by Lexi Blake
“Then believe him.” Kim put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s in love with you. Not her. He’s not the man she married. I don’t even know if he needs a divorce if we’ve got his death certificate. You know, he definitely wouldn’t need a divorce if you hand everything over to me.”
“You can’t kill her. You really need to find some new ways to solve problems.”
Kim wrinkled her nose. “Why when what I do works so well.” She sat back. “Trust me, at some point soon, I’ll be able to deal with Levi permanently. Then everyone should watch out.”
“So you’ve thought about it?” In some ways she was surprised Kim hadn’t already tried to kill Levi. She really was the kind of woman who plowed through a problem. Sometimes literally.
“Of course I have. Especially after he tried to kill Beck in Mexico. I’ve been asked to let the situation play out.”
“By the president.”
Kim merely smiled. “By someone important, but if Levi tries to physically harm Beck again, no one will be able to hold me back.” She sighed as though coming to a decision. “I’m going to tell you something that is highly classified.”
“Don’t put your career on the line.”
Kim shook her head. “I’m not. I’ve got some leeway when it comes to this op since it’s not exactly on the books, if you know what I mean. I’m not working for the Agency exactly. I’m doing a little oversight on them from an interested party.”
Namely the president and his men. “All right. But you have to know I’m going to tell my boss.”
“I understand. Tell him if he wants to talk to me, I’m more than willing. I think we’re looking for the wrong thing. I’ve had some feelers out at Kronberg,” Kim began. “They said there was a break-in three days before McDonald left for Argentina. Someone downloaded the backup files and disappeared with them.”
That made sense. “McDonald, obviously. She knew she was leaving.”
“I don’t think so. Do you know what Veronica Croft’s minor was in?”
“No.” She wasn’t sure what a minor in college had to do with anything. Veronica’s major had been pre-med.
“Computer engineering,” Kim replied. “She was considered quite the hacker at one point in time. It explains how she’s managed to hide all these years. The question is, why would she need to hide. No one went after Rebecca Walsh.”
A few things fell into place. “They didn’t go after Rebecca because she didn’t know anything. You think Veronica did. You think Veronica is the one who stole those files. Why? Why would she take them and not try to sell them? Or turn Kronberg and Dr. McDonald in?”
“These are questions only Veronica can answer,” Kim said mysteriously.
“So you don’t think there’s anything left at Kronberg? That would be a reason to go back to London. If Veronica stole the backup and McDonald took her original research with her when she left, then Kronberg has nothing we need.”
“Or what they have is even more valuable, and I need to know if it’s really there.”
Now they were getting to the heart of the matter. “What are you looking for, Kim?”
“I think Kronberg was smart and knew exactly what could happen to the company and the board of directors if it ever got out that they knew what McDonald was doing. I think they kept a comprehensive record of everyone who had anything to do with the project, and that includes certain members of the government who knew exactly what was going on. I’m talking senators. I’m talking cabinet members.”
A chill went through her. “President Hayes wants to know the names of everyone who was involved.”
“If I were President Hayes, I would want to prosecute everyone involved,” Kim said with grave intent.
“What do want me to do?” That kind of knowledge would give them a lot of leverage.
“I need you to talk to Louisa. She’s worked there for a long time and she’ll know where the secrets are kept.”
“All right. That was what I was planning on doing anyway,” Ariel admitted. “Only the information we’re looking for has changed. If we can get this, you can come out of the shadows?”
Being able to bring Solo in would take a lot of the load off her shoulders. She could be honest with Robert and his men about working with her.
“If I can get my bosses proof, we’ll all come out of the shadows,” Kim affirmed. “I’m talking full pardons for any man who was subjected to this kind of experimentation.”
They would be free. All of them. They wouldn’t have to hide. “I’ll find us what we need.”
“Just give me a best guess as to who I need to lean on.” Kim stood up and glanced around. “I don’t want you to put yourself in danger. I’ll be in touch and know that I’m still looking for Veronica Croft, too.”
“I’ll let you know what we find out.” She stayed where she was. She needed a few moments before she went back to the house. “Thank you, Kim.”
“No, thank you. And call me if you need to talk. I know you have other friends in your life now, but…well, you’re pretty much still my girl. Listen to Robert. He knows what’s in his heart. And if this chick gives you trouble, I’m more than ready to handle it.” Kim winked and walked away.
Ariel sat back. It could all be over soon, and she wasn’t sure where that would leave her. If Robert had a home to return to, would he even want to stay in London?
A shiver went up her spine and she suddenly knew she was being watched. She wasn’t sure where the person was, but there were eyes on her. She glanced down the way Kim had walked, but she was already gone.
Maybe she was paranoid.
She took a deep breath and started back toward the club.
Chapter Ten
“You should talk to her,” Sasha said. “She’s still in the living room.”
“He should talk to her so she gets out of our living room,” Dante grumbled.
Robert turned and gave Dante the same stare he used to give the guys in his unit when they were assholes.
Pain flared through his brain. God, he wanted to reach out for that memory, but he let it go. It was nothing more than a thought in his head, the remnants of another life. The trouble was Emily Seeger was more than a mere thought.
Dante shrugged. “I think if he talks to her for a few moments perhaps she realizes he’s annoying and she no longer wants to be married to him.”
“We don’t know that she was married to him,” Tucker pointed out. “It could be a lie. She could be a plant.”
“You think Levi Green planted her in the Army a decade ago, made sure she met Senator McDonald so one day she could do what?” Owen asked. “Look, I’m all Team Ariert here, but I’m not sure how sending Emily in here works for the people against us.”
“That’s terrible.” Tucker sent a dismissive look Owen’s way. “Robari is the only way to go here. You don’t get to make power couple names.”
“Says the man who came up with Jiver,” Owen shot back.
“Well, Jax wouldn’t let me call them Rax,” Tucker replied. “You know I call you and Rebecca Owbecca.”
“That’s terrible, man. It sounds a bit like Chewbacca.”
“Stop, both of you.” Dante shook his head. “You’re both idiots. I’m going back to work. Robert, you should handle this situation and quickly. Everything Sasha and I have found makes me believe she’s who she says she is.”
“I find it interesting that there’s no mention of Russell Seeger and yet I can find you on her social media. There are some pictures of you buried on her Facebook. She posts something about you every year on the anniversary of your death,” Sasha explained. “I’m sure it’s something Adam’s new facial recognition would have eventually picked up, but her page is set to private. Naturally knowing what to look for means I can hack into it. I can’t guarantee they’re not manipulated, but you look happy.”
He wasn’t happy now. Emily was still waiting for him and Ariel was gone. Peter had told him she’d gone for a walk. By herself. It made hi
m sick to think that she was out there alone.
Ari didn’t believe him. She had some bullshit thought that he would magically look at a woman he couldn’t remember and fall back in love with her.
Still, if Emily did have any information about him, he needed to know. If she was some kind of plant, he needed to know what she wanted and why she was here.
And if she was real…well, he had to deal with that, too.
“Keep looking into her. I’ll go and talk to her. Don’t forget we’re meeting with the administrative assistant this evening. This mission doesn’t stop simply because my world blew up.” He strode down the hall, not looking back. If they could find the information they needed, he would talk Ariel into going home and letting another team deal with retrieval. Once he had her at The Garden, he would prove to her that nothing at all had changed.
Except he had a wife.
His “wife” sat on the sofa, staring at the big TV screen, though nothing was on. She looked lost. Kind of the way he felt.
She blinked and seemed to realize she wasn’t alone. Her jaw tightened as she looked up at him. “Hello, Russ…Robert.”
It was obvious she wasn’t going to leave until he talked to her. And what else would a wife who’d recently found out her husband had come back from the grave do? Was he being too hard on her? Owen had been right. It was a stretch to think someone had planted her long before McDonald had actually started her experiments. There was such a thing as coincidence.
“I’m sorry I left the way I did before. I wasn’t polite and I apologize.”
“Well, your girlfriend was upset. I’m not wrong about that, right? There was a lot of emotion between the two of you. She’s good at covering it, but she was upset, and not for professional reasons.”
He hadn’t meant to hide this from her. Not from anyone. “Ariel is important to me. I’ve been in love with her for a long time. I’m sorry if that hurts you.”
She pursed her lips and seemed to think about what she wanted to say. “Well, apparently you didn’t remember me at all. I suppose it’s not surprising you would find someone else. I should point out that you were in love with me for much longer.”
He hated the fact that he was obviously hurting her. “I don’t remember. Do we have kids?”
He should have asked right away, but he was scared of the answer. How would he feel about kids he didn’t remember? He wouldn’t be able to walk away from them.
“No.” There was a wealth of sorrow in her tone. “We put it off. I didn’t want to be alone with kids while you were deployed. And then we ran out of time.”
He managed to not breathe a sigh of relief, but it was there. “You said something about me having a brother. Just one, or did I have a big family?”
She stared at him for a moment. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”
He shook his head. “As far as I know I woke up in a medical facility a few years ago. All of my memories are from there on.”
He didn’t tell her about the feelings he had, the vague shadows of the past that sometimes played along his brain. Or the ones that kept him awake at night.
“You were born in Wyoming. You lived on your grandad’s ranch. Your father walked out on your mom after your brother was born. You were the oldest.” She spoke as though going through a report for school. There was no emotion in her voice. She was trying to get through it. “Your brother’s name was Timothy. I’m so sorry to tell you he died in a car accident after you died. He was drinking and he lost control of the car.”
“And my mother?”
She shook her head. “Cancer. A couple of years ago.”
So he didn’t have a family. That must have made it easier to erase him from existence. “I need names and dates.”
“Of course. I’ll help out in any way you need me to.” She turned to him. “I’ll answer all your questions, but you have to talk to me, too. I know you don’t remember me, but I’ve spent years thinking about you. My life ended the day you died. If you’re back, I want a chance with you.”
That wasn’t going to happen. He felt bad for her, but she was missing the point. “I’m not the man you married. He really did die. He might not have gone the way the military told you he did, but he’s not here anymore.”
“What happened? Your whole squad was lost in a bombing,” she said, the words seemingly tortured. “There were ten of you who they couldn’t even find enough body parts to bury.”
“Ten of us?” He’d always imagined he’d been alone.
She nodded. “I went to ten funerals. You loved those men. I made sure I went to all of their ceremonies even though I was aching inside. I needed to honor you by being there. We still talk. I’m still close to some of the wives.”
“Emily, it’s important that I have those names.” Had they been placed in McDonald’s program, too? Were they some of the men who’d died under her tender care? Were their secrets contained in those files they’d found?
“Of course. I’ll give them to you but you should be able to look it up. I can’t imagine the reports aren’t available to the public.”
“I assure you they are not.”
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
He wasn’t ready to trust her with the answer to that question. “Did you get my insurance and the death gratuity?”
She nodded. “Yes. The military sent me everything they owed me. Insurance paid out quickly. Russ…Rob, I didn’t have any reason to think you were alive. You were a soldier and you died in combat. Why would they lie to me? This is what I don’t understand. Do they know you survived? Did anyone else survive?”
The enormity of what had been done slammed into him. McDonald had taken a whole team. He’d handed them all over to his daughter to play around with, like they were toys and it didn’t matter if they broke. He would simply find her new ones.
“I don’t know.” He had to tell her something. It honestly didn’t matter. If she was bad, she already knew it anyway. “There wasn’t an explosion. I was part of a medical experiment. The experiments involved memories and behavioral control in an attempt to create super soldiers.”
Her eyes had gone wide. “They experimented on you? The Army did that?”
He shook his head. “No, though I’m sure there are some factions in the military who know exactly what happened. There have to be. It’s why we wanted to talk to you.”
She gasped. “Because I worked with the McDonalds. Oh, god. It was her. She did this to you and I introduced you. I made you come to that party with me. I did this.”
He hadn’t expected her to take it that way. Not that he should expect anything at all. He definitely didn’t expect to feel a tug of compassion for her. She looked genuinely upset. If she was real, he couldn’t be angry with her.
Why wouldn’t she be real?
“It wasn’t your fault.” His voice softened. He was angry that her appearance had upset what he had going with Ariel, but he shouldn’t take that out on her. “Dr. McDonald decided I would be a good candidate. She would have found a way to take me no matter what you would have done.”
It was what she’d done with Theo. If Hope McDonald had worked the same way she had when she’d taken Theo, she’d likely taken him to the primary site and moved the other men in his team to the secondary. He needed pictures of them to see if Tucker or the others remembered their faces. They still talked about the other members of their team, the ones who had died that final day.
“I can’t believe this is happening.” Emily started to sob and she leaned into him.
He didn’t want to touch her, but he put an arm around her shoulders.
She shuddered as though relieved and wrapped herself around him as she cried.
How would he feel if he’d lost Ariel and found her years later? He would have mourned. He didn’t think he would have moved on. She was in his soul. He would be devastated.
“Please let me stay for a couple of days,” Emily begged. “I understand that you have a lif
e, but I need some closure. You need answers. I can help you with that. Your group called me in for a reason.”
He wanted to tell her to go. He wished she’d never shown up. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t like being near her. It didn’t feel right to even hold her while she cried.
He was a bastard.
But he was a bastard who needed information. “I’ll see if Peter can find you a room. We do need to talk about what we do from here.”
She looked up at him, tears in her blue eyes. “I just want a little time.”
That would be all he had to give her.
* * * *
The Marienplatz was filled with people enjoying the early evening. The city center was a vibrant combination of shopping, cafés, and gothic architecture. Ariel would far rather be exploring St. Michael’s Church or the Rathaus-Glockenspiel than sitting here with Rebecca and her friend Louisa. Instead of enjoying the end of the day, she was gently herding someone into telling her information that could endanger her life.
There was a reason she’d gotten out of MI6. She hated all the lies.
They sat in a small café across from St. Michael’s. Somewhere near the church, Robert and Sasha were watching them. Tucker was “shopping” at the H&M next door. Peter sat on one of the benches, reading a magazine. Any one of them could be there in a few seconds if something went wrong. Not that they expected Louisa to attack them. She seemed more than willing to talk.
Dante had offered to stay behind and watch the new girl. She assumed he would really be diving into the shipment of beer Peter had recently had delivered. She did feel better not leaving Emily alone in their safe house. She’d placed her computer in the safe, and there were security cameras to catch her if Emily snuck around the club.
She hadn’t needed security cameras to catch the tender moment between Robert and his wife. She’d decided to check on the woman when she’d returned from her meeting with Kim.
He’d been there. He’d had his arms around her even though it was obvious he was uncomfortable with touching her. Would he feel the same way in a few months? That was why she had to keep her distance. His memories could come raging back, and she couldn’t be the reason he stayed away from a wife he loved.
