Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Jack
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t punch you in the face right now,” Jack growled, his anger barely restrained as he glared at Theo.
Beside Theo, Alain Roche shifted in his chair. They’d been at this since before dawn, and Jack was tired.
Sick of bullshit.
“I did what I had to do,” Theo said with a shrug. “I’m not asking for your apology.”
“You gave the microfilm to Prescott. And you may have let him get away.”
The truth was none of them knew what had happened to Prescott. That was almost more unsettling than the certainty of him being alive.
“Technically that’s on Ruby. I wasn’t even there when the car exploded.”
“You saw the car though—and no sign of a body.”
Theo’s gaze flickered with coldness. “The car was an inferno by the time I reached it. The microfilm would have melted. A body would have turned to ash. Prescott is almost certainly dead. Alex doesn’t even know what he saw after the explosion. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”
“I almost died trying to keep that microfilm out of Prescott’s hands.
” Alice spoke up from the corner of the room, her glare liquid fury.
She hadn’t said much this entire time, but every time she spoke, it felt like a jolt to Jack.
Like he’d entered a strange new world that his sister was not only a part of but where she’d become a competent and fearless adversary to anyone who stood in her path.
Roche raised both hands. “Captain Knight decided it was better for Theo and Ruby to remain undercover and deliver the microfilm to Prescott before we lured him to the orphanage. It was his decision.”
Captain Knight. Better said, MI5. Which Theo and Ruby apparently were. Along with their friend Felix, who Jack had throat-punched back in Cairo.
Roche and Theo had explained the situation to Jack after they’d cleared the streets of the dead bodies of al-Rashid, his men, and some of the sheikh’s men. The sheikh had survived but had been arrested.
So had Kit. She’d been arrested for shooting al-Rashid.
Roche hadn’t said if she’d be quietly released or made a scapegoat. Jack had a sinking feeling he knew which it would be.
None of it made Jack feel any better. He didn’t care if Ruby and Theo had been ordered to infiltrate Prescott’s organization by Knight. Didn’t care that they’d been working this case for months, since Kit had first sent out an SOS to MI5.
He just wanted to forget.
“I’m not sure what you think you accomplished here,” he said to Roche, “but all I see is a whole lot of nothing. Al-Rashid is dead. He’ll never face justice for his crime and, if I know the government—and I do—what he did will get buried under fifteen inches of classified files, never to be released.
Prescott, on the other hand, might still be out there.
Absent of a body and proof of his death, I’m not willing to say he’s out of the game.
But you wouldn’t go after him even if you thought he was alive, would you?
Because you know before you do, he’ll dig up every last skeleton in the closet of every person you care about and blackmail you with it. This is easier for you.”
“Maybe al-Rashid’s death is meaningless to you, but I see it as a satisfactory result in all this,” Roche said with a grim smile. “The best possible outcome. Now we can all carry on with our lives.”
“Sure,” Alice said with a quirk of a dark brow.
“Maybe you can. Meanwhile, Jack and I will just hold our breath hoping Prescott doesn’t shoot us in the back someday.
The man has as many aliases and friends as the British mandates have problems. He’s a ghost—on paper he doesn’t even exist. And I know more about Blackwell than most.”
Roche closed the leather folio in front of him and leaned forward. “Then I suggest you become a ghost too, Miss Darby. I’ll see you both out.”
Alice and Jack exchanged a look.
That was it, then. They were being dismissed. Case closed.
“I’d like to say good-bye to Kit before we leave,” Jack said in a tone that brooked no objection.
“Certainly,” Roche said pleasantly.
With one last glare at Theo, Jack pushed his chair back, its legs scraping the floor as he did. He stood and left Roche’s office, Alice by his side.
If he’d gained anything from this whole experience, it was that: Alice, by his side.
They’d still have years of hurt to overcome.
Prescott to face—and maybe even his organization to dismantle, brick by brick.
But they had each other again.
When they stopped by the door that led to the cells, Alice reached over and squeezed his hand. “I’ll let you talk to her alone,” she said, then leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. “See you outside?”
Jack nodded. “Go straight to Alastair’s car. I don’t trust Prescott not to rear his head.”
Alice rolled her eyes and smiled. “I didn’t miss the bossy older brother routine, that’s for sure.”
Managing a warm look for her, Jack swallowed hard. This would be hard to get used to. He hadn’t been an older brother for way too long. And Alice was a woman now.
He followed Roche toward the cell block. At the end of it, in the dim, cold light of dawn, Kit sat on a bench in a cell, shirt still splattered with al-Rashid’s blood. She stood when she saw him.
Jack went up to the bars and let out a slow, exaggerated sigh that was heartfelt and yet not enough. “Kit Federline.”
“Jack Darby,” she said, coming closer. She gripped his forearms, then set her forehead against a bar.
Jack swallowed hard, moving over so that his forehead dipped against hers, making what little contact he could with her.
His voice stuck in his throat and then he managed, gruffly, “Why didn’t you come back?”
She was slow to answer, the sound of her breath thick. Warm against his cheek. “I thought about it. But then you were married before I could blink. And … that seemed better for you. Maybe what you needed. I was never what you needed, Jack. We were never good for each other.”
How could she really say that? He had wanted her, loved her more than anything. Her words sounded hollow. Like an easy excuse for never loving him enough.
“That marriage ended though. And you still stayed away.”
“Jack … do we really have to do this now? What difference will it make?”
He stared at her, blinking slowly.
Difference? It made all the difference, didn’t it? Everything he’d ever wanted to say to her, all the times he wished he could have told her …
But he had told her, so many times, how much he loved her. Yet that had never been enough for her. And maybe that was what he’d failed to realize all along. He’d been holding on for so long to something that really had died years ago … not her, but the youthful fantasy of loving her.
“I should have kissed you when I saw you at Fahad’s house. Held you close and left you there,” he murmured.
“Do you really think I would have stayed?” she asked with a chuckle.
Kit pulled back and looked at him, searching his eyes. “Besides, Jack. We’ve both moved on from each other by now, haven’t we? I was engaged in Baghdad, you know.” Her eyes glistened. “My father had him killed.”
Moved on?
He’d been with other women, yes.
Loved another woman.
And even with Ruby, there had been a spark there to explore—something he’d been sure could blossom with time.
Ruby.
He couldn’t think about her.
He needed to deal with Kit first. Kit … who was alive, who had run from him over and over again.
Kit … who would never love him in the way he’d dreamed. Kit, who, maybe, he didn’t really even know at all anymore.
And in the meantime, the woman I’d started to care about is in the hospital and I’ve ignored her.
He’d been a fool for Kit. But he wasn’t an ignorant boy anymore.
“I’m not sure if you ever move on from what we felt for each other when we were kids, Kit.” Or what I felt for you. He forced himself to take a step back from her.
“But you were right. Time has never been our friend. And I can’t keep living my life with your ghost hovering at the edge of my soul. I almost forgot who I was because of it.”
Sadness flitted through her gaze. “I understand.” Smiling sadly, she shrugged and stepped back. “And right now I’m at the mercy of the British authorities. I can just see the paper headlines now: American heiress murders Arabian lover in crime of passion.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’ll hush the whole thing up and release you when they’re bored of you.”
Kit nodded. “Either way, you won’t be waiting for me.”
His heartbeat slowed.
He wanted to tell her no.
Wanted to say, “Of course I’ll wait. I’ll wait forever, Kit,” just the way he had as a youth.
But he knew better now. Knew what he would sacrifice if he did.
I have to let her go.
“No,” he breathed. “I won’t.”
“Good,” she said.