Not if he was sitting here, unarmed, with only Franco and an adequate security system. If he were in charge for this long, he’d have more power after five years. He’d need more security. Why hadn’t that bothered her before? Because she was too smug that nothing had changed. There was someone higher up. Or many higher ups.
“Who was your boss?”
He cocked his head, thinking. He gave her a slow smile. “Was or is?”
Past, present… Her gut told her to stick to the past. “Was.”
“Smart girl. You’re starting to use your head.” He sipped his drink, savoring the liquid in his mouth. “But do you want the truth?”
Fear clenched in her belly, because something told her she didn’t want the truth. Wasn’t that why she was here, though? Risking everything? “Yes.”
“John was my boss.”
“No.” The room seemed to tilt just a bit, and she struggled to keep her knees from buckling. Albert Reese was an evil man. No way could John be more evil. But Jake’s request for the surveillance tape came back to haunt her, the tape she’d destroyed. God, no.
“Oh, yes. That’s who they wanted when they set you up as an informant. John, not me. I was small chips.”
She swayed just a little, her knees weak. If she had given Jake what he needed, she wouldn’t be here today. Her baby would have lived. Her life had already been ruined then, but she’d been too stupid and in love to see it.
The coldness in her heart settled again, numbing her. Last question, then she’d put the gun to Reese’s head and he’d sing like he’d never sung before. “Who is your boss now?”
“This answer is one you’re going to find very amusing, Abbey. You sure you don’t want that drink? That seat? You’re going to need it.”
What could be worse than learning her husband was evil? “Tell me or I blow your fucking head off.”
He laughed, purely maniacal. “I don’t think Chase Sanders will approve of that. Do you?”
****
Aaron, dressed in all black, pulled the car he’d
borrowed
off on the edge of the road into some bushes. He thought
borrowed
, because he still couldn’t believe he’d hotwired it. Himself. And knocked out a drunken bum in an alley, all to find his spy girlfriend and keep her from going apeshit with a pistol.
His head was still reeling after his conversation with Chase. That man was definitely a much better enemy than a friend. Frenemy—wasn’t that the term? If Charlotte shot Chase dead, St. Peter would look the other way at the pearly gates when it came time to tally up Charlotte’s sins. Hell, he’d give her a batt of cotton candy for a job well done.
Aaron grabbed the pistol he’d gotten from the locker in the train station and shoved it down the waistband of his black pants. He yanked the black hat over his head, got out of the
borrowed
car, and followed the path Chase said he’d find through the woods.
After about five minutes, he resurfaced at the back lawn of a mansion, all stone and formal. The side door was unlocked so he slipped in, noting Charlotte had disarmed the security system. Down the hall, second room on the right. He listened—silent inside. He opened the door.
“You are dead,” Charlotte whispered and lifted the gun to aim at Reese’s grayed temple.
“Don’t do it!” Aaron yelled.
She didn’t turn, but her spine stiffened, her shoulders tight. The older guy in the chair didn’t even twitch. Probably didn’t dare. “Why the fuck are you here?”
“To keep you from making a poor career choice.”
Her laugh was bitter. “I find it life-affirming. Fuck the career, because Sanders is next.”
Already in line for the cotton candy, his Danger Girl. “You need to listen to Reese. All of it. You’re killing the wrong guy.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I called Chase.”
She turned to stare, one that went straight through him and yanked at his soul. It took every ounce of courage he had to stand there, under that cold, assessing gaze. This woman in black was not his lover or his girlfriend or his partner. This was the assassin, and she was determining how much longer he had to live.
“Are you on their side?” It was implied that she’d kill him if he said yes.
“No, I’m here for you. Only you.” He shoved his gun back down the front of his pants and raised his hands in surrender.
“Christ on a motorbike.” She stared at his crotch, her blue eyes round and turning livid. “Did you just shove a loaded gun down your pants with the safety off?”
“Yes? No? We did it on the set.”
“Not real guns, idiot.” She reached into her pocket and tossed him a small case. “Put the safety on and put it in your pocket. Jesus, you’d think I didn’t teach you better than that.”
He had no clue how to feel about being dressed down in front of a very evil man by Danger Girl. But he stood with his hands in the air, just in case. He was no fool.
“Still have the same boyfriend, do you?” Reese inquired.
“I’m Seth Gold,” Aaron offered, with a polite wave.
“Don’t tell the hostage who you are.” She pointed the gun at Reese, though. “So, back to me killing you.”
“Don’t do it,” Aaron ordered.
“Shut. Up.”
“I’m on your side, baby. You want to kill this guy? Chase? Go ahead. But listen first. Don’t be impulsive.”
“Fine.” But she didn’t move from Reese’s side. Instead, she pressed the gun to his temple. “So here are the rules. I ask, you answer, and I kill you when I’m done. You don’t answer, and I see how many bullets you can hold without passing out. Or dying.”
Reese swallowed hard. Loud. The only other sound was the ticking clock on the mantle. “Sounds fair, but I think I’ll only hold one bullet in my temple without passing out. Or dying.”
“Smart ass.” She took a step away, the gun in hand pointed at his head. “Talk.”
Reese’s gaze darted from her gun to her face, back to her gun. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Start with John. I don’t believe he was in charge.”
“Oh, he was in charge. He ran everything. I did the dirty work, the phone calls, and the arrangements, clearing the way with my political connections. I sold or traded arms and technology, sex, and drugs. Whatever worked, and John made the decisions. The big ones. What we sold, traded, to whom, how, where. Who would die, who would live.”
“He was a university professor.”
“So? You can’t teach the youth political science and run an empire? You were a big help, organizing my life and then carrying the information back to your lover. You were our courier. Back and forth. We exchanged items in your briefcase, your purse. I never had to be seen with him in public. How stupid were you not to know?”
“Indeed.” But she aimed the gun at his chest, her eyes so cold Aaron shuddered. “How stupid am I now?”
“No need to get pissy.” But Reese’s eyes stayed glued on the .45.
“Stick to the facts, Reese.” She took a step closer. “What changed?”
“You. He saw you one afternoon, with him.” Reese gestured to Aaron with his chin. “Thought you were fucking him.”
Aaron shrugged. It had to have been Jake.
“Caught you the next afternoon with Sanders. That pissed John off, you running with those two blokes. He’d seen Sanders at a party once and figured you were fucking him then. Or did you fuck them both? At the same time?”
She shot. Reese screamed. Aaron stared with sick fascination, because he realized she meant business. Jesus, all those threats in California, and she really would have killed him. It looked like the bullet hit Reese’s leg, maybe his calf. He’d live, but Aaron suddenly realized that spy camp had been a game for him. He had known the consequences but had treated it all like a movie role. This was all real for Charlotte.
“Stop screaming.” Charlotte rolled her eyes, feeling so much calmer after skimming that fat bastard’s leg with a bullet. Seriously, the man was such a baby. She’d taken worse and had run miles to safety after. “It grazed your calf. If you die from that, you deserve it. Don’t fuck with my boys. Stick to the facts.”
“Thought you were going to kill Sanders?” Reese asked through the gasps of pain. He ran his hands down his leg, checking out the damage. Pansy.
“I’ll deal with Sanders. You can’t talk smack.” Charlotte stepped forward and pressed the gun to Reese’s temple again. The man shut his mouth immediately, biting back the scream. “So how long did it take you to realize I was funneling information?”
“We discovered the truth that Wednesday morning.”
“How stupid were you? I was an informant for a year.” Reese had the grace to look sheepish, because yeah, he should have guessed. She’d met with Jake and Chase in different locations to avoid suspicion, handing off the information needed.
Reese shrugged. “You were good, I guess. Because he didn’t know until the last minute.”
“So if you didn’t order the hit on me, who did?” John wouldn’t have wanted her dead. He loved her, despite being evil.
“Didn’t you listen, you stupid bitch? John made the orders—who died, who lived. You didn’t make the live column.”
Charlotte’s blood froze, her feet rooted to the spot by the frost coming out her shoes.
No
. “I want the name of the fucker who killed my baby. I was pregnant. Did John tell you that? Five months. I was barely showing.”
Aaron breathed in sharply. She’d told him, though. But she guessed it made more of an impact with her gun pointed at this scum.
“Don’t shoot me, but I knew.”
Anger swirled, heated her skin, her muscles, her blood. Anger fired up the freight train and that was bad. Anger was bad when she held a gun, because that meant things usually went off before she got all the answers. “Who?”
“August Winters. But he died in the explosion.”
That should have made the anger pipe down, knowing the hit man was dead, but it only swirled faster. Harder. “He told me John was dead. Who ordered his hit?”
“No one. John faked it. He faked everything, right down to your wedding—”
“What?” she whispered. The gun wavered for the first time, shaking in her hands. Anger raced down a tunnel, the train gaining speed as everything she believed about her past began to disintegrate. “No.”
“John didn’t marry you.”
“No. Why?” She rubbed her left hand and remembered the ring was gone, just like the necklace he’d given her. She had woken without them, and her boys hadn’t known anything about her jewelry.
“He wanted a submissive to brainwash, a hot courier to run his material and suck his cock on command, to fuck senseless at his sick parties. When you whined about commitment and threatened to leave, he staged a wedding.”
Cold, hard, and mean didn’t feel, but right now, someone was taking a knife to her heart. She felt every slash. “But…why? Why not just marry me to begin with?”
“Because he was already married. Where did you think he went on weekends, love? He went home. To fuck his wife.”
He’d never divorced. So stupid, so stupid. Why didn’t she see it then? Because they had a pattern to their life from day one and she hadn’t found a reason to change it, even after he had said he’d gotten a divorce, had shown her the papers. He always went to the country on the weekends, and she liked the peace to regroup. She went home with him occasionally, but Reese had kept her busy so she couldn’t go often. Why didn’t she see? Because she was stupid, foolish in love.
“But—”
Reese laughed softly. “Oh, she knew. All about you. She wanted the money more than she wanted fidelity. John wanted…you. It was the perfect marriage.”
She didn’t believe in God, but if he’d chosen right then to strike her dead, she would have been grateful. Her life, her job, her purpose, even her love for…that man. All a joke. Fake. A sham. She realized then her pregnancy had been doomed from the first division of cells, right after conception. John would have killed her and her child, even if she hadn’t wanted out.
“Easy, baby,” Aaron whispered from her side. He didn’t touch her. Thank fuck. She would have shot him. But his voice anchored her to sanity as she fought the despair, the injustice.
Then she focused on the man she’d kill after Reese—Chase. As bad as she hated John, she almost hated Chase more. John had destroyed everything, but Chase had been there to sort the pieces of the game. He had held her, comforted her, made her want to live again. Who knew the pieces he sorted would be ones that would come to suit his needs when he’d become her boss a year later?
“How did you come to work for Chase?”
“The American government knows a good thing when they see it. Chase wasn’t the one who took me on in the beginning, but he hasn’t given me the heave-ho, either. John went underground, and I turned traitor.”
“Underground.” A sheen of cold sweat broke out over her body. She didn’t want to hear this, because this changed everything.
“Meaning, cutting all ties and going where someone can’t find you.” Reese nodded, enunciating his words like he was talking to a small child.
“He’s not dead.” Saying it didn’t make it any easier. The words rushed in her ears, everything moving so fast, when nothing was moving. Anger built, surging forward, upward, through her fingers, to the gun.
“He’s quite alive. Only we don’t know where.”
Alive.
That was all her anger needed to hear. Charlotte raised the gun, shifted her shoulders, pointed it at Reese’s head, and fired.
Chapter Twenty
“No!” Aaron lunged and knocked Charlotte’s gun upward, deflecting the shot off the top of the bookcase instead of letting it hammer through Reese’s skull. He waited for the security guard to run down the hall but was met with silence except for the ringing in his ears. Charlotte stared at the gun, her hand shaking. She looked up at Aaron, her blue eyes cold yet feral. Wild. Uncomprehending.
Mad. Not in the angry sense, either.
Aaron swallowed down the bile, ignored the clenching in his chest around his heart. He wanted Sanders there to see what he’d done. To see her unraveled.
“Easy, baby,” he whispered and put his arm around Charlotte’s tense shoulders. Carefully, because though she had to feel something for him, he doubted like hell she’d remember at this point. Even more carefully, he eased the gun from her hand. He couldn’t begin to imagine how much she hurt right now. “They want Reese alive.”