“Jake?”
“Yes, and Chase. He was Jake’s partner at the time.” She thought back to them, how young and handsome they were, how much in love she was with her husband not even to notice the two that way.
“How did you end up being an informant? You said you were coerced.”
She hesitated. “I did something…wrong. My boss asked me to falsify information, and I did it, though I didn’t want to. I needed the job badly at the time. The government found out, and they used it against me. I could do what they wanted, or they would put me in jail. I was an informant for a year.”
“Jesus.”
“At the end, I wanted out at any cost, even if it meant jail time. I was terrified. My boss was acting oddly and things just felt off. So I met with Jake that Monday, and I told him I was done. He said those above them wanted one more piece of information. If I gave it to them, they’d get me out.”
“And you did it, right?”
“No. I couldn’t give them what they wanted.”
“Why not?”
This part bothered her a lot lately, because the more she knew Aaron, the more she was beginning to remember. Flashes of things not quite so perfect, not quite right. She was starting to see that John wasn’t the person she remembered him to be, or rather, the person her memories wanted him to be.
“What they wanted implied my husband was in on it, too. I didn’t understand how that could be. I scheduled Reese’s every move, and he never once had anything to do with John. So I watched the surveillance tapes and then destroyed them.”
“Didn’t that piss Jake off?”
“Yes.” Jake had been so pissed. “And it was the main reason I hated Jake so much, then. I thought he wanted to ruin my life. I decided then and there we were getting out on our own. John had an offer to teach in Dubai. I was going to push him to take it, and we’d be out.”
“So what happened?”
“They sent Chase to try to get me to give them something different, since I wouldn’t speak to Jake. I said no. The next day, Wednesday, Reese wanted me to stop at this pub for a quick drink to celebrate something. It wasn’t like him, but we went with a few of his associates. I didn’t feel well afterward so he took me home. Now, I realize he’d drugged me. I didn’t know that then.”
“Char, that’s shitty.”
That wasn’t even the worst part. “So I went inside, so sick to my stomach. The house was dark and the light wouldn’t work. This man came from the shadows. He hit me, told me John was upstairs, dead, and I’d join him after he raped me. I don’t know if he raped me or not, but he beat me within an inch of my life. I think I blacked out at some point. The boys tell me Jake rescued me, despite how much I hated him. He got me out right before the hit man tossed the match. He’d left the gas stove on.”
“Baby, that’s horrible.” He kissed her cheek, hugging her too tight.
Yes, it was, and she didn’t even remember most of it. “I have no clue to this day how they got me out of England, as broken as I was. I never asked. They got me here, to the States, barely alive. I knew John was dead, and I wanted to die, too. I only had one thing left to live for and they never told me the truth, because if they had…” She shrugged. “I would have just given up.”
“And that was?” He froze in stroking her hair, as if he really knew before asking but didn’t want to believe.
She sucked in a breath, exhaled, and shared her soul. “My unborn child. I was five months pregnant. Just starting to show. I had felt the baby move that weekend for the first time. I was so excited.” It was a memory she had kept, though it was too painful to visit.
“Charlotte,” he breathed. “What assholes.”
“They never lied, so don’t hate them. I would ask if my baby was okay, and they would tell me to fight. I thought they wanted me to fight, to be a mother. When the danger passed, they told me the truth. My baby had died, and I had to have a hysterectomy because of the damage to my uterus during the beating. Not a total one—I have some parts. But not the right ones to be a mother.”
“How did you…recover from that? To be sane?”
“I didn’t. First, I attempted suicide—”
“Jesus!” He struggled to sit, hauling her up with him. He stared down at her, as if searching for the suicidal woman deep inside the cold, hard, and mean. She was still there, somewhere. Just quiet, for now. “Char, no.”
She shrugged away the wash of pain. “Jake left my prescription for pain pills where I could get them. I took the whole thing. But they saved me—again. And then I became withdrawn, and then angry. Chase eventually asked me what I wanted to be.”
His brow wrinkled. “What did you want to be?”
“I wanted to be the woman who would kill those motherfuckers.”
“That was…expedient…of you.”
“It did serve my purpose, yes.” She thought for a moment, that memory in a Brussels hotel room still one of the strongest. “So I became Charlotte—Jake named me. He loved the name, and it was close to charlatan, which he thought was amusing. Chase wanted to name me Rose, because it would be easier to type on paperwork. They flipped a coin, Jake won. Rose is my alias middle name. Charlotte Rose Smith.”
“You didn’t have a say? What if you wanted to be…Angela or something?”
“They didn’t dare ask. Sad Charlotte didn’t speak, and Angry Charlotte only said ‘fuck you.’ They didn’t want me to be named fuck you.”
He laughed, and so did she, because it really was weird and sad. “How kind of them.”
She nodded, and the smile faded. “Anyway, I became cold, hard, and mean, with a third degree black belt, excellent marksmanship skills. I trained, I channeled the anger, and I became an assassin. I did what they asked, killed who they wanted taken out. But the time never came to end it.”
“Until now.”
“Until now.” She wondered what he thought of all this as he stared off toward the end of her bed, the dim light offered from her side lamp highlighting the new blond of his hair. Would he accept her life, her mission, and not want her to change? She couldn’t change this, not anymore.
“I’ve never killed a motherfucker before. Just on film.”
“Hopefully you won’t have to.” Right then and there, she knew she loved him more than any other person in the world. “Do you understand, now?”
“Yes.” He shifted and captured her chin with his hand, dragging her gaze up to his. He tried to hide the conflict and sadness, but she knew him too well. “I can live without kids, Charlotte.”
That just made her love him even more. She escaped his hand and hugged him tight, hiding the tears that threatened, wishing their lives were different. “You say that now, punk, but I know better. You Andersons dream of spreading your gene pool throughout womankind.”
“Maybe I’m different.”
She sighed against his chest. “We won’t work, Aaron. Even if I live at the end of this. I’m a spy. I have enemies that would give their left testicle to kill me. Being on your arm means you will die, because of me. I can’t do that to you.”
He stiffened, and she glanced up. His jaw clenched, the lines around his mouth deepening with anger. “So quit.”
“I can’t. I can’t quit. I can’t change jobs. I can’t be yours. Ever. I’m trapped, and before you go and blame Chase, it’s my fault.” She sighed. “You sure you want to come with me, now that you know the whole story? You can still get out.”
He shook his head, deep in stubborn, mulish Aaron mode. “You need me even more. And don’t try to ditch me. I’ll find a way to follow you. You need a partner, and I’m it, like it or not.”
How their roles had changed. In the course of one evening, he’d gone from her charge to her partner. “Try not to make me regret bringing you.”
“I’ll try hard.” He kissed her. “Can I take a quick nap without worrying about you ditching me?”
“Yes.” Unfortunately, he was her partner now. She couldn’t leave him behind now any more than she could kill him. Damn him.
She secretly didn’t want it any other way.
Chapter Eighteen
Where the fuck are you?
Charlotte shook a little as she read the display on her phone later that evening just before boarding their flight to London. Even if the little box didn’t have a header that said LOTS—Lord of the Spies, their code for Chase—she’d know immediately. No greeting—Chase didn’t use salutations unless he had to. He also didn’t do fancy, or she would have bet Aaron’s elephant and two chickens that the word fuck would have been capitalized, underlined, and in bold.
But not a different color. Chase liked black, and that’s what the text made her think—black, dark things.
Which meant she had screwed up big time somehow, because he knew she was going rogue and she hadn’t even talked to him. Damn it. No text from Jake, though, which meant Chase would be breathing fire across his desk tomorrow. God help the tech team.
But her desire to please Chase couldn’t let it go, despite the fact that he’d planned things behind her back, had lied. She should just get on the plane, but she couldn’t.
Forgive me.
Then she powered the phone off and popped the battery out. Her lead-time was done. He had a little more than eight hours, which was plenty of time. If they were greeted on the other side of the pond by officials, then the game was over.
But Chase owed her. She had to bank that the man deep, deep inside the devil’s skin loved her. And that would be enough.
“Ready?” Aaron had their bags in his hand, so blond and Jake-like now. He had on his fake glasses and would have looked scholarly except the grin he shot her was one of pure sin. They were breaking the rules, and he was loving every second of it.
Still, she hated doing this to him. Once he made this journey with her, he’d never be the same. Her first trip out into the field had scarred her forever. “You can still back out.”
That shit eating grin intensified. “And miss the role of a lifetime? Never.”
****
They landed in London the next morning. Charlotte welcomed the gloom and gray chill outside of Heathrow that meant she was truly home. She grinned over at Aaron and, after a moment’s hesitation, kissed him quickly, unable to contain that feeling of joy she felt when she hit native soil. “Welcome home, love.”
“Partner mode is almost as much fun as girlfriend mode.” He returned the kiss and grinned. “Want me to hail a cab?”
“Please.”
“When are you going to call him?”
She did not want to make this call, but they’d decided after Chase hadn’t had them greeted by officials, it might be best to test the waters, so to speak. If Chase was on their side, despite his anger, she would have a lot more luck getting this done.
“Now. He knows we’re England. Better to let him track us here than to wait until we’re at a hotel and have him track us down there.”
She popped the battery back in, and Aaron frowned.
She shrugged. “He can track us with the battery in, you know.”
“No, I didn’t. I thought you could just turn it off.”
“That’s why I had you leave your phone in D.C. and gave you a new one. I can’t watch you and me at the same time.” But she kissed him for being a rookie. Her rookie. She waited as the phone powered up, taking forever.
“Try not to be so tense.” He brushed her cheek with his thumb, cupping her jaw, kissing her lips gently. Her stomach did weird things at the contact, though he’d kissed her a zillion times over the past week. “He can’t kill you through a phone.”
She leaned against him, loving the mix of leather jacket in his spicy scent. “You’d be surprised what LOTS can do.”
The display came up. Six missed calls, two texts. She did the texts first. Chase had sent—
be safe.
That made her tear up, because really, she had never expected to be told that. But he had plenty of time to work up some blazing anger that would make a dragon quail in fear. She doubted her phone call would go as well.
Jake wasn’t so nice.
I am going to paddle your ass until you think the sun has set in your pants.
Yes, he would, too.
The phone calls were actually work related, nothing to do with either of the guys. So she ignored those and made the phone call she regretted.
“Get back on the fucking plane, Agent Smith. There are two tickets waiting. Go.” French, not English, no greeting. Chase to the max.
“Nice to hear from you, too,” she answered in English. She had nothing to hide any longer. She fumbled for Aaron’s hand and gripped it tight, needing his support.
“That’s an order, Agent Smith.”
“I’m done with orders. So this can go two ways. We’ll see who’s faster out of the gate, because I have my hand on a cab door right now. Or you can be supportive and help me.”
He growled. “I’ll freeze you out.”
“I have money here. Contacts. Connections. I don’t have to crawl back to you.” That sounded braver than she felt.
“You’ll risk Aaron like that? Get him killed? Is he going to be
your
collateral damage?”
“He’s a big boy.” But he voiced what she feared.
“Don’t tell me you told him what he’s getting into. No smart man would go with you if they knew.”
“I told him everything.” She switched to French. “Relax. He’s never going to see anything remotely exciting. You know me better than that. I had no choice but to bring him.”
Chase sighed. “Jake’s pissed.”
“Yes, I gathered from the text he sent me.” She switched the phone to her other ear and put her finger to her lips. Aaron was fidgeting, ready to explode next to her. “So how is this going to play out, love? You helping me, or am I on my own?”
There was a long pause, one filled with ice and heat across the miles. “I can send Crazwalski in, but he won’t arrive until tonight. You can move tomorrow, but we need to have a plan in place. We can video conference tonight—ten?”
She switched back to English. “You’ll send Crazwalski, and we’ll meet tonight. Yes. Thank you.” Let Aaron think she had a partner. Let Chase think she was playing his game. That would be the safe thing to do. She’d move tonight, though, before the other agent arrived. Alone.
“Things are in the usual locations?” She’d need a gun, money. They had items stashed all over London. It was just a matter of getting it all together.