Finally, she’d found where she belonged.
And that was the best feeling in the world.
Epilogue
The room was small and bare except for a metal table and four metal chairs. There was two-way glass lining one side of the room. Behind the glass, Ian Black watched the interrogation. Daniel Weir sat across the desk from the interviewing detective, impatient and annoyed. His attorney sat beside him, making notes and advising his client when to answer and when to stay silent.
General Comstock stood beside Ian, grunting as the interview went on. “Pompous little ass,” he said. “I never liked the prick, but damn if that exoskeleton wasn’t a thing of beauty. Too bad it doesn’t work.”
“It could work,” Ian said mildly. “It just needs more time in development.”
He’d seen the plans. Paul Hicks had been the engineer behind RIM, not Weir. Weir had more in common with a conman than he did with the genius he’d pretended to be. He’d graduated MIT, and he’d developed a satellite targeting program that’d made his reputation. But Ian would bet his last nickel that Weir hadn’t developed it at all. He’d stolen it, same as he had the AI software for RIM. It was a legal theft, though. He’d made his engineers sign development agreements that stated anything they developed while working for the company belonged to the company.
It was a common enough practice in companies with research and development departments. And it made sense in some ways. Companies didn’t want to pay people to develop patents that they could then take elsewhere. It was the company’s time and money that made it possible for the developer to work, after all.
“That’s what DARPA thinks, too,” Comstock said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they start working on something similar.”
DARPA was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and they were responsible for much of the cutting edge tech that benefited society these days. If they were going to take over work on the exoskeleton, then it wasn’t a hopeless project. That was both good and bad since other nations would also be eager to get their hands on the technology.
“It’s a brave new world,” Ian said.
“Indeed. I prefer the old one in some ways,” the general replied. “The battles of the future will be fought with the kinds of things we only thought existed in sci-fi movies, though. We either develop these things ourselves or get left behind.”
“Very true, sir.”
“I don’t know that we’re going to pin anything on him,” he said after a moment. “I’m getting pressure from higher up to make a case or stop pursuing it.”
Higher up for a general in Comstock’s position very likely meant Congress. Which meant Congressman Klein.
“We caught him in the middle of a crime scene, he admitted Hicks was dead on a recording from that scene, and The Washington Post published a story about Ninja Solutions trying to defraud the Department of Defense. If nothing else, Weir is the very public CEO of the company. And none of that’s good enough,” Ian murmured.
“You know as well as I do that Weir could print a confession on page one of the Post and those lawyers of his would claim it never happened and didn’t exist. And the shame of it is that people would believe them, too.”
Ian didn’t disagree. You could tell people the sky was blue, show them a blue sky, explain the science behind why the sky was blue, and they’d still claim that something they’d read on social media, written by someone with less education than a kindergartner, was correct about why the sky wasn’t blue, had never been blue, and how the effort to convince people it was blue was nothing but a hoax.
Sometimes, Ian despaired for humanity.
The interviewer turned off the recorder and stood. Weir and his lawyer stood too. The door opened and the two of them waltzed out, Weir looking smug and his lawyer looking as serious as a heart attack.
Ian thanked the general and walked outside. Weir and his lawyer were getting into a black SUV that idled beside the curb. Ian watched as the doors closed and the SUV moved toward him. It was only when the SUV was even with him that the driver turned and met his gaze.
Shock jolted him as their eyes clashed. Then the driver winked and pressed the accelerator. Ian cursed and sprinted for his Porsche. He’d never catch up now. And even if he did, it was definitely too late for Daniel Weir.
Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.
Washington, DC at night was an awe-inspiring sight. Ian loved the city during the day, but he loved it even more at night. Especially the Jefferson Memorial. There was something about the rotunda with its bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson, with those beautiful words from the Declaration of Independence carved in its circular walls, that filled him with pride and awe every time.
No, it wasn’t perfect considering the words hadn’t applied to slaves or women when they were written, but it was still something that stood the test of time.
We hold these truths to be self-evident…
He sat on the steps and waited, certain she would come. He wasn’t wrong. At precisely ten p.m., a woman in a white coat and fur hat came striding around the Tidal Basin. She approached without fear or hesitation. He watched her, wondering at her confidence. How did she know he wasn’t planning to take her prisoner this time? To take her and keep her. It would certainly deal a blow to her bosses if he did. If they knew she was talking to him, her days were numbered. If he captured her, perhaps he could keep her safe.
“Hello, Mr. Black.” Her hands were thrust in her pockets. Her hair was tucked inside the hat so that he couldn’t tell if it was long or short. Black or blond. But at least she looked like herself—or as much like herself as he imagined her. There was no telling with Calypso, but he could see her brother in her face this time, which made him think it was truly her own without heavy makeup or disguise.
“Hello, Cally.”
She made a noise. “Don’t call me that.”
“Fine.” He walked down the stairs until he was standing in front of her. She wasn’t very tall, though he’d seen her be taller. Lifts. This time he suspected it was her true height since she was only about five-four. Small, but not too small. “You lied to me, Natasha.”
She shrugged. “I told you before. I do what I have to. I don’t owe you anything.”
“No, you don’t, I suppose. Though I let you go once before.”
“So you could use me. Don’t pretend like you did it for noble reasons.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
She snorted. “This is why I like you, Ian Black. You don’t lie unless you have to. Same as me.”
She sounded American, because she had been born here, and yet she sometimes had the speech patterns of someone whose native language was Russian. But not a hint of a Russian accent.
“You were sent to eliminate Weir. Why?”
“Because he was an embarrassment. Because he was threatening people who didn’t like being threatened.”
“I see. Care to tell me who?”
She laughed. “Oh, yes, of course. Shall we dig our graves first? It’ll be easier for them to hide our bodies.”
He knew she wouldn’t talk, but he’d had to ask. “You said in Rome that you didn’t know anything about Ninja Solutions.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
She was exasperating, and intriguing. Damn her for both. “Was Weir in the Syndicate?”
Her lips flattened into a line. Then she nodded. “In a manner of speaking. He was being brought in. He was not a good fit, it turned out.”
“Where is he?”
“I believe he will be found floating in the Potomac tomorrow with a bullet through his head.”
“Rather obvious, isn’t it?”
“A warning, I imagine. For others.”
“I see.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and gazed at the lights across the basin. “Do you ever get tired of it, Natasha?”
“All the time,” she said softly. “I don’t like who I am made to be.”
He turned and grabbed her by the shoul
ders, forced her to look at him. Her eyes were green like a forest and fathomless. Filled with pain. “Stay with me. You don’t have to go back. I’ll help you.”
“I… I can’t.”
Ian groaned. And then he did the one thing he’d sworn he was never going to do. He tugged her into his arms and kissed her. She melted into him, kissing him back with a passion that stunned him. Their tongues met and melded, and desire streaked through his body, making him instantly hard. If they were anywhere else, he’d turn up the heat between them. But they were outside, in public, and neither of them were free to pursue this thing. It wasn’t safe.
And then she made a choking sound before she shoved at his shoulders. He stepped back, letting her go.
Her eyes sparked. He thought she was angry, but then a tear slid down her cheek. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered. “I-I have to go.”
She turned and hurried away, disappearing into the darkness. He didn’t follow her.
There would be other times. Other meetings.
It was enough.
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He ripped her heart out once before.
She vowed she’d never fall again.
Until she has to pretend she still loves him…
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Turn the page for your exclusive bonus scene featuring Jared’s romantic (and scary, for him) proposal to Libby!
Bonus Epilogue
Germany in May was beautiful. Jared loved the long days, the fresh spring blooms, the festivals and the food—but most of all he loved the woman he was with. Libby walked in front of him along the ramparts of an old city. Rothenburg ob der Tauber still had a medieval wall encircling most of the city, and you could walk along it for two miles. They passed other tourists doing the same, and Libby greeted them all with a cheery hello or guten tag.
She turned to him now, her face flushed with exercise, her smile the brightest and best thing in his life at that very moment. “This is so much fun,” she breathed. She’d traded her glasses for contacts today. Her hair was caught in a ponytail that swung across her back and she wore black leggings with a white stretchy T-shirt and walking shoes. He couldn’t wait to get her back to the hotel and get her naked again.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said. “Rothenburg is one of my favorite cities in Germany.”
She gazed out at the half-timbered medieval city arrayed below. “I can see why. It’s so picturesque. I don’t think I would have believed how beautiful it was if I weren’t here to see it myself.”
“I promised you Germany, and Germany you’re getting.”
She slipped into his arms and stood with him, watching the people walking below. “You’re so good to me,” she said.
He kissed the top of her head. “No, you’re good to me.”
“You mean like last night when I made you take that night watchman tour and talked to all those people so much that they invited us to join them for drinks? And then we didn’t leave until midnight?”
He laughed. “I didn’t mind.”
“You’d have rather been in bed reading some boring tome about the CIA.”
“No, I’d have rather been in bed making love to you.”
She still blushed when he said things like that, though this time it was partly the exercise coloring her cheeks too. She smacked him playfully. “You got to do that after we returned to our room. And again this morning.”
“And I’m planning to do it again tonight. Twice.”
“Only twice? Are you slowing down, old man?”
“Twice so you can still walk tomorrow,” he said with a growl.
She shivered in his arms. “Well, there is that.”
He took her hand and led her toward the steps that would take them to the city street. They walked hand in hand into the Burggarten, admiring the statuary and the flowers, until they reached the edge of the city wall where the views gave way to the Tauber Valley below and the old city in the distance with the medieval wall as support. It was, in a word, breathtaking.
Jared led her beneath the pergola with its profusion of greenery and listened while she sighed happily. They’d come here yesterday too, but he hadn’t been brave enough to do what he’d planned. Hell, maybe he wasn’t brave enough now. She wasn’t wearing a dress—not that he cared but maybe she did—and he was in jeans and hiking boots.
He started to doubt himself. Maybe he should do this in the Alps. Or maybe he should do it when they got to Venice. Shit. They’d planned a month in Europe and he had plenty of time. Plenty of perfect places. Since Libby had moved in with him, she’d started working as a virtual assistant for online business owners, which meant she could do her work from anywhere she had an internet connection. It gave them the freedom to make trips like this one.
“Jared?”
He looked up to find her watching him with a wry smile on her lips. She’d leaned back against one of the wood supports for the pergola, and she alternately gazed at the view and at him.
“Yes, baby?”
“Is something wrong?”
He loved how she knew when he was brooding on something. In the past few months, they’d grown closer than he would have ever thought possible. He hadn’t known this kind of thing was real, not even when he’d watched his friends fall in love. But it was real. So real it scared him sometimes when he thought about how close he’d come to losing her. How narrow the window to save her had been when he and his teammates had found her in that house on the Potomac, bloody and beaten—but not defeated. Never that.
“Nothing’s wrong, Libby.”
“I heard Brett call you Knight last week. It’s not that, is it?”
He wasn’t surprised she’d noticed, but he should have reassured her then. “No, it doesn’t bother me anymore. I told them it was okay.” And it was. He liked hearing that name again.
She smiled. “Good. You deserve it and it suits you.”
“You’re biased.”
“For sure. But it still suits you.”
She arched her back and he tried not to be distracted by her breasts. He was doing a bad job of it though. He was busy thinking about how they looked when she was naked and arching her back like that. About how much he wanted them in his mouth and hands. Soon.
“I heard from Lincoln again,” she said.
He focused in an instant. He knew she’d been talking to her brother from time to time,
but she usually wanted to tell him about it right away. Not this time, apparently. “You didn’t tell me. When?”
“The night before we left. He called me.”
“Damn, baby. Why didn’t you say so.”
She shrugged. “I was thinking. It’s not all bad, but I didn’t want to detract from our trip.”
He went over and pulled her into his arms, holding her loosely. “If you want to tell me, I’m listening.”
She sighed. “He said Glory and Charity aren’t ready to talk to me yet. But he is. He’s sorry he didn’t stand up for me before. He has a thirteen year old daughter now. He said he just can’t imagine doing anything to make her unhappy.”
“Libby,” he said, his mouth against her hair. His heart ached with love for her. And sorrow that she hadn’t had a dad like that.
“I know, right? But it’s a good thing.”
“It is.”
“He’s coming to DC next month for a conference. He wants to meet you.”
“That sounds good.”
She squeezed him and then stepped away. “Okay, I told you what was on my mind. Now tell me what’s on yours.”
He laughed in surprise. “I should have known.”
“You know I won’t let it go.”
“No, I know that. I don’t know if this is the right time though. Maybe when we get to the Alps.”
She squeezed his upper arms and shook him as much as a woman of her size could possibly shake a man of his. “Jared! Teeeeellll meeeeeee.”
He looked at her face, that face he loved so much, that was looking up at him with exasperation and determination—and he suddenly knew the time was right. He didn’t need the perfect fairytale setting or moment. He just needed her. And he didn’t want another minute to pass without her knowing it.
Black Knight (A Black's Bandits Novel): HOT Heroes for Hire: Mercenaries Page 25
