Endgame

by Mia Downing

  She rode him a few more strokes, the bite of his fingers into her hips lessening. The sigh that shuddered from her soul was sad yet satisfied, and she fought to let those feelings go completely.

  “Come here,” he beckoned.

  She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his wide shoulders. He buried his face in her neck and inhaled, and she inhaled his scent, too.

  “I want to wear one of your shirts tonight. Is that okay?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  She wanted him to be the last scent she inhaled as she died. It seemed odd, being in his arms and thinking of the end. But if she didn’t, she’d miss out on the simple pleasures. Like the way his heartbeat was slowing, under her ear. The way his skin cooled against hers, the mix of their sweat drying. The way his hand stroked her hair to the tips, skimming up to the top of her head only to make the journey again. At least her pierced belly didn’t hurt today so she could enjoy him like this, one last time.

  Unfortunately, all good things came to an end. She smiled and tapped his nose with her finger. “I’ll clean us up, and we have time for a quick nap before Chase comes.”

  Aaron frowned. “I still want to come with you tonight.”

  “Of course, you do. Maybe Chase will have ideas, since you were so helpful in England. I’ll put in a good word for you. Okay?” She had no intention of discussing anything with Chase. She would wait until Aaron fell asleep and leave him here, alone. Chase would send him home in the morning, after he spent time with Jake. It was the right thing to do.

  “Will you let me hold you?” He sounded exhausted, poor guy. He wasn’t as used to jet lag as she was. Plus she’d had a drug-induced nap.

  “Of course.”

  “I protect what’s mine, Charlotte. Let me come, and I’ll protect you.”

  “I know, love.” It would be like a moth protecting a dragon, but his statement made her feel womanly. Feminine. “No one has ever wanted to protect me before.” Not even Jake and Chase.

  He patted her bottom. “I want a lot of things for you no one has ever wanted before.”

  “I know.” And that right there was why she had set him free, so he could do those things for another woman, one who would be able to love him back and bear his children. A woman who wasn’t a spy. “Shh, sleep, love.”

  “Okay.” He closed his eyes and held her closer. “Promise me you’ll wake me up in plenty of time.”

  She crossed her fingers behind her back in true Anderson fashion, so the promise would be null and void. “I promise.”

  “Tell me you love me, Ma’am?” So drowsy, already.

  I love you so much, punk. She kissed his lips then, soft but full of all the love she could never share with him. Not out loud. “Go to sleep, punk.”

  ****

  Aaron woke when he heard the outside door click shut. Fuck, she wasn’t waiting for Chase. He rolled in bed, and his hand hit a piece of paper on her pillow. It read:

  I love you, Romeo. Thank you for teaching me to live. And thank you for letting me go. Keep your promises, please, or Ma’am will be displeased. ~C.

  She loved him. Seeing it there, in black in white, in her handwriting…

  Right above the line for him to keep his promises, she’d broken hers to let him come with her. He snorted. “Romeo,” he said to the paper. “I’m not going to stab myself. I’m going to fuck up a few d’Arcs. Whatever Joan’s last name was.”

  He’d already done the research on dungeon parties while Charlotte was out cold. All black and leather worked, which he had. But he didn’t have an address. He thought for a moment. She wouldn’t have an address yet, either, so she would be going to Chase’s.

  “Bingo,” he said with glee and dialed the phone. It was answered on the second ring. “Hey, Momma? I need a favor. I’m in D.C., and I want to surprise Chase and Kate with a visit and a gift for the baby. You got their address?”

  He got the address and chatted for a few minutes as he dressed, wanting to talk longer because he’d been an asshole to his mother and she was practically in tears now. She’d been pissed as a bull in a bees’ nest when he left the seminary, so he’d shut her out. Ran to L.A. But he missed his mother so much.

  “I love you, Momma. I promise to call again, tomorrow. Okay? But I have to run.”

  Aaron would call her, too, if he lived. He wanted to tell her so much and to bring Charlotte back to her as his girl. He froze as he realized that wouldn’t be an option. Not for Romeo and Joan of Arc.

  Rage surfaced, and he understood why she had a hard time keeping it in check, why she called it her freight train. He slammed his hand against the doorframe. Fuck the government, fuck them all. He wanted her.

  He took a few deep breaths, shaking out the pain in his hand. Anger wouldn’t help her. Not tonight. He would go to that damned party because he loved her. He wanted her to live more than he wanted her to be his, so he would respect their wishes and kiss her cheek at the end of the night. And if she died tonight…

  He wanted to be the one to hold her.

  ****

  Charlotte entered through the mudroom, using the security codes for the garage door and then the house. Only those in the inner circle had the codes, and though Chase was a private man, his home was always open to those he loved. She didn’t know where she fit into his life now, but the codes still worked, so she made her way to the kitchen.

  As soon as Aaron had fallen asleep, she’d texted Chase the change in plans. His response had been brief—fine. She had no idea what to think and decided to be grateful for Aaron’s insight that she needed to know someone loved her. As wrong as it was, it helped to come here, to face Chase, with Aaron’s love still inside her.

  Her stomach had churned as she had chosen her last outfit. A very short, pleated skirt and one of Aaron’s white, button-down shirts with the ends tied below her purple bra, her belly ring on full display. Her thigh high boots were custom-made by a man who owed her his life, constructed to conceal a compact gun and two knives. She had opted for a simple braid but left her purple streak braided on its own and hanging free down the side of her cheek. No makeup. A long coat concealed it all and helped to warm her against the December chill.

  Chase stood at the breakfast bar, a disassembled pistol spread out on a towel with cleaning supplies grouped around it. He had a fully stocked gunroom in the basement with tables for cleaning. But she knew he wanted to be in the doorway, when she arrived. The gun cleaning was to keep him busy, because his mind would be racing at a million miles a second.

  She wished she had loved him less, so it wouldn’t be so hard to face him.

  Chase glanced up at her, his expression unreadable. He looked the part of a casual Dom in a tight black T-shirt, black pants, a leather jacket slung over a chair. Probably boots on his feet. He worked black well. “If you’re going to kill me, I suggest you not get blood on the floor. Tia just washed it.”

  “I’ll let the bad guys do it.” She removed her coat and tossed it over the chair. “Tia and Kate?”

  “Upstairs with Alex.” He took in her outfit, his eyes narrowing. “You couldn’t find more clothes?”

  He never approved if an inch of skin showed or if her clothes were tight, just like a true brother. Jake was just as bad. “I’m supposed to be your sexual submissive. They don’t usually show up to a dungeon party wearing a snow suit.”

  He took in her belly ring and then assessed her tiny nose stud. “Do the piercings hurt?”

  “The belly ring does.” All that friction making love to Aaron hadn’t helped. Though things had been quieter earlier, the damned thing throbbed now.

  He nodded. “They suit you. The hair, too.”

  “I’m glad you approve of something.”

  He arched a dark eyebrow. “Are you? Glad?”

  Loaded question that she really didn’t want to answer. “You get an address yet?”

  “Nope. In half an hour.” He started to assemble the gun with practiced ease. “I think we s
hould spend this time wisely while we wait.”

  She sat in the stool farthest from him, her elbows on the counter, hands supporting her chin. “Making a game plan?”

  “No, clearing the air.”

  She shifted and folded her hands on the counter to stop the quaking. “There’s nothing to clear. This is work. I’m work. I’ve always been work to you. I understand that.”

  His gaze flicked to hers. “Do you?”

  She nodded. She used to believe he loved her. Believing this was the only way she could stay sane. The closer they got to endgame, the more she thought his love impossible. No one put too much love into a game piece that would be destroyed. “We’re going to get Jake, I’m going to kill a man, you’re going to supervise, and that’s work. I’m sorry you have to work this weekend.”

  Chase clenched his teeth, aggravated. “Damn you for running to England.”

  “England just saved you a lot of talking, and you know you hate talking. Would you have told me all that if I had stayed?” They both knew the answer to that—no. She would have learned exactly what she needed to know, not a word more. “Where did they snatch Jake from, the coffee shop?”

  Chase sighed. “Yes. He went willingly so they wouldn’t hurt Tia.”

  “John believes he’s Aaron?”

  “Yes, and that Tia was guarding him.” Chase finished assembling the gun and wiped down the exterior with gentle care. “What did you do with the punk?”

  “He’s at my apartment. Maybe Kate will go get him.”

  “Maybe.” Chase frowned. “He said you had a nightmare with him.”

  “Yes. He discovered something important.” Charlotte filled him in about what Aaron discovered, leaving out the fact that she was sniffing Aaron’s shirt during it.

  “Makes sense.” Chase gathered up the towel that had been under the gun, balled it up, and chucked it over her head into the mudroom. “I bet that’s why you don’t steal Jake’s shirts.”

  “What? I don’t steal shirts.” She wanted to ask what he knew, but she didn’t dare, not when he was too close to her fetish.

  “Jesus, Charlotte, don’t start lying now. You’ve taken my shirts since day one, and it’s no secret Jake has been pissed that you want nothing to do with him. That hurt him a bundle, considering what he went through to save you.”

  Her cheeks flared with heat. First embarrassment and then anger finally won over curiosity. “You knew. All these years. I got Kate to give them to me, so you wouldn’t suspect.”

  “Yeah, and I had a hell of a time explaining to her why you needed them, because it never made sense to Jake or me. But we catered to you because you were ours. You got what you needed.”

  “Really?” She stood and crossed her arms over her chest, fuming. “So lying to me about John and Reese was what I needed? Creating me to be your hired killer was what I needed? Making me feel like I was loved when I wasn’t, that’s what I needed?”

  He glared, the heat of it something she would have felt in her soul if she had one. “I think you need to sit back down.”

  “Really? So you can give me a list of orders that I need, like usual?”

  “No, so I can tell you the truth about doomsday.”

  “I have the truth.”

  He gnashed his teeth together and ground out, “What you know is what you’ve wanted to hear. We told you the story you would listen to, because when we tried to tell you the truth, you tried to kill us.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Chase snorted. “You pulled my gun on your therapist when he dug too close to the truth. Thank fuck, I was quicker or he’d be dead. Never mind the lawsuit we had to head off.”

  “Fucking liar.” But it was true. She vaguely remembered now that he mentioned it. Had she done the same with her boys, so she didn’t have to listen? So many dark shadows in her memory.

  Unsure, she finally met his gaze. He wasn’t angry. No, those chocolaty depths held compassion and sorrow. She wished for anger instead.

  “I think you need to hear what happened, so you understand all this, from my point of view. From Jake’s.” Chase’s voice was soft but brokered no disagreement. She’d hear what he had to say, like it or not.

  Fear welled up, so unfamiliar and vile a feeling. She didn’t do fear. Not anymore. “I don’t need to hear this.”

  “You know we watched you, yes?” he asked, ignoring her.

  “Yes.” She’d guessed.

  “We had John under surveillance as well as Reese, trying to understand the connections, how he could run an empire so effectively from the background. Reese’s political connections cleared a lot of paths, and John had the right connections to move what needed to be moved, undetected. It took everything we had not to rush in and kick his ass for treating you the way he did.” Chase tilted his head, the sadness and compassion in his eyes too much for her to bear. She’d take unemotional any day.

  “John wasn’t good to you, sweetheart. He manipulated you, used you, lied to you until you were brainwashed to do as he wished. It started out as a normal, submissive relationship, I think, but somewhere it went wrong. Maybe as his power grew, his power to control you grew, too.”

  She was starting to see that, understand that, especially after knowing Aaron. The memories were returning, flitting here and there. Things hadn’t been as good as she remembered. “Then John found out I’d been giving you information.”

  “Well, first he thought you were screwing us, and then he found out the rest.” Chase hesitated, wary. “John was your hit man. John beat you, raped you, and tried to kill you. John killed your baby.”

  “No. Fuck you, no.” She stood, the stool almost tipping over. That wasn’t what she remembered. Not at all. John was an evil man, but to try to kill her and his baby himself? No fucking way.

  “You need to hear this,” Chase snapped, his voice strong and dominant. “Sit there and listen.”

  She did as she was told, her thighs trembling almost as badly as her hands. For a moment, she almost gave in to the fear and asked Chase to hold her. Instead, she closed her eyes and inhaled Aaron’s scent from his dress shirt.

  “You remember being attacked by someone else, and that’s true. John hired someone to make the initial blows, and then John knocked him out so there would be two bodies to recover after he blew up the house. Yours and the hit man planted with DNA to identify him as John.”

  The darkness spun with memories. She could smell the blood and something else mingled with it. The hands, fingers biting into her flesh, the pain…a scent she couldn’t name, mingling with the blood. Whispers for her to be still, to take it, that he loved her enough to kill her, to save her from the men she consorted with…

  Chase whispered, “Breathe, Char. Breathe.”

  She breathed, inhaling Aaron’s scent again, overriding the memories. She fought for clarity, to understand. Two bodies in the explosion, a leaky gas line. She’d be out of John’s life, they’d think him dead, and he would have been free, underground.

  But she was alive, and now John wanted to finish it. The John she remembered didn’t leave things unfinished. Maybe that was the only real memory she had.

  “You with me?” Chase asked gently, now at her side. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, his body so hard against hers, his scent joining Aaron’s. Gun oil and Chase mixed with Aaron’s clean spice. “Stay with me, okay? I’m right here. I love you, Char. No matter what you thought or what you feel. I love you.”

  He loved her. She nodded, trembling, eyes still closed. She wanted darkness for some reason. Why?

  “You still with me? This is the bad part.”

  As if that wasn’t bad enough. She forced a nod and clung to him, Chase’s scent and Aaron’s enough to keep her grounded. Maybe. It hurt so much.

  “John beat the shit out of you, raped you, and was going to leave you to die.” His words tumbled out in a rush, as if it hurt him as much to say it. “You don’t remember, but Jake pulled him off. Your face was blo
ody, eyes so swollen you couldn’t see. Jake beat the crap out of John, but he stabbed Jake and got away.”

  “My face was swollen.” That’s why she couldn’t see in her dreams, why it was a wash of pain dredged up from the bottom of her soul. “I couldn’t see.”

  “No. Somehow, you managed to crawl into the dining room, under the table. Jake followed the trail of blood but you fought him. I think that’s why you don’t like the way he smells. He would have been sweaty from fighting John and you would have smelled him. Even so broken and battered, losing your baby, you still fought Jake. So brave, right to the end.”

  She’d always thought of Abigail as weak and compliant. Maybe she had a touch of Charlotte in her right from the get-go. “I fought Aaron, too, when I had a nightmare.”

  “I have scars where you’ve scratched my arms during nightmares. That’s why we kept your nails trimmed short in the beginning. I think we could have trimmed a mountain lion’s claws easier. Always so tough.” His voice held a note of pride, and she opened her eyes. Chase’s emotions were displayed for her to see—sadness, pain, anger. Love for her.

  “When you attempted suicide, we told you it was out of grief for your baby. That was some of it, but one therapist said to tell you everything, so you could face the truth about John. You hit the pills right afterward, taking the entire bottle.

  “That was the last straw. It was let you kill yourself or lock you away, and we couldn’t do either to you. So we did the only thing we knew how to do, and we turned you into Charlotte. We knew he’d come after you. We knew he’d try killing you again, and we wanted you to have the skills to survive. Maybe we were wrong. But I stand behind my decision. I loved you too much for you to die.”

  “I—I’m sorry,” she whispered, horrified. Ashamed. But now she understood why they went to such lengths to lie to her about doomsday. It hurt them, physically and mentally, as much as it hurt her.

  “Sweetheart, there’s nothing to be sorry about.”