by Edie Harris
“The infamous Chandler McCallister, huh? It’s been a pleasure uncovering every secret you ever had, madam.” Adam Faraday’s voice was pleasing, a clear baritone similar to Tobias’s though with a more pronounced New England accent.
His friendly teasing didn’t bother her. “Juicy reading, yeah?”
“Juice-tastic,” Adam agreed. “What can I do you for, Chandler?”
It was Tobias who responded, his nimble fingers making quick work of Cameron’s secret mobile, yanking out the battery to examine the SIM card. “We need you to pull all the data you can off a cell phone.” He rattled off the serial number twice before reconstructing the device. “We also found a stash of weapons, money and fake IDs with Cameron Nolte’s picture on them. I need you to run the following names and find out where Nolte acquired them.” He recited the false names on the passports from memory, his recall perfect and impressive.
Typing sounded from Adam’s end. “Has pretty Pippa kicked this asshole to the curb yet or what? Nolte is bad news, yo.”
“We’re working on it,” Chandler mumbled. In truth, she still reeled from the discovery. She ought to have caught Cameron’s deception sooner—months ago—and in not doing so, she’d put Pippa at risk. Frustration and guilt twisted her up inside; for nine months, she’d been so enmeshed in the fear and intrigue of Moscow, then locked away from the world by the Faradays, and in her self-centeredness had neglected to protect the only person she loved. Pippa was all Chandler had, and she’d failed to keep her safe.
Adam cleared his throat. “The countries on those passports—what were they?”
Tobias didn’t even pause. “Germany, Italy, Denmark, Ukraine. Why, did you find something?”
“Maybe,” Adam said, his tone considering. “There’s a first-class forger, Sirko, based out of eastern Ukraine who’s got a major following in the crime world, but he fell out of favor a few years ago because he started to recycle names, and the people using his passports were getting tagged by the authorities. Two of the names you just gave me? Already in use by a couple of felons who fingered Sirko as the forger.”
“How difficult will it be to find a money trail from Nolte to Sirko?”
“Not very, since I’m betting the shell company funded those passports for him, and as I’m already tracing the shell...”
“Speaking of, Chandler determined who runs the shell.”
Startled by the credit, she stared at Tobias, unable to speak when Adam asked, “Oh, yeah? Who?”
Tobias waited a beat, but she didn’t take him up on his implied offer to spill the details. “Polnoch’ Pulya. The infamous Priest just showed up at the house, ready to officiate Saturday’s wedding.”
“No fucking way.” Adam’s awe was audible. “Seriously, guys—Pippa can’t marry this Cameron dude. Does Hallmark have a card for leaving a douchebag at the altar?”
Tobias sighed, shaking his head as though pained. “Should I ever lose my sanity, I hope it’s obvious who’s to blame,” he muttered, so quiet she barely heard him.
“Never say it’s your delightful brother.” Why she whispered, she didn’t know, but it felt rather intimate to cut Adam out of their conversation. Rude, yes, but intimate, and intimacy with Tobias warmed the chilly recesses of her soul.
“And she wins it in one.”
Laughing at the grumbling in his tone, she settled her hands on the table next to Tobias’s, when a slight redness to his knuckles caught her eye. Without thought, Chandler reached out to gently touch the abraded, bruised area. “What happened to your hand?”
“He totally punched some guy the other day,” Adam volunteered in a chipper tone. “Keir told me about it.”
“Adam.” Tobias glared at the phone, but didn’t attempt to pull away from Chandler’s touch. “That information is not for public consumption.”
“Good thing I’m not public then, yeah?” Chandler lightly tapped his knuckles. “Who did you hit, Toby?”
“Aww, man, she calls you Toby?” Adam chuckled. “Can I call you Toby?”
“No.”
“But—”
“How would you like to go on an extended vacation in the Underground? Because that’s what will happen if you call me by that name one more time. Chandler can attest to the lodging conditions.”
She shouldn’t smile, she knew that, but... “Not to mention the breakfast buffet.” Listening to the brothers banter, witnessing this other side of Tobias—who he was with his family—compounded that momentary sense of intimacy, and a warning light flicked on in her brain. The enforced idyll of their country trip was fucking with her head. She needed to remember she wasn’t on holiday, for all that this week felt as such, and she certainly wasn’t dating Tobias Faraday.
Sobering, Chandler withdrew, sliding her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. Her mobile knocked against her fingers. One call was all it would take to get out of here. Thanks to the hidden cache in the armory, she now had money and weapons at her disposal, and she knew Tobias carried her passport in his luggage. Ten minutes, tops, and she’d have commandeered the Mercedes in the garage and be on her way to the nearest airport, hop a flight to the Continent and disappear for a couple of days while she chose her final destination. Escape was so close she could taste it.
Except.
Except abandoning her sister wasn’t an option, especially now that she knew what kind of man Cameron was. She’d argued for Tobias to detour his revenge solely to support her twin on the supposedly most magical day of Pippa’s life—and to say her goodbyes. Bowing out to save herself from adding more baggage to the trainwreck of her emotions was cowardly, and Chandler was sick and tired of being a coward. “How difficult will it be for you to confirm the Midnight Bullet is in fact the shell company paying Cameron’s bills?” she asked Adam, deliberately ignoring the intensity of Tobias’s gaze upon her face.
“I’ve had a backtrace on Nolte’s current portfolio of funds and investments for forty-eight hours, and I can tell you what financial institutions they’re routing through and in what countries. Once I narrow the search parameters to known Polnoch’ Pulya subsidiaries, it shouldn’t take more than five minutes.”
“Then ten minutes from now, I’d better have your full report in my inbox,” Tobias cut in, adding quietly, to her, “Then we can take it to Pippa.”
She nodded, throat thick. Being near him made her feet itch to flee, her body tense but tired from unexpended energy. She needed to run—not away, but around—and ached to grab her trainers and running kit from her luggage. A hard, sweaty run would clear her head enough to handle not only her apology from the other night and the confession of sins Pippa wanted, but would go some distance toward controlling her reaction to the man who slowly but surely had launched an assault on her guarded emotions. Chandler was not a soft woman, couldn’t afford to be. What Tobias did to her was nothing less than covert warfare, whether he knew the consequences of his actions or not.
She knew something about consequences. Those consequences wore cleric’s garb and had dared lay his fucking hands on her sister. Rage, fresh and fiery, had her rolling out her shoulders, arms tense at her sides. She—”Wait.” Whistling, coming from the garden outside the armory door. “Someone’s coming.”
Moving as one, they dashed for the open display, Tobias hanging up on his brother and returning everything on the table to the envelope before Chandler tucked it in among the ammunition and found the button that would lower the outer panel with the glued-in-place Remington. Carefully closing the glass case door, she scanned the armory for a hiding place when Tobias grabbed her around the waist, hauled her atop the table, spread her legs to make room for his hips between her knees and kissed the panicked breath right out of her.
Smart. She squeezed his hips with her knees, looped her arms over his shoulders and surrendered to his clever cover story. So smart of him
to...to... Oh, God.
His lips, warm and firm, skipped the niceties and parted hers to drag her into a deep, wet stroking of tongue against tongue. A groan rumbled in his chest as his hands slipped beneath her sweater, the rough heat of his palms searing the bare skin on either side of her spine. “You taste so good, sweetheart,” he breathed into her mouth, and nothing about his words seemed like a ploy.
Shuddering, she lost herself to his kiss and the mindless pleasure his nearness gave her. “You’ve stayed away.”
“Had to,” he whispered as he notched the evidence of his arousal between her thighs, rubbing against her clit, and oh, God, it felt so good. He felt so good, like a man should, all hard and strong and delicious and overpowering. “You’re dangerous, remember?”
“Mmm.” She yanked his head back and nipped the line of his jaw, relishing the clean salt of his skin, and thrilled to hear his sharply indrawn breath. Her ankles locked behind him. “So are you, baby. So are—”
The armory door burst open.
Breathless and flushed, Chandler and Tobias turned to see Cameron Nolte standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised and whistling silenced as he took in the scene. She could only imagine how they looked, locked together at the edge of the trestle table, her lips wet and parted, his chest heaving.
“Well, well.” Cameron grinned, and it took everything in her power not to leap over the table and punch him in his smug, lying face. “You two look cozy.”
Pity that punching him wasn’t an option, as she and Tobias had a lie to perpetuate. Giggling, Chandler hid her face against Tobias’s throat, clutching the collar of his white shirt. “You won’t tattle, will you, Cameron?”
Cameron shook his head, sly amusement coloring his expression. “Of course not, sis.”
Chandler wanted to vomit on the nickname.
Which Tobias must have sensed as he shushed her, stroking a hand through her hair. “We’ll find a different spot next time.” He boosted her down from the table with a protective arm circling her shoulders. “Had no idea this was a high-traffic area.”
“Oh, no, it’s quite private.” Cameron stepped forward, arms crossing over his chest as he stopped pretending to care about what Chandler was doing and speared Tobias with a deliberately dark look, similar to the ones he’d been delivering over supper last night. “In fact, it’s the perfect spot to have a discussion we both know we’ve been putting off. Isn’t that right, Faraday?”
Tobias stiffened, though his hand slid down her arm to circle her wrist, two of his long fingers slipping into her palm, and she found herself curling her hand around him, capturing his touch against her skin. “You’re speaking of Life in Death.”
What the hell? But Chandler kept quiet.
“That book,” Cameron sneered, “shone a rather unflattering light on your family history, didn’t it, mate? Going all the way back to 1754. Turns out, you owe us a debt that truly cannot be repaid.”
Tobias’s tone was bored as he replied, “But I bet you’d like us to try, nonetheless.”
“Fifty million. Ought to be enough for us to let bygones be bygones.” Nolte’s mouth thinned into an ugly colorless line. “Won’t even make a dent in your yearly profit, as far as I can tell.”
“As I told the press, the Faradays will not endorse Dr. Marcus’s book and its sensationalist, exploitative portrayal of our family, past and present.” With his hold on her wrist, Tobias guided her past a seething Cameron toward the armory door. “That means we won’t be paying ridiculous sums of money to any Tom, Dick or Nolte whose feelings were hurt nearly three hundred years ago. I’m sorry, mate—you’re not getting a cent.” Shifting his hold to beneath her elbow, he directed her through the door and out to the west garden, skirting the veranda to make a path through the landscaped shrubbery.
When they finally stopped next to a hedge, his grip gentled but didn’t release her, trapping in the forefront of her mind the sense memories of their passionate, over-too-soon embrace in the armory. She shook her head, needing it clear. “What was all of that nonsense?” she demanded, shaking free of him. “Life in Death?”
“Ah. That. Turns out, there’s a history between my family and the Noltes.”
“What kind of history?”
“My ancestor pissed off their ancestor back in the day. I’m sure my showing up on their doorstep this week was a slap in the face.” He slid his hands into his pockets, and she tried not to stare at the outline of his knuckles against the twill of his trousers. “Some egomaniacal professor recently published an unauthorized Faraday family biography that garnered a bit of attention, and now all sorts are coming out of the woodwork.”
“Sounds like something I should read. Where can I find a copy?”
“Try the US Library of Congress, shelved next to Machiavelli.”
Her ability to laugh had deserted her, unfortunately, though she knew the library comment was a joke meant to ease her obvious anxiety. “I hate this. I hate him.” The words came out in a broken whisper. “And I hate that Kuznetsov is here.” She could already feel the nightmares lurking, waiting to attack the second her guard dropped.
“I know.” She sensed more than saw him move, his shadow shifting to blanket her in a parody of safety. “As soon as Adam sends me his final report linking Nolte to the Polnoch’ Pulya, we’ll talk to Pippa. In the meantime, we have to keep you safe.”
“I’ll be fine.” It was a lie. She was the furthest thing from fine.
“You can’t be seen, Chandler, not by the Priest.” He checked his watch. “It’s almost supper. I’ll have a tray sent to the suite and you can stay there for the night. Plead a headache.”
She scowled. “What am I, a debutante? That rubbish won’t fly with Pip.”
“Are you two talking yet?”
“No. I need to tell her what I did. In Moscow.” Her chin trembled before she clenched her jaw. No time for that nonsense. No time at all. “She’ll never look at me the same again, but at least she won’t be left wondering why I’m dead.”
“You won’t die,” he stated quietly, firmly.
Oh, God, that was truly laughable, but the hysterical sob trapped in her throat wouldn’t let it pass. “I still want to know why you punched a guy,” she said lightly, hoping he wouldn’t notice the faint tremor in her words.
“It’s a short story, I’m afraid.” His voice was mild. “A man said something I didn’t like. My fist took exception, as well, and the man learned a valuable lesson on choosing one’s words wisely.”
She eyed him speculatively. “You don’t strike me as the brawling type.”
“I’m not,” he agreed, lifting his sturdy shoulders in an easy shrug. “But I will not permit any threats to those under my protection.”
“Who was threatened?” Stupid question; she ought to have asked who had done the threatening, but for some reason, knowing who had earned the privilege of Tobias’s defense seemed vital.
“Someone who needs protecting.” His arm brushed against hers as they turned toward the house, aiming for the kitchen entrance, where it was unlikely Kuznetsov hid in wait. The heat of him lingered, striking a match that flickered and brightened within her—mouth and chest and hands and belly, everything warmed to him.
It was wrong to warm to Tobias Faraday. No matter the incidental attraction sparking between them, romantically, they were entirely unsuited, the equivalent of a prince with a pauper—if the pauper was the daughter of an infamous serial killer and was a disavowed spy who would be dead within a week.
Chandler had always hated fairy tales.
Chapter Nine
Dust hanging in the stale warehouse air so that every inhalation coated her lungs with a choking grime. But she’d been choked before, fingers bruising her neck in punishment for crimes not committed, and this was only a tickle in the throat, comparative
ly.
A big hand reached out to beckon her forward. “Come, Mary.”
She looked up into the Priest’s blank gaze and for the first time thought she saw a glimmer of humanity staring back at her. This isn’t what I want, she screamed inside her mind. This isn’t who I am! But she said nothing, letting him draw her into Nash’s torture chamber. To bear witness? To participate? She didn’t know, never knew until the moment she stood next to Nash and watched him destroy the lives of those who’d wronged the Polnoch’ Pulya. “Who is it this time?” she asked Rolan, willing that flicker of life to stay lit in his eyes.
But it didn’t. “A threat to us, Mary. Always a threat.”
When she saw the dark-haired girl, no more than twenty, struggling against the bindings that strapped her down on Nash’s table, Chandler wondered, What threat could she be? A glance at the Priest told her he wondered the same. But neither of them lifted so much as a finger to help the crying, bleeding girl.
“Chandler.” A hand on her shoulder, pressing her down into the mattress. “Chandler.”
Ah, fuck, not this. Not again. Waking up silently, nothing more than a flicker of eyelashes in the pitch-dark bedroom of her Moscow flat and the sudden knowledge that she was no longer alone.
He wasn’t trying to be quiet or to conceal his presence, his weight dipping the edge of the mattress. Why wasn’t he in his chair? He was always in his chair, the one he pulled up to the bed during these visits so he could lean in close and stare her into consciousness.
Except not this time. No, no, this time, this time he was on the bed. Not a big man but bigger than her, he blocked the faint lamplight seeping through the closed curtains. Wheezing breaths rattling his chest, the damage to his lungs from the explosion still obvious almost a year later, he existed, blatantly, within her space. Reminding her that it wasn’t actually her space, but the Accountant’s, on loan from the Polnoch’ Pulya’s personal bank. No matter how often she stained these walls with blood, her brand disappeared beneath the stamp of the mafiya. Everything she touched, they owned; her every action, her air—theirs.
