FINDING REST IN A BED where Charlotte didn’t warm my body and the sheets underneath us as she lounged in a graceful, quiet sleep of her own was a stupid notion. I crawled out of bed and dragged my feet to the window. The curtains had been pulled to the sides by Charlotte herself to allow the light to spill freely inside the bedroom. She had played with the tassels of the curtain belts while luring me in with her deliciously timid smiles. Now she wasn’t smiling, and the light had dissolved into darkness.
I showered and pulled on a fresh set of clothes because of necessity, not because I required the change. I couldn’t be sure how long it had been since I left the hospital, but it felt unbearably long. My heart couldn’t tolerate the distance anymore.
When I emerged from my bedroom, Bryson was just unlocking the front door, walking in with Kinga, who was happily padding after him. He watched me, slightly startled, then his brows dipped into the smallest frown.
“I took her for a walk,” he explained, nodding at the dog. Kinga gave a bark, but when she realized her request for attention was ignored, she hopped to her bowl and wolfed down the dry kernels.
“I’m surprised she hasn’t run off to you or Kai by now. You’re taking better care of her than I do.”
Bryson shrugged like the notion of taking care of someone else’s dog didn’t bother him, then he gestured to the door. “Do you want to go back to the hospital?”
“Yes, but I’m going to drive.”
“Marcus, I don’t think you should. Plus, I promised Kai that I would—”
“I need the time to think,” I stopped him and snatched my keys from the mahogany entry table.
He didn’t seem convinced but nodded although his thoughts were evident in his eyes. I’d had three days’ worth of time solely dedicated to thinking.
Our eyes locked, and a small part of me noted the difference in him. Lines crossed his forehead, and dark rings circled his eyes, but that was not why he looked older. He must have finally realized that life was too short to waste it recklessly, and with his newfound maturity, came wisdom.
“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”
“She’ll be fine,” he replied, a robot-like comfort.
Once behind the wheel of my car, I lacked the enjoyment I experienced each time I drove. However, it hadn’t been the adrenaline rush I had sought out, but privacy. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and called a number that was already on speed dial.
“Hudson,” came the grating voice I recognized now all too well.
“Any updates?”
“Look, Marcus, I can’t talk right now. I’ll be in touch very soon.”
“You can’t—What do you mean you can’t talk? You dare to—”
“Have a pleasant evening.”
Then he hung up.
I could almost see the fumes seeping from my nostrils. I held Julian Hudson responsible for what had happened to Charlotte as much as I did myself. I had failed her, but if Hudson hadn’t failed at his job in the first place, nothing of this nightmare would have happened.
I slammed my fist against the steering wheel and shoved my foot on the gas pedal. I was volatile and violently furious. It was in this frame of mind that I stepped inside the hospital.
It didn’t take long to spot the Armani-suited man pacing back and forth down the corridor that led to Charlotte’s room. He was talking to Dr. Bryce, and Lauren was standing with her back to them, her spine rigid, her disposition unreadable.
“James, stop this nonsense,” Lauren cracked and finally turned around. “Charlotte is perfectly taken care of—”
She trailed off when she found me, standing still in the middle of the hallway, a hardly contained animal about to distance himself from judgment and go berserk.
“You self-centered bastard,” I lashed out.
Breaking free of invisible chains, I slammed into him. A puff of air left his lips as I smashed his body against the wall. My hands were fisted around the lapels of his luxurious jacket, but what I really wanted to do was wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze. I felt murderous—I had felt so since Friday night, and James Burton was definitely the wrong man to cross my path.
“What are you doing here?” I snarled and smashed his body repeatedly against the wall. “You did this to her. You brought those monsters into her life. You put your own daughter in the hospital.”
Lauren gasped and wrapped her fingers around her throat, just like Charlotte did when she was nervous. “For Heaven’s sake, Marcus, stop.”
“But it wasn’t enough that you forced her into a world she had no business exploring, was it? You had to push her into the arms of a killer.”
James Burton’s face caught a peculiar shade of red. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. His lips were twisted in a deplorable grimace. As I bit each poisonous word out, he remained a pitiful puppet in my grasp. More than his arrogance of coming here, showing affection and concern well past the point when it mattered, his lack of reaction infuriated me.
“Don’t have anything to say? Has your ludicrous lawyerly talk left you? No more commands to bark?”
“Now, gentlemen, let’s get control of ourselves,” Dr. Bryce intervened, taking my elbow in an unexpectedly hard grip. When I shoved his hand off me, he didn’t even flinch.
“Marcus, please, we are in a hospital,” Lauren begged and tried ineffectively to push me off her husband.
“I can’t understand how a despicable man like you could have fathered a creature so pure and brilliant as Charlotte. You don’t deserve her. You have no business being here.”
I released him so brutally that he stumbled and collapsed right onto his knees. His tie hung loosely around his neck, his lapel was half torn, and his Rolex shattered as he broke his fall. His head sagged, and something akin to a sob infected the shocked silence. The great James Burton toppling from his clouds in the misery he had unleashed was a disgraceful sight. He disgusted me more than my own father ever had.
Kai stepped out of Charlotte’s room, his mouth agape. “What in the world?”
He must have heard the exchange, but it was evident from his stunned expression that he hadn’t expected the recipient of my rage to be Charlotte’s father. He strode to me and pushed me a safe distance away. I wasn’t done, and Kai could sense that the storm hadn’t passed yet.
“Settle down,” he hissed. “Pointing fingers won’t help anybody. Come on, let’s take a walk.”
He elbowed me another step away, then the terrible commotion started. The machines beeped furiously from Charlotte’s room, and three nurses came running from their station. Dr. Bryce scowled, and Lauren paled, then they both jogged after the nurses. Someone slammed the door shut, muffling the noises coming from inside.
My world stood still.
“God,” I breathed, bumping my head against the wall. When was this turmoil going to end? When was she going to wake up?
While we waited, Kai hovered close, standing between Charlotte’s father and me. James Burton had crawled back up to his feet, and his face had frozen into an inscrutable, constipated expression.
“You’re right, you know,” he spoke eventually. He planted himself in the middle of the hallway, staring at the closed door of his daughter’s room. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his trousers, and his head was still somewhat bowed. “But she is still my daughter. I’ve never meant for this to end this way. I never imagined this would ever happen to her when I gave her the case.”
An eternity later, Lauren walked out with Roman Bryce following her. They acted relieved, and unlike me, hopeful and composed.
“There was only a small issue with the machines,” the doctor announced, glancing at me with an apologetic glint in his eye. “Charlotte’s condition is still stable.”
Nobody could have stopped me from being by Charlotte’s side then, and they were all wise enough not to try.
She didn’t appear changed. Her expression was serene as if she were dreaming. I bent to press my lips against
her stiff mouth and realized that I was crying only when my tears pooled between her closed lips.
“I know I have failed you, but you have to stop punishing me. I can’t take it anymore. It’s killing me.”
I staggered into the leather chair by her bed and rested my head against her uninjured hand. Her touch, unresponsive as it was, had been the single solace I’d had during the past days.
At some point, I must have dozed off for when I opened my eyes again, something had changed.
The window was open, causing the cream curtains to sway restlessly. My hand drifted back, searching for the gun I’d learned to keep religiously tucked beneath the band of my jeans. I heard a noise, a soft, almost imperceptible sound coming from the adjacent bathroom, and my fingers tightened around the grip of my gun.
I pulled it out slowly, then just as a man was coming out of the small bathroom, I lifted my arms and aimed.
“Put that away, will you?” Julian Hudson muttered as neutrally as if he were telling me to clear the breakfast table.
Gritting my teeth, I thrust the gun back where it belonged. “First, you cannot talk to me, and now, you are sneaking around like a thief?”
“There are well-founded reasons why I do things a precise way. I don’t appreciate you questioning my methods.”
I cracked my neck as my nostrils flared. Hudson cast me a knowing glance, sighed, then took a wiser approach. It was definitely not the best time to scold me as if I were a stupid child he could dictate over.
“It’s better if we keep our association under wraps,” he explained, peering over at Charlotte. His expression was genuinely concerned. “How is she?”
“I wish everyone would stop asking me that,” I sighed and leaned against the window frame.
“I assume nothing has changed. No change is good news.”
“If you tell me to be patient, I swear you won’t like my reaction.”
Hudson almost chuckled. Although he was a calculated man, he seemed to understand my affectionate relationship with impatience.
“I need to do something, anything to stop feeling this useless.”
My eyes were fierce as I watched him, but Hudson remained as cool as ever. He studied me in silence, perhaps checking if I was still capable of aiding him in his plans. In the end, his attention drifted out the window. He mirrored my stance, leaning against the frame.
“You know what you can do. Charlotte will only be safe when Mitch Stewart’s affairs are exposed and he is behind bars.”
“It was not Mitch Stewart who pulled the trigger, though,” I reminded him. The gnashing sound of my teeth drowned out the beeping of the machines.
“Cameron Drake will have nothing if the mayor goes to prison.”
I snorted and glanced back at Charlotte’s still body. Cameron Drake already had much more than he deserved—he had a life.
Hudson followed my gaze, but unlike me, he remained detached and logical. His blood wasn’t boiling, and his heart wasn’t shattering each time he perused the comatose face of the woman he loved.
“The only reason he’s still able to hide,” he continued, “is because he has protection. If the leader falls, the others will follow. He’ll have no support to rely on, no money, nothing.”
“So the only way to lure him out of his lair is to hunt his master down.”
“Exactly. Look, Marcus, I can imagine that every instinct in your body is telling you to hunt Drake instead, but that would be a waste of time and resources. We don’t even know if he is still alive, and if he is, he must be extremely well hidden. Any effort in locating him would be futile, and in the interim, he will get his strength and power back. He’ll be once more a step ahead of us. We have to force them to play by our rules.”
“Your rules, you mean.” Hudson eyed me stiffly but did not bother to contradict me. “I’m going to ask you one question. If this operation goes south, what will your priority be?”
He seemed an honorable man, honorable enough to care if the lives of innocent people were at risk, yet he was willing to sacrifice the welfare of the few for the benefit of the many.
The only sacrifice I was ready to make was for Charlotte. I was willing to sacrifice the world itself if it meant that no harm would come to my sweet Charlotte ever again.
“If something goes wrong, we’ll salvage whatever is left of the operation, and you’ll be extracted immediately. You might be alone in the field, but we’ll have eyes on you.”
“Wrong,” I snapped. “See, our priorities do not align. If something goes wrong, my first priority will always be Charlotte. So keep that in mind. She’ll always come first. Always.”
“Let’s hope the moment you realize that endangering the mission equals endangering your lover never comes.”
“One more thing,” I said before he could put an end to our discussion. “I have a condition, and it is not negotiable.”
“You have just made it clear that you will never accept my offer. Why should I be interested in any more of your conditions?”
“Because if you don’t honor it, you might as well be an enemy,” I said, tearing my scrutiny from Charlotte to pin it on the FBI agent.
“What is your demand?” he asked, sighing and meeting my stare with a raised chin and locked jaw.
He didn’t seem entirely surprised. As I replied, I even got the feeling that he had been expecting my words.
“When I find that lowlife, he’s mine.”
Hudson nodded grimly. Straightening, he let his head fall back, and his gaze roamed the bleach white ceiling.
“Have you ever killed before, Marcus?” Hudson asked eventually.
In my nightmares, a thousand times in a thousand different ways, I thought bitterly. The low growl that rumbled from my chest must have tipped Hudson off about my grim train of thought. He shook his head as if saying that the imaginary would never weigh as heavily as the real kill.
“Although you might not believe me, I understand much of what you’re going through, so I won’t stand in your way if it comes to that. But hasn’t Drake taken enough from you? Hasn’t he already ruined too much between Charlotte and you? Will you give him the satisfaction of ruining more even in death?”
“She will be safe.”
Hudson shook his head, looking disappointed. “You leave me with no other option but to take measures I hoped you wouldn’t force me to take.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re blinded by grief, and your idea of going after Drake on your own might ruin everything my team has managed to put together up to this point.”
I blinked at the fog that fell like a curtain over my eyes, but I couldn’t clear my blurry vision fast enough. It frequently happened these days, and although exhaustion was the rational explanation, I believed rage was the actual reason for those strange spells.
Cracking my neck and rolling my shoulders, I let Hudson get acquainted with some of that rage. “I warn you, Hudson, don’t stand in my way.”
He didn’t appear impressed, let alone intimidated, and somehow, that made me want to fight him all the more.
“I’d warn you to think carefully before threatening a federal agent, but I know you won’t listen. We’re done negotiating. Expect a package from me, and when you receive it, don’t think you have the option to refuse me anymore.”
Presenting me a stiff back, he walked to the door, making it clear that he was done talking. I was done talking too. I wanted to act. But what Hudson didn’t understand was that I wasn’t about to serve as his spy.
“I thought you only wanted to work with willing people,” I muttered, an afterthought right before the agent vanished from the room.
Halting in the doorway, he looked over his shoulder. “I’m running out of options, and I cannot afford to have you running around, seeking revenge.”
“You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Hudson,” I warned, feeling the blood rolling hotly in my veins and the fury craving to be unleashed.
“Neither do you. So think long and hard before you act.”
GRAB
LOVE IN DISGUISE
NOW!
Darkside Love Affair Page 57
