“She’s lucky I didn’t kill her.” He hadn’t really even thought about it. He’d had a gun in his hand. He’d had someone who betrayed him in his sights, but no, he’d just convinced her to give him a blow job and insulted her and sent her away. Maybe Alex was right. He was totally going soft. If he didn’t watch out he would be at Sean’s Thursday night “poker” club which was really just an excuse to drink imported girlie beer and discuss their feelings. They played poker so they could nominally call themselves men.
He should have shot her. Then he could be in a nice comfy jail cell far away from his meddling friends.
Alex frowned a little. “I was actually surprised she wasn’t still here. I thought you wanted to question her. I came over to make sure she wasn’t tied up somewhere.”
But if he’d tied her up, he wouldn’t have been able to leave her alone. He would have spanked that juicy ass of hers and it wouldn’t have been long before he shoved his cock up her tiny asshole.
God, he’d never fucked her ass. He’d been training her for it when she’d “died.” That’s what he should have gotten out of her. He should have gotten some nasty anal sex.
“I don’t care what she has to say.” He wasn’t going to talk about what was going through his head. Alex didn’t need to know he still had a perverse obsession with his ex’s ass.
“Ian, she’s smart,” Alex pointed out. “If she says she has a line on Nelson, we should check it out.”
“She was working for Nelson, so we can’t believe her. She’s also a criminal.”
“I don’t think she does that anymore. You didn’t see her in Florida.” Alex leaned against the doorjamb. “I think she’s been trying to redeem herself. For you.”
Getting remarried had made mush of his best friend’s brain. “She’s a liar. She fucked me for money and information, and that’s why she’s here now.”
Sean whistled. “Tell me you didn’t call her a whore.”
Ian shrugged. He tried not to lie to his brother.
“Fuck,” Sean cursed and reached into his pocket, pulling out what looked like a stack of twenties.
Alex took it with a shake of his head. “I told you.” He turned to Ian. “We had a bet on how you got the shiner.”
“Fuck you both. Get out of my house.” He stalked toward the bathroom. He needed a shower. He needed to get back on an even keel. Whatever Charlie was trying to do by contacting his brother, it didn’t matter because it wouldn’t fucking work.
“Don’t feel bad. It’s how he says I love you,” Sean explained to Alex.
Alex laughed, shaking his head. “Breakfast is ready when you can stomach it, brother.”
He slammed the door. Those two wouldn’t go away. He might be able to scare Adam into leaving. Jake would follow orders. Simon didn’t care enough to fuck with him, but Sean and Alex wouldn’t believe him even if he threatened to shoot them both.
Maybe he needed to rethink the whole “inner circle of trust” thing. It was kind of biting him in the ass now. He should be able to wallow in his misery, but no, he had to deal with this crap.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Damn, he looked like shit. He reached up and touched his left eye. It wasn’t horrible, but it had bruised. Charlie knew how to throw a punch.
He didn’t like to think about how many she’d taken. There it was again, that gnawing guilt that he wasn’t going to give into.
He turned on the shower, not bothering to let the water heat up. He didn’t fucking need any heat. Ice. He needed to remind himself that he had ice in his veins. He shrugged out of his slacks. He’d apparently passed out still wearing them.
What the fuck had that woman done to him? He’d lost control. He never lost control. He’d gotten drunk and blacked out. Even during all the years of mourning her loss, he always remembered every moment. Once a year, on the day she died, he would listen to that fucking song and drink Scotch and remind himself why he wouldn’t let another woman in. Not once had he passed out and forgotten the majority of the evening. It was dangerous. It was stupid.
She was going to kill him in the end.
He stepped into the shower, his head still pounding. The cold blasted his system, but he welcomed it. At the very least, it shriveled up his cock some. The damn thing hadn’t gone down since the moment she’d walked in.
Despite the ache in his head and his rolling gut, the minute he’d thought of Charlie, his cock had gotten hard as a rock.
It didn’t matter because she was gone, and he wouldn’t let her in again. If she showed up, he would call the cops. That little criminal mastermind wouldn’t want to see the police. Despite what Alex said, he knew damn well she was still working some sort of con. It was just who she was.
And he was a professional with a job to do. He couldn’t let Charlie get in his way.
“Coffee?” Alex held out a mug. “Holy shit. Is that cold water?”
No one left him alone. Not even when he was naked. He took the coffee, downing about half the mug before handing it back. “Yeah. It’s the only way to wake up. I’ll take that breakfast to go. You’re going to be sorry you missed your honeymoon because all that’s going to happen today is another meeting. Call and make sure everyone’s at the office. I have some intelligence to check out about Eli Nelson.”
“Oh, everyone’s at the office already. They’re in the meeting.”
Ian stared at his friend. “What meeting? I didn’t call a meeting, and you were supposed to be on a plane. Has Adam decided to start a coup, because let me tell you, I’m in the mood to put someone on their ass.”
“Uhm, your wife called a meeting. Seems she thinks she owns half of McKay-Taggart and she said since the boss was sleeping one off, she would take over for the day.”
The cold water could no longer touch him. “She wouldn’t fucking dare.”
“Oh, she dares. See, totally worth missing out on vacation,” Alex said with a grin.
Ian turned off the water. He wouldn’t bother getting clean. It was going to be a bloody kind of day.
* * * *
“Give me one good reason why I’m sitting here.” Simon Weston’s clipped British accent cut through the quiet of the conference room.
“Because I’m your boss and I told you to be here.” The best way to get through a rough sea was to plow straight ahead. Charlie had gotten through many a tough situation because she just acted like she owned the place.
She wondered if her asshole Master’s head was aching. He’d been downing Scotch like it was going out of style the night before. She knew he kind of deserved it with all the name calling and such, but she couldn’t help but wish she was there to take care of him. Sean better have done his job and taken care of his brother. They were family. It was what family did.
Or at least that was what Ian had taught her. Family didn’t give up. Family kept going even when one of them was a complete nitwit jerkwad who called his wife a whore.
Simon was staring at her as though mentally fitting her for a straightjacket. “I don’t know about that.”
Eve McKay set down her ever-present travel mug of coffee, a grin on her face. “Come on, Simon. You know why you’re here. You’re curious. Just like the rest of us.”
Adam clapped his hands and tossed his body into one of the chairs. “I’m thrilled. I think Kris is going to set Ian on his ass, and I’ve been waiting for that.”
She liked Adam, but she had to side with her Master. Despite the whole punching him in the face thing—which she would totally do again—she was trying to be a good submissive and that meant siding with her Master. It was obvious he had some difficult employees. “You should respect Ian, Adam.”
Adam frowned. “I thought you would be more fun than this.”
Eve leaned over. “Alex told me Ian has a black eye.”
Adam fist pumped. “Fuck, yeah. You go, girl.”
Serena slapped at her husband’s arm. “Be polite.”
Jake was on the other side of Serena, a mug of coffee in his hand. “He doesn’t know how. He thinks tact is a made-up word.”
Adam frowned. “Well, we all know tact just means lying about shit. How many of us cheered when we found out Kris was Ian’s long lost wife? Come on.”
Eve, Jake, and Serena raised their hands.
“Well, I was just pissed to find out she’d lied about her name.” Jesse Murdoch was sitting beside Simon, a sour look on his face.
“I was undercover.” She didn’t really like Jesse. He’d totally shot her.
“So was I but I used my real name. It’s confusing to keep changing names,” Jesse shot back.
He was a little behind the curve, but she’d sworn to be kinder to all of God’s creatures, even the slow ones. “Sorry, Jesse. It’s Charlotte. I’ll try to be more clear in the future so you know the full name of the woman you’re shooting and leaving horrific scars on.”
She was perfectly satisfied with the way he blanched.
Simon chuckled under his breath. “She’s got you there. Don’t be such a fucking idiot. I’m your damn sponsor. Don’t make me look bad.”
“I’m only here to find out what you know about Eli Nelson.” Liam O’Donnell wasn’t playing around.
God, she felt like shit when she looked at him. The only way to deal with Liam was honesty. “I know I’m the reason he had the chance to blow up the apartment you were in and send your brother running with the bearer bonds. You might not believe it, but I didn’t know what he was planning. He didn’t let me in on it.”
Liam hadn’t brought his wife with him. Charlie knew this wasn’t entertainment for him. This was serious. She’d betrayed more than just Ian. “Would it have changed a damn thing knowing what would happen?”
She hated the answer but had to be truthful. “No. Eli Nelson had my sister by then.”
“Your sister, Chelsea Dennis. She was taken from her elementary school in North Carolina by her father, Vladimir Denisovitch, and brought to Moscow. He kidnapped her right off the playground. You were older. Did he use your sister to get you to go with him? Or were you afraid because he’d murdered your mother by then?” Adam asked, proving just how smart he was.
Charlie felt her jaw drop. She thought Chelsea had buried that information. “How do you know that?”
“Is your sister the hacker?” Adam’s eyes flared as though he’d found a challenge.
Charlie nodded. “She’s the best in the world.”
Adam sat back. “Second best. Tell her she didn’t go far enough. No information is ever really lost. You just have to know which threads to follow and which lead to nowhere. I have amazing instincts. It’s not just about talent. I’d met you. I didn’t know if it was you or someone else who had covered the tracks. I made an educated guess. Can she walk? Her medical records were inconclusive.”
Charlie took a deep breath. God, he’d found out far more than she’d expected. “She has a pronounced limp.”
Adam’s voice had a gravely tone, as though he was deeply sympathetic. “From the compound fractures of both the tibia and the fibula in each leg. I can’t imagine the pain of that. She was left like that for a long period of time? I found the X-rays online. They showed a healing process. The doctors had to refracture the legs to set them. She was ten?”
The truth could only help her here. She needed these people on her side. But it was so hard to talk about. Especially with Ian’s accusations running through her head. “She was ten years old. The only reason my father took her to the hospital is that I agreed to comply with his training. My father was the head of the Denisovitch syndicate. My mother ran when she was pregnant with Chelsea. She realized she didn’t want her daughters being raised by a monster. She paid a man to smuggle the two of us out of the country. We lived in North Carolina for ten years. She thought he’d forgotten about us. He hadn’t. He killed my mother and took my sister and me back to Russia. I was a bit rebellious, to say the least. He realized that Chelsea was his best method of controlling me so he broke her legs one day. I did what he asked after that.”
“How terrible,” Serena said, her eyes tearing up.
Terrible didn’t begin to cover it. One day she’d been a happy junior high kid whose mom adored her. She’d had a future. She’d wanted to go to college. The next her mother was dead and her only future was with the Thieves-in-Law. “My father ran drugs and women, and Eli Nelson tried to make him out to be an arms dealer. Nelson used my love for my sister to get me to run an operation for him. He told me he would off my father if I would just spend a couple of weeks distracting a CIA operative for him.”
“Ian.” Eve sat forward, an encouraging look on her face. “You were trying to save your sister.”
Well, at least they were giving her more room than Ian had. “Yes. I didn’t know Ian then. My mission was to spend a little time with him. I didn’t expect to marry him. I didn’t expect to love him. He would have done the same for Sean.”
“Yes,” Jake said. “He would have. So why are you back?”
Grace brought in a tray of coffee and donuts. “The donut shop delivered. Why did you order ten lemon filled?”
“It’s Ian’s favorite.”
Jake sat back. “So you love the big guy. Damn, good luck to you.”
Grace looked down at the four dozen donuts Charlie had ordered. “Ian doesn’t eat donuts.”
Charlie waved her off. “He thinks he can’t handle carbs. He loves them, trust me. Now can we get to the point of this meeting? Is anyone interested in Eli Nelson, aka Mr. Black?”
Serena sat up, a notebook in her hand. “I am.”
Great. The novelist was interested in what she had to say. So all her hard-won data only meant something to the chick who would combine it with double penetration and lubricant in a literary extravaganza. “Look, this is serious. I want everyone except members of the team out of this conference room. This is not playtime, people. Eli Nelson isn’t a joke.”
Grace frowned her way. “Yes, I know that. I have a metal plate in my head to prove it. You’re not telling me anything we don’t already know. Except that you’re here without Ian. I know Serena. Serena is here because she’s a member of our little family. No matter what Sean says, you haven’t proven anything to me so far. So I would tread carefully or we’ll call security and have you taken out.”
Damn it. She’d lost Grace the minute she’d questioned Serena. So there was a “girl power” thing going. She didn’t need to piss them off, but she did need to make herself clear. “I’ll make my marriage license available to you.”