by Elise Noble
“Working again?”
“Nope. I’m taking the week off. My staff think I’ve gone mad.”
The sun lounger was made for two, so I snuggled up next to him. “Houses? You’re looking at houses.”
“Yup. Glad I didn’t buy that place in Morocco now. What’s Indooroopilly like? I’m not even sure if I’ve pronounced that right.”
“You’re buying a house in Brisbane?”
“It’s more cost-effective than renting in the long run.”
“But your company’s in London.”
“Yes, but you’re not, and I want to spend as much time as possible with you. Phone sex just isn’t the same.”
“Who says we have to live in Brisbane?”
“Well, I just assumed…”
“Mr. Weisz, which part of ‘I don’t care where I go as long as I’m with you’ did you not understand? I’ll come to London. Yes, I’ll still need to visit my parents and Chloe, but I’ve got no career and no home to keep me here. It’s time for a fresh start, and my life’s with you.”
“Are you serious?”
“I can work anywhere. Graphic design isn’t that lucrative, but I can pay a bit towards an apartment, and—”
He kissed me before I could finish. “I love you. And I paid off the mortgage on my London apartment with my first bonus.” Wow, twice over. “Plus you’re not exactly on the breadline.”
“Actually, I am. Last time I checked, my bank account had minus three hundred dollars in it.”
“Uh…”
He had that shifty look, the one where he didn’t want to tell me something, but there was no need. Didn’t he understand nothing would ever be as bad as the blowjob video?
“Russell, what is it?”
“Right before Brenner arrived at the villa, I might have moved his nest egg.”
“You what?”
“I figured if I waited, he’d move it himself.”
“You stole Michael’s money?”
“How about we go with ‘acquired’?”
“Okay, acquired. How much are we talking?”
“Roughly four million dollars. US dollars, not Australian—it looked as if he was getting ready to run abroad.”
Holy shit. “We can’t just keep it! I mean, it’s the proceeds of crime. We’ll be arrested.”
“No, we won’t. I’ve bounced it around a bit, and the police won’t find it now. Think of it as restitution. He took three years of your life, Kylie, and you can’t get that back. I’d say you’re owed something for what he did, wouldn’t you?”
Four million dollars? That was a hell of a lot of money. Yes, Michael had wrecked my career and forced me to leave my home, but did the years I’d spent on the run really count as me earning it?
“Keeping it still feels wrong.”
“You’d rather give it to the police? After their part in this?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Donate it to charity if you’d prefer, but the government has got quite enough money already.”
I thought about it, and Russell gave me the space to do so. Michael had made me lose everything. My home, my job, everything I’d worked for. He’d tried to end my life, and he’d nearly succeeded in taking Russell’s. And my former colleagues? They’d abandoned me too. Screw them. If we turned the cash in, they’d probably spend it on new office furniture or something.
“I think I’ll give part of it to Hanna.” She’d been living in fear too.
“And the rest?”
A smile twitched at my lips. “We should take an actual holiday. One where I don’t have to kill anyone.”
“I’m on board with that. And then what?”
“Then it looks like I need to learn how to ride the Tube and hail black cabs. And sort out a visa.”
“A visa?” Emmy’s voice came from behind us. I hadn’t even heard her approach. “Where are you going? Sorry for sneaking up, but I figured you wouldn’t be doing the nasty since Russell still can’t breathe properly.”
“Uh, London. I’m going to move to London with Russell.”
“Awesome. Let me know if there’s any problems with the paperwork, and I’ll pull some strings. Do you need a job? I’d offer Russell one, but he already makes bank.”
A job? “What kind of a job?”
“Entry-level investigator? I saw your record. You were a good cop before you fell in with the wrong crowd.”
I echoed Russell. “Are you serious? I screwed up my own case.”
“You were trying to solve it with both hands tied behind your back. Go back a few years before Michael brainwashed you, and you had the right instincts. So yes, I’m serious.”
Wow. A real job offer. Doing something I actually enjoyed. Tempting, but I wanted a couple of months to adjust to the new normal first. And maybe I’d offer my spare time to a charity. Pay it forward now that I had the cushion of Michael’s money to fall back on.
“Can I think about it? I was considering doing some volunteer work for a while.”
“Sure. Just call me whenever. I also have a charity foundation in London if you feel like helping out.”
“What kind of charity foundation?”
“We help teenagers who didn’t have the best start to find their places in life.”
Helping people to find their place… That sounded like something I could get involved with. Spending three years on the run had taught me the value of being able to put down roots.
Then Russell spoke. “Emmy, about that job…”
I’d never seen her look truly surprised before. “For you?”
“Luke mentioned he did some consultancy for Blackwood. These last few weeks, I’ve learned that it is possible to delegate without the entire company falling apart, and I plan to do that more in the future. And I enjoyed the investigative work. The thrill of the chase, if you like.”
“And you want to consult?”
“I’m available if you ever need me. After what you did for Tai in Egypt and Kylie here, a few hours of my time is the least I owe you.”
Emmy grinned. “I might just take you up on that. Did you have any more thoughts on the future of Ether?”
“I’ve given it a lot of consideration, and I’ve decided not to pull the plug. For now. For all the bad it does, it does good too. Mimi told me she knows of a number of battered women who used it to escape from abusive relationships, and I don’t want to remove that safety net. But Kaito Nakamura will make it known that he’ll assist the authorities should someone use the app to break the law.”
“I think that’s a happy medium.”
“Leyton mentioned he had cases where access to Ether might be useful, so we can start there.”
Emmy grinned at him. “Sounds good to me. Well, it looks like I’ll see you both in London, then.”
“You’re leaving?” I asked.
“Me and Mimi are going on a trip.”
Rather her than me. A holiday with Mimi would be like a stay in purgatory with added suffering. “Somewhere nice?”
“Indonesia. Sun, scuba diving, the best satay chicken, and who can forget Sijahtra coffee? Oh, and we need to see a bug-eyed drug dealer about a funeral.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that last part, okay?”
“Don’t worry; we’ll make it look like an accident. Anyhow, I just came over to invite you to the grand opening of the New Egypt Museum. We don’t have a date yet, but the money seized from a certain Deputy Minister of Antiquities has been earmarked for the build.”
“The Deputy Minister of Antiquities? Is that to do with the smuggling case?”
“Yup. There’s still the odd loose end to tie up, but they got him. Turned out he’d been using his ill-gotten gains to fund his lifestyle, and now neither of his wives are happy with him.”
“Two wives? Tell me they knew about each other.”
“Nope. One of them got arrested for assault after she allegedly whacked him over his head with a cucumber, but the other one gave her a
n alibi so they had to let her go. So, the museum thing?”
I was still processing the cucumber thing. At least it hadn’t been a bronze statue, or she might have needed more than a fake alibi.
“We’d love to come to the party,” Russell said. “Wouldn’t we, darling?”
Did I really want to return to Egypt? With Russell by my side, I did. Our first invite as a couple, and it promised to be spectacular.
“Yes, we would.”
The end. Or is it the beginning?
Would you like to hear more from Mimi and Rix? Let me know…
WHAT'S NEXT?
My next book will be Glitter, a novella that slots in after Ultraviolet in the Blackwood Security series, releasing at the end of 2019.
Glitter
At thirty-two years old, Ana Petrova’s had enough of death. She never wanted to be an assassin anyway. With a young daughter now the centre of her world, Ana’s determined to settle into her new life in Virginia and do whatever it is suburban moms do.
But her friend Emmy has other ideas. A trip to New York proves that even the brightest places can have dark shadows, and Ana’s forced to consider whether there might still be a need for her skills after all.
For more details: www.elise-noble.com/glitter
The next book in the Blackwood Elements series will be Nickel, releasing in 2020.
Nickel
When Sloane Mullins catches her boyfriend in a compromising position with another woman, her meddling friend Leah decides that a better model is exactly what Sloane needs, whether she wants to start dating again or not.
Meanwhile, colleague Logan steps in to rescue her from one disaster after another. What if the perfect man has been under her nose the whole time?
For more details: www.elise-noble.com/nickel
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END OF BOOK STUFF
Russell and Kylie both came out of a novel I serialised in my newsletter last year, then called Untitled (because I had no idea where the story was heading or what it was going to be about, lol), and now published as Copper. Copper stars Tai, an English girl who did something I suspect we’ve all dreamed about from time to time—she walked out of her life in search of a new adventure. About halfway through, I asked my readers which of the two men they wanted Tai to end up with, but what I didn’t tell them (sorry!) was that I planned for whoever they didn’t pick to end up with Kylie.
And so we have Bronze. Originally, I figured I’d wrap up Kylie’s story in the epilogue, then I realised there was actually quite a lot involved, so I figured, hey, maybe a novella, but that didn’t work out either. Part of that was Mimi’s fault. I honestly don’t know where she came from, but I like her. Maybe she’ll be back? Who knows…
The fact that this was meant to be a novella led to the title. Yes, I know Bronze isn’t an element, but since it was meant to be book 7.5, I figured it would be cute to use an alloy instead. Then I ballsed-up the length, but by that point, the title was stuck in my head. Ho hum.
I’m planning to sneak in one more book before the end of the year—I was missing Emmy, Ana and Bradley, so I wrote them a little novella that slots in after Ultraviolet. But since this will be my last book before Christmas, I’d like to take the opportunity to say Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and Happy Holidays if you don’t. I hope you have a lovely December.
Elise
OTHER BOOKS BY ELISE NOBLE
The Blackwood Security Series
For the Love of Animals (Nate & Carmen - prequel)
Black is my Heart (prequel)
Pitch Black
Into the Black
Forever Black
Gold Rush
Gray is my Heart
Neon (novella)
Out of the Blue
Ultraviolet
Glitter (novella) (2019)
Red Alert
White Hot
The Scarlet Affair
Quicksilver
The Girl with the Emerald Ring (2020)
Red After Dark (2020)
When the Shadows Fall (2020)
The Blackwood Elements Series
Oxygen
Lithium
Carbon
Rhodium
Platinum
Lead
Copper
Bronze
Nickel (2020)
The Blackwood UK Series
Joker in the Pack
Cherry on Top (novella)
Roses are Dead
Shallow Graves
Indigo Rain
Pass the Parcel (TBA)
Blackwood Casefiles
Stolen Hearts
Blackstone House
Hard Lines (TBA)
Hard Tide (TBA)
The Electi Series
Cursed
Spooked
Possessed
Demented (2020)
The Trouble Series
Trouble in Paradise
Nothing but Trouble
24 Hours of Trouble
Standalone
Life
Twisted (short stories)
A Very Happy Christmas (novella)
