Read Smoke and Mirrors for Free Online

the charcoal of fury. He pressed into my space, breath spiced with whisky. His shoulders were impossibly wide, his face like flint.
    “No.” I turned from him, further perturbed by the fact his breath against my skin caused a slow roll of lust to work its way from my neck downward. “You need a cold shower and some etiquette lessons.”
    I heard his jaw clench before he all but shouted, “Fuck you, Alex. Fuck C and fuck everyone else in bloody SI–”
    The sound of my hand slapping his face reverberated in the small room, but it was nothing to the aftershock in my hand. The freaking man was made of iron.
    “Shut up,” I added for good measure. Then I pushed him over so I could better unroll the blood pressure cuff. My hands were shaking, but as luck would have it, his eyes were on my face.
    He appeared stunned, not from my relatively harmless hit, but rather from the shock of his almost blunder.
    Taking advantage of his momentary silence, I unsnapped the cuff and rolled it around his muscular arm. His skin was hot. Dry hot. And he flinched when my cold hands brushed him. “Hold still.” I hoped to hell my own erratic vitals would choose to listen as well.
    He frowned in displeasure. “Don’t do that.”
    “Shhh.” I put my stethoscope to his inner elbow. Shaking my head a moment later, I pulled the stethoscope from my ears. “Does 212 over 110 mean anything to you?” His anger was surprisingly contagious. “But you don’t care, do you?” I had intended on adding ‘about your health’, but my subconscious left the statement ambiguous.
    He rubbed his reddened cheek with long fingers, a thumb skimming along his tightened mouth. “Don’t imagine you know the first thing about me.” His voice was low now, mocking and cruel.
    “I know you’re not the only one who’s lost someone,” I spat, annoyed at his ability to splinter his way beneath my skin.
    He paused, and ever so slowly ripped the cuff from his arm. “So you noticed Sammy and Nigel died?” The meanness was punctuated by the sound of his heel stepping away from me.
    “Fuck you.” My words reached a crescendo that sent Mancini’s secretary flying out the front door.
    His gladiator’s gaze was devoid of life. “Touched a nerve, did I? My apologies, I didn’t realize you actually cared about people. I thought that self-sufficient, smugness went straight through you.”
    His mock apology was one round of carbolic acid too many, so I hurled my stethoscope at him and headed for London.
    “Tell C to send someone with a heart next time,” he called softly after me.
    Undone, I whirled, catching his midriff with a well-aimed kick. The muscles there were harder than anyone’s ought to be, but too much alcohol slowed his reflexes, and he crashed backward into the table behind him, swearing as he took down armloads of medical supplies.
    My eyes were stinging with unexpected tears. “That’s rich coming from a freaking assassin,” I hissed, laying my hands on the nearest heavy object.
    He lay sprawled on the floor – his shirt more off than on – the spill of iodine climbing his pricy sleeve. His knuckles were whitecaps of ire. “Fuck all,” he fumed, tensing.
    “Don’t think I won’t use it, you bastard.” I had dumped flowers from the Murano vase and was planning on chucking it straight at his thick head.
    That is, until I noticed the subtle change in his demeanor. His carriage shifted, subtly as smoke, and the man at whom I had been yelling was suddenly gone. Dark eyes, flat and dead moments before, were alive with dawning consciousness.
    His fist, the one he had raised from the ochre liquid, twitched where it hung, trapped in the air between us, like an insect caught in amber.
    And then, as if by magic, the rest of De Torres faded out with a deep exhalation, leaving Brad Milton wearing his expensive clothing. It was an unsettling transformation to say the least.
    “You can put it down, Ms. Brothers,” he said, his hands gesturing a