When they first bought the house, it seemed grand, the perfect place to build a family. Now it felt too big. Empty and hollow.
Kids were never a part of Grace’s plan when she was younger. By the time she’d gotten around to quite liking the idea of being a mother, she’d left it too late and wasn’t able to get pregnant. Still, she had her Malcolm to come home to. Until she didn’t.
Grace had fought many foes in her time, but cancer was one evil she couldn’t take down. It got Malcolm in the end, after years of fighting, remission, and resurgence. It was a resilient disease with never-ending patience and a death stroke swifter than any killer she’d known.
Tossing her keys into the bowl by the door, Grace shrugged out of her jacket and hung it over the railing at the bottom of the stairs, bypassing the living room and heading into the kitchen.
It was two in the morning, far too late to cook anything close to resembling dinner, which she’d skipped earlier due to a meeting with the prime minister. With more agents meeting their untimely ends and the threat of exposure hanging over their heads, it was time to update the Tory leader on what was going on. She wasn’t happy, but nothing was new there. Grace found it hard to decipher one emotion from the other with the PM’s face stuck like that. It was as if she’d spent the afternoon sucking lemons and her face hadn’t quite gotten over the fact. The meeting, as they tend to do, bled over longer than anticipated and ate into Grace’s already hectic schedule.
Forgoing any thoughts of nutrition, Grace opted for a sharing-sized packet of cheese and onion crisps and a cup of tea. Sod the diet.
The security light illuminated her back garden, but it was only Stephen Dewan, her agent, and personal bodyguard, making his rounds. He gave her a curt nod and carried on his search.
Lisa was stationed at the front door for the night, with Daniel taking over in the morning. They were insistent on the extra security, even after she’d sent them to Spain to fetch Maggie Black, which left them with more bruises to their egos than their bodies. Still, they forgave her and carried out their duties as diligently as always, never once complaining about the longer shifts. She’d already seen to it that they’d each receive a raise for going over and above the call of duty.
Grace drained her cup, returned the half-eaten bag of crisps to the cupboard, then headed upstairs. She had an early start in the morning and wanted to try at least to get some sleep before then.
After a quick change out of her suit and into her nightgown, she turned off the lights and fell into bed. After Malcolm passed, she got rid of their king-sized within a week and replaced it with a smaller one, unable to sleep in the same bed he’d died in. The same bed they’d made love in, and spent stolen moments lounging around and reading the papers on Sunday mornings.
Sleep never came easy to her, especially now that the other side of her bed lay empty, without the comforting heat of the man she loved, his soft snores no longer soothing her into a contented slumber. She placed a hand on the vacant pillow and closed her eyes.
Grace hadn’t been there in the end. In Malcolm’s final moments. She’d been called into an emergency COBRA meeting, and by the time she’d returned home many hours later, he was gone. Since then, she’d never been able to forgive herself. While she may be one of the best ever to hold her position as Director General, she’d been a terrible wife. Canceled vacations, forgotten anniversaries. Through it all, Malcolm never complained or made a fuss, though it must have hurt him. He said he knew what he was getting into when he married her, and he was proud to have a wife who was so accomplished and who fought the good fight.
“Oh, Malcolm,” she whispered into the night. It was times like these she missed him most, when he’d comfort her and tell her no matter what it was, she’d figure it out.
“No, not Malcolm,” said a voice in the darkness.
Grace sat up and strained her eyes in the direction the voice came from, her heart rattling against her rib cage so hard she thought it would burst. Her hand slipped under the pillow at Malcolm’s side, and she watched, waiting for the slightest movement.
A figure stepped forward from inside her walk-in closet and Grace moved into action. Grip already wrapped around the handle of the SIG Sauer P226, she pulled it from under the pillow, aimed at the approaching figure, and fired.
The voice laughed, and a rain of unspent bullets fell across the wooden floor as he came into view, the streetlights from outside setting his face in an eerie yellow glow. “I removed the ammunition before you got home. And from the one inside your bedside table.”
He was dressed in all black, only his face visible in the night. An ordinary-looking face. They always were. People expected villains to have grotesque features, or a scar across their face as if to highlight their intent. In reality, people were people, and even the plainest of men were capable of horrific deeds.
“Very good,” Grace said, placing the gun on her blanket.
She didn’t move, though her legs twitched for her to get up and make a run for it. While she was hardly an invalid, she was no spring chicken and knew well enough when she was outmatched. She was never one for exercises in futility, so she remained in bed with her back straight and controlled her voice to stay steady and unaffected by his intrusion into her home.
“Did you harm my agents?” she asked, thinking of Lisa and Stephen.
“I didn’t,” the man replied, his voice soft, yet it was clear he was enjoying himself. Like he could smell the fear Grace concealed.
There were more of them, then. Lisa and Stephen were likely dead.
She didn’t need to ask who he was. His accent was answer enough, the lilt of his words matching that of his boss. Grace was good at sourcing accents. Had a knack for it, even when they were trained by the best to hide it.
“If you’re waiting for me to scream or run in fear, you’ll be sorely disappointed,” she warned him.
“A pity,” he said, pulling out her Smith & Wesson from his jacket.
Grace grimaced. He was going to kill her with her own bloody gun.
She knew this day would come. Had been waiting on it for years. Grace Helmsley long accepted the possible fate back when she was a young and eager agent in MI6. Had come to terms with it even more so when she took the position as Director General.
Leon had warned her to expect Grigore Ursu to arrive on British soil within the next day or so, but what they hadn’t accounted for was that others in Dalca’s syndicate were already here in London and awaiting his arrival.
“Dalca will never be released. You know that, yes?”
The man shrugged. “Not my immediate concern.”
Hitmen were all the same. Single-minded and focused on the task at hand. Others could worry about the greater plan. People like herself, and Ivan’s nephew, who seemed to be running the ship while his uncle was under lock and key. This man wasn’t here to solve the problem of Ivan Dalca’s imprisonment. He was simply here to remove one problem from the bigger picture. Perhaps Grigore would use her death in the hopes of it tipping the scale and ensuring Ivan’s release. Maybe he just wanted her dead for the sake of it, to take down the head of the Unit and hope the others would fold in her absence.
Not her agents. They were too well trained to allow her death to interfere with their jobs. She’d made sure of it. Had taken a hand in recruiting each and every candidate, whether they knew it or not. They’d take the syndicate down, even if she wasn’t there to see it. Of that, she was certain.
“Shall we get on with it, then?” she asked, calmer than she thought she would be.
“Turn around,” he ordered.
Grace raised her chin and shot him a glare her agents knew all too well. “If you’re going to shoot me, son, then have the balls to face me while you pull the trigger.”
Her thoughts turned to the agents she’d lost, to her parents long since dead, and to her sweet, gentle Malcolm. She’d see them all soon.
Grace Helmsley stared her killer straight in the eyes
as he raised the gun to her head.
Chapter 27
Zeebrugge, Belgium
* * *
Maggie woke to the sound of swearing.
It wasn’t the most eloquent of statements, but the meaning behind it was clear. Something was wrong, and from the way Leon swore, it must be bad.
Forgetting her injury, Maggie kicked off the covers and jumped out of bed, instantly regretting it. Her stomach ached in complaint at the abrupt movement, the rest of her body still catching up with her from the sudden wake-up call.
She padded into the living area of the suite Ashton had insisted on, the boys’ rooms branching off at the opposite end. Leon was there, his face drawn.
He wore only his boxer shorts, giving Maggie ample opportunity to take in the various colors of his healing wounds against his dark skin. If Yasir weren’t already dead, Maggie would have gone to the ends of the world to seek vengeance against him for hurting the man she loved.
Leon paced the hotel room with a hand over his head, and his neck craned back. “Send it over to me now and keep me posted. I want all updates sent to me the second you have them,” he ordered to the person on the other end, and hung up.
“What?” Maggie asked Leon as Ashton came out from his room, dark hair sticking out at all ends and one eye still closed.
“Did someone burn the breakfast?” Ashton asked, breaking out into a yawn.
Maggie checked the clock. It was just after five in the morning, Belgium being an hour in front of Britain. Odd hours for a call from the Unit.
Leon sat on the arm of the couch and blinked in obvious bewilderment. “It’s Grace.”
“What about her?” Maggie asked, crossing the room to comfort him. She wrapped an arm over his broad shoulders and rubbed his bare back.
“She’s been taken by the Romanians. They broke into her house, killed her security, and abducted her.”
Maggie froze. Grace? How did they get to her? Surely her name wasn’t on the list? Then again, if Dalca’s people made the connection between the Unit and the Secret Intelligence Service, it was a sound bet to link Grace with managing both entities. Her name and face were all over the SIS website in the lame attempt to appear more transparent with the public.
The more this whole mess developed, the more Maggie couldn’t shift the thought of the leak being an inside job. Someone in the Unit would be able to hand over Grace’s address. They’d have access to all the right information Dalca and his syndicate needed to exploit the Unit.
“How do we know the Romanians did it?” Ashton asked, interrupting Maggie’s thoughts.
Leon’s phone pinged. “They told us.”
They huddled around him as he brought up the video attached to the email he just received and hit Play. Unlike the other videos the Romanians had sent, Tamira wasn’t the one shoved in front of the camera.
Maggie balled her fists. “Grigore.”
London was an hour and fifteen minutes’ flight away. He must have flown over soon after he’d made his escape, likely private as Maggie, Ash, and Leon had been doing for anonymity. Even then, the flight records must have been forged, if they were even filed at all.
Maggie shook her head. He would have been out of the country before the Belgians even had time to set up an APW on him and his remaining crew.
“We have your leader, just as you have ours,” Grigore said.
The camera shifted from Grigore to Grace Helmsley.
They’d done a number on her. Maggie knew Grace well enough to know she wouldn’t have taken a beating without giving as good as she got, but she was older than most people assumed and small in height and size, despite her overpowering presence that could dominate any room.
Grace Helmsley wasn’t the indomitable leader sitting there on the floor in her nightgown. She was frail and bleeding, blood sticking the front of her tangled hair together from a gash on her head, with a busted lip that was swollen and beginning to show signs of bruising.
“I’ll kill him,” Leon said, so low it was almost incomprehensible.
The camera continued to move along the room, the location masked as best they could by having the women sit against a plain, white wall and zooming in close to them to block any clues to where they might be.
Tamira sat to Grace’s right, just as beaten and bloody. Tracks of blood ran from her nose, and her left eye was puffed out and blackened from a fist. Her entire demeanor had changed from the fighter Maggie recognized in the previous clips. Tamira had given up, the lost hope emanating from every part of her as she hugged her knees and looked into the camera when Grigore ordered her to.
“We know the girl has been sending secret messages, but even that won’t help you now,” he said, controlling the footage from what Maggie guessed to be a phone, judging by the dimensions of the screen. The camera they’d used before had been left behind in Ferentari by Tamira in a last-ditch attempt to seek help.
Maggie clung to the sides of the couch, willing Tamira to raise a defiant chin or for anger to flare in the one eye she could see through. All that peered back at Maggie through Leon’s phone was a blank stare and a stricken face.
Grigore moved the focus back to him and continued his diatribe, his voice barely controlled. The screen shook from the anger vibrating through his entire body, the loss of his trafficked girls clearly having sent him close to the edge. Uncle Ivan would not be pleased when he heard about what happened at the port, and the blame would fall on his nephew’s head.
“You have forty-eight hours to release Ivan Dalca, or we will publicly execute your Director General and stream the live feed out for the world to see. Then, we will leak the entire list of agents to the public at large and feed you to the wolves. Everything your organization has done will be released, along with the names of every employee so each of you will face the retribution you deserve.”
They all tensed at his rant, the air changing in the room as Maggie processed the man’s threat. From the venom in his voice, he was not calling their bluff. He was done playing games and meant every word of what he said.
“Send your response to the email we’ve sent this video through. For your own sake, I expect to hear from you soon.”
Grigore ended the message, and Leon’s screen went blank.
Chapter 28
They sat in silence as it set in. They had Grace.
It wasn’t just Grace. They had the Unit by the balls, and they knew it. Grace was the Unit. The majority of the agents there had joined with Grace in charge. Taking the Director General was a symbol of Dalca’s power over them. Grigore and the syndicate were calling the shots, and unless the Unit did what they demanded, they would destroy them from the top down.
“They’re going to regret this,” Leon promised.
Maggie got up and paced the room. “They’re going to regret a lot of things once we’re finished with them.”
If Grigore was crazy enough to release the list, shit would well and truly hit the fan on an international scale. None of them would be safe. More agents would die. Everyone they had ever fought against would come after them, from criminals to entire governments. Every backhanded favor with apparent enemies and every job against allies would be exposed along with them, causing a diplomatic disaster on a scale unlike any seen before. All because one sex trafficking asshole got caught and imprisoned.
If any of it happened, if Grigore opened Pandora’s box and unleashed their secrets to cause irreparable damage on the grandest of scales, then Maggie would make a point of making him and the rest of the syndicate pay, even if it was the last thing she ever did.
“I’m hardly besties with the old battle-axe, but even I admit this is too far. She’s old enough to be my wee granny,” Ashton said, fully awake now that reality had come to punch them all in the face.
Leon ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “We have to stop them before it’s too late.”
Maggie gave up pacing and went to him, kneeling and squeezing his hand. “We wi
ll,” she promised him. Promised herself. “Our new start hasn’t had a chance to even begin yet, and I am not about to let anyone ruin it for us. You hear me?”
Leon brought her hands to his lips. “I wish it were that easy.”
Ashton cleared his throat. “I’m going to speak with the pilots and find out how soon we can get in the air. Maybe arrange for my parents to leave Mexico and head to a safe house a mate of mine has in Belize.”
“Good idea,” Maggie agreed, on both counts. They needed to be in London as soon as possible, and there was no telling how all of this would end. It wasn’t just the agents on the list who were at risk, but their families and loved ones, too. A safe house in the middle of nowhere was an ideal place for Mr. and Mrs. Price to lie low, and one less thing for Ashton to worry about while he and Maggie and Leon tried to stop the worst from happening.
He returned to his room to get changed and was out the door within five minutes, arranging the move of his parents on his phone the entire time. The door closed behind him, leaving Maggie and Leon alone.
The lock had barely clicked before the first tear fell down Leon’s cheek, as if he’d been holding it in until Ashton left.
“Hey,” Maggie said, leading him down from the couch arm to sit with her. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
A redundant question, really, considering their entire world was crumbling before them. Still, Maggie had never seen Leon like this, never witnessed him so rattled and on the verge of breaking completely.
Leon pressed his fist against his mouth and convulsed as pent-up tears burst from him like broken floodgates, a pained, angst-ridden cry building in his chest.
“Leon,” Maggie said, leaning over him and running her fingers over the short bristles at the back of his head. Tears pricked at her own eyes. She hated seeing him like this. “Tell me what’s wrong, please.”
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