Endgame

by Mia Downing

  “Char, that’s shitty.”

  That wasn’t even the worst part. “So I went inside, so sick to my stomach. The house was dark and the light wouldn’t work. This man came from the shadows. He hit me, told me John was upstairs, dead, and I’d join him after he raped me. I don’t know if he raped me or not, but he beat me within an inch of my life. I think I blacked out at some point. The boys tell me Jake rescued me, despite how much I hated him. He got me out right before the hit man tossed the match. He’d left the gas stove on.”

  “Baby, that’s horrible.” He kissed her cheek, hugging her too tight.

  Yes, it was, and she didn’t even remember most of it. “I have no clue to this day how they got me out of England, as broken as I was. I never asked. They got me here, to the States, barely alive. I knew John was dead, and I wanted to die, too. I only had one thing left to live for and they never told me the truth, because if they had…” She shrugged. “I would have just given up.”

  “And that was?” He froze in stroking her hair, as if he really knew before asking but didn’t want to believe.

  She sucked in a breath, exhaled, and shared her soul. “My unborn child. I was five months pregnant. Just starting to show. I had felt the baby move that weekend for the first time. I was so excited.” It was a memory she had kept, though it was too painful to visit.

  “Charlotte,” he breathed. “What assholes.”

  “They never lied, so don’t hate them. I would ask if my baby was okay, and they would tell me to fight. I thought they wanted me to fight, to be a mother. When the danger passed, they told me the truth. My baby had died, and I had to have a hysterectomy because of the damage to my uterus during the beating. Not a total one—I have some parts. But not the right ones to be a mother.”

  “How did you…recover from that? To be sane?”

  “I didn’t. First, I attempted suicide—”

  “Jesus!” He struggled to sit, hauling her up with him. He stared down at her, as if searching for the suicidal woman deep inside the cold, hard, and mean. She was still there, somewhere. Just quiet, for now. “Char, no.”

  She shrugged away the wash of pain. “Jake left my prescription for pain pills where I could get them. I took the whole thing. But they saved me—again. And then I became withdrawn, and then angry. Chase eventually asked me what I wanted to be.”

  His brow wrinkled. “What did you want to be?”

  “I wanted to be the woman who would kill those motherfuckers.”

  “That was…expedient…of you.”

  “It did serve my purpose, yes.” She thought for a moment, that memory in a Brussels hotel room still one of the strongest. “So I became Charlotte—Jake named me. He loved the name, and it was close to charlatan, which he thought was amusing. Chase wanted to name me Rose, because it would be easier to type on paperwork. They flipped a coin, Jake won. Rose is my alias middle name. Charlotte Rose Smith.”

  “You didn’t have a say? What if you wanted to be…Angela or something?”

  “They didn’t dare ask. Sad Charlotte didn’t speak, and Angry Charlotte only said ‘fuck you.’ They didn’t want me to be named fuck you.”

  He laughed, and so did she, because it really was weird and sad. “How kind of them.”

  She nodded, and the smile faded. “Anyway, I became cold, hard, and mean, with a third degree black belt, excellent marksmanship skills. I trained, I channeled the anger, and I became an assassin. I did what they asked, killed who they wanted taken out. But the time never came to end it.”

  “Until now.”

  “Until now.” She wondered what he thought of all this as he stared off toward the end of her bed, the dim light offered from her side lamp highlighting the new blond of his hair. Would he accept her life, her mission, and not want her to change? She couldn’t change this, not anymore.

  “I’ve never killed a motherfucker before. Just on film.”

  “Hopefully you won’t have to.” Right then and there, she knew she loved him more than any other person in the world. “Do you understand, now?”

  “Yes.” He shifted and captured her chin with his hand, dragging her gaze up to his. He tried to hide the conflict and sadness, but she knew him too well. “I can live without kids, Charlotte.”

  That just made her love him even more. She escaped his hand and hugged him tight, hiding the tears that threatened, wishing their lives were different. “You say that now, punk, but I know better. You Andersons dream of spreading your gene pool throughout womankind.”

  “Maybe I’m different.”

  She sighed against his chest. “We won’t work, Aaron. Even if I live at the end of this. I’m a spy. I have enemies that would give their left testicle to kill me. Being on your arm means you will die, because of me. I can’t do that to you.”

  He stiffened, and she glanced up. His jaw clenched, the lines around his mouth deepening with anger. “So quit.”

  “I can’t. I can’t quit. I can’t change jobs. I can’t be yours. Ever. I’m trapped, and before you go and blame Chase, it’s my fault.” She sighed. “You sure you want to come with me, now that you know the whole story? You can still get out.”

  He shook his head, deep in stubborn, mulish Aaron mode. “You need me even more. And don’t try to ditch me. I’ll find a way to follow you. You need a partner, and I’m it, like it or not.”

  How their roles had changed. In the course of one evening, he’d gone from her charge to her partner. “Try not to make me regret bringing you.”

  “I’ll try hard.” He kissed her. “Can I take a quick nap without worrying about you ditching me?”

  “Yes.” Unfortunately, he was her partner now. She couldn’t leave him behind now any more than she could kill him. Damn him.

  She secretly didn’t want it any other way.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Where the fuck are you?

  Charlotte shook a little as she read the display on her phone later that evening just before boarding their flight to London. Even if the little box didn’t have a header that said LOTS—Lord of the Spies, their code for Chase—she’d know immediately. No greeting—Chase didn’t use salutations unless he had to. He also didn’t do fancy, or she would have bet Aaron’s elephant and two chickens that the word fuck would have been capitalized, underlined, and in bold.

  But not a different color. Chase liked black, and that’s what the text made her think—black, dark things.

  Which meant she had screwed up big time somehow, because he knew she was going rogue and she hadn’t even talked to him. Damn it. No text from Jake, though, which meant Chase would be breathing fire across his desk tomorrow. God help the tech team.

  But her desire to please Chase couldn’t let it go, despite the fact that he’d planned things behind her back, had lied. She should just get on the plane, but she couldn’t. Forgive me.

  Then she powered the phone off and popped the battery out. Her lead-time was done. He had a little more than eight hours, which was plenty of time. If they were greeted on the other side of the pond by officials, then the game was over.

  But Chase owed her. She had to bank that the man deep, deep inside the devil’s skin loved her. And that would be enough.

  “Ready?” Aaron had their bags in his hand, so blond and Jake-like now. He had on his fake glasses and would have looked scholarly except the grin he shot her was one of pure sin. They were breaking the rules, and he was loving every second of it.

  Still, she hated doing this to him. Once he made this journey with her, he’d never be the same. Her first trip out into the field had scarred her forever. “You can still back out.”

  That shit eating grin intensified. “And miss the role of a lifetime? Never.”

  ****

  They landed in London the next morning. Charlotte welcomed the gloom and gray chill outside of Heathrow that meant she was truly home. She grinned over at Aaron and, after a moment’s hesitation, kissed him quickly, unable to contain that feeling of joy she
felt when she hit native soil. “Welcome home, love.”

  “Partner mode is almost as much fun as girlfriend mode.” He returned the kiss and grinned. “Want me to hail a cab?”

  “Please.”

  “When are you going to call him?”

  She did not want to make this call, but they’d decided after Chase hadn’t had them greeted by officials, it might be best to test the waters, so to speak. If Chase was on their side, despite his anger, she would have a lot more luck getting this done.

  “Now. He knows we’re England. Better to let him track us here than to wait until we’re at a hotel and have him track us down there.”

  She popped the battery back in, and Aaron frowned.

  She shrugged. “He can track us with the battery in, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t. I thought you could just turn it off.”

  “That’s why I had you leave your phone in D.C. and gave you a new one. I can’t watch you and me at the same time.” But she kissed him for being a rookie. Her rookie. She waited as the phone powered up, taking forever.

  “Try not to be so tense.” He brushed her cheek with his thumb, cupping her jaw, kissing her lips gently. Her stomach did weird things at the contact, though he’d kissed her a zillion times over the past week. “He can’t kill you through a phone.”

  She leaned against him, loving the mix of leather jacket in his spicy scent. “You’d be surprised what LOTS can do.”

  The display came up. Six missed calls, two texts. She did the texts first. Chase had sent—be safe.

  That made her tear up, because really, she had never expected to be told that. But he had plenty of time to work up some blazing anger that would make a dragon quail in fear. She doubted her phone call would go as well.

  Jake wasn’t so nice. I am going to paddle your ass until you think the sun has set in your pants.

  Yes, he would, too.

  The phone calls were actually work related, nothing to do with either of the guys. So she ignored those and made the phone call she regretted.

  “Get back on the fucking plane, Agent Smith. There are two tickets waiting. Go.” French, not English, no greeting. Chase to the max.

  “Nice to hear from you, too,” she answered in English. She had nothing to hide any longer. She fumbled for Aaron’s hand and gripped it tight, needing his support.

  “That’s an order, Agent Smith.”

  “I’m done with orders. So this can go two ways. We’ll see who’s faster out of the gate, because I have my hand on a cab door right now. Or you can be supportive and help me.”

  He growled. “I’ll freeze you out.”

  “I have money here. Contacts. Connections. I don’t have to crawl back to you.” That sounded braver than she felt.

  “You’ll risk Aaron like that? Get him killed? Is he going to be your collateral damage?”

  “He’s a big boy.” But he voiced what she feared.

  “Don’t tell me you told him what he’s getting into. No smart man would go with you if they knew.”

  “I told him everything.” She switched to French. “Relax. He’s never going to see anything remotely exciting. You know me better than that. I had no choice but to bring him.”

  Chase sighed. “Jake’s pissed.”

  “Yes, I gathered from the text he sent me.” She switched the phone to her other ear and put her finger to her lips. Aaron was fidgeting, ready to explode next to her. “So how is this going to play out, love? You helping me, or am I on my own?”

  There was a long pause, one filled with ice and heat across the miles. “I can send Crazwalski in, but he won’t arrive until tonight. You can move tomorrow, but we need to have a plan in place. We can video conference tonight—ten?”

  She switched back to English. “You’ll send Crazwalski, and we’ll meet tonight. Yes. Thank you.” Let Aaron think she had a partner. Let Chase think she was playing his game. That would be the safe thing to do. She’d move tonight, though, before the other agent arrived. Alone.

  “Things are in the usual locations?” She’d need a gun, money. They had items stashed all over London. It was just a matter of getting it all together.

  “Yes, you’re set. Ryan will email you what you need to know for technical information.”

  Her heart pounded. This was it, the beginning of her endgame. “Then I’ll call you later. I owe you.”

  “You’ll run every mile you just flew and back.”

  “I’ll buy new running shoes, then.”

  She ended the call and wanted to hoot, jump for joy, and just cry, because the pieces were moving. Finally. She wrapped her arms around Aaron’s neck and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. Joyful, yet bittersweet, because life was so short. “He’ll support us.”

  Aaron kissed the tip of her nose and leaned his forehead against hers, way more boyfriend than partner. “Maybe he’s not such an asshole, after all.”

  “Oh, he’s an asshole. But he knows when his hands are tied.”

  He bent to kiss right below her ear and whispered, “I like it when your hands are tied.”

  She laughed. “I bet you do, punk. Let’s go see if the hotel bed has a place you can tie me to. I’m going to need to feel very vulnerable after all of this dominance and control.”

  “If you’re feeling like rewarding me, you could give me my first international blow job in the cab.”

  She laughed again. So naughty, her punk. “Don’t press your luck.”

  ****

  After they settled into a hotel, Charlotte had left on errands and Aaron was supposed to be napping. He wasn’t tired, so he broke into Charlotte’s laptop and did some research. It really wasn’t breaking in. She’d given him the passwords to research something in D.C. so he didn’t feel the need to pray and repent for it. But when she’d left, he’d asked if he could research, and she had said no.

  He didn’t follow orders well.

  His first trip in the ’Net was to look up her name—Abigail Rothschild. Lots of proof that her tale was as horrible as it was true, and it broke his heart. He found photos of her as Abbey, so beautiful, prettier than she was as Charlotte, almost breathtaking, like a movie starlet. Blonde, blue-eyed, the set of her shoulders the same, still tall and thin though she was softer then, more curvy. Not hard and able to flee an army of hungry cannibals on foot. They’d labeled it as a gas explosion, and the obituaries spoke highly of her—smart, top of her class, an artist and poet.

  He learned through the article that she hadn’t taken John’s last name though it didn’t list her as married. Morals stopped him from researching her husband for a nanosecond, and then bam, temptation won and John Cadwell’s name was in the search engine. Nosy, nosy punk, sneaking into her baggage. John was much older than Charlotte, which surprised Aaron. She was twenty-three, John was forty then, which made her twenty-eight now.

  But the obituaries worried Aaron. Nowhere did it mention Abigail as his wife, nor did hers mention John as her husband. And John’s stated his as an untimely death, while Abigail’s article said there was only one fatality in the blast.

  This had to be something the government had done, to hide something. But what? Had Charlotte even seen these? She didn’t like to talk about the past, so a part of him doubted it.

  He heard the door click and the chain catch. “Love, let me in,” she called.

  “Give me a sec, baby.” He cleared the search history, powered off the laptop, and shut the lid.

  “Don’t be shocked when you open the door,” she warned.

  He undid the chain and opened the door. “I’ll try not—” He sucked in a breath. “Holy shit.”

  Charlotte was blonde. Almost Abigail blonde with just a touch of red left from her deeper color. Gone were the violet contacts. Her eyes were a light blue, a little like a spring sky over his family’s ranch.

  Her smile was almost shy. “Do you like?”

  “It’s pretty. Very different, but you’re beautiful no matter what color your hair is.” He
opened the door wider and let her in. “That’s…you. What you used to look like.”

  “Yes.” She looked surprised and so achingly innocent. Young. “How did you know?”

  Shit, think fast. “I guessed if you’re visiting an old boss, you’d want to look like your old self again.”

  “Perceptive punk.” She smiled at him and put down a large shopping bag next to the table.

  “Perceptive partner,” he corrected. “What’s in the bag?”

  She rifled through the bag. “Money, clothes, a gun. Other stuff I’ll need.”

  “Two guns? One for me, one for you?”

  She frowned. “One.”

  “I want a gun.” He narrowed his eyes. “And you’re going with that other agent, I thought. So you should have three.”

  “You’re not going anywhere, and I don’t need a gun for him. He’ll have one.”

  Some partner, getting benched. “I want to go, damn it.”

  “I know. I don’t want to risk you. We’ll find something for you to do. You can run ops here from the laptop and a cell phone. That’s very important.”

  “I’m not staying behind.”

  She ignored him, reached into the bag, and pulled out a case. She removed a pistol, inspected it, and then put it back.

  “To your liking?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. Beggars can’t be choosers. We have stuff stashed all over every major city. I can’t say that this is my favorite gun, but I’ve used it before. It’s accurate.”

  Her job scared the shit out of him. “That’s all that counts, I guess.”

  She put the case down and stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her lips found the quickened pulse at his throat, because, though she looked different, she smelled familiar and so good. “The shower here is nice.”

  “I noticed.” Because Chase had approved, she booked them an extra nice room, as a reward. Huge bed, excellent TV, nice bathroom. The only downfall was there were no slats on the bed to cuff her.