The Duke and the Assassin (The Royal Agents of MI6 Book 1)

by Heather Slade

  My anxiety over seeing Losha had built on the four-hour drive from the airport to Butler Ranch to the point where I’d considered stopping for a drink. Bad form along with a chicken-shit move for someone who had faced many of the most evil bastards who’d ever walked the face of the earth.

  On the surface, it was seeing her, but the deeper issue was getting her to agree to my plan. Maybe I was overthinking it, though. If she saw as clearly as I did that this would be best for her and Kazmir’s safety, maybe she’d go along with it willingly.

  It was after ten at night when I pulled up and waited for the gates to Butler Ranch to open. I took a deep breath and drove through slowly, stopping at the main house as Burns had asked me to do.

  Two things caught my eye straightaway. First was Burns sitting on the front porch, illuminated by the glow of his pipe. Second was the hurried movement of another figure closer to the smaller cottages.

  I cut the engine and climbed out of the car.

  “She won’t get far,” Burns said in a tone of voice not much above a whisper, motioning with his head toward the person I’d seen.

  “What is she trying to do?”

  “Best guess is to find a way off the ranch.”

  I shook my head. In terms of stealth reconnaissance, my strengths far exceeded Losha’s. I’d been given the code name “Shiver” for a reason. I moved through the night air without so much as stirring it, coming up behind her like a ghost.

  “I knew you were here,” she said when I covered her mouth with one hand while the other wrapped around both her arms.

  I spun her around. “What are you doing, Losha?”

  “I doubt you’d buy it if I said I was taking a walk.”

  “Where is Kazmir?”

  “Asleep down the hall from Zary.” She also pointed to something attached to the waist of her trousers. “Baby monitor.”

  “A fact-finding mission, then?”

  When she tried to pull away, I tightened my grasp.

  “Let me go, Shiv,” she muttered while, at the same time, relaxing into my embrace.

  “Shall we go inside?” I asked.

  She traipsed away with a huff that made me smile. If she really hadn’t wanted to be discovered, she could’ve tried a whole lot harder not to be. She knew it as well as I did.

  “Ladies first,” I said when she opened the door to the cottage.

  She shuffled past, trying her hardest not to touch me, but I wouldn’t let her get away with it. Instead, I grasped her arm.

  “I’m glad you’re safe, Losha.” I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I’d die if anything happened to you.”

  She pulled away and rounded the corner to the drawing room. “That’s where we differ, Shiver. I’d die if anything happened to my son.”

  “I feel the same way about both of you, Losha.”

  “How is that possible, Shiver? How could you feel that way about another man’s child?”

  “Is he?”

  She nodded.

  “Would you swear it so?”

  When she turned her back, I approached again, wrapping my arm around her waist once more, my breath hot just beneath her ear. “Let’s not talk about that right now. Let’s talk about how to keep both you and the baby safe.”

  When she tried to pull away again, I let her go.

  “I’m perfectly capable of keeping my baby safe. My mistake was in coming here and trusting that anyone else could as well as I.”

  “Someday you’ll have to trust that I would do anything for you, Losha, including giving my own life for yours.”

  Her eyes met mine.

  “I mean it. My life for yours. No hesitation.”

  “Shiver…”

  “It isn’t just me. Zary, Gunner, and the rest of the K19 crew, Burns and Sorcha would all do everything in their power to protect you and Kazmir.”

  She sighed, and I could see her walls lowering, but only slightly.

  “I need to disappear, Shiver. You have to let me.”

  I led her to the sofa and pulled her down to sit beside me. “I have a plan that I’d like you to at least listen to.”

  “You don’t understand. It isn’t just me and Kazmir. I put Zary, Gunner, and their unborn baby in harm’s way.”

  “I understand that you’re looking at it that way now, but let’s talk this through.”

  “I don’t need to talk. I need to leave.”

  “Let’s leave together, then.”

  “I can’t.”

  I cupped her cheek with my palm. “Hear me out.”

  She didn’t pull away, so I kept talking. “If we go to London, you and Kazmir would have the full protection of SIS.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “Nothing.”

  She smirked. “Since when does SIS care about a former Russian assassin, Shiv?”

  “It was attempted murder, Losha.”

  “I reiterate. Why do they care?”

  “Primarily because of your relationship with me.”

  “We don’t have a relationship.”

  “Stop this. I’m not going to relent.”

  “If he did let up on you, I wouldn’t,” said Zary from the room’s entryway. “You’re being ridiculous and worse—prideful. Let him help you, Losha. Let him help Kazmir too.”

  Losha’s cheeks turned pink.

  “Let go, Losha,” I whispered. “Let me help you and your son.” I’d been so tempted to say “our” instead of “your,” but I still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced Gunner and Zary’s theory that the baby was mine was accurate.

  “I won’t leave Zary until Gunner is back,” Losha said, looking between me and her friend.

  “That isn’t necessary,” Zary protested.

  “I won’t.”

  “We don’t have to. We can stay here or in town until he returns,” I offered.

  “I’d rather not move Kazmir.”

  “Not a problem.”

  She stood with her arms folded. “Good night, then.”

  I stood too. “Good night.”

  She walked toward the front door, but I didn’t move. I caught the smirk on Zary’s face out of the corner of my eye.

  “Can I bring you a pillow and blanket?” Zary asked.

  “If you would, please,” I answered, toeing off my shoes and sitting back down on the sofa.

  “You can’t stay here,” said Losha, again looking between me and Zary.

  “He just flew here from London, Losha. Have a heart.”

  We were all spared further argument when we heard Kazmir’s cry through the baby monitor. Losha ran up the stairs, mumbling in Russian as she went.

  “If the reason we’re all here wasn’t so horrifying, I’d be tempted to laugh. She’s trying so hard to resist you.”

  I shook my head. “This too shall pass.”

  “What will pass, Shiver? The danger, or Losha’s stubbornness where you’re concerned.”

  “Both, I hope,” I muttered.

  “I’ll be back with your bedding since I doubt you’ll want to sleep in one of the bedrooms upstairs.”

  “How many ways in and out of here?”

  “Just the front door and the kitchen that I’ve seen, although I haven’t checked the basement. Burns did say it’s all wired.”

  I walked through the main level of the house, checking the kitchen door she’d mentioned as well as all the windows. I armed the alarm for “stay” and thanked Zary when she handed me a blanket and pillow.

  “She loves you. You know that, right?”

  “So everyone keeps telling me.”

  Zary went back up the stairs.

  “Everyone but her,” I muttered once she was gone.

  22

  Losha

  I so wanted to slam the bedroom door. If it wouldn’t have startled Kazmir, or told Shiver he had the upper hand, I would’ve.

  What had I expected? I’d known Shiver was on his way; I’d even seen the car pull in. Who else would have been arriving
at that hour? It wasn’t like I’d figured out a plan to leave yet, or that I honestly believed I’d be successful in doing so. Besides, the situation I was in was of my own making.

  I’d known asking Zary for help meant that Shiver would find me. Even if Gunner had kept his promise not to tell anyone I was with them or about Kazmir, the smallest intelligence organization of a third world country would’ve been able to find me easily. And that made the bomb more curious.

  If United Russia was tracking me, they could’ve located me long ago. Why wait until I was in the States and then plant a bomb? Why not simply have a sniper take me out? There had to be something I was missing.

  “Knock, knock,” I heard Zary say from the other side of the door.

  “Come in,” I said, although if I hadn’t, I doubted it would’ve stopped my friend from entering.

  Zary sat on the edge of the bed that was closest to the chair where I sat nursing Kazmir back to sleep.

  “I don’t get it. He loves you so much.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That isn’t what I meant. It’s you I don’t get.”

  I looked into Zary’s eyes. “Gunner swept you off your feet, and you never looked back. That’s how it went, right?”

  Zary half smiled. “You’re right. I resisted letting him into my life fully even though, in my heart, it was what I wanted. But this is different, Losha. I hadn’t had his baby.”

  I wasn’t surprised by Zary’s confrontational tone. Neither of us had ever held back where the other was concerned. If one of us believed the other was making a mistake, we didn’t hesitate to say so. Just because we hadn’t seen each other in several months didn’t mean that had changed.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Shiver wants us to leave with him.”

  “And?”

  “Have you heard from Gunner?”

  “Oh! That’s why I came to find you in the first place. He thinks he’ll be here by tomorrow night, but he’s trying his best to arrive sooner. He was vague, but I sense there’s some other part of their mission that hasn’t been finalized.”

  There had been a time when my curiosity would’ve caused me to at least speculate on K19’s mission. Now, I couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm to care beyond when Gunner would be here, and that was solely for Zary’s sake.

  Zary stood. “Get some sleep, Losha. Tomorrow, try to remember what Sorcha said and consider that Shiver would do anything in the world for you.”

  I was torn between sticking my tongue out and flipping my friend off. Both childish acts were indicative of my level of exhaustion, both physically and mentally.

  My mind could compartmentalize all of the things causing my stress, but that didn’t mean my body could shut off or alter the effects of the adrenaline that had surged through it. Between the bomb itself and Shiver’s arrival, along with my uncertainty about my life and the direction it was going in, I felt unable to act.

  Instead of putting Kazmir back in his crib, I snuggled him in the crook of my arm, telling myself we’d just lie together that way for a few minutes.

  I hadn’t been asleep long, or at least I didn’t think I had, when I heard the creak of the door.

  “It’s me, Losha.” Shiver walked in and sat on the side of the bed. “I could hear you whimpering from downstairs.” He reached for the lamp on the bedside table and turned it on. “Were you having a bad dream?”

  I had been, but I couldn’t tell him what about, other than someone was trying to take my baby. I hadn’t realized I was crying until he wiped away a tear with his finger.

  I looked down at Kazmir and saw his eyes were open. He was studying the man sitting next to us. Shiver leaned over and kissed his forehead and then did the same to me. When he went to stand, I put my hand on his arm.

  “Would you like me to stay?” he asked, motioning to the chair near the bed.

  I shook my head but kept my hand on his arm.

  “Tell me what you want, Losha.”

  I closed my eyes, wondering again why it was so hard to tell him how I felt. At the same time, I wished he wouldn’t force me to. “Stay,” I whispered.

  When Shiver came around the other side of the bed and lay down, Kazmir smiled at him.

  “You make him happy.”

  “Just him?”

  I sighed. “Shiver—”

  “Please disregard—”

  I sat up. “Why won’t you let me finish? I’m trying to tell you what you want to hear, yet you won’t let me finish.”

  Shiver sat up too and pulled Kazmir into his arms. I hated to admit that my baby appeared frightened by my tone.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Please go ahead.”

  I put my face in my hands. “Zary asked me why it’s so hard for me to accept your help, and I told her that I can’t explain it. And, yes, Shiver, having you here with me does make me happy. Are you pleased with yourself that you got me to say it?”

  He held the baby so close, his cheek resting against Kazmir’s head. He rocked back and forth, just slightly, looking as though he was soothing himself as much as my son.

  “This isn’t a battle, Losha,” he said in a soft voice. “I’m not trying to ‘get you’ to say anything.”

  I looked up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, wishing I didn’t react to him as strongly as I did. Not just in anger, but in everything.

  “I heard you whimper, and I came up to see if you were okay, because I care about you.” He shrugged. “I don’t know why I feel this need to protect you, I just do. It isn’t something I’m going to continue apologizing for. You know how I feel. I haven’t kept it a secret.”

  I got out of bed and walked over to the window. “It isn’t easy for me.” I looked back at him and saw he was waiting for me to continue. “I don’t want it to be this hard.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “I don’t know any other way.”

  “Sure you do,” he said, bringing Kazmir over to me. “It isn’t hard for you to love your son.”

  I took the baby in my arms. “I’m going to put him in the crib in the other room. I’ll be right back.”

  My reasons for doing so were two-fold. First, Kazmir needed sleep, and if Shiver and I kept talking, he wouldn’t get it. Second, the distraction of seeing Shiver hold his son was almost too much for me to bear. I’d nearly come to tears several times in the last few minutes.

  Maybe Zary was right. I should tell him the truth, both about the baby and how I felt about him, and also give in and let him help and protect me.

  Once Kazmir was settled, I went back into the bedroom, but Shiver wasn’t there. I went downstairs, looking for him, but he wasn’t there either.

  23

  Shiver

  “I’m sorry if I woke you,” said Rivet when I returned his call from only a minute ago.

  “You didn’t. Do you have news?”

  “I’ve spoken with the bomb expert the CIA sent out, as well as Pimm, and neither believe United Russia had anything to do with it.”

  I didn’t know the person the CIA sent, but I knew Pimm, and there was no one with greater knowledge on the subject, particularly as it related to UR.

  “Has he come up with another theory?”

  “It appears almost random in nature, but before you argue with me, I agree that it wasn’t. However, whoever or whatever organization is behind this doesn’t seem to possess a great deal of knowledge or money.”

  “What do you suggest the next move be?”

  “While Pimm continues researching the materials used, I recommend you and Ms. Kuznetsov return to the UK immediately. There’s a safe house outside of London—”

  “She’ll be returning to Whittaker Abbey with me.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that course of action.”

  “I respectfully decline your suggestion otherwise.”

  “Very well, but—”

  “Are you aware of the child, Ranald?”

  “I am, Thornton.”
>
  “There is a chance he’s mine.”

  “Understood.”

  As much as I knew I should go back inside and resume the conversation Losha and I had been having, I was far too wound up to do so.

  I wasn’t surprised that United Russia hadn’t taken responsibility, nor that there wasn’t any proof they were behind it. If they had been, the outcome would’ve been far simpler. Sanctions would be threatened, among other things, and I could ensure that, from that day on, Orina Kuznetsov would be off-limits.

  Instead, with no lead on who it was, I felt powerless. How could I tell Losha so? How could I promise to protect her and Kazmir when I didn’t know from whom?

  Rather than going back inside, I walked the vineyards by moonlight, trying to piece together who, besides her former employer, might want her dead. The list was far too long—essentially anyone who knew someone she’d killed.

  “What brings you out at dawn?” asked Burns, coming over the ridge where I was watching the sunrise.

  “I’ve been out here since a little after midnight, trying to piece together who might’ve planted the bomb. As I’m sure you know by now, no one believes UR had anything to do with it.”

  Burns nodded.

  “There are too many other suspects to list.”

  “Could be just about anyone.” Burns tapped his pipe on the fence, filled it from his tobacco pouch, and lit it.

  “Losha and Raketa have amassed enemies,” I said, using the names most in the intelligence community knew them by.

  “What do you intend to do next?”

  “Take her and Kazmir to Bedfordshire.”

  “Good decision.”

  “Rivet didn’t think so.”

  “He and I haven’t always agreed either.” Burns shook his head and laughed.

  “I’d forgotten you and he worked together.”

  “Not much different than you and Kade.”

  He made a good point. Burns Butler and Rivet Caird had served side-by-side at a similar age to Doc and me. They were likely as good of friends as well.