by Rachel Grant
“Oh, Bastian. They must miss you so much.”
“I told them I’d visit when this deployment is over, and my mom cried again. And then I felt like a shit.”
She ran her hands over his bare shoulders, pulling him closer. “I understand the double-edged sword of hurting a mother’s feelings out of self-protection.” She knew that pain all too well. “The guilt is hard, but you were right to take care of yourself first these last years.”
“She’s my elder. And my mom. And I made her cry. That might make me the worst Indian ever. And fuck, I’ve never seen her cry before.”
“Bastian, those were happy tears. She loves you. She wants to see you. And she cried when seeing you on the aircraft carrier because she’s proud of the man you are and the soldier you became—even when she would have held you back from that path, she’s proud.”
He ran his fingers through her hair. “Maybe.” His hand slid down to her cheek. “How long have you stayed away from your family?”
She stiffened. “My situation is a little different.”
“I know. But how long? When was the last time you saw your father and brothers?”
“Eight years ago.” The day she found out about Micah. The day everything changed.
“Tell me about it?” he asked softly.
“No.”
“Why not?”
She rolled to her back, looked up at the ceiling. “This is just a fling, Bastian. You don’t need to know the ugly details.”
“What if I don’t want it to be just a fling? What if I want to know the ugly details?”
What if she didn’t want it to be just a fling either?
It was too risky. “Please don’t ask for more,” she said. “This ends when I leave Djibouti.”
“Why, Brie? I might not know where this is going, but I do know this is more than casual sex. I know flings. I’ve had dozens. So have you. This is different. Shit. I’ve never told anyone about Cece, about my parents.”
And that was the problem. The talking. And the fact they’d slept together—without sex. This was…intimate.
And when he kissed her, she felt exquisite. Like he cared about more than just getting inside her physically. And when he was inside her, she felt a connection that went beyond friction hitting nerve endings built for pleasure.
The last time she’d felt anything remotely similar to this, the man had been Micah. “Relationships aren’t in the cards for me. But we can enjoy now.”
“Why, Brie?”
“Remember how my family wanted me to screw that guy when I was eighteen? Well, my father was pretty pissed I didn’t live up to my end of a bargain I never agreed to.” She grimaced, remembering when Alejandro had been sent back to Costa Rica because someone on the staff had spotted her slipping into his room.
She’d sold some of her jewelry and sent him money, which he’d used to pay for college and medical school, so in the long run, he’d come out fine, but her father’s treatment of him had been wrong just the same.
And she had no more jewelry left to sell.
But what happened to Alejandro was the least of her concerns. “After that, my dad told me I could screw around all I wanted, but in the end, if I didn’t marry Nikolai Drugov, he would dissolve my trust fund.”
Bastian sat bolt upright. “The Russian oligarch? He was the man you were expected to screw?”
“He wasn’t an oligarch then. He was a weaselly oligarch-in-training. My dad has wanted our families to align since I was a teen. My dad figures the best way to secure loyalty in business is shared grandkids or some other bullshit. All I know is I was expected to marry the creep, while no one insisted JJ or Rafe marry Lucya—Nikolai’s little sister.”
“Is that why you were disinherited? Because you refused Drugov?”
“No. That didn’t happen until years later, because I—” Shit. She shouldn’t have started this.
“Because you what?”
Her stomach churned. This would matter to Bastian. A lot. But the full truth was horrible, and there was no telling the first part without telling the last. She took a deep breath. “I made sure the Northwest oil pipeline project failed.”
Bastian stiffened. “What do you mean? You were the advocate for construction. I sat in that meeting. I listened to all the PE bullshit. Most of which was said by you.”
She closed her eyes. Every word he said was true. She’d been a shill. But once she’d learned about the Traditional Cultural Property and what it meant to the tribes, she’d done what she could to fix things. She crossed her arm over her chest, creating a barrier between her and Bastian as she rubbed her other arm. “I funneled information to the reporter who wrote all the articles that ended up killing the project. The information on the TCP. Prime Energy’s illegal altering of the negative environmental impact data. Micah got the proof he needed to kill the project from me.”
“You were the leak? You knew Micah Rogers?”
She wasn’t surprised Bastian knew the reporter’s name, especially given how closely he’d followed the oil pipeline project. Her fingers worried over a raised freckle on her right elbow, a spot she always rubbed in moments of stress. “Yes. We were lovers for several months.”
Bastian sat up, scooting away from her. She missed his body heat. Hated how this would change his opinion of her. Micah’s death was her fault.
She rolled over and stared at the thin metal CLU wall. “He didn’t know I was using him. I left the papers out, where he would conveniently find them when I was in the shower. I always gave him enough time to take pictures.”
In the end, it was one of those pictures that had killed him. Later, he’d been interviewed about the series of articles he wrote that took on Prime Energy and won, and included in the magazine spread were a few of the documents he’d obtained from an unnamed PE whistleblower. Several of the documents had been altered using a key only her father had known—a specific lowercase o had been filled in, looking like an ink misprint. She hadn’t known that her copy was the only one with that particular solid o, hadn’t known the pages had been altered at all. But then, she hadn’t known her father suspected someone was leaking documents and she’d led them right to Micah.
From there, it had only required a search of her credit card bills—along with an illegal search of Micah’s accounts, easy work for a man with Mafia ties—to see they’d concurrently visited the San Juan Islands on three different occasions.
She told Bastian this, then cleared her throat. “I was devastated when I heard about the helicopter crash that killed him. I was in grad school at Portland State, but home for the holidays when I heard the news. It was a tense visit to begin with, because I was clean and sober but hadn’t parted ways with my family yet. I still figured I could do good for the company, that I could make sure PE followed environmental law and did real, ethical environmental justice evaluations. I made the mistake of sharing my thoughts with JJ and Rafe.”
She pulled up the blanket, wishing she hadn’t stripped after they had sex. Wishing she hadn’t started this, because no way would Bastian let her stop talking now. “I’d heard about the news helicopter crash, but it was twenty-four hours before they released the pilot’s and the reporter’s names. When I heard Micah was on the helicopter, I lost it. Right there, in front of my brothers and father as we watched the news, I made it clear I’d cared about Micah. I couldn’t hide it.” She would never forget the smirk on her father’s face.
“I fled to my room. After crying for an hour, I pulled myself together to try to figure out what I could do for Micah’s family. The news said he had a wife and three-month-old baby.”
“Was he married when you were sleeping with him?” Bastian’s voice was stone cold.
“No. We’d broken up two years before—before he’d written the damning articles about the pipeline. He met his wife a few months later. He was a good man. He never would have cheated, and I don’t poach. Ever.” She gripped the edge of the blanket, pulling it higher. “I f
ound a meal delivery service and tried to order gift certificates to provide meals for his wife and baby, but the order wouldn’t go through. My credit card account had been closed.
“I called the bank and learned my accounts—all of them—had been shut down. I was broke—completely cut off. So I marched down to my father’s study and demanded to know why. He presented the proof of the filled-in o, said he knew I’d been the leaker, and he’d seized my trust fund—which was under his control until I turned thirty—and was discontinuing my allowance, which had been set up when I quit working for the company to enroll in grad school. He said if I wanted back in the family fold, if I wanted my trust fund reinstated, all I had to do was withdraw from grad school and marry Nikolai Drugov. It was the only way I could prove my loyalty.
“I told him I was fine being broke, that I’d never marry Drugov or any man he chose. That my body wasn’t part of his business deals.” She cleared her throat. “He countered that I’d used my body to betray PE to a reporter, now I would use my body to make amends.”
She wished she could read Bastian’s reaction, but she could barely look at him. Her gaze shifted everywhere but his face, only catching him peripherally.
“The timing of Micah’s death and my outing as the leaker couldn’t have been a coincidence. I accused him of having Micah killed. He denied it. But I know he lied.”
“That crash was investigated by the NTSB,” Bastian said. “They determined the cause was mechanical combined with pilot error. It was all over the news.”
She raised a brow. “You don’t think my family could arrange that? They’re in bed with the Russian Mafia. They killed Micah because I betrayed them. I think they’d figured out that I cared about him, and my reaction upon learning the news only confirmed it.” She cleared her throat. “Loyalty is the number one thing in my family. They didn’t give a damn when I was using drugs, sleeping around, didn’t care how I lived my life. But I betrayed them. So they went after a man I’d cared about and made his new wife a widow, his three-month-old child fatherless. The pilot was just collateral damage, and every bit as heartbreaking.”
“You loved Micah?” Bastian asked quietly.
She shrugged. “Maybe. I broke things off when I started to care about him. I couldn’t keep using him. I couldn’t tell him how I felt. It was best just to walk away, so he could write the articles.”
“He copied the papers. So he was using you too.”
“It wasn’t exactly a relationship based on trust.” She finally met Bastian’s gaze, and he didn’t seem to hate her. But who knew how this would sit with him over time. “I talked to the FBI about the crash. They reviewed the NTSB findings and said there was no evidence of any tampering with the helicopter. The pilot might’ve had a medical emergency that compounded the mechanical failure. It was hard to tell given the condition of his remains.”
She gripped the top edge of the blanket, rubbing the smooth edge against her palm. It was a sensory comfort as she saw in her mind that last confrontation with her family. The bile that rose as she finally saw that not only did her older brothers not give a damn about their baby sister, but that all three men were straight-up evil.
She’d fled to her room to pack a bag, grabbing her jewelry and anything else she could sell. Her father had met her at the door, alone, ensuring there were no witnesses to his final words. “Fuck around all you want, but remember what happens to people you care about.”
It was the closest he came to admitting he’d had Micah killed. She knew her father’s ruthlessness well. He didn’t bluff. And now he had a way to control her even without money.
She’d never gotten serious about a man again. It was too big a risk.
She met Bastian’s gaze, and fear pulsed through her. She cared about him. If something happened to him because of her, she’d never be able to crawl out of the hole of self-loathing.
“I think you should go,” she said.
Bastian’s nostrils flared; his body went tense. “What the hell? What aren’t you telling me?”
She gathered her haughtiest demeanor. “This is my CLU, and I’m telling you to leave.”
“Is this because you think your family will come after me like they did Micah? Micah’s articles crushed a billion-dollar project. Did you ever consider that’s why they had him killed? That it has nothing to do with the fact that you’d cared about him?”
That might have been their motive at first, but her dad’s final words still rang in her ears. “My dad isn’t done with his revenge. He threatened anyone I care about.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I can take care of myself.”
Panic seized her. That was exactly the kind of attitude that would put him at risk. He didn’t realize her family would never attempt a frontal assault. They’d use surrogates like Senator Jackson to undermine him with the military, or they’d go after his tribe. They’d strip him of everything that mattered to him before delivering a final killing blow that would look like an accident—or suicide. “Put your clothes on and get out.”
He stared at her, his face tight with anger. His hands clenched and unclenched as his chest rose with heavy breaths. “Fine. I’ll go now. But we aren’t done here.”
He jerked on his pants and donned the T-shirt, his movements angry, his eyes showing hurt.
This was for the best. He might think he was invincible, but she knew better. No one was invincible against the kind of pain her family would inflict.
26
Brie wasn’t certain why she was called to a meeting in the Special Operations Command headquarters. She’d been debriefed several times by Savvy and SOCOM personnel. She dressed carefully for the meeting, applying makeup with the diligence of a former heiress.
The makeup was a kind of armor. It would show Bastian who she really was. She wanted him to see the world she could never escape. Not even in South Sudan. Not even in Djibouti.
Prime Energy would always find her. It terrified her to think the senator might already have told her father about meeting the Green Beret who’d saved her, that it might already be too late.
She entered the meeting room wearing the mantle of professionalism she’d always mentally donned before entering a business meeting. She wasn’t intimidated by these men and women. She was a Prime, and as horrible as that was, it meant she’d grown up in a world where she’d learned how to work a room from age five. She knew when to be pretty and vacant, and when to twist balls.
Today, she’d crush some nuts if she had to. She was getting the hell out of here. She’d go to Morocco and present the vacant heiress to the world. She’d sleep with a half-dozen men and make it clear Chief Warrant Officer Sebastian Ford meant nothing to her.
She dropped into a seat near the head of the table as if it were her right. She avoided Bastian’s gaze but met Savvy’s, who nodded at her in approval. Apparently, the CIA wanted her to look the heiress part.
This world was as fucked up as her own.
Someone with stars on his chest entered the room, and everyone was called to stand. She did and nodded to the general before resuming her seat.
She rather liked the hierarchy of the military. It was spelled out and attainable. It wasn’t like the hierarchy of her world, where a woman could be born into it, or fuck her way in, but there were few other entry points and no equality no matter how you got there.
The meeting began without ceremony or preamble. Brie wasn’t introduced nor was she told who else was at the table. She’d met Bastian’s CO and XO the day before, and the captain who was leader of his A-Team was also present, but no one else from the team was there.
Brie and Savvy were the only women in the room, and after a few minutes, it was clear Savannah James had called this meeting.
Savvy rapidly outlined the major players in South Sudan’s ongoing civil war, starting with the president and opposing vice president, then moving on to describe other players who’d stepped in, finally coming to Lawiri.
His picture w
as projected on the big screen. He wore a military uniform and had dark skin with facial scarring indicative of one of the smaller tribes. “Erfan Lawiri split with the rebels over a year ago and is currently raising his own forces,” Savvy said. “His main encampment was attacked six months ago, and we thought Lawiri had been taken until he showed up at Ms. Stewart’s USAID facility demanding food for his soldiers about two months ago.” She paused. “We have reason to believe he’s backed by oil money.”
More than just Savvy’s eyes drifted in Brie’s direction.
“Intel indicates it’s highly probable the attack on the USAID facility was done to destabilize both sides and leave an opening for Lawiri to seize power in the vacuum. He’s likely to have made deals—offering drilling rights in exchange for weapons to support his bid for power. HUMINT obtained after the market destruction indicates Lawiri’s men provided security for the market.”
Savvy clicked her mouse, and the slide changed. The next image caused Brie’s stomach to churn. “Nikolai Drugov. As most of you are aware, he’s a Russian oligarch with deep Mafia ties. He’s in the Russian president’s deepest inner circle and by all accounts is a sick motherfucker. We think Drugov is backing Lawiri, and the market was a joint venture between the two to fund Lawiri’s bid for power. Drugov’s oil company, Druneft, stands to gain a fortune in oil rights, while Prime Energy is in line to build a pipeline to transport the oil out of South Sudan. This would remove the current pipeline from operation, saving South Sudan from paying high transit fees charged by Sudan for using their pipeline—which South Sudan’s Petroleum and Mining ministry says has led to the Upper Nile oil fields operating at a loss. Prime Energy has concessions with the Central African Republic and Cameroon ensuring that the transit fees will be much lower with the new pipeline.”
Brie wasn’t surprised to hear her family was in deep with Druneft. They’d been working toward this kind of partnership since she was a teen.
Savvy fixed her gaze on Brie. “Ms. Stewart, it’s my understanding that you’re familiar with Nikolai Drugov and at one point he surfaced as a potential fiancé to cement your family’s business dealings. What can you tell us about the man?”
