Checkmate. Doranna Durgin

a small grouping of the men sprawled around the room—cleaning weapons, holding weapons, staring fiercely at nothing in particular, and even in a few instances bleeding—her gaze skipped over the aging international player and settled on none other than the man from the lobby. The one who’d stepped from the cover of GQ, handsome and finished and sleek. Dark hair, sharp aquiline lines to his face and a broad-shouldered body made obvious now that he’d discarded his jacket and wore only the silk T-shirt; it followed every plane and long line of muscle, highlighting the elegance of his carriage. And his eyes…they flashed at Jonas White’s words, a dark and simmering glower. Eyes to die for.

      Except Selena didn’t intend to.

      She did step back a moment, taking a deep breath. Jonas White was one thing. He was a player, a man who liked to wield power and who liked to win—but a man whose most important considerations were his own skin and his own interests. His presence here no doubt represented some last-ditch effort to rescue his faltering influence and rebuild the empire that his adopted daughter, Lynn, had destroyed when she learned the true nature of his activities. And though Jonas was not to be underestimated…

      It was the Berzhaani man who worried her. The one who’d been in the lobby…the one who’d probably started this whole mess, killing the guards so his people could storm the building. Unlike Jonas, this Kemeni leader burned with purpose. He’d see this crisis through to the end, and Kemeni interests would come before his own. Selena wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been looking at the reclusive Tafiq Ashurbeyli himself. It would take a man such as this to drive the Kemenis to such risky action when they were in fact close to defeat in the wake of Frank Black’s death and Jonas White’s financial collapse.

      What had White told Ashurbeyli? Not the truth—not that he’d been behind Frank Black all along. But somehow he’d tied their fates together.

      Just call me fate. Selena smiled grimly in the dimness of the corridor. Because I’m the one you’re about to meet. Together.

      Having absorbed the implications of the room’s occupants, she returned to the peephole. She found the door leading to the function room that held the hostages. Guarded, of course. She had no doubt the main exit from that room was guarded, as well, and she’d already seen the interior guard. The hostages had nowhere to go unless she could cause enough diversion to get them out through this corridor. The ceilings were high and original; the heating ducts primitive and usually merely grates between the rooms. The same factors meant there would be little opportunity to beard the terrorists in their chosen den. She had no intention of revealing she’d discovered this passage until she had no choice.

      Well, then. Perhaps she’d have to nibble at them from the edges. They might know she was here, but they wouldn’t know about her Athena Academy background. They wouldn’t know she hadn’t run to the darkest, most distant corner of the building to tremble and wait out the crisis.