by Lexi Blake
“Looks serious. I better go get Damon.” Baz’s expression never changed. He looked back, his eyes catching on Phoebe’s desk. “Nice flowers. Someone must be in love.”
But those flowers weren’t about love.
Ian stood up, looking at whatever Adam was doing on the computer. When his face lifted toward the door, there was a weariness to his eyes that she hated. He ran a hand across his brow, his shoulders slumping.
Alex and Eve were holding hands and suddenly Eve turned into Alex’s body, his arms wrapping around her. Eve was crying.
Charlie stood up. Fuck. What had happened? What the hell had happened? She couldn’t just sit here. Ian would just have to punish her. She moved toward the conference room door.
“Uhm, I don’t think you’re supposed to leave. Ian was very specific about it,” Phoebe said as she walked back in the office, pushing her glasses up her nose.
Charlie ignored her, moving into the hall. She looked to her left and Grace was locking the front doors as Liam paced by the elevator. They were locking down. Her heart rate picked up, thumping through her chest.
She crossed the space between them, her hands trembling as she opened the conference room door.
“Liam, Simon, and Jesse are with her, Sean,” Ian was saying. “They’re taking her out the back after they get Carys from daycare. Nothing’s going to happen to them, and Li might be a paranoid idiot, but I’m following his lead on this one.”
“I’m leaving the restaurant right now. Have Li text me the meet spot. Not at home.” There was a click and Sean’s voice was gone.
“What happened?” Charlie asked. Grace couldn’t go home?
Ian’s eyes pinned her, making her want to squirm. “I told you to stay in your seat and you are not allowed to talk.”
It was bad. Whatever had happened was really bad, and it was personal. “Please tell me.”
“Why, Charlotte? Why do you need to know?”
“Because I care about these people.” Because somehow through years of studying them, she’d come to love them. They had become her family.
Ian was so cold as he stood over her. All the heat that had been between them was gone, snuffed out utterly, and she could feel the vast distance that separated her from him. “Do you really? I have some questions about that.”
“I didn’t write those e-mails to Nelson. It was Chelsea.” He might never believe her, but she would defend herself.
“And Chelsea is your sister. Your ultimate loyalty is to her. I guess at the end of the day, it all comes down to family, doesn’t it? You’re always going to choose your family.”
But he was her family. “Please don’t believe an assassin over me. Please, Ian.”
“You did. You believed Nelson over me and now my family is paying the price.” He looked over and nodded toward the door. Damon and Baz stood there. “We’ve had a setback. We’re going to need to change some of our plans. How fast can we get to India?”
“I’ll have the jet ready as soon as possible. Let me make a few calls.” Damon stepped away, but Baz stayed, his dark eyes watching the scene playing out in front of him.
“Go back to your seat, Charlie. I can’t deal with you right now.” Ian dismissed her utterly.
She couldn’t accept that. “I want to help, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.”
Ian’s eyes went to the door, hardening slightly, and when he looked back at her there was an icy will in them. “Avery’s dead.”
“What?” She didn’t quite understand the words. They didn’t make sense so she had to have heard him wrong. Her paranoid brain was making connections that weren’t there.
“I said Avery is dead.” Ian drew out each word as if giving her time to process them separately.
The air left her lungs as the meaning hit her. Liam’s wife, the one who had smiled and welcomed Charlie, was gone? The one who was knitting baby clothes? Liam’s pregnant wife was dead? It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. “How?”
“Her brakes were cut. She lost control of her car and the ER doc pronounced her dead an hour ago.”
Charlie felt her knees go weak, but she forced herself to stand. Fourteen roses. She did a quick count and nausea rolled.
“Ian, what are you doing?” Alex asked.
Ian said something, but she didn’t hear anything else. All she could see was pretty, sweet Avery. Avery had been through so much and she hadn’t deserved to die.
Her uncle was coming after all of them, very likely in conjunction with Eli Nelson.
The two men who hated her most in the world were coming after her, and they were obviously playing for keeps. Fourteen yellow roses. One for each of them. They would kill everyone. They would take out Ian and his brother and their friends and wives and likely even their children.
A sob caught in her throat. They might not know about Jesse. He didn’t have ties to Nelson. He’d barely been on the payroll for more than a few months. She would be surprised if they knew about him. If that fourteenth rose wasn’t meant for him, then it had to be for the baby. God, there was a rose for Carys. There was a rose for Grace and Sean’s baby girl. Ian’s niece.
All that death would be her fault because she’d come back into his life. He would lose his family. They would all lose because Chelsea was right. She’d been selfish, thinking only of herself, of getting back to the place where she felt safe. But in doing that, she’d placed all the people she cared about in danger.
She’d never had a chance. From the moment she’d been born, her path had been set, and every time she tried to find a way out, someone died. She wouldn’t get that house filled with children. She wouldn’t get to wake every morning and see their little faces and know that they would carry on after she and Ian were gone.
She had always been meant to die, her painful existence erased in a single bullet.
Guilt gnawed at her gut. There was only one way to try to make things better.
She turned to the door and walked out, a calm settling inside. She’d cost Liam his wife. She couldn’t cost the rest of them. Maybe her uncle would be satisfied with her. Maybe he would give up the rest. Perhaps he’d sent the flowers as a warning for her to give over to the inevitable without taking down everyone around her.
“Charlie?” Ian’s voice rang out, but she couldn’t listen to him now.
It would be such a simple thing. She would go and sit on the bench outside the building. It was pretty there. There were pansies of all different colors and green grass. She could sit on the bench and wait. If she let her mind go, she wouldn’t even feel it when the bullet found her heart or her head or wherever they decided to aim.
It would be fitting to let them take her outside his office. She’d gotten close. So close.
“Charlotte!”
She got to the outer doors of the office, opening them. Except they didn’t open. She pulled at them again, trying to stay calm. She had to stay calm. She had to be calm in order to do what she needed to do. She couldn’t lose it. She had to get to the stairs and out of the building.
The doors stuck, despite using all her strength. She needed to get out and the doors were fucking locked, and Grace was somewhere out there and they would get to her. If she didn’t do what she needed to do the others would die.
A little hysteria started to churn inside her. She kicked at the doors. She had to get out. Couldn’t they see she had to get the fuck out of here?
“Charlie, you can’t go out there.” Ian wrapped those big arms of his around her, pulling her away from her goal.
She kicked back, completely losing it. “Let me go!”
It no longer mattered that her dignity was gone. All that mattered was stopping what was about to happen.
“No.” If he even felt her puny attempts to get out of his arms, he didn’t show it. “You’re safer here. I told you I won’t let you run again.”
“She’s not trying to get away from you.” Chelsea had tears running down her face. It was th
e first time she’d seen her sister cry since that awful day she’d nearly lost her legs. “She’s going to go down and offer herself up. She’s going to let them kill her. Can’t you see that? She would rather die than be the reason you lose someone else.”
Charlie looked at her baby sister. She loved her so much. For so many years, Chelsea had been the only thing that kept her going. Protecting Chelsea had been her whole life, the only thing she’d managed to do right until it had all gone wrong. “We can’t escape fate, but we gave it a good try, didn’t we, sister?”
Chelsea choked back a sob and nodded. “We did. Let me go with you. I can sit with you. I would rather go with you.”
“Nobody’s going anywhere, damn it.” Ian hauled her up, ignoring her protests. He looked back at the crew gathered around them. “That door stays locked, Alex. You tell Simon and Jesse to secure the women and then get their asses back here. Li, Jake, and Adam can handle them. I need extra eyes on her.”
“Ian?” Alex’s face was flush with emotion, the question meaning something she didn’t understand.
“I’m going to take care of her. Make sure I can. Watch that one. She doesn’t get to play the martyr either.” He started to walk down the hall, carrying her easily.
She was trapped in his arms. She had to make him see reason. “You have to let me go, Ian. Did you see the roses? My uncle sent them. It had to be him. Yellow roses. An even number of yellow roses.”
“It means someone thinks we’re going to be planning a funeral.” He seemed to understand, but he didn’t stop. He just walked toward his destination.
“There are fourteen of them. Ian, there are fourteen of us if you include Carys. He’s going to kill the baby. He’s going to kill the wives. He’s going to eradicate everyone you love if you don’t let me go. If I make it easy for him, maybe he’ll be satisfied with that.”
“He won’t. His path is set. He knows damn well that I will come after him. I won’t stop until he’s dead. We’re all on a path now.”
She’d set them there. “You can get off. Please, Ian. Please, let me go.”
He walked into his office and set her down on the sofa. He put his hand over her mouth. “Don’t move.” His voice lowered to a growly whisper. “Charlie, trust me.”
She looked up at him as he stalked back and shut the door. He grabbed what looked like a walkie-talkie and turned it on, looking at the screen. He walked through the room, staring at the screen and fine-tuning it.
He was looking for bugs?
He finally turned it off and shoved it back in his desk before turning to her, a grave look on his face. He walked her way and she stood up. Now he had to listen to her.
“Ian, Avery’s already gone,” she said. “We can’t lose someone else. Please let me go.”
Her whole world tipped upside down as he got to his knees and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Forgive me.”
“Ian, what are you talking about?” She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Without even really thinking about it, her hands found his hair. God, she wanted this. To hold him one last time. She sank her hands into his thick sandy hair.
“Forgive me. I can’t trust anyone. Not anyone outside of our family. Please forgive me, baby.”
Had he used the word “our”? “There’s nothing to forgive, Master. I love you, but you have to let me go and face them.”
“I can’t. Forgive me for lying to you but they were watching. It’s too important. I’m trying to protect all of us. They were in the room. I had to lie.”
“Lie?”
“Avery’s alive, but it was a close thing. She managed to get the car to stop, but she collided with another vehicle. They took her to the hospital. She and the baby are fine, but Liam thinks it was an attempt on her, and the assassins from last night at Alex and Eve’s weren’t there for you.”
Pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “They were trying to get Alex and Eve.”
“I just found a device on Alex’s cell. Someone is listening in. We decided to fake Avery’s death. Adam hacked the hospital system and had her pronounced dead. Liam is taking the rest of our women to a safe place. He and Jake and Adam will protect them. Sean will run with his family. They won’t come back out until I tell them it’s safe.”
“Fourteen yellow roses, Ian. They want to kill you all and it’s my fault.”
His head shook slightly. “It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that you have to keep the secret, too. I don’t want either of the MI6 agents to know Avery’s alive. I’m pissed that they know we’ve already killed two of them.”
At least he trusted her this much. “I won’t tell them a thing. Chelsea doesn’t need to know, either.” She was making her choice. She loved her sister, but her final loyalty had to be to Ian. “But they can’t stay in hiding forever. My uncle won’t stop trying to kill me. Let me go and maybe he’ll forget about the rest of you.”
His arms tightened around her. “I’m so sorry, but you have to understand that I will never allow you to walk out that door and let them take you. I don’t care if you could make a deal with them that saved us all. I won’t let it happen.”
Confusion swamped her. “Ian, I don’t understand. You were mad at me. You think I slept with Nelson.”
His face turned up, and there was no way to miss the torture there. He was usually so shut down, but every aching emotion was playing across those normally arctic eyes, and it kicked Charlie in the gut. “I don’t count anything that happened while you were with your father against you. You have to know that I never would do that. But I should care if you slept with Nelson. Goddamn it, Charlie, I should care about that. That’s the problem. I think it doesn’t fucking matter. I think I would still want you. That’s the insane thing, Charlie. I still fucking want you. I still crave you.”
Nothing had changed. Not really. He didn’t trust her.
Simon’s words came back. How about just giving him time?
She’d been willing to give him everything else. He was likely right. Her uncle had put them on a path. So what if he didn’t believe her now? How could she change that if she left?
If there was no way out of this war her uncle had started, then she should fight on the right side, and that meant standing up, not sitting on a bench and waiting for the inevitable. And that meant giving her Master what he needed.
He’d just discovered that his world was on a timer set to explode. Everyone he cared about was in danger, and he couldn’t trust anyone around him. They would all look to him to lead, and he had no one to lean on.
No one except her.
He might only be willing to say he wanted her, but he needed her. Her ego didn’t mean a thing in the face of what he needed.
She dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around him, offering him everything she had. “All right, Ian. I’ll do whatever you need me to do. I want to stand by you, but if you can’t trust me then I’ll go wherever you want me to go and I’ll stay there. I promise. I’ll give you the rest of the money and I won’t allow Chelsea to touch a computer. I’ll wait, Ian. I’ll wait until you do what you need to do. When you’re done, if you still want me, I will be there.”
His hands found her hair, pulling her back, forcing her to look into his eyes. That little tug lit up her skin. “You want me to shut you away? You think that will prove something to me? Maybe it would be the best thing to do, but I can’t. Do you want to know why?”
He was so close it was hard to even process the words he was saying. Her head was reeling. She’d gone from complete desperation to pure desire. “You think I would run?”
“No, I would make sure you can’t run. If I shut you away, I can’t fuck you, Charlie. I can’t think about anything but getting inside you again.” His mouth hovered over hers, tempting her, teasing her. So close to heaven, but she wanted a kiss from him to be more than a way to control her. “I can’t think about anything except you. I nearly killed that man today.”
“Ian…” she began, wanting
to explain.
“No.” He shook his head, a hard negative. “I don’t want to talk about it. I told you. I don’t give a fuck. I just want you. I can’t help it. You’re an obsession. I can’t let you go. I can’t let you walk away, and I sure as fuck can’t let them have you.”
She wanted to be more than an obsession. She needed it, but now wasn’t the time to talk about her needs.
Now was the time to give to him. To be what he needed.
“Then don’t, Master. I’ll stay with you as long as you want me.”
Another tug on her hair. He seemed to be in a ferocious mood, and he was willing to take it out on her. His world was out of control. Her heart skipped a couple of beats because she knew what he would need. If he couldn’t control the outside world, then he would control her. He would dominate her.
“You’ll stay?” The words came out of his mouth in a hard grind. “Will you stay when I tell you that what I want more than anything is to fuck your ass? Tell me how many men have been inside your ass.”
She shook her head, nearly shivering at the thought. How many nights had she dreamed about having him in every way there was to have a man? She’d been a good sub. She’d prepared for him. “None. Absolutely no one. I only want you.”
“Show me.”
Charlie stood up and prepared to serve her love.
Chapter Fourteen
A savage need flooded Ian’s system. To take her. To brand her. To ensure that she never looked at another man. He could keep her so satisfied that she couldn’t open her eyes to look at one.
It pounded through his veins and nothing else mattered. Something had switched on inside him when he’d realized what she was trying to do. She’d tried to offer herself up, to give herself away because the guilt was too much for her to bear.
And he remembered her body cold and dead in his arms.
She was fucking alive now and he was going to make sure it never happened again.
They were all his responsibility. Sean and Grace and Carys. Jake and Adam and Liam and their wives. Alex and Eve. Even Simon and Jesse were his responsibility now. He had to ensure their safety.
