Dreamwalker by Kathleen Dante

her mouth, letting it flow over her tongue like fine wine. A strong name—dark, full-bodied, and exotic—certainly more flavorful than James Bond or Matt Helm. An intriguing man with an even more intriguing commission. But was he serious? Could it be a trap?
    If it was a scam, it was an elaborate setup—one specifically tailored to appeal to her.
    And if it was a trap, her Adonis’s easy admission of being something other than normal was an unorthodox approach. An incubus. Granted, he hadn’t really taken physical form when he’d seduced her mind, but who better than a lamia to know that myth didn’t always get things right?
    Too, the target itself was irregular. They couldn’t frame her for stealing a nuke, not when she’d have five thousand grand to prove they’d hired her to do the job.
    And who would devise such a convoluted plot to acquire a bomb? If he was a front for a terrorist organization, surely there were easier—and cheaper—ways to guarantee they ended up winning the auction?
    Rory couldn’t imagine why anyone would go to the lengths his agency had apparently taken simply to trap or scam her. Which made the Fed’s story more credible.
    Knowing what was at stake, she could excuse his invasion of her sleep and his manipulation. But she wasn’t ready to forgive him just yet. It still stung that he’d used her dreams against her . . . and that she’d fallen into his trap so readily. Granted, she hadn’t even considered the possibility of an incubus screwing with her head—she’d never met one before, as far as she knew—but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t have questioned why she’d been driven to find that dildo.
    In retrospect, she’d been a pushover taking the easy way out. The realization was galling. If Felix ever heard of how she’d almost been caught, he’d never tap her for another job. She made a face. Not one of her relatives would blame him. Heck, in his shoes, she’d do the same.
    The responses that trickled in were ambiguous enough to feel legit. But almost before her inquiries produced results, Rory knew that her Adonis had her. Unless something obviously pointed to a setup, she intended to accept the commission.
    She might be a thief, but even she had principles. Some things were worth standing up for. She didn’t do drugs. She didn’t con people out of their life savings. She didn’t kill.
    Money was money, but murder got the cops hot for your tail. Any diScipio worth his name knew better than to draw that kind of attention.
    Terrorists, in her estimation, were the muck at the bottom of the barrel, since they were out to destroy the world and life as she knew it. If they won, what would be left to steal?
    And if terrorists got their hands on the bomb . . .
    The thought of a nuke blowing up New York or Las Vegas or even Paris, in fact any major city her family might be in—and there were many since diScipios preferred to be moving targets and sought concealment among large populations—was unacceptable; Rory couldn’t imagine that any terrorist would target Nowheresville, U.S.A. That meant she had to do something. The consequences of inaction were too dire for her to do otherwise.
    To get the ball rolling, she started a checklist for what she might need for the job. Just to be on the safe side, she also dropped a note to Lucas to see if he’d heard anything. Unlike Felix, Big Brother would give her room to play, and he wouldn’t tell the rest of the family what she was up to unless she pushed too many of his buttons.
    And if something went wrong?
    Rory shrugged to herself. Lucas would have a clue where to start looking for her body. She’d long accepted that her line of work had its risks, but so did ordinary office work. The one time she’d tried that, she’d nearly been bored to death despite the excitement of having to dodge the beat-the-clock messengers hurtling through their delivery routes, and, on one occasion, a disgruntled former employee shooting up the