by Lexi Blake
He nodded to the concierge. Avery had signed Liam in when they’d come back here earlier. Would he be able to get back in? “I’m just running to get some beer. Is that okay?”
The concierge nodded. “Go on then, mate. Ms. Charles signed you in as a person who could come and go for the night. She’s a very nice lady, and she seems to like you more than the other one.”
That had Liam turning. “Other one? Do you mean Weston?”
The big guy shrugged, one shoulder moving up and down. “He’s a prat, that one. Glad to see she found someone nice.”
Weston was becoming a problem. Liam pushed through the building’s outer doors and turned left, crossing the street. Liverpool station was humming. People poured out onto the street. It would be so easy to get lost, to join the crowd and disappear. He’d done it more than once. He stared out at the throng of humanity that made up London on a Saturday night.
They hustled. They bustled. They slept. They didn’t sit around wondering exactly who they were because they just fucking knew. They didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. They took the gift with both hands.
Liam sighed because he knew damn well he was probably giving the people on the street way too much credit. They flooded the side street beside the pub, pints and wine glasses in hand, each one in smart dress. They’d finished their week at whatever bank they worked at and now they were set on forgetting how fucking dull their lives were.
Not a one of them had been balls deep inside the sweetest thing to walk the face of the earth.
He was the only person on earth who knew what it meant to make love to Avery Charles. No other man alive had done it.
That was something to hold on to.
He was crossing the street when he saw him. Simon Weston was walking toward him, his eyes purposeful. He walked like a man who knew exactly where he was going.
Liam swerved down the side street, turning to see where Weston was going. Obviously to Avery’s, but he wouldn’t be allowed in. Before he’d left, he’d made sure Avery’s phone was on vibrate. She was out. She wouldn’t wake up and let the fucker in. Would she?
Liam tried to blend into the crowd, but Weston turned down the same street.
He just kept coming. Liam stopped. He was caught, and he’d been fucking right. He’d known there was something wrong with Simon Weston. The big blond man stalked right up to him.
“Are you going to come quietly or do I need to pull my gun?” Weston asked. “I have a few questions about your relationship with Avery Charles. We can go to my safe house or I can take you straight to Scotland Yard, Mr. O’Donnell.”
Liam sighed. The fucker was MI6, and he was screwed.
“I’m on an op. I know you won’t believe me, but I’m trying to help.” It couldn’t hurt to try.
Weston gave him a slight smile and didn’t reach for his gun. “Do you know you’re working for the CIA?”
Liam stared.
“Yes, I rather thought not. Ian Taggart doesn’t tell you a damn thing, does he? Follow me if you want the truth. If you don’t then I can have Scotland Yard pick you up. I know some people in Ireland who would love to talk to you about the murders of six university students. I believe G2 thinks you’re dead. You can be sent back to Ireland, you know. I happen to believe you didn’t have a fucking thing to do with that shit. My car is just up the road.”
Liam stood there, thinking about Avery safe and sound in her bed. If she woke up, she would wonder where he’d gone.
He hurried to catch up with her would-be lover. He’d gotten the prize, but Weston knew the truth.
Chapter Eight
Liam sat at the table across from an empty chair. It was a bland, featureless room in a suitably boring house that no one would notice in a suburban neighborhood just outside London. The small room was dominated by a mirror that ran along the opposite wall. MI6. Whoever was watching behind that mirror was MI6, and he was right in the belly of the beast.
He shouldn’t have gotten out of her bed, but then he wasn’t known for making good choices when it came to women. He sat in the chair, utterly unmoving. They’d offered him food and drinks, but he wouldn’t touch a fucking thing. He wouldn’t risk the food being tampered with. The very least they would do would be to deny him access to the loo after he’d had a couple of cups of tea. It was the way these things went. Torture could come in small ways.
So he waited.
The door opened, and Simon Weston walked inside carrying a file folder. He was still dressed in his smart suit, still looked every inch the English blue blood even at fucking two o’clock in the morning.
“You’re not being held here, Mr. O’Donnell. If you want to leave, you should. I’ll drive you back myself,” Weston offered, gesturing back toward the door. “I would like to point out that I haven’t taken your phone nor was that door ever locked. I merely wish to have a talk with you.”
So pleasant. So polite. “You did threaten to hand me over to Scotland Yard.”
Serious blue eyes stared back. “I needed a little leverage, otherwise you would likely have told me to fuck off.”
“Oh, boyo, I might have done worse than that.” It felt so fucking good to just be himself. Maybe he should have kept up the pretense, but it didn’t seem to matter. If they knew who he was, the op was blown and Ian was going to have his ass, so whether or not he spoke in his mother accent didn’t matter a good goddamn.
Why hadn’t he called Ian? Weston was right. Not once had the MI6 agent tried to wrest his phone away. As far as Liam could tell, there wasn’t anybody else in the small house. He wouldn’t bet his life on it, but he’d also gotten caught without his piece. There were too many checkpoints in London while doing the tourist crap with Avery, and then there had been the fact that he’d always intended to get naked with her. Finding his SIG nestled at the small of his back might have blown his cover.
But he’d still had his phone, and he hadn’t even thought about calling in his friend.
Because Weston had a temptation to dangle in front of him. Information. “You said you had information on my boss. My boss is Ian Taggart. I don’t work for the bloody CIA.”
A little light hit the Englishman’s eyes. “You don’t, but the question is who does Taggart work for? You know what they say about the Agency. Once an Agency man, always an Agency man.”
Liam didn’t buy it. Ian had worked for the CIA the same way Liam had worked for intelligence. They were soldiers who got called in from time to time. That was all. Except he’d heard about what Eli Nelson had told Sean just before he’d gotten away, just before he’d nearly killed both Sean and Grace. Sean had told Liam that the rogue CIA agent told him lies about his brother and his Agency status. He’d said Ian did wet work for the CIA. He’d claimed Ian was an assassin. “He got out a long time ago.”
Weston waved him away. “We can get back to that in a moment. For now I want to talk about our mutual interests.”
And this was the main reason he’d gotten his ass into Weston’s non-descript Benz. Weston was working Avery, and Liam needed to know what MI6 knew and whether or not they were going to close him down. “Avery. I take it there’s something going on at United One Fund.”
Weston frowned. “Yes. Obviously.” He studied Liam for a moment. “You aren’t here for Molina. You’re here for someone else. Who? What do you know that I don’t?”
Liam sat back, firmly in the driver’s seat now. And he wasn’t an idiot. “Tell me what’s going on at UOF first. How long have you been undercover there?”
“I suspect you already know, but I’ll confirm your intel. I got myself hired on at UOF about a year ago when we started tracking some suspicious shipments going into Africa and traced them back to the same planes that had brought over the UOF relief packages.”
Liam’s gut took a dive. Suspicious packages going into Africa usually meant one thing. “He’s running guns?”
Weston sighed. “Someone is. There’s been a surge in high-grade, low-cost weapons sh
“If they’re in Pakistan, they’re going to the Taliban and they can be used against Allied troops,” Liam surmised. “But there are hundreds of arms dealers. Is this one particularly big?”
“He’s single-handedly armed both sides of a recent bloody civil war in a small African country. If this is all the work of the same person or organization, they are having a significant effect on the continent, and MI6 doesn’t like the idea that the same thing could happen in the Middle East.”
He didn’t like the idea either. And he really didn’t like the idea that Avery was involved in it. “How have you connected Molina to the arms shipments?”
Weston’s face told the tale. “I haven’t exactly. Don’t get me wrong. I can tie the relief shipments to the same transports, but you know as well as I do that Molina can claim ignorance and hide his tracks.”
“What the hell is Molina doing in the arms business?” Liam asked, knowing damn well he’d just put a piece together, but he wasn’t exactly pleased with the fit. Eli Nelson would be interested in the arms deals. The arms industry would be very tempting for a man with Nelson’s connections. His problem was with where Molina fit in.
“I don’t know,” Weston admitted. “Look, the guy was a recluse for years. He founded UOF with family money, but he ran it out of his house for many years. Then about three years ago, he showed up at a board meeting with his lawyers and his brother in tow, fired everyone, and started over. He claimed it was because of mismanagement of funds.”
That was in line with what Liam had read. Thomas Molina and his brother had taken back real control of the Fund, and a few years after that Brian Molina had died of a drug overdose. “How far back do the deals seem to go?”
“I’ve traced shipments up to three years ago, but again, I don’t have the financials to back it up. Without those, it’s meaningless. I’ve been collecting all the data I can, but I haven’t cracked it yet. There are some files I can’t get into. I need Avery for those.”
And that explained the hard press he’d witnessed. “You didn’t have a lot of luck in the romance department.”
Because that fucker wasn’t Avery’s type. He was.
Weston frowned. “No, I didn’t. You’ll have to tell me what kind of approach you used. I tried every bloody charming trick I know.”
But she didn’t need charming. She needed a man who could protect her, who could claim her. She was submissive deep down. She needed to be needed, and fuck all if Liam didn’t need her. “I didn’t have the same problem.”
“Yeah, I got that. She seems to like arses with dark hair.” His eyes had narrowed, frustration evident. So the near royal bastard hadn’t liked being turned down. Fucker probably hated the fact that Avery had chosen a common Irish thug to bed down with. God bless Americans and their egalitarianism because if he thought for a single second that Avery had flirted with this bastard, he might have gone over the table and been at the bastard’s throat, but he knew the truth. Avery hadn’t wanted anyone except him. She’d waited. She’d waited for him.
“She apparently knows a good thing when she sees it.” He let his arrogance out. Weston needed to understand that he controlled the flow of information that would come from Avery Charles. If he ended up working with MI6, the team needed to get the fact that Avery was his asset and he would be the one to handle her and make the decisions. “I’m in. I have her right where I want her. Though she’ll likely be pissed as hell with me if I don’t get back to her before dawn.”
Now that he was away from her, he knew it would be a terrible mistake to allow her to wake up by herself. She would assume he’d used her. She would pull away and every inch of ground he’d gained would be lost. He could see it clearly now. He needed to be there.
“I’ll have you back before dawn,” Weston said, his eyes narrowing. “I wouldn’t want to hurt the girl. Though I haven’t figured out if she’s in on it yet.”
Which just proved that he was an idiot, but Liam had no intention of giving anything away. “I’m withholding judgment until I spend a little more time with her. Are you the one who bugged her phone?”
Weston’s face went blank. “No. It was that way when I managed to get it out of her bag. I placed a piggyback on the device, but I haven’t gotten anything interesting off it. I’ve heard a whole lot of her talking to her boss, but nothing beyond work and plans to have her walk him through various parks. And she’s been talking to some gay guy the last couple of days. Given when he came into her building, I suspect he belongs to Taggart and the Agency.”
And Liam suspected that Weston already knew everything. This was a chess game. “Adam. He’s been working her from the friend angle. He’s been invaluable in getting close to her. Adam knows how to get a woman to trust him.”
“Or I went about this shit all wrong. You’ve been under Taggart’s tutelage and everyone knows what that means. Tell me something, O’Donnell, did you tie her up yet?”
He felt a snarl in the back of his throat. “None of your fucking business. Tell me something. Did you bug her house? Did you enjoy the fucking show tonight?”
“Again, we weren’t the first. That place had been bugged before she moved in. I suspect Molina, but I can’t prove it. And yes, I listened in this evening. It made me utterly certain that if I’m going to get the information I need, I have to work with you. Or I have to bring you over to my side.” Weston leaned forward. “Come back to MI6, O’Donnell. This is where you belong. I’ll make all your Irish problems go away. I know bloody well you didn’t kill those kids.”
“How?” He wasn’t sure himself. It was a question that plagued him every day since he’d started to remember. He wasn’t completely sure he hadn’t killed them.
Weston stopped, his fingers tapping on the folder in front of him. “How much do you remember about the night you lost the bonds? I’m going to forego the recitation of the mission. I suspect you know what you were supposed to do. You and your brother were assets, and according to all records, you did your job. You got in good with the Russian organization that we suspected of terrorism. Leonov gave you roughly ten million dollars in bearer bonds that were intended to purchase a measure of uranium. Your main mission was to discover where the uranium was coming from.”
“I remember.” He did. Not much more, but he knew that much. “I was drugged at a pub. It was the night before we were supposed to meet with the arms dealer. My brother died that night.”
He couldn’t get the sight of those boots out of his mind. Even in his sessions with Eve, he got hung up on those boots and the ringing of his phone. And he still couldn’t figure out if it was real or a fiction his head had made up because nature abhorred a vacuum.
“Tell me something, O’Donnell. Who were you working for that day?”
He shrugged. He was an asset. He rarely knew exactly who was behind an op. “I was supposed to answer to a high-ranking agent in Irish intelligence, but I always knew MI6 was involved.”
“But we were only covering for who had really planned the op. It was all CIA.”
Liam went very still. “No. It was a Brit op. You needed someone with an Irish accent and believable IRA ties in order to get into the cell. My mother was IRA. Rory and I gave that up a long time ago. We were loyal to our country and friendly to the crown. The CIA had nothing to do with it.”
Liam hated the shit-eating grin that crossed Weston’s face. “The CIA is rarely uninvolved, and you shouldn’t be so naïve. They planned the op. They selected the SAS assets to use. They had their fingers in every single move we made. Look, this was before I was recruited. I didn’t join up until twenty-four months ago, but I’ve studied the files since I figured out who you are. Did you think you could come here and ruin my operation? I’ve become an expert on you. And I know exactly who sold you out.”
And he was prevaricating. Fucker. “Then why don’t you tell me?”
He passed the folder over to Liam. “Didn’t you ever wonder why Ian Taggart was so willing to take you in? You had run two ops with him three years before that night. Why the hell would he move heaven and earth to save you?”
A cold chill went up Liam’s spine. “He’s a good guy.”
“He’s a man with a past you can’t even begin to comprehend.”
“He’s my friend.” That word meant something to Liam. He didn’t have many friends. He had his crew at McKay-Taggart. That was his little family, and they hadn’t steered him wrong. Sure, he thought Adam was an obnoxious prick at times, but he thought of him like a cousin he wanted to punch. He was still his family no matter how much he rolled his eyes.
“Ian Taggart was the agent who ran the op.” The words fell out of Weston’s mouth like a land mine waiting to go off.
“I don’t believe you.” Ian would have told him. Ian knew damn well that that had been the op that cost him his brother, his goddamn life. Ian wouldn’t betray him that way.
That manila file folder sat between them. Liam’s eyes held it. Bare. It had no markings on it, but it suddenly struck him that file folder could change his life. He didn’t want to open it. He wanted to be back in bed with Avery. He should have pushed aside all his fears and taken her again. His cock had been ready. It had been his brain that hesitated because he’d been scared of what she meant.
If he was still in bed with Avery, he wouldn’t be facing that damn folder.
“Ian Taggart is a brilliant asset.” There was a nauseating sympathy to Weston’s voice that put Liam on edge.
Ian was his friend. And he knew bloody well what Weston was trying to do. He was trying to drive a wedge between Liam and his team. He was trying to break Liam’s loyalty. Manipulation was an art form, and MI6 taught its agents well. “I know Ian Taggart. This isn’t going to work. I know he used to work for the Agency. If he’s consulting with them again, then he has his reasons.”
-->
