Lost in You

by Lexi Blake

  Or thinking about his sins.

  “I’m here.”

  Levi looked up. He was wearing slacks, a white dress shirt, and a black vest. His hair was still done in that manner that looked like he’d just rolled out of bed but had likely taken the man an hour to perfect. He should have been in a café somewhere complaining about how the eggs weren’t organic and how music was better on vinyl. “I always knew you were the reasonable one. Have a seat.”

  “I think I’ll stand.”

  “Then you’ll attract attention and we shouldn’t talk because I know Solo’s around and I can’t be sure she isn’t here right now.”

  Fucker was right. He slid onto the wooden bench beside him, keeping as much space as he could between them. “I want to know about Ariel.”

  “Do you? Some things are better left behind us,” Levi mused. “I’m sure you wish your past hadn’t come back to bite you in the ass.”

  He already knew about Emily. “I suppose I can thank you for that gift. You should know I’m not stupid. I don’t believe she’s my wife simply because you sent her in.”

  Levi held his hands up, an innocent look on his face. “Oh, I didn’t send you that particular gift. I believe you can thank the Taggarts for that one. They’ve been scouring the globe for any scrap of information they can find. I believe they were interviewing Nurse Emily because of her connections to the McDonalds. I don’t think they understood who they were dealing with, but the Taggarts are deep ones. If they thought sending in your wife would give you a shock that might end in them getting much-needed information, they would do it.”

  “Or you sent her in and she’s lying. You’re once again putting us all in a position where we’ll get the intel you need and you’ll run off with the prize.” It seemed to be how Levi liked to work. “This Emily person is nothing but chaos to throw us off.”

  Something like sympathy hit Levi’s eyes. “I wish that were true. If only for your and Ari’s sake. What? I like true love. You think I’m some kind of monster, but I really was pulling for the two of you. Ariel deserves someone like you. Which is precisely why I gave you that distinctly nonfatal gunshot wound. You’re welcome.”

  “I’m walking back out of here in ten seconds if you don’t tell me what you know about Ariel. Why the hell would she meet with Solo?”

  One of Levi’s shoulders moved in a casual shrug. “They’ve been friends for years. Ever since Ariel worked for MI6.”

  The man was supposed to be some kind of ace operative and he didn’t have his facts straight. “Ariel didn’t work for MI6. She worked for Scotland Yard.”

  “Yes, that was her cover, but I assure you she absolutely was MI6, and she was good at her particular job which wasn’t sitting in a therapy room getting men like Damon Knight to talk about their feelings. She was an assassin.”

  Robert laughed. Did everyone in the world underestimate his intelligence? “You must be getting desperate.”

  He pulled a tiny drive out of his vest pocket. “This is a thumb drive with Agency intelligence files on her. Have Jax verify them for you. Hell, let Jax off the leash a little. Have him hack MI6 and what you’ll find is that Ariel and Damon are still in bed with them. They’re feeding the Agency a bit, too. Not enough to get me off your ass, but enough I’m not allowed to simply arrest you all.”

  Almost as if it moved of its own volition, his hand opened and Levi dropped the drive on it. He should shove it back at the asshole. “Damon would have told us.”

  “And yet he did not.” Levi relaxed against the pew, looking perfectly comfortable. “I will tell you everything, Robert. You’re afraid that I’m going to turn mad professor on you all and vivisect you or something. That’s not the case, man. I want to help you, and not in the sit-on-my-hands way Big Tag is working. Have you thought about the fact that the Agency could use your team for something beyond medical experiments?”

  “No.” He knew damn well he should shove that thumb drive up Levi’s ass, but he found himself placing it in the pocket of his jeans.

  “Well widen your horizons, Rob. Tag and Damon want to keep you hidden. I wouldn’t do that. Come in with me. You’ll do a couple of interviews, figure out what you do and don’t know, and then we’ll get you on the payroll. All of you. We’ll clear your names. I can do that but you have to trust me. Imagine it, being free and clear of every warrant out there. You could come back to the States.”

  Ah, now he saw what the man was doing. “I could come home and settle in with the little wife?”

  “I would actually suggest you don’t do that,” Levi said with a mysterious smile. “You’re in love with Ariel. I hope you still are after you read those files on her. She was only doing her job. If she didn’t tell you it’s because Damon asked her not to. She’s used to obeying orders. It’s kind of a necessary thing in our line of business.”

  Ariel would have told him. She was his lover. She’d been pretty much his everything since the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

  So why hadn’t she told him she was meeting with Solo? It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked about the woman.

  “All I’m saying is maybe you should put the blame where it belongs, and that’s on the big guys.” Levi sat forward. “I’m going to admit something to you that I haven’t before. I’ve been in this game for longer than anyone knows. I was working to find out what McDonald was doing long before Ezra or Big Tag got involved. This is my case. I know more about it than anyone. I didn’t get involved because my brother got taken. I got involved to help my country.”

  “Yes, you’ve made it clear that you think McDonald was doing good work.”

  Levi shook his head. “No. That is not true. She took good soldiers and messed them up. Now I’m a realist. I know bad things happen when we put our soldiers in the field, and sometimes you have to sacrifice a few to save the many. But what she did was monstrous. However, there is nothing gained by throwing the knowledge away. The pain has already been had. There’s no way to give that time back to you, but I can make it worthwhile. Your pain could mean something.”

  “Yes, it could mean other people have to endure it,” he shot back.

  “Or it could lead to someone like Rebecca Walsh finding a cure for Alzheimer’s and dementia.” Levi sounded altogether too reasonable. “The time dilation portion could mean a prisoner could serve his time and not lose a whole life, a young man dying of a cancer we can’t cure might live a life in his head. You see the bad, but I see a wealth of possibilities.”

  He was being far too optimistic. “And it could be used for bad.”

  Levi leaned forward. “Everything can. It doesn’t mean we don’t try. Look, my time is running out. The truth is Solo’s getting the upper hand and I’ve got one last shot at making this thing work. I’m offering you and anyone who wants to come with me knowledge. I know who you are, Robert. I know why you were placed in the program. And I know a few things about Tucker, too. If I can’t get your cooperation, I’ll have to play my final card and I would rather not do that.”

  “I suppose your final card would be a fatal gunshot wound.”

  “Not at all. I don’t plan on killing any of you. You’re important to me. Think about it. Talk to the guys about my plan. I can open up the world for you in a way your current keepers can’t. Look through the material I sent you.” Levi stood up and straightened his vest. “Text me back if you want to talk further. Obviously I can’t come to your place, and you might have trouble getting out. They watch you pretty closely. I find it interesting Ariel doesn’t have the same restrictions. By the way, she knows I’m in town. Solo knows so I’m sure she talked to her bestie about it. You have to wonder, if Ariel was so scared of me why she would take a walk through a park without any backup. Either she’s not scared or she knows she can handle anything I throw at her because she’s a badass. I wouldn’t mess with her. You’ve got a couple of days before I have to make a decision.”

  His decision was already made. “I’m not going to willingly com
e with you.”

  “Read those files. Talk to the others. I suspect they might be getting tired of being shut away. After all, they haven’t been shut away with a woman like Ariel. Tell Tucker I have an even bigger hooker fund than Tag,” Levi said with a smirk on his face that faded as he glanced around the church. “You know there are a bunch of people buried down in the crypt.”

  “If I want a history lesson, I’ll talk to Peter.”

  “But this one is important,” Levi insisted. “One of the men buried here was King Ludwig. He was one of the last kings of Bavaria. He was…inconvenient. The people loved him but the government at the time found him troublesome. They had him declared mad and took him off the throne. When he agreed to live quietly, they still had him killed. Oh, history questions it, but I know a coverup when I see it. If Solo gets her way, if the people she’s working for cover up everything McDonald did and hide her work, you and your men are the only pieces of evidence left that prove she existed.”

  The church suddenly seemed colder than it had been before. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means the factions I work with want to use her research. You’re important to that. You can take what happened to you and turn it around. You can be the hero. If Solo gets what she wants, you’re nothing but evidence of something they want to cover up. Something a lot of people will want covered up. Think about that. The people she’s working for, well, I don’t even think Big Tag can protect you from them. Know that I’m somewhere in the city, eagerly awaiting your text. You’re their leader, Robert. It’s time for you to make the decisions and stop letting McKay-Taggart lead you around by the nose.”

  He moved to the end of the pew and Robert had the strongest instinct to go after him. He could beat the fucker until he got the truth out of him.

  Or was the truth in his pocket?

  “Don’t attack him here.” Sasha was suddenly standing in the aisle, his eyes watching the retreating Levi Green. “There’s a lot of security and many cameras. We need to be careful leaving. I wouldn’t like our faces to show up on the evening news. We should go. You can tell us what he said when we get back.”

  “He said the same bullshit he always says.” Except it had been different. “We’ll have a meeting this evening.”

  Sasha nodded and they carefully made their way out the doors they’d entered through.

  Robert blinked in the bright light of day. He glanced over to see if he could catch a glimpse of Levi in the crowd, but he was already gone.

  He went back to his job and wondered if the thumb drive in his pocket would change everything.

  * * * *

  Ariel knew that something was wrong. Very wrong. It was there in the harsh set of Rob’s jaw, in the way he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. During the trip back to the club, he’d said all of three words to her, and she was almost certain he’d lied. He’d told her he thought he’d seen someone suspicious go into the church.

  Peter closed the door behind them. “I’ll go and get the recording transcribed. I think you got a lot of information out of that. And I noticed Robert and Sasha took a quick tour of the church. You should have waited. I could have taken you through the whole thing. Michaelskirche is a stunning example of a Renaissance church. Did you take note of the organ?”

  It was easy to forget that Peter used to work intelligence. Which was probably why he’d been good at his job. He was handsome but not in a showy way. He was the guy next door, the one who would check on your pets if you needed him to. He was also incredibly observant.

  “I thought I saw someone suspicious,” Robert said.

  Robert wasn’t a good liar.

  But then she’d always known he wasn’t an operative. She’d always thought it would turn out that he’d been a soldier, the kind who did heroic things and didn’t sneak around in shadows to do his job.

  Why would he lie to her?

  “We are very paranoid.” Sasha was much smoother. He stepped in beside Robert. “And have terrible memories. Robert thought he saw someone from our days with McDonald. I followed him in. It was nothing but a tourist. Sorry. You know how paranoid he can get when he thinks you’re in danger.”

  Sasha, on the other hand, was an excellent liar.

  What had happened in that church?

  “Are we going to debrief?” Robert asked.

  “Yes, give me some time to bring Ezra up to speed. He texted me to say he’s here.” She nodded toward the rest of the team. “Why don’t we meet in the conference room in an hour?”

  They broke up and she found herself alone with Robert.

  “We should go upstairs.” Robert gestured for her to go first. “It’s been a long day.”

  It felt like an endless day. Had it really only been this morning that she’d woken up happy and warm in his arms? It had been mere hours before that she’d known he was the one man in the world for her.

  But she wasn’t the one woman for him. Once, he’d made vows to another and they hadn’t broken up. There hadn’t been a divorce. There had been a tragedy, and she worried she was going to add to that.

  Robert stopped at the top of the stairs. “Is Ezra here to talk to her?”

  “Yes,” she replied. It was hard to look at him when all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him. She couldn’t be a coward. They still had to work together. She joined him on the landing. “I’m too close to the situation to be professional about it. I can’t be the one who figures out if Emily is telling the truth.”

  His eyes seemed darker than normal. “Funny, it felt like you weren’t close to the situation at all.”

  She moved away from the stairs since this was a very personal conversation. “How can you say that?”

  He followed her, stalking like a hungry predator. “You dropped me pretty damn quick the minute she showed up. It was almost like you were waiting for a reason to drop me.”

  Was he insane? “She’s your wife, Robert. What am I supposed to do? You have to figure out who she is to you, and don’t tell me she’s nothing. You can’t know yet. You need time, and the fact that I want nothing more than to get into bed with you and pretend none of this ever happened won’t change the fact that it would be wrong.”

  He moved into her space. “I don’t love her. I don’t know her.”

  She reached up and put her hands on his arms to steady him. “But she apparently knows you. Think about it. What am I supposed to do? Should I pretend none of this matters? What happens when you start to get your memories back? What if being around her would be the key to opening up your whole life?”

  His hand wound around the back of her neck, forcing her to look up at him. “Then fuck my memories. Ariel, run away with me. Go to your room, get your things, and let’s just leave. All that will matter is the future we can have together.”

  It was so tempting. They could leave and not look back. She had plenty of money she could access. They could find a place on the beach and hole up and hide away from the world. They could be their own world.

  But it would always be waiting for them—the world he could have had, the one that might be real.

  “You need time. Running won’t solve anything.”

  He took a step back and all that heat she’d felt coming from him had gone to ice. “I suppose you’re right.”

  Why couldn’t she make him understand? She was so articulate at expressing herself, at helping people through their feelings, but she was failing when it was most important. “I am not rejecting you. I’m in agony over this.”

  “Then I should step back and leave you in peace.”

  She couldn’t stand the tension between them. “Have you thought about calling Kai?”

  “Of course. I should do that.” His face was a polite blank. “I’ll try to get him on the phone.”

  He wouldn’t. He was placating her. This was the way Robert worked. When he was done with a conversation, he wouldn’t argue. He would say anything he needed to say to extricate himself from the situation.
She reached out to touch his arm. She couldn’t let him walk away. He had to understand that she still cared about him. “Rob, please don’t leave like this.”

  He stood there, not breaking her hold, but he didn’t look back at her. “There’s no other way to leave it. I have to wonder if it was ever real. If you were ever real.”

  She let him go. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He turned and his eyes were stark as he assessed her. “Is there anything you want to tell me about your past?”

  Fuck Levi Green. “So Levi was the one in the church.”

  “Why should I tell you anything, Agent Adisa? Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. Answer the question.”

  This was the fight she’d been trying to avoid. “If I’ve kept anything from you it was because it wasn’t important. Whatever I did before I met you doesn’t matter.”

  “Ah, but my past is everything, isn’t it?” Robert asked, the words thick in his mouth. “My past is something you want to crack open and force on me. Yours gets to be a secret.”

  “I don’t know what he told you, but he did it to turn you against me. Can’t you see he wants you alone and vulnerable? He shot you. He nearly gave Owen over to the Chinese. Do I have to go through the litany of his crimes against us? You can’t trust him.” It didn’t matter that he hadn’t acknowledged that Levi had been the one he’d met. Only one person in the world could have turned everything upside down. Levi could have easily gotten her records. It would be unethical to use them, but no one ever accused Levi of having ethics.

  “Maybe he’s not the only one I can’t trust.” He gritted his teeth and took a step back. He seemed to take a steadying breath. “I’m sorry. I’m angry and too emotional right now to do my damn job. I got a text while I was doing the surveillance at the meeting with the assistant. Obviously it was Levi and yes, he’s trying to create chaos. I’ll write up a report.”

  She managed to catch a breath. He was being reasonable. She could work with that. “Why would you lie about it? Sasha did, too.”

  “Because I don’t know who to trust anymore,” Robert admitted. “I thought I knew everything about you. Why would you lie about MI6? Were you or were you not an assassin?”