“You thought you could avoid talking to me at all.”

Well, he’d fooled her. She certainly hadn’t expected him to corner her when they had a mission to perform. He was right. She was trying to avoid him and she still wanted to. “Damon, we need to get to the church.”

His mobile trilled and he bit back a curse as he pulled it from his slacks. A grim look came into his eyes as he read whatever was there.

“Who is it?” Penny asked, though she feared she knew the answer. The question was whether or not their game was up.

“It’s Baz. He says the meet is at three.”

A weird sense of relief hit her. “You were right.”

“Yes. And he’s waiting in that church. He’s not where he tried to send us. He wanted us as far from this church as he could get us.” His eyes pinned her as surely as if he’d put his hands on her. “Don’t forget what I said. You stay close to Tag or Jake or I’ll punish you.”

An ache went through her heart at his words. At least he was holding his ground. He’d meant what he’d said the night before. It made it easy to let herself go cold. “Of course. I assure you, I won’t give you any reason to lay hands on me ever again, Mr. Knight.”

His eyes tightened and it was easy to see he had questions. She regretted her choice of words because it looked like he was willing to have it out right in the garage.

“We need to move.” Taggart’s voice echoed through the space. “We still have a half an hour. I’d like Penny to try talking to the shopkeeper to see if we can figure out if Baz is alone and where he might be coming from.”

A sigh split Damon’s mouth. “All right.” He stared down at her for a second more. “This isn’t over, Penelope.”

But it was for now. She watched him walk away. When they caught Bennett, she would get on the first plane back home.

Safe from him. Safe from herself.

* * *

Damon moved toward the entrance of the Temppeliaukio Kirkko otherwise known to tourists as the Rock Church. The odd building sat in the middle of the Töölö neighborhood in Helsinki. He turned back briefly, looking down the long street that led to the Lutheran church. The shop Jake Dean had found was on the corner. Penelope had stood inside. Speaking in perfect Finnish to the owner, she’d learned that Baz had been in Helsinki for at least four days. He seemed to be staying in the neighborhood and hadn’t been spotted with anyone else.

Damon knew he was right. Baz was up to his old tricks, but he could be deadly when he was trying to get ahead. Just because he didn’t have backup didn’t mean he was any less lethal.

He’d stared at Penelope as she’d easily charmed the shopkeeper. The man had gone from suspicious to smiling and laughing within a few moments of talking with her. That was who she was. Damon could charm a woman into his bed, but he couldn’t make people light up the way Penelope could. She was a bit of sunshine walking through the gloom.

He almost wished he’d never gone to bed with her. For years he’d been able to watch her, want her in a general way. Now he craved her.

He forced his thoughts away from his misery.

The church looked like a bunker set into the earth. Concrete marked the outside, the entryway a simple row of glass doors under the long overhang. Just above, a wall of rock looked incongruously ancient in contrast to the postmodern simplicity of the entry. To his left, the wall was covered in green vines, the only spark of color to be seen on the building. The rest seemed a bit bland, all shades of brown or gray.

Simon Weston sat on the bench in front of the vined wall, his big body slumped over as he seemed to study a map. Damon couldn’t see his face. He had to admit the man blended in well.

To his right, Ian Taggart hoisted himself up the natural rock stairs formed by the side of the hill the church was built into. He moved up and past the small cross that denoted the building. From his vantage, he would be able to see 360 degrees around the building.

He also made a huge target, but he wasn’t alone up there. Tourists were everywhere. It was exactly the kind of spot Baz despised. He preferred to work under the cover of darkness, in the shadows.

Baz was likely already in the church.

The reporter beside him stopped.

“It’s going to be all right.” He’d been a bit of a bastard to her. He tried to think of what Penelope would say but then he would likely sound like an idiot. “I won’t let you die.”

Surely that was somewhat reassuring.

She sniffled. “I just wanted a story.”

“Well, you’re about to get one.”

“I think I’m going to switch to fiction after this.”

He opened the door for her. “Well, you can write about this.”

They moved into the odd gloom of the lobby. Up ahead, he could see the sanctuary and how light filtered in from the roof, but the lobby felt still, like the calm before the storm.

He glanced to his left where some stairs led to the lower part of the church. There was only a small velvet rope keeping the tourists out. Baz could come from there. Or the hallway beyond it.

He caught a glimpse of a man with dark hair walking the circular length of the sanctuary, his head close to the woman he walked hand in hand with.

God, he’d threatened her again with something he could never do. He hated the fact that Jake Dean’s fingers were entwined with hers even though he knew damn well the man was in love with his wife, had just had a baby with her. He still wanted to rip Penelope away from him.

“Do you see him?” He kept his head down, turned away from the security cameras.

Candice shook her head. “No.” She leaned over, speaking quietly. “I’m supposed to let him find me. We need to go sit on the third row opposite the organ. Apparently this whole place was built to house this organ thing.”

He forced himself to sling an arm around her shoulders. How the hell was he going to do his job when even touching a woman like this felt like he was cheating? He wasn’t, damn it. He wasn’t Penelope’s boyfriend, certainly wasn’t her Dom. She’d made that clear by rejecting everything he was.

“Is it always this scary?” Candice whispered.

He glanced over at Penelope and Jake. He thought about ignoring the girl. She’d made her bed. She should have to lie in it so she didn’t put herself in the same position again. She’d been brutally stupid and let her ambition cloud her judgment. He should leave her to hang, but Penelope chose that moment to put her face up to the sun that had finally come out from behind the clouds, lighting up the sanctuary.

Or maybe it was just her.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s going to be all right. You’re surrounded by professionals who have zero interest in letting you die.” The words were out of his mouth before he could think about them because Penelope would want him to be kind.

Was he going to spend the rest of his life thinking about what Penelope would want him to do? He was finding it difficult to do his job because she seemed to have taken up residence in his brain.

Candice glanced up at him. “Thanks. We should sit down. I don’t want him to think we didn’t show up.”

He stepped into the light toward the left of the church where the side was dominated by massive organ pipes that seemed to be set into the rocks of the wall. It was as though the church emerged from the rock it was built on. The place might have been a bit nondescript on the outside, but it was spectacular on the inside.

Candice moved toward the front of the church. The altar was simple but he was caught with how the light flowed in from above. The church’s copper ceiling was surrounded by wood and glass that allowed the sunlight to stream in and light the sanctuary up.

They sat down, pretending to study a guidebook.

It was only a moment before someone settled in behind him.

“Baz is here.” Jake Dean’s voice was very quiet.

Damon couldn’t reply so he simply nodded his head.

“Penny talked to a couple of the docents. She convinced them she was looking for her brother. They said he’d been in more than once and they’d seen him hanging around today.” Jake got back up and joined Penelope at the right wall where the faithful were lighting candles.

The sanctuary was filling up, but there was still a hushed atmosphere. People who shouted outside spoke in whispers in the church.

“I don’t think he’s a terrorist.” Candice’s words were barely audible.

“We’ll figure that out.” It didn’t matter in the end. He needed to complete this operation so he could focus his attention on figuring out Penelope because he knew damn well he couldn’t let her go.

“He told me he was trying to help.”

Because terrorists always told the truth. He had no idea whether this Bennett bloke was a terrorist or just looking to sell something nasty for cash.

Or if he was something else entirely.

Once it wouldn’t have mattered. He would have brought the fucker in and not looked back because at the end of the day, he was a weapon, nothing more. He was a tool that SIS used. They primed him and pulled the trigger.

But he didn’t feel that way anymore. Maybe it was the time he’d spent recovering with the McKay-Taggart crew. More than likely it was the time he’d spent inside Penelope, but he was different now. The man he’d been before Baz had pulled the trigger was dead and gone and someone new had taken his place.

He needed to figure out who this man was. It did matter. What he did mattered because it affected her. The man he was affected her.

“We’ll figure it out.”

“You won’t just shoot him?” Candice asked.