by Brynne Asher
He’s been barking orders since he stood me up in Crew’s foyer, wiped the tears from my face, told me he loved me, and how he knew I had it in me to handle this. Then he informed me I needed to snap out of it because we had shit to do.
Time is of the essence. Professionally, I know what needs to be done.
But I can’t get the picture out of my head of my brother standing there talking to the people who tried to kill Cole and his family … and me.
Devon.
Yes, we squabbled when we were young, but not as adults. As adults, we were fine—normal. As normal as siblings can be from a family full of secret assets. As many ways as my mind has tried to spin this—to make it not true—I don’t see how it can be any other way.
Cole dragged me back into the control room to find Ozzy simultaneously cleaning my mess off the floor while manning the satellite cameras.
“Who do you know that you can call?” Asa probes. “MI6 keeps their shit tight, no way can we get into their systems, which is why Ozzy couldn’t break his phone. We need to know what cases he’s been on and where he’s been working.”
Cole drags a hand through his hair and doesn’t answer.
Asa keeps on. “You worked that part of the country for years. Surely you have a contact.”
Then, something happens that never happens. My American, Cole Carson, is a lot of things … arrogant, self-centered, brash … yet always in control while working. However, today is a day of firsts because he and I are both teetering on the edge. “The Donnellys are my fucking contacts, Hollingsworth. And Devon is the one who met with the people who have been trying to kill us, blew my house up, and, oh, coinci-fucking-dentally, knew his sister was under my care and protection. So, no, I don’t have any more Brits left in my arsenal besides the one I plan on spending the rest of my fucking life with!”
Papers fly across the room that were fisted in his hand moments ago.
“Fuck!” he bellows, a cherry to top off his very irate sundae.
I lean back in the office chair Cole sat me in after I semi-snapped out of it. I force myself to breathe. Everything is falling apart and Cole has lost control.
“Penn Simmons?” Grady asks.
Cole pauses for a second before pulling out his phone. “I’m not sure what he’ll know, but he does know people all over. It’s a long shot, but it’s my only one.”
“What the fuck are we waiting for?” Jarvis pipes in. “We can be in raid gear storming the place in less than fifteen minutes. We have the element of surprise. We need to take advantage.”
“No.” All eyes in the room turn to me. It’s the first word I’ve spoken since my very uncharacteristic crying jag that the men walked in on. I focus on Cole. “The money hasn’t moved. We need to see this through to the end.”
Cole nods and turns back to the monitors, arms crossed, deliberating every earth-shattering problem raining down on us.
The room stills when sounds come over the speakers. Footsteps shuffle through a room at a quick clip. When the men busted in to take Gary and his helpers, they planted bugs but the church has been quiet until today.
“This is where you operate from?”
A shiver travels up my spine from hearing my brother’s voice as if he were sitting right next to me.
“It’s not exactly official business, Donnelly,” Wendy chides.
“You don’t say?”
I close my eyes. Devon was always the sarcastic one of the family.
Wendy keeps talking. “We know why you’re here, but it isn’t necessary. It was a mistake that won’t happen again. You’ll get your money’s worth but it’s going to take a couple days. We had some contractors disappear on us but should have someone else in line soon. We need the opportunity to arise for it to happen. The targets have been MIA.”
“Maybe there’s another way. Let me reach out to Carson,” Nick Peterson butts in.
“There’s no other way. I told you from the beginning when you agreed to join this effort,” Wendy snaps.
“I know for a fact my sister is on our trail. It’s only a matter of time before she and your CIA officer suss it out. And since I’m sitting at the end of the trail, that cannot happen. You were paid to make that go away and you fucked it up.”
I’m physically ill. Cole turns to catch my eyes and bruises are forming on his handsome face from my freak out. Everything happening to him is because of me.
My throat thickens and I can’t look at him any longer. The guilt is too heavy.
“Our contractors thought they were home,” Wendy argues.
“Not quite sure how much more you can fuck up. You can’t even get rid of the ex-Marine in Switzerland, for God’s sake. How do you get anything done in your agency?”
“Penn Simmons…” Nick tries to explain how yet another soul is living and breathing that they’ve tried so hard to kill. “We couldn’t get anyone to carry it out.”
“He’s been asking all over Europe about Spain. I’m not going down for that.”
The more they argue, the more it goes back and forth, and the more it settles in my gut—I’ve been stabbed in the back by my own brother.
My own blood.
“I want my money back,” Devon demands.
Silence blankets the audio feed and lingers so long, I shift in my chair for fear we’ve been cut off.
Wendy’s lost her backbone when she finally responds, “That’s not for us to decide.”
“Then I want to meet with Randolph. If he insists on keeping his hands clean, he’ll pay up. If not, he can come here and tell me his damn self.”
“He won’t come here,” Nick insists and I hope he’s wrong.
“Then tell the fancy-as-fuck Senator the money in my account is mine and there will be no action from his so-called terrorists. See how much funding his precious committee gets then. I came all this way and have a shitload to take care of because you two can’t carry out a simple fucking job.”
I stand with a start, the office chair rolling away behind me. Cole’s eyes zip to mine and I’m not sure if I have a headrush or am about to pass out.
“Baby—” he starts and reaches for me.
I put my hand up and look at the screen, muttering to no one, “Take the meet. Please, take the meet.”
“I’ll text him and let you know. Don’t hold your breath.” Wendy says.
“I’ll be here as long as it takes for me to do what I have to do. Make sure the arsehole knows there will be no motivation for his troops to be spread around the world unless I get my money back.”
Boots on concrete echo perfectly through the listening devices. They’re so sharp, I’m surprised we can’t hear Nick Peterson’s heartbeat—he’s that nervous.
Cole’s heat presses into my back as I watch my brother stride nonchalantly out of the church, as if he didn’t just admit to paying for murder to be carried out and threaten to finish me off himself. He climbs into a blue sedan and takes off like the nightmare this is turning out to be.
All of a sudden, the room becomes electric with activity. Crew and Ozzy move to keyboards. Asa is already on the phone. Grady and Jarvis are out the door and down the hall, chattering about guns and vests and night vision goggles…
But not us.
Cole’s arm snakes around me and I’m turned, pressed to his chest with his big hand on the side of my head. His heart beats in my ear. I swear, it’s the only thing giving me life at the moment.
His lips hit the top of my head. “I don’t have the first clue what to say, sweetness.”
I wrap my arms around him tighter. “However this ends … my poor parents. They’ll be devastated.”
He tips my chin to look up at him. His eyes are not gentle nor are they guarded. “This is only going to end one way. Do you understand me? You’ll be among the living and sleeping next to me every night in a home we rebuild together. I won’t settle for anything less. Your brother has made his bed. I can’t do anything about him, but I can take care of you.”
I don’t answer. I press my face into his chest as Crew barks orders, Ozzy rattles off computer jargon, and Asa bosses the recruits.
“Baby,” he calls for me.
I shake my head and look up to him. “I know what I need to do, Cole.”
Chapter 42
Sentry
Bella
Randolph took the meeting.
“I don’t like this.”
“I don’t care.”
“We’re not going to let anything happen to her.”
“She took your ass down earlier—she’ll be fine.”
“Dammit, Bella. I’ve been fucking you without a condom. What about that?”
“Why is it we know every detail of their sex lives?”
This has been going on for the last thirty minutes.
Cole arguing.
Me not caring.
Crew reassuring Cole.
And Ozzy getting in every jab he can about my out-of-control tussle with Cole, as well as complaining about Cole oversharing. Ozzy is not wrong—my love is sporting two bruises on his beautiful face and we’ve thrown birth control out the window. I really do owe him a blowie for the bruises. I refuse to think of the consequences of the other right now.
I’m also not proud of the fact anyone—least of all Cole—had to tell me to snap out of it. Were the circumstances extenuating? Of course. I mean, Devon…
Shit.
Breathe, Bella.
Devon has done what he’s done but I’m certainly not going to live in the shadows any longer. I had my moment but I’ve steeled my heart and am ready to do whatever the hell is necessary to end this.
Today.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, willing that to happen, as Crew and his men plan, so I can spend the rest of my life with Cole and Abbott.
A magazine being snapped into place is enough to slap me back to reality.
My eyes fly open and Crew is standing in front of me with a sharpshooter rifle. “You’ll have me at your back. I’ll be closest. Ozzy will know your every move, but my goal is to not take my eyes off Devon.”
I force myself to look away from the gun that will be aimed at my brother. “Okay.”
“Let me go in,” Cole insists. “It’ll be better that way. You don’t need to be put in this situation, not with Devon.”
I shake my head. “It has to be me.”
“It doesn’t. However this goes, you don’t need this in your head. Baby, you of all people understand—no one believes in you more than me. You do your job better than most. But that’s a job. This is personal. If it comes down to it, you might not be able to do what you need to.”
“I will.”
“You don’t know that,” he argues. “In fact, there’s no reason for either of us to go in. Let’s regroup, let them hash it out, then we’ll take everyone down.”
I hop off the table I’m sitting on and move past Crew and Ozzy. I lift to my toes and close the distance to press my lips to his.
Cole stands stock still and doesn’t return my kiss. He doesn’t put his arms around me, nor does he reach for my bum.
I fist his shirt and pull him to me. “I have to look him in the eyes. I have to know why. If I don’t do this, I’ll never forgive myself.”
His head falls back and he studies the ceiling. All I see is a clenched, stubbled jaw.
“Cole.” I wait until he finally sighs and looks at me. He knows I don’t need his permission. But I also know he loves me and had to say goodbye to his father today. It’s asking a lot but I throw back the question he’s pinned me with so many times. “Do you trust me?”
He shakes his head. “You know I do, but I have enough scars on my heart, baby. Don’t give me another one.”
I give him a small smile. “Never.”
His face transforms into something I saw earlier—intense and probably downright scary to anyone besides me. “I know that fucker is your brother but he took you away from me. If he makes one move on you, I’ll take him out myself.”
The thought of that slays me but I understand. “I know you will.”
He takes my face in his hands and pulls me to him. Kissing me long and hard and like no one is watching. His fears dance with mine but his strength also fills me, giving me courage and, most importantly, the need to return to him above all else.
Even beyond my own blood.
He lets me go and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Cole
We’re in the woods outside the church. They had surveillance all over this place. Ozzy picked up their signals with Crew’s technology and killed it with a tap of his powerful mouse and some quick keystrokes.
Something I learned tonight about Ozzy—he might be a computer-engineering genius, but he likes staying behind about as much as he likes hearing about other people’s sexcapades. He was green with envy as the rest of us left the compound in black tactical gear and armed into next week.
We all have our lane and mine is right beside Bella’s. There’s no way I’m letting her out of my sight until a shitload of people are under arrest or dead. At this point, I’m not particular how they end their night.
Grady’s voice sounds in my ear. “They’re lighting up Peterson three miles out.”
I put a finger to my comm and press the button. “He’s alone?”
“Yeah. We’re still waiting on Wendy.”
I exhale. Step one is underway.
Asa called in a favor who called in another and someone called another to have Peterson and Sisson stopped for driving with no license plates, which happen to be in the back of Jarvis’s Explorer.
Grady laughs. “He’s not happy.”
“Let us know when you find her. They need to keep him for at least thirty minutes, maybe more. We’ll keep you informed.” I glance at the church and grit my teeth. “You’re up, Bella.”
Asa and Crew’s recruits are situated around the building. I’m with Crew and he hasn’t said a word since he set up. He’s three feet from me, chest to the ground, laser focused with Devon in the sights of his rifle. He was a sharpshooter assigned to the White House when he worked for the Secret Service Uniformed Division. If Devon lifts an aggressive finger toward Bella, he’s done.
She doesn’t answer but the supersonic device she’s wearing tells the tale. Every twig and leaf she steps on as she approaches the building breaks and cracks.
The door opens.
Her footsteps might as well be bricks dropping in my gut.
“Come back to me, sweetness.”
Bella
I worked for a couple years as an operative before someone framed me for the terrorist attack. Those years are a blip compared to the career I was looking forward to. Nothing made me feel more alive than when I was working as a spy, pretending to be someone I wasn’t, knowing the lies I lived were for good and not evil.
It was my high—a rush of adrenaline—and the more I did it, the better I got. Cole might’ve had something to do with that.
Okay. A lot to do with that.
His cocky, all-knowing and self-assured persona rubbed off on me. It didn’t take me long to know when I made the decision my first year at uni, I chose correctly.
I was good at what I did.
But now I’m a new me—a woman who’s been betrayed in the worst way by someone I love. If I were walking into this sham of a church naked, I’m not sure I could lay myself more bare than I am now.
I might as well be five again, getting picked on by my big brother who I secretly idolized because he was always the more cunning of the two. Archer, bless him, is a teddy bear in comparison.
I watched Devon arrive alone on the cameras. He came into the States on a commercial flight, though that means nothing. Devon bleeds ingenuity. I’m sure picking up a weapon was the first stop he made when he landed.
Not that I’m into betting my life these days, but I’d be shocked if he isn’t armed.
I hold my head high with a pistol secur
ed at the small of my back and walk through the doors of the building I’ve only seen the footprint of on fancy x-ray sensors. The moment Devon hears me, he whips around.
Pure and unadulterated shock takes over his features, but only for a moment. My cunning brother schools his eyes and smiles.
He smiles.
I’ve lost so much because of him and now he knows I know.
And he fucking smiles.
“Haven’t seen you in ages and now it’s twice in the matter of, what … a week? How many days has it been since our Caribbean rendezvous?”
He’s at the old altar which isn’t an altar any longer. Rows of pews separate us and I stop at the back, the long aisle leading to my lying, murderous brother.
I dread the moment my parents learn of his treacherous ways.
I lean a hip on the end of a pew and put my hand on the other. His eyes follow my movement, like the trained operative he is. He knows I’m one step closer to a battle. “I find your visit coincidental. There are only a few people on earth who know I’m in Virginia and you’re one of them.”
“I have a meeting, Bella. How did you know I was here?”
“You still think so little of me and my connections? I know a lot, Devon.”
“You don’t know shit.”
I take a few steps, closing our distance by two pews. “That’s where you’re wrong. I know everything.”
His brows pinch and his eyes narrow. They’re angry and aggressive when he lifts his chin in a challenge and takes two steps closer to me. “You think you know so much? Enlighten me, little sister.”
“Why? All those people in Spain … your hands are soiled with their blood. Why would you conspire with anyone? For money, of all things. We were raised in the same home. Money was never coveted. What have you become?”
“Fuck you, Bella. Keep talking. It proves you’re clueless.”
I forget about the gun at my back or the likelihood he’s armed, as well. This is personal.
“You killed them!” I scream. “Forty-three of them!” My words echo off the walls, bounce around the beamed ceiling, and back to the wood under our feet. “Seven of them were children! I don’t even care about it being pinned on me right now. How did you become such a monster?”
