During the ‘90s, the former king became fascinated with technology, buying large chunks of stock in companies that were changing the world. He also completely changed Loa Mali’s infrastructure, making it one of the most high-tech countries on the planet.
Now Kash Kamdar was the king and it seemed like he wanted to change the world as well.
Too bad Nelson and his bosses were happy with the world the way it was.
“Are you serious? It holds there?” A loopy grin hit the king’s face. “Are we ready to move into testing?”
Shit and double shit. He needed to hear the other end of that conversation. Or maybe not. Maybe the ridiculous look on Kamdar’s face was all he needed to know. They were moving faster than he’d anticipated.
He needed to get to the oil rig where he suspected Kamdar kept his lab and start blowing shit up.
His cell buzzed, a text coming through.
Operations commenced. Expect successful termination of all players within three days. Avery O’Donnell already confirmed dead.
Poor Irishman. He’d been happy for a couple of months. Oh, well, his pain wouldn’t last long. He’d be dead beside his little bride. And all the others.
Nelson went back to watching his target. It was almost time to take him out, too.
“The flowers are pretty.” She would say just about anything to get Phoebe off her favorite subject.
“Who cares about flowers?” Chelsea asked under her breath. “I just saw the MI6 guys walk back in. Do you understand what that means?”
It meant that Ian might be rethinking his position. He might be ready to turn her over to them after all.
“It’s weird that they didn’t come with a note,” Phoebe was saying as she looked at the bouquet of yellow roses. “Grace said they were just delivered here this morning. I’ve never gotten flowers but my friend bought me a first edition
Alchemist’s Stone
. That was the British title for
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
. I like the British title better. It has more mystery about it.”
And Phoebe was off again. Her sister groaned beside her.
She stared at the flowers. Yellow flowers. In Russia, they were symbols of sadness. Of betrayal. If a girl in Russia got yellow flowers she knew it was the end. Maybe it was fitting.
The MI6 agents walked out of the conference room, the doors closing behind them. They moved back toward the hallway that housed Ian’s office.
Baz’s eyes trailed toward her, searching hers. He gave her a grave nod and continued to follow his partner.
“Will they really take you?” Chelsea whispered.
“If Ian lets them, yes.” She didn’t care anymore. If they were going to take her, then it wouldn’t matter that she worried about it.
This wasn’t the submission she’d dreamed about when she’d planned her reunion with Ian, but it seemed that submitting to fate was the only thing left to do.
Phoebe leaned forward. “Did you really marry him?”
Charlie looked up, taking in the woman who seemed so scared of her husband. “Uhm, yes. I married him in England.”
“He didn’t like force you or anything, right?”
If only she could tell herself that, but no, everything that had happened between them was consensual. Everything except him throwing her out. “No. I loved him.”
Phoebe shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. He’s just so scary.”
Charlie looked back at the conference room. He didn’t look scary. He looked tired and sad. He looked like she felt. She put a hand on the window, feeling his pull.
He turned away.
If Phoebe was going to work here, she needed to learn how to deal with her boss. “Just stand up to him. He’s all bark and no bite around women. Don’t get me wrong, if you truly cross him, you’ll pay for it, but you can’t let him push you around.”
Phoebe went a little white. “Oh, I can barely talk around the man. I don’t think I’ll be standing up to him anytime soon.”
“He’s just a man,” Chelsea said, her tone exasperated. “I don’t understand why every woman around is either afraid of him or trying to sleep with him.”
“You can be both,” Phoebe said, her eyes going to the conference room.
Charlie slapped a hand on Phoebe’s desk, getting the girl’s attention back where it should be. “If you try to sleep with him, then you won’t need to be afraid of Ian. You should be afraid of me.”
Phoebe’s mouth dropped open. “I am. I really am right now. I’m going to go get some coffee. I’ll be back.”
She nearly ran out of the room.
“Way to scare the mouse, sis.”
She sat in silence. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say to Chelsea. She’d failed her like she’d failed Ian.
“Can you not even look at me now?”
Charlie shook her head. Maybe Ian wasn’t the only one who needed time. “I’m just sorry, Chelsea.”
“For what?” Her sister got to her knees, obviously unwilling to accept the situation.
“For whatever I did wrong.”
Chelsea reached for her hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I did. I got in really deep, Charlie. I can’t explain it except to say it’s an obsession. But it’s one that’s protected us up until now.”
“I should have forced you to go to school. I should have paid more attention to you. I was obsessed with Ian. I should have put it aside and dealt with you.”
Chelsea squeezed her hand. “Charlotte, we can still make this right. We can get away from here. I’m not going to let them take you. I never once meant to let you take the fall for me. I love you. You’re my only family. You’re the only person I have in the whole world. I’m certainly not going to lose you.”
Her sister was still in way too deep. “Chelsea, listen to yourself. You’ve been playing god for way too long. You won’t be able to stop it. If those men take me there will be absolutely nothing you can do about it. I’ll be gone and you won’t see me again and I don’t even know if you can function in the real world.”
“What are you talking about?” Chelsea asked, sitting back on her heels and dropping her hand.
“You’ve set up your own little kingdom. Your own world and you rule it, and you don’t consider what it means to anyone else.”
“No one else matters.”
“Everyone matters. Didn’t you learn anything?”
A stubborn mask fell over Chelsea’s face. “Yes, I learned that my legs break when someone takes a baseball bat to them. I learned that you either have power or you’re meaningless.”
“You have compassion or you’re soulless, Chelsea. Momma taught us that.”
“Momma let herself be used by a monster. She married him. She had kids by him.”
She wished her sister could really remember. “No, she was brave. She ran. She hid.”
“Not well enough, so she kind of lost that battle. You know I always thought you were the strong one, but I’ve had to be for the last several years. You pretend to be the leader but all your decisions are made between your legs. You forgot about me, so I’ve had to make sure we were safe.”
Charlie turned in her chair, unable to look at Chelsea a moment longer. “What did you expect me to do? Live with you the rest of my life? Don’t you want something more? Don’t you want someone to love?”
A bitter laugh escaped her sister’s lips. “Who’s going to love me? You might have a few scars, but you can still walk properly. You don’t ache every single day. No one’s going to love me, Charlotte. I’m not that girl.” She finally got up and sat back down in her chair, taking a long breath. “I don’t think Ian’s going to love you either. I’m not trying to be a bitch. I’m realistic. He’s not a forgiving man. He wants a sub, not a wife. He wants someone who will spend her whole life cooking his dinner and worshiping at his feet.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I’ve spent the last couple of years pretty much doing that for you. At least he worshipped me back, and don’t wrinkle your nose at the idea. Until you’ve had a man who wants to hold you, who wants you more than his next breath, you don’t get a say in the way I feel.”
Ian seemed to be talking to someone on the speaker phone. Charlie stared at the flowers. They were beautiful, just buds now, their graceful curves only starting to reveal the bloom inside. She’d been like that once. She’d been full of possibilities. She hadn’t even known what those possibilities were. Ian had shown her.
She wouldn’t bloom. Maybe Chelsea was right, and they had never really had a chance.
Fourteen flowers. She touched them all, a little worry sparking in the back of her brain. “Chelsea, how many flowers do you count?”
“I don’t care about the flowers.”
“I count fourteen. Fourteen yellow roses and no one knows who sent them.”
Chelsea suddenly seemed to care about the flowers. “It could be a mistake. Maybe whoever sent them meant to send a dozen and they got fourteen by mistake. They send flowers by the dozen here in the States.”
No one in Russia sent an even number of flowers to anything except a funeral. And no one sent yellow flowers except to show their profound sadness or to mark a betrayal.
These were funeral flowers meant for a Russian daughter. For her.
“We have to get out of here.” Chelsea tugged on her arm, pure fear on her face. It seemed she’d gotten the message, too. “They don’t understand how far our uncle will go.”
Liam strode down the hallway, a grim look on his face. He shoved his way into the conference room and immediately started talking. Everyone was facing him and then Grace started to cry.
Oh, god, what was going on? Charlie stepped to the window that separated them.
Charlie watched as the conference room seemed to tense and then Liam and Grace went running out of the room followed by a tense-looking Simon and Jesse, who was checking the clip on his SIG. Jake moved back toward his office while Adam was back at his computer, his fingers flying across the keys.
Something had happened. Something spectacularly bad.
Baz chose that moment to walk down the hallway. He stopped, looking into the conference room before poking his head into the office where Charlie was standing. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” But she needed to find out. Ian had told her to wait, but she couldn’t just sit here when it looked like everything was falling apart. What had caused Grace to cry? To run out of the room like the devil was chasing her?
She looked into the lobby and Grace had her purse. Liam was escorting her out of the office, his eyes moving, searching for a threat.
“Looks serious. I better go get Damon.” Baz’s expression never changed. He looked back, his eyes catching on Phoebe’s desk. “Nice flowers. Someone must be in love.”
But those flowers weren’t about love.
Ian stood up, looking at whatever Adam was doing on the computer. When his face lifted toward the door, there was a weariness to his eyes that she hated. He ran a hand across his brow, his shoulders slumping.
Alex and Eve were holding hands and suddenly Eve turned into Alex’s body, his arms wrapping around her. Eve was crying.
Charlie stood up.
Fuck.
What had happened? What the hell had happened? She couldn’t just sit here. Ian would just have to punish her. She moved toward the conference room door.
“Uhm, I don’t think you’re supposed to leave. Ian was very specific about it,” Phoebe said as she walked back in the office, pushing her glasses up her nose.
Charlie ignored her, moving into the hall. She looked to her left and Grace was locking the front doors as Liam paced by the elevator. They were locking down. Her heart rate picked up, thumping through her chest.
She crossed the space between them, her hands trembling as she opened the conference room door.
“Liam, Simon, and Jesse are with her, Sean,” Ian was saying. “They’re taking her out the back after they get Carys from daycare. Nothing’s going to happen to them, and Li might be a paranoid idiot, but I’m following his lead on this one.”
“I’m leaving the restaurant right now. Have Li text me the meet spot. Not at home.” There was a click and Sean’s voice was gone.
“What happened?” Charlie asked. Grace couldn’t go home?
Ian’s eyes pinned her, making her want to squirm. “I told you to stay in your seat and you are not allowed to talk.”
It was bad. Whatever had happened was really bad, and it was personal. “Please tell me.”
“Why, Charlotte? Why do you need to know?”
“Because I care about these people.” Because somehow through years of studying them, she’d come to love them. They had become her family.
Ian was so cold as he stood over her. All the heat that had been between them was gone, snuffed out utterly, and she could feel the vast distance that separated her from him. “Do you really? I have some questions about that.”
“I didn’t write those e-mails to Nelson. It was Chelsea.” He might never believe her, but she would defend herself.
“And Chelsea is your sister. Your ultimate loyalty is to her. I guess at the end of the day, it all comes down to family, doesn’t it? You’re always going to choose your family.”
But he was her family. “Please don’t believe an assassin over me. Please, Ian.”
“You did. You believed Nelson over me and now my family is paying the price.” He looked over and nodded toward the door. Damon and Baz stood there. “We’ve had a setback. We’re going to need to change some of our plans. How fast can we get to India?”
“I’ll have the jet ready as soon as possible. Let me make a few calls.” Damon stepped away, but Baz stayed, his dark eyes watching the scene playing out in front of him.
“Go back to your seat, Charlie. I can’t deal with you right now.” Ian dismissed her utterly.
She couldn’t accept that. “I want to help, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.”
Ian’s eyes went to the door, hardening slightly, and when he looked back at her there was an icy will in them. “Avery’s dead.”
“What?” She didn’t quite understand the words. They didn’t make sense so she had to have heard him wrong. Her paranoid brain was making connections that weren’t there.
“I said Avery is dead.” Ian drew out each word as if giving her time to process them separately.
The air left her lungs as the meaning hit her. Liam’s wife, the one who had smiled and welcomed Charlie, was gone? The one who was knitting baby clothes? Liam’s pregnant wife was dead? It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. “How?”