by Lexi Blake
All because she’d failed.
She felt Robert’s hands on her body, heard Kim trying to talk to her, but none of it mattered.
She’d failed.
Chapter Fifteen
Robert could still remember how utterly helpless he’d felt when he’d realized he couldn’t get to her. Ariel had been on the other side of that bulletproof glass and the doors had been locked. He’d stood beside Owen as both of their women had been placed in danger, and it had been the single worst moment of his life.
He couldn’t imagine what Owen was going through, how he’d felt as he’d run like a madman after a vehicle he could never catch. How he’d run until he couldn’t anymore. Tucker had found him lying in the grass having chased that van until he’d thrown up and passed out.
“We should move and now,” Ezra said. “I want us on a plane back to London as soon as possible.”
They were sitting around the conference table but there were way too many seats empty. The ones that were filled contained shocked and numb people. People who wouldn’t forget what had happened that day.
It was early evening and the morning felt like it had happened years ago. They’d been forced to regroup, assess, clean up. Plan.
“I know you do, Ezra, but we’ve got to get a pilot to you first. Owen can’t fly at this point.” Damon was on the left side of the split screen. “I can’t trust hiring someone local.”
“I can get Si there but it’s going to be eighteen hours or so. I’m sorry. It’s the best I can do.” Big Tag’s face took up the right side of the screen. He looked haggard, and early morning light streamed in behind him. It looked like he was still at the office in his house. “I’ll have you out of there and another team in place sometime tomorrow afternoon.”
Tucker’s eyes came up, staring at him from across the table. That stare told Robert everything he needed to know.
Tucker wouldn’t be leaving Germany. Not until the job was done. The mission parameters had changed, but they still would finish. And they would never leave a man behind. Or a woman.
He understood what Big Tag was trying to do. He thought they were far too close to this problem, but he was wrong.
This was his problem, their problem. The Lost Boys would handle it.
They were coming out of retirement. While they’d been cleaning up and dealing with the bodies, he’d also made a couple of calls. He’d put the plans in motion. In the end it was a fairly simple job.
“Then I think we should move safe houses.” Ezra had been perfectly calm through the last several hours. He’d stood in the yard and looked down at Emily Seeger’s body and merely nodded to his ex-wife as though giving her some silent permission. He hadn’t even seen the moment Solo had dragged the body away and started her incredibly thorough cleanup procedures.
“I don’t think there’s a need for that,” Big Tag replied. “Look, I know you’re nervous, Ezra, but if you haven’t gotten a visit from the police so far, you’re not going to. Moving the team at this point could cause more trouble than staying in place. The club isn’t open again until next Thursday and I’ve already talked to Peter’s wife. Can you give me an update? Have we recovered the van and Peter’s body without incident?”
No incident besides Peter’s murder.
They continued on, but Robert couldn’t get his mind off what had happened this morning and how it had changed everything. Ezra had immediately started tracing Dante’s subcutaneous tracker. He’d taken the only other vehicle at the club, a motorcycle. Solo had hopped on the back, wrapping her arms around her ex-husband, and they’d gone after the van.
The wait had taken forever.
It had been even worse when they’d returned with Solo on the motorcycle and Ezra driving the van.
“I found the van left outside the city in the parking lot of a secluded park. Dante had cut the tracker out of his arm. I found the body of Peter Bergman slumped over the front seat where it was obvious he’d been shot in the head by whoever was sitting in the backseat.” Ezra’s words came out in a dull monotone. “There was no evidence of Dr. Walsh or Dante. I have to assume Dante had one of Levi’s men meet them there and they fled.”
“I’ve got someone working on the CCTV cameras around the area.” Damon leaned forward. “How is Owen?”
“Owen is sedated.” He’d been forced to do it because Owen had lost his shit. “He’ll hate me for it later, but I couldn’t let him go running through the streets of Munich with a gun looking for Dante when we have no idea where he is.”
“You made the right call, Rob.” Ariel spoke for the first time in an hour. She’d said very little since she’d been forced to kill Emily Seeger. She’d been an automaton, going through the motions, doing her part in cleaning up the mess that had been made, but it was obvious she was still in shock. “Owen wasn’t capable of making proper decisions. He was too… God, I don’t even know what to call it.”
Grief. Fear. Guilt. The horrifying helplessness that came from knowing someone he loved was in danger and he couldn’t do anything about it.
Big Tag’s hand ran over his head. “I’ll be on that plane. Charlie’s packing me up right now. I promise, I’m going to fix this. Well, what I can fix. I can’t bring Peter back. God, I’m sorry. I made this call. I knew we had a traitor and I let you work with him.”
“And I agreed with you,” Damon replied. “I thought it was worth the risk to figure out who the traitor was. I didn’t realize there were two of them, nor that Emily Seeger would show up and flip the balance we had.”
“If it means anything at all to you, I would have made the same call.” Solo was sitting across from her ex. She’d been serious and professional, her normally cheery disposition dimmed in light of the tragedy of the morning, “Dante had done nothing at all violent before this.”
“Speak for yourself,” Tucker said. “He was pretty fucking violent to me when he was working for McDonald. And Jax and Sasha. Fuck, you can’t ask Sasha.”
Sasha’s body was wrapped up and stored in the big freezer unit alongside Peter’s for now. They would find a way to carry Sasha back to London and Peter would be given to his people here so he could be buried in his beloved homeland. They would not do the same for Emily Seeger. Solo had promised she could handle that particular job.
“I know,” Damon said, his tone solemn. “If we’d had any idea that Dante was capable of this level of harm, we would never have left him in. We didn’t know who the traitor was. We had suspicions, but we couldn’t know for sure.”
“We thought this particular op would be an excellent way to figure it out since this was supposed to be nothing more than a fact-finding mission.” Big Tag sounded weary. “It wasn’t supposed to end in a bunch of bodies. And Robert, you have to understand that we had no idea Seeger was anything but a nurse who’d worked briefly with McDonald. I’ve got everyone I can trying to run down your family.”
He shook his head. “Don’t. We have no idea if she was lying or telling the truth. I tend to think she was lying. We can worry about my past later. We need to find Rebecca. She’s the only thing that matters now.”
Because Owen wouldn’t be able to handle it if they lost her. Rebecca had come into this life because she loved Owen. Rebecca had given up a remarkable lifestyle, put her meteoric career on hold to help them.
Owen would burn down the world if he lost her.
The way he would if he’d lost Ariel.
He stared at her across the table. She wouldn’t look him in the eyes.
“Have we had any contact with Dante?” Damon asked. “He obviously took Rebecca with him.”
Or they would have found her body.
“It’s a good plan. She’s an excellent way to gain access to Levi Green,” Ezra pointed out. “That’s our working theory at this point. It would have been easier to kill her and leave her behind the way he did Peter, but she has value to Levi.”
“I’ve got some people looking in to where Levi is,” Solo promised. “I
’ve also written a report that will bring down the wrath of God on him if I can ever get that fucker in the right position. If I can prove he kidnapped an American citizen, I can burn him. If I burn him, well, I can really actually burn him. I’ve got plans.”
“I need you to find a way to talk to him,” Big Tag said. “He’ll meet with you, Solo.”
Levi Green had an unhealthy fascination with the gorgeous operative. He likely would use the opportunity to meet with her, but Robert doubted he would handily bring Rebecca with him so they could nab her.
“No.” Ezra shook his head. “I’m not sending my…I’m not sending Solo in to deal with Levi. He’s proven he’ll do anything. Why should we give him another captive to hold over our heads? He could be anywhere. I think we should go back to London and start searching from there. We’ll get in contact with Green and we’ll negotiate. We do have something he might want more than Rebecca.”
“Beck, you are not trading yourself for her,” Solo hissed. “You are not going to be a martyr.”
Ezra gave her a smile that could only be described as predatory. “I promise I’ll take him with me.”
“I think you’re right and everyone should come back to base,” Damon pronounced. “Ian is sending a team in and they’ll start an investigation. They’ll be on the ground sometime tomorrow. You’ll come back to The Garden. I know he won’t want to come…”
“I’ll make sure Owen gets where he needs to be,” Robert promised. Where he needed to be might be up for debate, but he wasn’t having one now.
“Thank you. I know this is hard on you, but I truly believe this is the best way to protect you all.” Big Tag sat back. “I’m going to take care of this personally, Robert.”
“I know you will, sir.” Sometimes it was good to be thought of as the reasonable one. They bought every single thing he was saying. They had no idea what he’d really been doing during the cleanup. No idea he’d already planned a mission.
A mission he might not return from.
“I disagree about Owen,” Ariel said. “He needs to stay here. I’ll talk to him, but if you try to drag him back to The Garden, I think he’ll find a way to leave again. I understand that you’re trying to protect him, but would you honestly sit in an office while your wives were being held by an enemy?”
“No, of course not.” Big Tag seemed to think for a moment. “All right. He can stay, but he can’t be in charge of this op.”
Ariel nodded. “I’ll make sure he understands. You might send Kai Ferguson, if you can.”
“I was actually going to ask you to remain there. You know what’s gone on and you can help with Owen,” Damon replied.
Ariel’s head came up. “No. I think I should come in. Honestly, Damon, you should fire me.”
“I’m not going to fire you.” Damon took a long breath. “But I do understand why you’re upset. Perhaps it’s best if Ian sends in another psychologist. Come home, Ariel.”
She thought she should be fired? Why the hell would anyone fire her? He held the question, though, because it seemed like something they should talk about in private. And he was definitely going to be private with her. He had things to tell her, things she needed to hear.
Before he blew their world up.
“I will certainly come back to London,” she agreed. “But we’re going to have to talk. And I think it’s time to tell Tucker and Robert the full truth. I won’t hide it anymore.” Her eyes flashed, the first fire he’d seen in hours, and she turned to them. “I didn’t work for Scotland Yard. That was my cover. I was recruited into MI6 during my last year at Oxford. I thought I would be an analyst. It turned out I had innate skills I was unaware of, and MI6 trained me and sculpted me.”
“They turned you into an assassin,” Tucker said.
“Hey, that’s a rough word to use.” Solo crossed her legs and sat back. “She’s not some instrument of evil. She was doing necessary work.”
Tucker held his hands up. “Hey, not using the ‘e’ word here. I’m not judging her. I wish she’d been around earlier so she could have assassinated Dante. It would have solved a lot of our problems. And we knew about Ari’s past. Levi made sure we did. He sent Rob that report on you and Sasha made sure we read it.”
“He thought Levi could get the warrants off you and him and Jax.” Robert felt the need to defend Sasha since he couldn’t defend himself. “I know what he did was wrong. He was passing along information to Green, but he was desperate. He’d started to have memories of a child.”
“What?” Ariel turned shocked eyes his way. “He never mentioned that to me.”
“He was closed off. He didn’t trust anyone.” He wanted to reach out to her, but he stayed in his seat. “He only recently told me about it. He thinks he might have a daughter. I promised him I would try to find her.”
He had no idea how he would do it, but he would.
“I’ll let Adam know,” Ian said, his voice hoarse with emotion. He knew what it meant to have children.
Could he and Ariel have had a family? Would she have wanted a couple of kids? She would have been a wonderful mother.
His mother would love Ariel. His horny-ass brother better keep his hands off Ariel. Tim would think she was gorgeous.
He shook it off. He couldn’t get sick now. Hopefully, there would be time later to find out if Emily had been lying and his family was out there somewhere.
Ariel stood up, her eyes bright. “I’m going to go pack and make sure everything is cleaned up. I want to be ready to go.”
She strode out and Solo started to get up to follow her.
Robert held out a hand. “Let her be for now.”
Solo’s brows rose. “Are you going to take care of her?”
“Yes.” He would have one last night with her because after what he was planning on doing, she might never be able to trust him again. “I’ll take care of her, but she needs to cry and she doesn’t like to do that around other people. Besides, we need to talk about what the Agency is planning to do with us. I suspect since Ariel has been meeting with you that we’re more entangled than I’ve been led to believe.”
“We’ve been working with friendly parts of the Agency and some of Damon’s old contacts at MI6,” Tag acknowledged. “I decided it was the best way to keep them off our backs. It was originally why we allowed Ezra in to interview you. We kept up the contact even after Ezra got burned. We’ve shared information about our progress.”
“And our files?” He understood the razor-thin line Big Tag had been walking.
Tag looked at him straight through the monitor, his eyes gleaming with will. “No. I would never share those with anyone without your permission. I swear it.”
The words settled something deep inside. There were reasons to work with intelligence agents, and Tag and Damon would know who to trust. “And why wouldn’t you tell us?” The answer was self-evident. He’d lived through this morning. “Because we had a leak. Of course.”
“No one wanted to deceive you, and certainly Ariel didn’t,” Tag went on. “But you run that group, and you don’t always see the worst in people. You’re not the same as the rest of us. We were operatives. We were trained to keep secrets, to always suspect. You were a soldier. I knew that before anyone confirmed it. You take care of your men and you do whatever you can to make sure they get what they need.”
“You thought I would tell the rest of the men.” It was a possibility. “You’re not my commanding officer, Ian. I can’t tell you what I would have done. Knowing what I know now, I hope I would have made the right call, but I can’t say it for sure. I would have trusted them and I would have been wrong.”
“Then don’t blame Ariel,” Solo said, her eyes somber. “She wasn’t allowed to tell you, and Big Tag pretty much is her CO.”
“I told you, I’ll take care of her.” He would take care of them all. “Now we should go and pack, though I was hoping to talk to Jax.”
A little lie, but a necessary one. He might be a soldier,
but he’d been around the operatives long enough to have picked up a few tricks.
Damon’s gaze was grim through the screen. “Jax was very upset when I told him about what happened. I’m afraid he and River took a sabbatical. They’re at a friend’s country house. The service isn’t great there. I’ll send a note that you’re wanting to talk.”
“Or I’ll go out and see him myself when I get there. Give him some space, too,” Robert said.
“You seem very calm.” Big Tag’s eyes had narrowed, and even with thousands of miles between them, he could feel that man’s suspicions.
He had to allay them and quickly. Ezra wasn’t as centered as he normally was because Solo was here. Ariel was lost in her own guilt and grief. It gave him cover. He couldn’t have Big Tag start looking at him hard. He couldn’t have anyone know he’d gone into Peter’s office and taken all the information the man had found out about Kronberg’s safes. “I have to be. Look, I was holding Sasha’s hand when he died, and I’m the one who held Owen down and stuck a needle in his arm. It’s been one of the roughest days of my life, and if I don’t hold it together I’ll fall apart utterly.”
Tag nodded. “Yeah, I do get that. I’m in the same position. I…well, let’s say I feel responsible for everything. Peter Bergman was a good man. He was an excellent intelligence officer who served his country well and was a friend to ours. All he wanted to do was retire and study history and now…well, sometimes it doesn’t pay to do a favor for me.”
He understood the way Tag felt. Peter had been his friend, a nice guy, and now he was dead when he should have had a long, happy retirement. He should have been playing in his club and enjoying life.
Sasha should have had a chance to redeem himself, although in Rob’s mind he’d done that when he’d saved Owen’s life. Sasha should have had his brothers beside him as he tried to figure out if he had a daughter out there in the world. He should have stayed in therapy and found himself again, but he wouldn’t get the chance.
