by Lexi Blake
They were looking for Eli Nelson. Nelson was rogue CIA. It only made sense that Ian would use his contacts. It certainly wasn’t a betrayal. It wasn’t.
“How well do you know Ian?”
Liam rolled his eyes. This was so transparent, and he was just about ready to test Weston’s open door theory. He had some important information. He had the girl. If Ian really was in contact with the CIA, then they probably had some influence and might be able to talk MI6 into leaving him in, although he likely didn’t need it. Weston, for all his charm and good looks and obvious money, hadn’t gotten into the lady’s bed. Liam had done that. She trusted him, not Simon Weston. If they wanted to get close to Avery then they needed to keep Liam around and maybe, just maybe, he would share intel with them.
This was his op. He made the decisions. He might not have any right to run the op on British soil, but he had leverage now. They’d waited too long to call him out.
He made sure his voice was confident even if his brain was running in twelve different directions. “I’ve known Ian Taggart for years. I’ve worked with him, trained with him. I know the man.”
“Tell me something, O’Donnell, how much does he talk about his wife?”
So transparent. “He’s never been married. Don’t be ridiculous. Ian Taggart is the man least likely to get married.”
The thought of Ian putting a ring on some girl’s finger was ridiculous.
Weston flipped that file folder open so casually, as though he wasn’t opening Pandora’s box. Liam looked down. A marriage license from five years back stating that Ian Mitchell Taggart and Charlotte Marie Dennis had been married in London, England.
“So?” Ian was a deep one. If he had a failed marriage in his background, he wouldn’t go around blubbering about it. He wasn’t like Sean, and now Adam and Jake, who felt the need to whine about their relationships like they were a walking daytime television show devoted to talking vaginas. Ian would bury it down like a man should.
“So you don’t know anything about Charlotte Taggart? You don’t know that she was Ian’s cover for his last European assignment? That he married her because he needed the cover?”
Liam winced inwardly. He was betting Charlotte Taggart had likely been pissed off. Or more likely she didn’t even know that he’d used her. She had probably been quietly divorced and now lived a perfectly boring Middle-American life with three kids and a fat husband who didn’t know how to internally decapitate another human being.
Avery would want that life. Avery would move on after he’d used her, and she wouldn’t look back at the idiot man who wasn’t smart enough to love her.
Did Ian ever think about Charlotte?
Weston’s hand flicked the marriage license aside and another very formal-looking document was beneath it. “Does he ever mention that he’s the one who put a bullet in her back? Charlotte Taggart was eliminated after her loving husband no longer needed her. Oh, he claimed she was dead when he found her according to Scotland Yard, but it’s clear enough to me. And would you like to know what op he was running at the time? Would you like to know why he was ‘honeymooning’ in England?”
Those pages just kept flipping, an English Intelligence book of horrors. His stomach was a wave of nasty suspicion. Ian had married a woman just weeks before Rory had died, and he’d been in England at the time.
When he’d called Ian that day so long ago, Ian had told Liam he was in Dallas. But according to his passport, he’d been in England. He’d been dealing with his wife’s murder.
Had Ian been killing his wife?
“According to all MI6 reports, Ian Taggart was still an active CIA operative at the time of his wife’s death. The US government smoothed the way in the investigation of the incident. At the time, he’d been running an op in cooperation with G2 and MI6.”
Liam shook his head. “No. I never talked to the CIA.”
Weston sighed. “Why would you? You were the grunt, O’Donnell. You were expendable. You’ve worked intelligence long enough to know that the right hand doesn’t need to know what the left hand is doing, and most of the time neither hand even realizes there’s a brain behind the actions. Ian Taggart ran the op that killed your brother. It was his baby. It was the whole reason he was in Europe in the first place. He’d tracked those Russians for years. You had worked with him a couple of times. How do you think he managed to get you out of Ireland so easily? Everyone should have been looking for you or your body, but Ian Taggart just bought you a plane ticket to the States? No. The CIA got you out. Taggart made a deal with them. Why the hell would that man risk his newly started company to take in someone who might or might not have killed seven people including his own brother? Even if you discount the potential murder charges, there is no doubt that you fucked up that op. Those bonds are gone because you decided to celebrate with a pint. Why the hell would he bring you in unless he wanted to watch you? He’s been watching you for years, O’Donnell, and when he gets what he needs out of you, you’ll end up like his loving wife.”
Weston revealed a vile photo. A beautiful woman with pitch black hair staring up at the camera, her crystal blue eyes vacant. Charlotte Taggart. Dead and gone.
“Her body went missing from the morgue twelve hours after she was declared dead. I’ve always wondered what he did with it. We didn’t get a chance to do an autopsy. I suspect we would have found evidence against him if we had.” Weston sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Taggart is involved in a lot of nasty business. So why don’t you tell me why he’s come to my island? I need to know so I can form a plan to stop him. He’s every bit as dangerous as anything Molina is into.”
Liam stared at that girl. She morphed into another girl. Younger, less beautiful, but she’d had her life ahead of her. Had he choked that life away? Had his actions that evening, innocent though they’d been, led that small blonde woman to her death? How many women had died because of that single operation?
How would Avery look on a slab, her face devoid of the life that lit her up from the inside?
Would Avery Charles be one more woman on a slab? He didn’t remember the other girl, but he would die with the feel of Avery’s arms around him. He would always be able to taste her on his tongue.
“O’Donnell?” Weston’s voice seemed to come from far away, but it pulled him out of that very dark place. Somewhere in the background, he could hear a phone ringing. It wasn’t real. He knew that. That phone was in his head. In his nightmares. Who had called him? Had it been Ian Taggart? Why couldn’t he remember?
Liam forced himself back into the present. He had enough shit to deal with in the here and now. He didn’t need to get lost in the past. He schooled his expression. No matter what, he wasn’t about to make an emotional decision. He needed time. He needed to sort this out. He’d been played before and people had died. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
“I can help you.” Weston’s voice was smooth, friendly. “I know what it means to be that piece of crap expendable asset. I’ve had to fight the same shit over here.”
Liam doubted that the second son of a duke was really so fucking expendable. Liam had grown up rough. He knew what it meant to go to sleep with an empty belly and rats skittering across the floor. Whatever worth he’d had in this world, he’d had to fight for.
Weston had no idea what it meant to be utterly expendable.
The door opened abruptly, and his evening was complete. Damon Knight walked in looking utterly different than he did at The Garden. His leathers were gone, replaced with a perfectly cut suit and a frown that could freeze a man from ten feet away. He walked in like he owned the place.
“Do you want to explain this to me, Weston?”
Weston glared back. His eyes had flared, and there had been just a second’s worth of panic on the agent’s face before he settled back into a calm but annoyed look. And it was brutally obvious they knew each other. If Weston was shocked the owner of a BDSM club had come walking into his safe house
“Yes, McKay-Taggart,” Knight shot back. “I am well aware.”
Weston stopped for a minute. Yeah, he hadn’t known that. It was obvious in the flare of his eyes before the agent moved on. “I had tech pull some CCTV footage of him.” He glanced back at Liam. “You were pretty good about keeping your head down, but I found a moment when you looked up at something Avery was trying to show you.”
Liam could guess what had happened from there. “You ran my face through facial recognition software and you got a hit from G2.”
“From a couple of places, really,” Weston admitted.
Knight didn’t look like he gave a shit. “Agent Weston, would you please repeat back to me the parameters of your mission. I think you’ve forgotten. I know damn well you weren’t cleared to interrogate this man.”
Weston’s frustration hardened his face. “He’s in her bed. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Was I not supposed to run a trace on him?”
“You didn’t just run a trace, did you?” Knight argued. “If you had run a trace, you would have discovered his very solid cover.”
Liam looked up at the Dom unwilling to leave it a second longer. “You’re MI6. Any reason you didn’t bother to mention that to me?”
Knight’s shoulders squared. “Talk to Ian.”
Well, of course Ian knew. Ian knew everything.
“We’re not enemies, Liam,” Knight said. “It’s precisely why I’m having this fight with junior here in front of you. You’ll have to forgive His Lordship. He wasn’t given the information because he didn’t need to know. He’s been a little too thorough, and he does a lot of work on his own. If he’d followed protocol and contacted his handler like he should have, we would have avoided this little scene.”
Knight’s eyes went to the file folder, flaring briefly before he scooped it up. “What the fuck have you done, Weston?”
“I did my job,” the Englishman ground back, and Liam finally understood that maybe Weston did get what it meant to be left out of the information loop like a cog in the wheel that could be easily replaced.
“Your job was to get the information on Molina, not to screw one of our allies.”
“I’m not so sure Taggart is an ally. Why is he here? Why is he jumping into the middle of my operation?” Weston asked, his fists clenched.
“This is not your operation. It’s mine and if you don’t like it, you can take a nice long vacation, Your Lordship. I will deal with you in a minute.” Knight turned back to Liam. “You screwing the girl yet?”
He had the wildest urge to pound the fucker’s face until he caught sight of bone, but he shrugged negligently. “Yeah. I’ll get what we need.”
It looked like he was in bed with more than just Avery. He could walk away. It was an option. He could disappear, but then she would be alone and at the mercy of men who had none. And he would never know the truth. Not about himself or his brother or Ian.
“Good man. Ian’s in a car waiting for you. He was very upset when he found out you were in custody. Seriously, I thought he was going to take someone’s head off.” Knight ran a hand across his face, a weary gesture. “Go on, then. He’ll take you back to the girl’s place. You need to be with her before she wakes up. Women don’t like it when you sneak out of their beds. I’ll take care of this one.” Knight turned as Liam got up to walk out. “Talk to Ian. This is pile of information is meaningless without the truth behind it. You can interpret this information in a million different ways, but Ian is the only one who knows the truth. I would trust that man with my life.”
Liam nodded, giving Knight a smile he hoped was fairly carefree. “Hey, mate, I’ve known Ian for years. He’s protected me. I’m not going to let some papers change that fact.”
But he was numb inside as he made his way out of the house. That file did change things, and he needed to get to the bottom of it. The question was how to go about it. He couldn’t trust anyone on his team. He had no idea if they were in on it.
He hated this feeling. He’d trusted them to watch his back. He’d fought and bled with these people. How could he think this way? How could he think that Jake and Eve were in on a plot to keep him ignorant?
It was only paranoia if they weren’t really out to get him.
Ian was standing beside a black BMW, an annoyed look on his face. “Li, we need to talk. I didn’t tell you about the MI6 shit because Damon asked me not to. He facilitated us coming in on their op. He didn’t think for a second that Weston would get around your cover and actually try to arrest you.”
But Weston hadn’t done that. Weston had just tried to show him a ton of information that would have been good to know five years before. “No problem, boss.”
Ian didn’t know what Weston had shown him. He would know soon enough. Knight would fill him in, but at least tonight Liam didn’t have to listen to explanations. He needed time to think.
Ian stared at him warily as Liam hopped into the passenger’s seat. “Are you all right? He didn’t pull any shit with you, did he?”
Weston had pulled the rug out from under him. He’d unsettled the only world Liam had known for the better half of the last decade. “He didn’t waterboard me, boss. He did offer me stale biscuits. That’s torture.”
Ian sighed. “I’m glad to hear it. I wanted to deal with the little fucker myself, but Damon talked me out of it. You’re cleared officially now. Damon saw to it.”
“Good.” Liam stared forward. “Let’s get going. I don’t want Avery to wake up without me.”
He slipped back into his Midwestern accent like a security blanket he pulled on to protect himself. He was on a mission, and it had far wider parameters than he thought because now he had to figure out if Ian Taggart had a hand in killing Rory.
Ian turned the ignition and pulled away from the suburban house. “What’s going on? Damon just managed to work a deal that officially clears you of all wrongdoing and set things straight with G2. You’re clear, Li. Don’t you have anything to say about it?”
If Weston was right, Ian could have done that himself at any time. “It’s great, man, but I don’t exactly have a hankering to head home or anything. I do appreciate it.”
Ian’s eyes stayed on the road, but frustration dripped from his voice. “Are you sure there isn’t something you want to talk about? Are you having mixed feelings about sleeping with Avery Charles? You’re protecting her, you know.”
“Yeah.” How had Ian protected his woman? “I know. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Ian drove the rest of the way in silence while Liam’s brain raced with a million possibilities.
Unfortunately, not a one of them was good.
Chapter Nine
Avery woke up, blinking in the early morning light. She stretched, her muscles deliciously aching. Every minute of the night before came flaring back to life. She’d made love with Lee Donnelly, big, gorgeous Lee with the broad shoulders and beautiful face and filthy-as-sin mouth.
She’d made love with him in the middle of the night, but now it was morning and time to face the music. She didn’t look great in the morning. He probably would stay and have breakfast and be polite because that was the kind of man he was, but he would extricate himself from the situation and she needed to look cool and collected. God, she wasn’t cool and collected. She pulled the sheet up, unwilling to turn and look beside her. What if he was already gone?
How did these things work? What made her think she’d be able to handle a one-night stand?
The sheet she clutched was suddenly pulled straight out of her hands and cool air hit her breasts.
“I need you.” Lee straddled her, his eyes on her chest. He looked different this morning. Gone was the patient guy who had calmly explained what he wanted, and in his place was a hungry predator. He was boldly naked, his body lean and hard everywhere. The soft light of morning couldn’t dull his suddenly sharp edges.
And there was no way to avoid his cock. He was utterly erect, the thick, bulbous head of his dick nearly touching his navel as he stared down at her.
There was no kindness in him now. There was challenge and a cool distance that frightened her a little. For the first time, she really understood that she was small and weak, and he could likely kill her with his bare hands. Last night had still been civilized for all the dirty talk, but he seemed to demand something different in the light of day.
He leaned over, catching her wrists in his hands. She was trapped beneath his body, their chests touching, his cock nearly throbbing against her pussy. His weight bore her into the bed. His face was slightly cruel as he looked down on her.
“You want me to go, little girl? Last night was for you. If you let me stay in this bed, this morning is going to be for me and it might not be so pretty. It’s going to be dirty, and it’s going to be my way all the way.”
What had happened to him? She searched his face. Yes, he was acting like a dominant prick, but something in his eyes made her wonder. And what he’d said. He needed her.
She’d needed him the night before, and he’d given her everything she could have wanted. She wasn’t going to fool herself. She was already half in love with him. She wasn’t going to let him scare her off.
And wasn’t that what he was trying to do? Push her to see if she could really accept him?
She suddenly wasn’t so afraid of him anymore. She brought her head up and touched her nose to his. Her body was already warming up. “It wasn’t so clean last night, Sir.”
“Fuck.” The cold look vanished like it had never been there in the first place, and he slammed his mouth on hers.
He held her in place, and Avery understood what it meant to be inhaled. That was what he was doing to her. He dominated her mouth, kissing her like he needed her to breathe. Over and over again he took her mouth, and she gave it up willingly. When he released her wrists, she wrapped her arms around him. She let her legs tangle with his, offering him everything she had. He got her so hot so fast, as though her body now trusted this man to take care of her.
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