Ripped: A Blood Money Novel

by Edie Harris

  Gavin’s lids fluttered shut, his hand falling from her face as obvious fatigue swamped him. “The chopper.”

  “Chopper?” Confusion knitted her brow. “You mean a helicopter?” She tucked the sheet gently across his chest, leaving his arms free. “What helicopter, Gavin?”

  “Kabul. Tell Tobias,” he slurred, as unconsciousness yanked him under. “Only Tobias, B.” His head fell to the side, cheek deep in his pillow, and there was no rousing him.

  Beth sat at his side for a few moments longer, staring down at her friend as he fell into much-needed and hopefully healing sleep. Her mind traced back through their conversations, then and now, and, almost unwillingly, to her time in the bunker at the mercy of Nash’s blades, and—

  Oh, shit. She needed to call Tobias.

  Turning off the lamp, Beth left the bedroom as quietly as she had entered and hurried through the hall, down the stairs and into the kitchen of her new home. The rich scents of supper in the oven hit her nostrils and made her mouth water, and a pang of tenderness struck her for the man she loved. The man who took care of her but didn’t coddle her, who loved her from the depths of his soul and demanded the same degree of devotion from her. Giving in to his demands was easy. “Vick?”

  The soft tread of bare feet on hardwood floors preceded Vick’s entry to the kitchen, a pen and pad of paper in one capable hand, his cell phone in the other. Worry colored his expression. “What is it, love?”

  Rounding the granite-topped island, Beth nabbed the phone and dropped a quick kiss to his lips, stroking her fingers over his bearded jaw. “I need to call my brother.” Scrolling through his contacts, she found Tobias’s number and dialed. As it rang, she settled on a barstool tucked beneath the island and set the phone on the counter, on speaker. What she said to Tobias, she also needed to say to Vick. Their struggles were shared, and though what she intended to share with them both was deadly serious, she couldn’t help but tease. “I also need to taste whatever it is you’re cooking for me. Immediately.”

  Vick smiled and shook his head as the line rang, leaning a hip against the counter. He crossed his arms over his chest as he glanced at the oven timer. “There’s ten minutes left on that roast. You’ll have to wait.”

  She feigned a pout as Tobias’s worried voice spilled from the speakers. “Vick? Is Beth all right?”

  “Tobias, it’s me,” Beth rushed to assure him. “I just spoke to Gavin.”

  “He’s conscious, then. Good.”

  “Mostly not conscious, but he woke up long enough for me to ask about Nash.” She glanced at Vick, who straightened aggressively at Nash’s name. “Gavin didn’t know about Kedrov’s fixation on me, but he said something that made me...remember.” Vick reached across the island to lay his hand atop hers, fingertips brushing over the newly knitted bones, but said nothing to interrupt, and Beth sucked in a deep breath. “I know you have video of me.”

  Silence reigned before Tobias spoke again. “We do.”

  Goose bumps broke out along her arms. “I want to see it.”

  “Beth—”

  “Darling—”

  Tobias and Vick spoke at once, and she heard the warning they both offered. “Gavin mentioned a helicopter just now, and it reminded me of a question Nash asked. Did you know about the helicopter?” She linked her fingers with Vick’s, carefully. “Is that on the video?”

  “It might be,” Tobias said slowly. “Not all of the audio is intact. I can have Adam go through it again. But, Beth...” He sighed. “I don’t think it’s in your best interest to watch the footage.”

  She agreed with him—the idea of watching her own torture as a spectator turned her stomach—but it was the principle she needed to argue. “Tobias, I’m sure at some point during the twenty-eight years I have been your sister, I’ve made it clear that I choose what’s in my best interest. Just me, all by myself. Because I’m a grown-up.”

  “I have to agree with Tobias, love,” Vick said reluctantly. “Don’t watch the recording. Don’t do that to yourself.”

  Part of her wanted to shy away from whatever horrors existed on that footage. She’d already lived through it once, Beth reasoned, and if she viewed the tape, hours and hours representing literally the worst days of her existence, she would be thrust into the past with no guarantee she could crawl out the other side again. As it was, she was thankful not to remember everything from her time in the bunker; there was a certain safety in the not knowing, a bubble she remained reluctant to burst. But... “I need to know about the helicopter. If it mattered enough to Nash—to Kedrov—to include in his interrogation, and now Gavin mentioning a helicopter, saying he wanted to tell me about it before I was taken... Faradays don’t ignore coincidence, Tobias.”

  “I won’t ignore this, but I want you to wait to watch the video. Wait just a little while longer.”

  Her jaw clenched. “What will waiting get me?”

  “The chance to heal.” Tobias spoke patiently, firmly and with a warmth Beth wasn’t sure she’d ever heard in his voice before. “Mere weeks won’t offer the depth of healing you deserve, Beth. When you can tell me the foundation you’re rebuilding is unshakable, that’s when you should make the decision whether to watch the video. But until you tell me with absolute certainty that you are prepared to do so, I urge you to keep healing.” He waited a beat. “And I’m afraid I have a selfish request to make of you, as you heal.”

  Tobias didn’t make requests. In his own fussy, bossy, uptight way, he was the most selfless of all their siblings, always silently shouldering the burdens no one else wished to bear. “Anything, Tobias.”

  “I need you to forgive Chandler McCallister.”

  Beth stared down at the phone, surprise momentarily stealing her breath. Her hand fell from Vick’s. “I...why?”

  “Because I’m asking you to.” His words carried an unfamiliar weight. “Because I love her.”

  “Oh, Tobias,” she breathed, chest tight with sudden emotion. After so many years of watching him stand alone, frozen to anyone not family, it was surreal to hear him say those words and hear the sincerity shaping each syllable. “That’s wonderful.”

  “It...is?”

  Even Vick gave her a look.

  Well, what else was she going to say? Beth smiled and patted Vick’s hand, then gave her brother the words he needed. No, the words he deserved, after all his sacrifice. “Listen, I don’t know McCallister. Chandler,” she amended. “My main experience with her was being on the receiving end of a crappy sniper shot—and yeah, feel free to tell her I said she was a crap shot—but she’s a spy, right? So it’s no shock she behaved like a spy when cornered, which is what you did when Nash took me. You cornered her, and she relied on her training as a spy to get her through it.”

  Vick cleared his throat. “That’s generous of you.”

  She knew she might pay the price for the generosity later, when she actually had to see Chandler and put on a party face of her own, but she’d deal with it. For Tobias. “I know what it’s like to feel trapped by what you do and who you have to be in order to do your job. Chandler and I aren’t so different in that respect.” Forgiveness would come eventually, just as liking her would, too. Someday. Probably. Maybe. If neither of them were armed in the other’s presence. “I don’t blame her for what happened to me, honestly.”

  The oven timer beeped politely, and while Vick turned to deal with the meal he’d prepared for them, Beth took the phone off speaker and lifted it to her ear. “You fell in love.”

  Hand to God, she heard him smiling. Really smiling. “I fell in love,” he confirmed. “There are so many things you don’t know about her, Beth. I know you may not actually forgive her now, but I hope in time you will.”

  “You can count on it.” Delighted beyond measure with him, her feet kicked against the rungs of the barstool. “Does she love
you back?”

  “She’s...resisting. Any suggestions?”

  “Speaking from experience, I can attest that chasing a woman around the world for ten years works wonders.” She laughed when Vick banged the roast pan on the stovetop more vigorously than was strictly necessary. “He hunted me down, forced this gorgeous house on me and I think I accidentally agreed to marry him the other day.”

  “You did,” Vick confirmed smugly. Smugness well earned because they were now both remembering how he had oh-so-casually proposed as they test-sat on a couch at Crate & Barrel, and how much less casually she had accepted in the fourth-floor restroom of the Michigan Avenue store. When he winked at her, she blushed.

  “You’re engaged.” Tobias’s voice removed some of the heat in her cheeks, though she didn’t stop beaming at her new fiancé’s broad back as he opened the cupboards for dinner plates. “Congratulations, Beth.”

  Simple words, but she knew they were heartfelt. “I wish you were here for me to hug right now.”

  “I’ll come visit soon, don’t worry. Hugging mandatory, of course.”

  “But Chandler first?”

  “Chandler first.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tobias barely recognized himself anymore.

  He growled at his legal staff, snapped at his brothers—had actually bared his teeth with feral intent at a would-be pickpocket in Kensington Gardens, sending the grungy teen sprinting away in fear. With every passing day since the morning on the tarmac, he’d lost his grip on his control, temper flaring at the most unexpected of moments until he felt as though a stranger inhabited his skin. A stranger who desperately needed anger-management classes, or perhaps a Xanax.

  His fists ached for impact, which probably explained why he’d had a heavy bag installed in his newly leased flat near Hyde Park. Each morning, he wrapped his knuckles and pounded out his frustration at waking up alone.

  One night should not have done this to him. One night tangled up in Chandler, glutting his senses on her, had destroyed him at a cellular level. She had stripped him of fifteen years of celibacy and ripped apart thirty-two years of living and breathing like any other man and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was not like any other man. Instead, he was less...and more. Less controlled, less cold, more awake, more alive.

  The longing of his body was only outpaced by the yearning of his soul. He’d found—taken—a woman who tested the limitations on his heart. Because there were limits for Tobias, restrictions placed on his willingness to invest in the emotions of those around him. His muteness around strangers during his formative years had been a form of self-defense, guarding a mind that automatically wanted to reach out and know everything, everyone, and understand the reasoning and motivation behind each.

  Too quickly, it had become clear that not every person deserved the care he wanted to give but could not manage to articulate, so he focused inward, on the core family unit with whom he interacted daily: Beth and Adam, Casey and Gillian. He bonded with his siblings because there was a sameness to them all, binding them together. They were Faradays, the children of a dangerously powerful man whose legacy they would eventually pass on to their own children.

  In recent days, Tobias caught himself wondering about the instincts that had urged caution in him as a child. Children, as far as he knew, were open books, with big hearts and terrifyingly trusting psyches. They didn’t think to hold back with playmates or teachers; they mimicked actions and parroted words, but didn’t delve into the unspoken or hidden meanings. What did it say about Tobias, as a kid, that he had always observed, to the point where he feared participation—in anything—would reveal all his secrets?

  He shouldn’t have had secrets at that age. He shouldn’t have known that his father indulged in the occasional blackmail to close a business deal or that, at least twice, a shipment of explosives meant for the government had gone missing, but Frank had told his assistant that it was already “taken care of.”

  This was what happened when a child observed. At windows, at doors, at the top of the stairs. This was what happened when a silent child was trapped in his own mind and forced—able—to take the time to reason through the known facts and come to the most logical conclusions.

  This was why, when Frank Faraday privately stepped back from his responsibilities at the company, Tobias had been ready to take the lead and determined to quietly repair the damage none of his siblings were aware had been wrought under their father’s leadership. It was what made Tobias the obvious choice to assume the mantle of CEO in the near future, and why he needed his loved ones to find paths separate from the monstrosity of their true family legacy.

  Kedrov had been right, to some extent. The Faradays had purchased their box seat in the theater of global politics, but they’d only been truly earning their position of rank since Tobias and the others had wrested the reins from Frank. He intended to see Faraday Industries through into a new era—an era where no one, no matter how bloated with power, dared harm a Faraday in any way.

  That era began now, in Colleen Yang’s office in the subterranean level of the SIS building. The T-16 section chief sat behind her desk, hands folded in her lap as she studied Tobias through narrowed eyes. “I didn’t know you owned casual clothing.”

  The jeans, sweater and, of all things, lace-up Vans sneakers had been a deliberate choice in wardrobe this afternoon. Armor of a different kind—and, apparently, achieving the desired effect. He wanted Yang off her game.

  He wanted Yang out of the game entirely.

  Shrugging, Tobias lounged in the seat opposite her, his posture loose, two fingers propped against his temple as his elbow rested along the chairback. “It’s my day off.”

  “People like us don’t have days off, Mr. Faraday.” Yang shook her head, silver hair escaping the clip above her ear. “I did as demanded, you know. Chandler McCallister’s record has been cleansed, her position within MI6 reinstated. I went so far as to hold a section-wide meeting and explain how her disavowal was a ruse necessary for her to carry out her mission with the Russians.”

  “An explanation for everything, I see.” He waited until he saw the gleam of smug satisfaction in her dark eyes before he struck. “Were you aware that, until one week ago, Karlin Kedrov was alive and living in Moscow?”

  The color drained from Yang’s face in a heartbeat. “You’re...you’re bluffing.”

  “Colleen.” Slowly, Tobias shifted in his chair until he leaned forward onto the edge of her desk. “I think it’s time you and I had that chat about that file of yours.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” he insisted mildly. “Several years ago, before you were promoted to section chief, you were a covert operative stationed in Russia. Your mission was to mine information from corrupt members of the FSB and determine whether the constant and various threats against the UK carried any water. During your time there, you became involved with a young financier named Boris Artyom Ivashov.” Her reveal of the Accountant’s name last week had been the nail in her coffin.

  When Yang inhaled shakily, Tobias smiled, feeling like the shark he was trained to be as he observed her descent. “You and Ivashov embarked on an affair that lasted years—though I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if you truly fell in love with him or if you were simply cultivating an asset, off the books.” He waved away the thought and settled back in his seat once more. “Regardless, he provided you—and through you, the British government—valuable intelligence about a developing black-market dealer organization of arms and assorted weaponry, by which he’d been recruited as a rather creative accountant. The organization, locally known as the Midnight Bullet, was funded at the start by the Russian mob, though it eventually outstripped all other branches of the bratva in terms of income and international sway. And you, you clever woman, had an inside man.” He paused, thoughtfully. “You know, there a
lways were rumors about MI6 having some rather unsavory ties the Polnoch’ Pulya, but gossip is as gossip does.”

  Yang’s eyes were dull and glassy as she stared at him without speaking.

  Tapping his chin, he continued his performance. “Ah, yes, you’re wondering about your file. Because Ivashov’s name was never mentioned in your direct reports, was it? Only in encoded communiques you believed only you were able to decode.” He waved a negligent hand. “You see, you lied to your superior officers, Colleen. You claimed your source was Karlin Kedrov himself, and no one could refute the information, because Ivashov’s intel was so spectacularly on-point. But two years ago, you got something wrong—Ivashov got something wrong—and British lives were lost in a subway bombing in central London caused by Russian terrorists.”

  “It was accidental,” she whispered.

  “It was arrogance,” he corrected sharply. “Your superiors began to ask questions—have you lost control of your asset, Colleen?—and you feared you would lose your precious position as section chief of T-16. You eventually discovered where Kedrov planned to be, outside the safety of his country, and you sent your agents to kill him. In Kabul, January of last year.” His future brother-in-law had been one of those agents. “Kedrov would die, Ivashov would claim power and you would have an actual direct line to the head of the most dangerous arms dealer on the planet, instead of just lying about it and saying you did.

  “You sent Chandler to Moscow to groom your former lover to take over the Polnoch’ Pulya, but you didn’t tell her who he was to you. You didn’t tell her that you’d revealed her identity to Ivashov, that she had a potential ally already installed within the organization. Instead, you crossed your fingers and waited for the news to come that Ivashov had ascended to the position of pakhan—and you kept waiting and refused to allow your agent to come home even when she goddamn begged you for sanctuary.” His teeth snapped shut on a snarl of rage as he thought of Chandler at the end of her tether, figurative and literal, desperate to escape the hell she’d been consigned to as a loyal servant of the Crown.