Lost in You

by Lexi Blake

  “What’s going on here?” Owen seemed to be figuring out that this wasn’t a casual breakfast conversation.

  Sasha’s brow rose and he looked directly at Rebecca. “I think this is a meeting for the men.”

  “Sexist much?” Rebecca asked, going to the cabinet and grabbing a coffee mug.

  “If you were a woman who McDonald had erased, you would be more than welcome, so really the misogyny was on her,” Sasha quipped.

  “I think we should have this meeting in private,” Dante insisted.

  “If something’s going on, Rebecca’s affected, too.” Owen stood in front of Dante. “I’m sick of all this shite about who’s a real member of this team and who’s not. We’re all in this together.”

  “Are we?” Sasha asked. “Then why has Ariel been meeting with Solo and not mentioning this fact to us? Solo is the one who followed you that first day. Ariel knew that, too. She did not mention this to me. Did she to you? Or did she keep it to herself so we would be afraid of leaving the club?”

  She’d known who’d followed them?

  “She doesn’t keep her phone as private as she thinks.” Sasha’s jaw tightened as though he knew he was in for a fight. “I duped it two days ago when I got seriously worried we were being placed into a position we can’t get out of. Solo texted her shortly after we got to the club. They’ve been talking regularly.”

  The betrayal hit him like a kick in the gut, and he wasn’t sure which betrayal was worse. Ariel hadn’t mentioned she’d been talking to Solo. “You duped Ariel’s phone?”

  “Someone had to.” Sasha turned the laptop around. “Someone has to make you see what’s happening.”

  “Rebecca, I think you should come stand next to me,” Owen said slowly.

  “I think I’ll wait for you in our room,” she replied.

  Dante stood. “If you’re thinking about calling your friend, you should know she’s out with Ezra. They’re picking up Solo and bringing her back here where I’m sure we’re going to get a bunch of crap about how the Agency wants to save us all. She’ll ride in on a fucking unicorn and we’re supposed to believe everything she says.”

  Rebecca had left her coffee mug behind. She joined Owen and quickly found herself placed behind him. “I wasn’t planning on calling anyone.”

  He needed to ratchet down the emotion. “No one is going to simply buy everything Solo is selling, least of all Ezra. I think when they get back, we should all sit down and figure this out. We won’t do anything else until we’re one hundred percent certain we know what’s going on. Okay? I’ll go wake up Tucker and we can sit down and discuss the situation.”

  “Of course you want to talk,” Sasha said, frustration in his tone. “Talk is all you want to do. Ariel will walk in and she’ll work her magic on you. She figured out very quickly that you were the one to manipulate. We all follow you so she made sure she could lead you around by your dick.”

  “Stop talking about her that way.” He wasn’t going to let anyone insult Ariel or the relationship he’d had with her up until now. “I understand she didn’t tell us the truth about what she used to do for a living. She’s a different person now and her records are obviously classified.”

  “Used to do?” Dante asked.

  “Maybe we should slow down, lads,” Owen began.

  Sasha wasn’t listening. He turned the laptop around. “She still works for them. Do you remember all those trips to Paris? She says she’s going off to meet with a girlfriend. That girlfriend is Solo. Ariel was working at The Garden at the time. And surprise, there was a rumored terrorist killed in the streets that same weekend. I wonder how they celebrated.”

  “She did not.” Maybe he should have read all the files. She wasn’t still working for them. Her past was one thing. He could understand that, but actively working for an intelligence agency and not telling him?

  Sasha seemed to know he’d just gotten the upper hand. He calmed visibly. “She did according to the later records. You should read them. She’s even given MI6 reports on her progress with us.”

  She wouldn’t do that. God, he might be sick again. “We can’t trust any of this. Levi Green sent it.”

  “But we can trust Solo?” Dante asked. “Wake up. We can’t trust any of them. We need to get out of here while we can. We’ve been lucky so far, but now we’re here in a place where it would be easy for them to turn us over. We need our own leverage.”

  “Or you could come with me,” a new voice said.

  Robert tensed. Emily stood in the doorway dressed in the same clothes she’d worn the day before. Her hair was up in a neat ponytail and she looked young and pretty.

  So why did the sight of her turn his stomach?

  She walked in and there was determination in her eyes. “I know people, too. I have a place where we can all lay low while you guys figure out what’s going on. We can get on a train and get the hell out of town.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.” He needed to slow this down.

  “If you stay here, they’ll keep you dumb, Russ…Robert.” Emily moved toward him. “I know the doctor has made you believe you’re a completely different person, but I can still see the old you. Have you thought about the fact that she wants to keep you here for another reason, one that has nothing to do with helping you?”

  “You don’t know Ariel,” Rebecca said. “And you don’t know this group of men.”

  “I know her type,” Emily replied. “She’s an opportunist.”

  “She’s also an assassin,” Sasha pointed out. “I bet you didn’t know that about her, Rebecca.”

  Rebecca’s eyes flared. “I know she saved me and she saved Owen. She didn’t have to. It would have been so easy to not come after us.”

  “I’m sure she had her reasons.” Dante shook his head.

  “You’ve made up your mind.” Owen’s hands were on his hips. “No one is holding you here. I don’t think there’s a reason to talk. I think anyone who doesn’t want to be here should go.”

  “And have Ezra call the police on us?” Sasha asked. “We’ve always known they had that to hold over our heads.”

  “Ezra didn’t cause the problem,” Robert argued.

  Dante didn’t back down. “But he can certainly use it to make us do what he wants to. I can’t believe you didn’t learn. Years you spent with Dr. McDonald and you’re still letting yourself be manipulated. I think she wiped your memory far too many times.”

  “And I think you’re far too cynical. Ariel…I need to talk to her.” He couldn’t simply believe some files. He needed to listen to her.

  “You think she can honestly love you after everything you’ve done?” Sasha asked. “She knows the things we’ve done. Owen and Jax managed to find women who they never have to tell the truth to, but Ariel knows.”

  “Rebecca knows everything I’ve done,” Owen replied.

  “I’m going to go downstairs for a bit. I think you guys really do need to work this out.” Rebecca reached into her pocket. “Look, I’ll even leave my cell phone behind. I’ll wake Tucker up because he should be here. Emily, I think the guys need some time.”

  “I think they need to start thinking about their own futures,” Emily replied.

  Rebecca shook her head and walked out.

  Robert turned to Sasha. “You need to back off. I don’t want to talk about Ariel right now.”

  Sasha leaned against the counter, obviously settling in for a long argument. “She is the only reason we’re still in this position. You won’t see what’s going on.”

  Emily put a hand on Robert’s arm. “I know you’ve been through hell. I don’t care what you’ve done. You did it to survive. We can get through this.”

  He ignored her. It was time for him to take charge. “I am the leader of this group. You two stand down. We’re going to talk about this after we hear what Solo has to say.”

  And he would talk to Ariel.

  Dante shook his head. “Why would anyone follow you? This is what I
have been telling Sasha for months. You are nothing. You are weak. Even with your so-called brothers.”

  “I have been beside you all this time. I could have gone anywhere else.” He didn’t have warrants out on him. He’d been offered other jobs, a more normal life. “I chose to stay with you. To fight with you.”

  A derisive laugh came from Dante’s throat. “God, why would anyone fight beside you? Why would they trust you? Everyone here thinks you’re such a good man, that you will be the one to save them. Did you save Theo Taggart’s face? What did you do when they were carving him up? Nothing. You sat there and did exactly what McDonald told you to do. You’re nothing but a piece of shit like the rest of us.”

  The whole room seemed to go cold. Robert knew what had happened to Theo’s face only because Tony had told him. Tony had been the man who disciplined them. He’d worked for McDonald. Theo didn’t remember how he’d gotten his scars.

  “You know there wasn’t anything he could have done,” Owen argued.

  Sasha had gone still, his eyes on Dante. “How would you know? How would you know what Robert did or didn’t do?”

  “It doesn’t matter what happened when he was with that woman,” Emily said. “Come on. We need to cool off. It seems like you guys are saying things you really don’t mean. Why don’t we take a few minutes?”

  Sasha was shaking his head and looking at Dante like he didn’t know the man. “No. I want to know how you would know what happened to Theo.”

  “I do, too, since I didn’t even know I was there when Theo got that scar,” Robert said. He and Dante hadn’t been on the same team. They hadn’t even known each other until Taggart had found the secret lab.

  “Tony told me,” Dante said with a shrug.

  “What’s going on?” Tucker walked in, yawning.

  Sasha ignored him, choosing to turn on the man who was so frequently his partner. “Tony died long ago. You would have had your memory wiped after he died.”

  “I read about Tony,” Tucker said, heading for the coffee pot. “He sounded like a dick.”

  “Yes, but no one but Robert should remember him.” Sasha’s stillness had taken on the air of a predator.

  “Then I must have read it in the reports we got in Colorado,” Dante replied. “Or I’m being fanciful. The point is Robert isn’t perfect and he needs to stop pretending to be our leader.”

  “No.” The significance washed over Robert like cold rain. “You knew what happened. That wasn’t something you made up in your head. You were very specific. You knew what happened even though you weren’t there. Or were you? You’re the one talking to Levi Green. You’re the traitor.”

  “Dante’s the traitor?” Tucker yawned again. “I need to wake up.”

  “He’s more than a traitor.” Owen stood in the doorway as if he felt like he needed to block it.

  “Were you ever one of us?” Sasha breathed the question.

  “No.” Robert could see the truth plainly now. It all made sense. “He was the plant. He was always the one who did her bidding. He was the one who told her when we were remembering. I wouldn’t have given myself away, and yet according to those notes, she knew when the drug was losing its control. You were her man in the trenches.”

  “You never had the fucking drug in the first place,” Sasha accused.

  There was suddenly a gun in Dante’s hand. “Don’t move. Not any of you.”

  “Rebecca woke me up for this?” Tucker complained.

  Yeah, it might have been better if they’d all stayed asleep.

  * * * *

  “We are not going to mention where we picked up Kim to Robert.” Ariel watched as the gorgeous blonde stepped out of the Charles Hotel and waved. The door was held open by a uniformed bellman. The whole place looked elegant and expensive. “Ever.”

  Would things have gone differently if they’d ended up at this beautiful hotel instead of staying at the club? Probably not, but their drama would have played out in more romantic surroundings. She would have cried it out on thousand thread count sheets.

  Peter got out of the van and opened the door for her. Despite the fact that there was plenty of room in the back, Ezra was sitting in the front with Peter. Coward. He’d been sitting in that chair long before Ariel had even been ready to go, as if he wasn’t taking any chance of having to sit next to his ex-wife.

  “Morning,” Kim said with a sunny smile. She was chic in tailored slacks and a blouse that showed off her curves. She’d likely spent the better part of the morning deciding what to wear given the fact that she’d known who she would be seeing. “Peter, it’s good to see you. Been a long time. Ari, not so long.” She stopped as she realized who was sitting in the front seat. Her smile dimmed and for once she seemed less than confident. “Beckett. I wasn’t expecting to see you until we got to the club.”

  “Solo.” He didn’t turn to look at her. Not that she could have gotten anything off his expression. He’d had his poker face on all morning and his eyes were covered in mirrored sunglasses. He was fully armored up.

  Kim stepped into the van and the smile was back on her face. “Thanks for coming to get me. It would have been very difficult to get a cab or take public transportation or even rent a car in a major European city. They’re so behind the times, you know.”

  The sarcasm was going to be flowing. If she could ever get these two on her couch…

  “You’re lucky I don’t blindfold you and drive you around for a couple of hours before I allow you into the safe house,” Ezra shot back.

  “I know where the club is,” Kim replied as the door to the van closed and she clicked her seatbelt into place. “So I would have to suspect that you just want to spend time with me.”

  “Which shows how bad your instincts have gotten.” Ezra kept his face forward.

  Ariel sighed. She would bet a lot that he was staring at Kim through the rearview mirror, and that was precisely why he’d worn the sunglasses. So his ex-wife wouldn’t know he was staring at her while he was pretending to ignore her. “Are you going to bicker like children the whole time?”

  Peter slid into the driver’s seat. “They sounded more like an old married couple to me.”

  “We’re not married.” Ezra slapped the denial out as quickly as he could.

  “I was going to say we’re not old.” Kim sighed and settled into her seat. “And no, we’re done bickering from my end. I promise to be perfectly pleasant. I can’t say the same for Beck.”

  “Did you realize you’re staying in a hotel German intelligence has under surveillance?” Ezra asked.

  It was precisely why they hadn’t been able to stay in the luxury hotel. Of course if they’d stayed at the Charles, she and Robert wouldn’t have had that insanely wild night at the club. She could still feel the pinch of those pins against her skin, remembered the rush of ecstasy as he’d brushed them off her body.

  And she could still see the look in his eyes when he’d asked her if she’d lied to him.

  “Of course.” Kim waved off Ezra’s worry as Peter pulled the van out of the circular drive. “I love the Charles. Bastien makes the best martinis. Seriously. I think half of why he’s so effective a spy is his restraint when it comes to vermouth. And I got a hell of a deal. Someone had booked the eighth floor and then canceled at the last minute. Who does that? I’ve got a sweet balcony. By the way, that balcony has an incredible view, Ari. You parade your little problem anywhere close to this hotel and I can take care of it for you.”

  Ariel glanced up and didn’t miss the way Ezra’s lips quirked before he managed to school his expression again.

  “Somehow I don’t think sniping Emily Seeger is going to fix the problem,” Ezra said.

  “Though I do have an excellent rifle.” Peter made a left, his eyes on the road. “And there’s a long history of assassinations in Bavaria.”

  She needed to head off the history lesson. “I think we should talk to Emily. She might actually be able to give us something, though we need t
o treat her carefully. She’s not what she seems. I’m starting to get suspicious.”

  “I am, too,” Ezra agreed. “Though I’m also suspicious about where the tip about her came from. Big Tag said he’s gotten several leads from sources he wasn’t willing to name.”

  “Well, if you had known it came from me, you wouldn’t have listened. And that’s precisely why I went around you.” Kim turned to Ariel. “I got a tip about some people who worked with McDonald before she went on the run. I sent it to Big Tag. He had his brother run down a couple of people, but I guess he decided Seeger was the best. I had no way of knowing she would turn out to be married to Robert. He couldn’t have either. McDonald did a spectacular job of getting rid of evidence. I suspect it was actually her father’s office who did that.”

  “Come on. We both know it was someone in the Agency.” Ezra’s words came out with a bitter huff. “No one else could erase a person so thoroughly. It was one of ours. Well, one of yours.”

  “I called in a couple of favors and I’m trying to run down some info.” Kim frowned. “I didn’t know. About the wife part. You have to know I would have given my friend a heads-up. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have. I would have just taken care of it. I hate that it surprised me. I’m off my game.”

  “Kim, you can’t murder people to solve my problems.” Sometimes having Kim Solomon for a friend could be scary.

  “You wouldn’t have known.” Both Kim and Ezra managed to say it at the same time.

  Kim blushed but went on. “I believe in true love.”

  Ezra coughed.

  “I do. I have way more faith than other people,” Kim continued. “But sometimes true love needs a little help. I think of myself as a cupid.”

  “A psychopathic cupid,” Ezra said under his breath. He sat up straighter. “I do accept that you didn’t know about Emily’s connection to Robert. Did you know Levi Green turned over files on Ariel’s previous work?”

  “What?” Kim slid the sunglasses off her face and looked genuinely shocked. “To who? Why would he do that? He’s an asshole but he’s never put an operative in danger before.”