointed out with great relish and candor.”
    “What if there really is a Red Carpet Killer? Or a copycat? It’s dangerous.”
    “My job is dangerous,” she replied. “Your job is dangerous. That’s the life we’ve chosen. If we get the assignment, Zach has three excellent bodyguards who can come stay with me twenty-four/seven.”
    Three guys with her twenty-four/seven? Unfamiliar and ugly jealousy rolled through him. “Doesn’t matter. With all the nutcases out there, it’s too risky.”
    She pushed back with a disgusted breath. “You are so… careful.”
    “You say that like it’s a detriment. I’m an FBI agent, Vivi. Cautious is my middle name. And if you’re going to make it in the security consulting business, you’d do well to adopt the same one.”
    “Well, my middle name is Belladonna,” she informed him.
    “A poison.”
    “ ‘Beautiful woman’ in Italian,” she corrected him, then raised a palm to stop his response. “Don’t. You’ve insulted me enough for one day. My point is,
cautious
doesn’t always work in business, Lang.”
    “It does in the security business.” Three bodyguards? Shit, he hated that.
    “Nobody gets ahead playing it safe. It’s like that half-pipe over there.” She tipped her head to the concrete slopes where skaters flew and flipped. And fell on their asses. “You gotta go big or go down.”
    “Yeah, well, I’ve gone big and gone down hard.” No, he hadn’t gone down. The one and only woman he’d ever loved had gone down. All the way down. Six-feet-under down.
    “What happened?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “Just don’t take crazy risks, Vivi.”
    “Can’t help it—that’s how I roll.” She got up, kicked her board out from under the table, and hopped on it. “I’m going to be late for the Rossi family Sunday dinner if I don’t leave now. See ya, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Colton
Cautious
Lang.”
    “Bye, Private Investigator Viviana
Poison
Angelino.”
    She untied a ratty sweatshirt and pulled it over her head, then tugged on her helmet. “Thanks for the slurpy and the advice.”
    She zipped off, giving him a perfect shot of her ass as she kicked into high speed.
    There went his cock again.
    To make the blood flow north to his brain, he forced himself to think about her stupid, foolish, crazy idea. Okay, it wasn’t entirely stupid, but the last time he took a risk like that, he’d lost everything.
    Never again.

CHAPTER 2
    L ang had gotten one thing right: Vivi wasn’t six degrees from Cara Ferrari. She was three. Her cousin Nicki had gone to shrink graduate school with a guy who was the brother of Cara’s stylist, Bridget McKeever, who’d agreed to help arrange a meeting because the brother convinced the stylist that Cara should at least talk to Vivi.
    So maybe that was four degrees from Cara, but it really didn’t matter. Because three days after the little run-in with Lang at the park, Vivi drove under the world-famous arches of the Paramount Studios lot, flashed her license to a security guard, and