by Lexi Blake
Brody knew the answer to that one. “She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do it for herself.”
“He’s right,” Avery replied. She’d come in with her husband, unable to stay at home for fear that her friend was in trouble. “There’s no way Stephanie does this for money or to save herself. She’s the single most selfless person I’ve ever known.”
“She’s always looking for a way to save someone else.” Brody stared down at his boy. Nate was looking up at him, his hand around Brody’s thumb. “I think she’s got a death wish, but she can’t go out in some random way. She’s gotta give her life to save someone else’s.”
“You have to understand,” Avery began.
He looked up, feeling his eyes narrow. “I understand. I understand it all. I understand that she promised me she would let me handle this and then turned around a few hours later and drugged the bodyguards hired to protect her. She lied to me and she left our son behind.”
Now he understood why she’d climbed into bed with him and offered herself up like the sweetest treat he’d ever had. She’d been oddly aggressive. It hadn’t put him off at all. At the time he’d thought he was seeing a different side of her, an interesting, hungry side. He’d lain back and allowed her to kiss and lick and lavish affection on his body. It had been a delicious test of wills since Nate had been sleeping only feet away and he’d been forced to stay as quiet as possible.
He’d felt loved. Wanted. He’d gone to sleep thinking about their future.
She’d been saying good-bye, getting one last round out of him before she went off to find her fate.
“That’s not how she sees it, Brody.” Avery’s eyes were red rimmed and Brody wondered how long she’d cried when she’d discovered what Steph had done. “She’s never moved on. It’s hard. You can’t understand it until you’ve been through something like it.”
“I’ve been through plenty of firefights.” He hadn’t lived a safe life where his only worry was what to eat for supper. “I watched several of my closest friends take bullets and a few of them die.”
“Not everyone processes survivor’s guilt the same way,” Avery argued. “Some people can handle it. Steph struggles. She was young when it happened. Her vision of how the world was supposed to work was still being formed. I think she struggles with a couple of things she’s not willing to admit to. I know before she came to me, she spent a few years doing self-destructive things. A lot of people who go through what she’s been through end up escaping their pain that way. They keep going until they find the wrong drug to take or finally meet the person who’ll give them the fight they need. She stopped that when she realized helping other people filled the void in her life.”
“She can’t live that way.” Li ran a hand through his hair and it was obvious this wasn’t the first argument they’d had about Steph. “She needs to find a way to forgive herself and allow herself to live a normal life. If you let her, she’ll either drag Nate around the globe or she’ll decide she’s needed in some place with a bloody Ebola outbreak and she’ll have to leave him behind and she won’t know her son the way she should.”
“I won’t let her take him somewhere dangerous.” He was the one with the crazy job, but he would sit behind a desk for the rest of his life if it meant his son having a stable home. “I’m not going to be separated from my son. He’s coming back to London with me.”
“You can’t take Nate away from her.” Avery sounded horrified at the thought.
“She left him with me. She left both of us.” As far as he was concerned, she’d made her choice. The idea of never seeing her again kicked him in the gut, but he had to stay strong for his son. Nate needed him now.
He needed Nate, too.
“I saw her talking to one of the Ukrainians as we were breaking up last night.” Declan sighed and sat back. “It was when you went to get your son. She was waiting by the front window in the lobby and he walked up. I think that’s when he got to her.”
“And told her what?” Brody wasn’t sure he even cared about excuses. She would always have one. It would always be about saving someone else. She would die for anyone. Why couldn’t she find a way to live for him? For Nate? “Told her to sacrifice herself? We were handling the situation. What exactly does Anya’s brother believe he can do that we can’t?”
“Well, I’m sure he thinks he can exchange Alfi and Steph for his sister. That’s got to be his plan. No one knows where the damn thumb drive is,” Tag offered. “Unless they were lying about that and then the fucker now has absolutely everything he needs to get his sister back.”
“Stephanie wouldn’t want to leave anything to chance.” Avery’s hand closed over her husband’s, squeezing tight and finding obvious comfort. “If that man threatened you or Nate, then she would have done anything to make sure you were safe.”
“Threatened me?” He was floored at the thought of tiny Steph thinking to save his big, bad arse. It was ridiculous. “If you haven’t figured it out by now, I can take care of myself. I was in the SASR. I didn’t get there being weak and vulnerable. What the hell would he threaten me with? I could kill the man in a heartbeat. He wouldn’t win a fight with me.”
“Oh, but the fight wouldn’t be fair, Brody,” a feminine voice said. He looked up and Charlotte was standing in the doorway. She leaned against the open door, her arms over her chest.
“I can handle myself in an unfair fight, too.” He’d seen his fair share of pub brawls. He and Alfi used to think that was what made a good Friday night out.
Charlotte’s eyes seemed to go cold. It was odd because Charlotte was always so warm around him. “You know nothing about this particular world, Brody. Trust me. I do. I grew up in it. My father would have made Fedor look like a choirboy. I know what I would have said to Stephanie if I needed her to turn herself in to me. You see, Fedor would have studied her. I assure you he had an enormous amount of information on the woman who employed his sister. He would have known Stephanie in all the ways that are important because he’s a man who views other human beings as nothing but things to manipulate. That’s how the syndicate works. He can love his sister, but anyone outside his family isn’t really human to him. It’s how he can do what he does. And what he does is kill.”
He appreciated that Charlotte had come from that world, but he couldn’t see her point. He’d dealt with mobsters before and he was still alive. “Charlotte, I can protect myself. I know I’m not a mob assassin, but I do have training.”
“Ah, but I wouldn’t come after you today. Or tomorrow. I would wait. I would bide my time and learn everything there is to know about you. I would know your habits. I would know how often you eat lunch out and what days you tend to stay in. I would spend months or maybe even years learning you. You would forget me, but I wouldn’t do the same. You would be my obsession, my only reason to live. And then one day when your son is older and you’ve moved on, when you think the world has shifted into a happy place, I would find you. I would make it random. Perhaps you’re on holiday and you stop at a petrol station. I would be waiting in the restroom and I would kill you there. I wouldn’t need you to see me. I wouldn’t make it a grandstanding thing. You wouldn’t hear me. I would be there and you would be dead. And then your son, I would come for him, too.”
“Jesus, Charlie.” Taggart’s eyes had gone wide.
“Well, that’s what Fedor likely said to her. I know because I grew up in that life. I know what he’s capable of. Brody thinks because he’s brave and strong and bigger than a damn bull that he’s bulletproof, but he’s not. If evil comes for him, evil can win, and Stephanie knows that,” Charlotte said quietly.
Avery looked his way. “What would you do for that child in your arms?”
He stared down at Nate. Those big blue eyes were staring up at him, a tuft of hair on his otherwise bald head, and his heart constricted. “I would do anything.”
“And so would she, but she’s thinking about you, too,” Avery said. “You’re looking at this
from your point of view. You know you’re strong enough to save yourself. Steph isn’t. Not physically. All she can see is that she’s got the power to save you both.”
“If that’s what happened.” But his mind was already bending, his heart aching for the woman he couldn’t quite seem to grasp. She was always a couple of inches away from his arms, and he worried she always would be.
“She doesn’t trust the world,” Liam explained. “She certainly doesn’t trust herself and she’s never forgiven herself. Until she can do that, I don’t know that she understands the value she has. If you give up on her, she might never understand.”
He’d given up on her once. “Part of the reason I left her the first time was she scared me. She scared me because she’s reckless at times. And she scared me because I don’t know if I can reach her.”
“You can’t.” Taggart had stood up and joined his wife, his hand curving around her body to rest on her hip. “Believe me, I’ve figured this out. You can’t fix someone. That’s not what love does. Love can make a person want to fix himself. That’s the key.” He frowned at his wife. “I said love. I want to vomit.”
She smiled up brilliantly at him. “You go ahead, babe. I know how hard that is for you. But you’re right. You couldn’t force me to walk into the light. I lived in darkness, but when I met you, I wanted that light. I wanted you so badly I had to fix my world to have you.”
“Sometimes I forget how dark it was for you.” Taggart leaned over and kissed his wife, the passion between them a palpable thing. His voice went low and Brody almost missed his whispered words. “Because you’re my light now.”
“You could be Stephanie’s, Brody,” Avery said, and now she wasn’t even trying to stop the tears. “I think she needs you. I think you might be her last chance at really making a life for herself. She’s given up enough. She could be happy with you and Nate. But she can’t if you give up on her. You’re the one for her.”
Her light. Could he be that? He’d never once thought of himself as being someone’s light.
Nate pulled his finger down, drawing it closer and closer to his mouth. Everything went into that boy’s mouth. He grinned up, the expression so sweet and innocent and full of joy that Brody felt his heart break.
How could she not see how much Nate needed her? How much he needed her? He wasn’t sure they could have what the Taggarts had. What Liam and Avery had because Stephanie didn’t think she deserved it.
“I can’t promise anything.” He stood up. He couldn’t walk away and that meant putting aside his pain and getting to work. “But I know I can’t leave her out there no matter why she did what she did. We have to find her and fast. De Vries will get in touch with either Fedor or on that phone he left for Steph, and if we don’t find her by the time the switch happens, we’ll lose her.”
De Vries would take her, smuggle her out of the country, and he would keep her alive until he was satisfied she knew nothing. Then he would kill her and get rid of her.
He might be left without even a body to bury.
“Awesome.” Shane stood up, carrying his coffee with him. “I’ll start looking. I don’t know where but I’ll get on social media at this point and start asking around.”
Declan was right behind him. “Me, too. Though not the social media thing. What are you? A soccer mom? I’ll troll the Dark Web or something. Anything to get out of the couples therapy session I find myself in. I’m never getting married if I have to be someone’s light or something. You all have read way too many fucking romance novels. I bet you believe in faeries and guardian angels, too. Brody, I’m going to give you some actual manly advice. You had a baby with her. She’s a fucked-up chick, but you knocked her up and now she’s yours. Stop with all the overthinking and go get your girl.”
“What he said,” Shane added, heading for the door. “Tag, let us know when we can shoot something. Or preferably someone.”
The bodyguards strode out.
“I think I figured out how to scare the newbies. That group has been difficult to intimidate. I’ll threaten them with group therapy,” Tag said, kissing his wife again. “You know how we do it. We can put it into the opening day training package. An hour with Alex going over all the benefits, a tour of the office, and group therapy for the first month. Then maybe they won’t complain so much about the…”
Tag stood up straight.
Charlotte put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “About the…?”
Ian looked over at Liam. “What do we do to all the new puppies, Li? Whether they’re on the payroll or not.”
Li’s eyes widened. “You don’t think that’s why he did it, do you?”
The answer hit Brody with the force of a hammer. A fucking hammer made of hope. He winced inwardly. He was getting syrupy in his old age, but he was going to find her, and Tucker wasn’t getting murdered. “That’s exactly why he did it. I take back everything I said. That kid is brilliant.”
Li pulled his wife’s hand up to his lips, kissing it with deep affection before running for the door. “I’ll get the London office on the line.”
Brody looked down at his son. “I’ll bring her back to you. I promise.”
And where they would go from there, he would have to see.
* * * *
Steph put a hand to her head and tried to stifle a groan. Her brain was fuzzy and there was a dull ache at the base of her skull. What had happened? “Brody?”
“Ain’t here, luv, and I, for one, am happy about that,” a deep voice said. A familiar voice.
Alfi.
It came rushing back to her. She wasn’t safe and in bed with Brody. She’d given all that up. She’d walked away and she would be shocked if Brody ever spoke to her again.
Not that he would get that chance since she was likely going to die soon.
“Where are we?” Her throat was dry, the words hard to get out.
“No idea.” Alfi was sitting across from her, one knee up as though he was casually relaxing on what looked like a concrete floor. His back was against a bare wall, his eyes on her. “I suspect we haven’t gone far though. They tried to knock me out, too. Picked me up in front of the petrol station. I bet they drank my beer, too. Anyways, after they showed me off for the cameras, they shoved me in another car, and that’s when I got the old head swipe. Lucky for me, I got a really hard head, but I kept quiet. Let them think it worked. We couldn’t have gone more than twenty minutes from wherever the hell I was.”
“Sanctum.” It was all coming back to her now. Every bittersweet moment. “They took you to Sanctum, which means they know a lot about me and who I was with. They knew we would be at the club.”
Alfi winced. “Well, I might have mentioned that, but they didn’t say that’s where we were going. Well, they might have said it, but I don’t speak whatever the fuck they’re speaking. Then we got here and they tossed me in. It’s some kind of a warehouse. There’s one window, but it’s too small for me. I might be able to save you if I can figure out how to shove you up there.”
She looked around the room as her vision cleared. The floor was concrete and the walls completely bare. There was nothing in the room at all save for the blanket she was lying on and a couple of bottles of water. A shaft of light came from above. There was a small window up at the top of the wall. Maybe twelve or fourteen feet up. But she rather thought Alfi was underestimating her curves. Besides, he didn’t know what she did.
“I can’t leave. I made a deal with Anya’s brother. If I let him trade my life for hers, he won’t kill Brody and Nate.”
“Bastard,” Alfi spat. “First off, Brody’s a hard man to kill. Second, what kind of a person threatens a baby?”
“I don’t know. What kind of a person steals a thumb drive off a dying man?” Alfi wasn’t innocent in this, and she had a few questions for him.
Alfi sat up straighter. “Well, it wasn’t like he was going to do anything with it. And he asked me to take it. Begged me, really. He woke up and I was the o
nly one there. He told me where it was and begged me to keep it safe.”
“And your version of keeping it safe was trying to sell it back?”
“Didn’t get that far.” His voice went low. “I never even got to look at the damn thing. I tossed it in the back of the Jeep and I don’t know what happened to it.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I thought I heard ’em coming and I didn’t want it on my person. I rather thought I was keeping it safe at the time. If they’d caught us, they would have searched me,” Alfi argued. “Anyway, by the time I got you to Guinea and I had a chance to look for it, it was gone. I don’t know where it is. When I realized that de Vries had figured out my name and that I had something to do with you getting away, I decided to come to the States. I found out Brody was here and decided sticking close to him was my best bet. Knew he wouldn’t let you die. Except apparently he has.”
“Brody didn’t know a thing about this,” Stephanie explained. “I made the choice to trade myself for Anya.”
A low chuckle came out of his mouth. “Should have seen that coming. You’ve got a death wish, Doc.”
“I don’t.” Maybe she had before, but all she could think of now was seeing Brody and Nate again. It was all she wanted in the world. One more day. One last hour. One more minute with them. “And I don’t know if I would have traded myself in if it had just been about Anya. I promised Brody I would let him handle that.”
“But the bastards told you they would hurt him and the kid. Yeah, I get that.” He let his head fall back. “Well, we’re all in for it now. I think they’re planning on making the exchange sometime today.”
“Where’s Tucker?” Memories of the night before were coming back to her now.
He looked down at her, his confusion easy to read. “I would assume he’s back at the house. I left him there. He’s probably pissed at me for not bringing him back chips and lollies.”
