Love and Let Spy (Masters and Mercenaries: New Recruits #6)

Prologue

Ben Parker felt the cold press of stone against his face and his gut churned as he forced himself to sit up.

Why was it so dark? Where the hell was he?

Something dripped down his face, and he reached up. Blood. His eyes were starting to adjust to the low light of the…? Cage? Was he in a cage?

His heart raced. His gut knotted. He was better than this. He had to calm the fuck down. He was a damn spy, and he knew panic was the real enemy.

Well, panic and Manny. Fuck. What had happened? Manny had done something. He’d been with… He couldn’t think about her now. He couldn’t think about the look on her face. He’d tried to save them all but the cost…the cost had been more than he could imagine.

Lou. She’d been the cost. He had to think about Lou. Was she here? He had to find a way to get Lou out because he knew exactly how badly things could go for her.

He moved along the floor until he managed to find a corner, his gut wrenching, likely because some asshole used experimental drugs on him.

Or it could be plain sedatives, but he doubted it since Manny liked to play.

He wouldn’t put anything past him. After all, he’d nearly killed Kenzie’s twin twice.

Ben had carried her out one time himself.

He’d held her thinking she was Kenzie, held her close and gave her to her family and walked away.

Kenzie.

Kenzie was never going to forgive him. Never. Not if Lou was hurt or if she…

“Benjamin, you don’t seem to be taking to my new drugs,” a silky voice said.

It floated through the air, coming at him from seemingly all angles.

Like the voice of a cruel god. “Such a shame. It did work, though. How were your dreams? It does contain a bit of a psychotropic. The other patients have described the effects as nightmarish.”

The dreams. They welled inside him, shadows he didn’t want to catch, but they still came. They flooded back, each devastating image.

His head ached at the thought of the shadow world he’d been in.

In his dreams he was in the car again. He was in the accident that took his fiancée when they were in college.

It had been the day he’d discovered her affair with the man who was supposed to be his best friend.

Ben had been in that car, and he realized the brakes were gone and he was hydroplaning, the rain and thunder forming a soundtrack to what was almost certainly the last moments of his life.

Except this time it wasn’t Deanna in the seat beside him.

This time it was Kenzie Taggart. The love of his freaking life. The woman he’d chased across five continents and given himself to wholly. The one he was planning to marry and have a real life with.

He wished he’d told her.

It was Kenzie’s body that was thrown from the car, that he’d dragged himself through the mud to get to, that he found face down in shallow water, her face ruined by glass and branches and stone.

Her beautiful face a mottled mess, but he’d tried.

Even as his own body was failing he tried to bring her back.

In the never-ending nightmare of the last few hours, it had been Kenzie who coughed and came back and cursed him. Who told him she hated him and would always hate him.

It was Kenzie who died on the operating table, and her family who wouldn’t even let him see her, wouldn’t let him hold her.

He’d been devastated by Deanna’s death, but it was nothing compared to knowing Kenzie wasn’t in the world. He’d been hollowed out and ready to do whatever it took to find her again.

It had been so real.

“Did you dream about her?” Manny sounded curious, a hint of sympathy in his voice.

Manny was a sociopath. Any sympathy was performative. He was excellent at hiding the fact that he was a monster who wanted to eat the world.

Starting with Ben Parker.

“Where is Lou?” It was the only thing that mattered. Finding Lou. Getting Lou back, because if he didn’t Kenzie would never forgive him. Never.

What had he done?

“Rest assured, Louisa Ward is in good health. For now,” Manny replied. “We’ll see how intransigent she can be before deciding how much influence she’ll require to do the job. Don’t worry. I already have plans in place.”

The bombs. He’d used a couple in the last few months, destroying lives for fun and profit, building his new world order by decimating the current one.

He wanted Lou to build more. He needed her brilliance, and Ben had been the one to give it to him.

He lost Lou. It was his fault, and the family he’d been hoping to be a part of would never have him now.

“I’m the one you want. You have me.” He knew it was a stretch, but he had to try. “If you let Lou go, I won’t fight you. I’ll lay down on the table and become your next experiment.”

A low chuckle moved through the room. It was some kind of speaker. Manny wasn’t in the room with him, but he likely had the whole place on CCTV. Ben started to make his way around, feeling the cool stone under his hands to figure out how much space he had.

“I’m sure we’ll get there, but unfortunately I care more about my work than hurting you.

Don’t you find that interesting, Benjamin?

You spend all of your life trying to chase me down and stop me and you are…

a secondary concern to me. How the tables have turned.

I was the boy who always wanted your attention, and now I don’t even care. ”

Sure, he didn’t care. That was why Ben was in this…

Yup, it was a cage. His hands found the bars.

He could see something of a hallway. How long had he been out?

Was he even still in England? Manny could move a person easily and quickly.

A couple billion dollars and having politicians in his back pockets tended to work in his favor.

“I’m not dead, Manny. It would have been easy for you to kill me but you didn’t. ”

Another chuckle. It was fucking good to know someone found the situation amusing. “Well, I didn’t say I don’t care at all. I think it will be fun for us to get to know each other again, Benjamin. I only wish my father and grandfather were alive so they could see how far the golden boy has fallen.”

It was so hard to believe this was his damn life. And all because Manny Huisman couldn’t handle the fact his dad and grandfather liked Ben. Sort of. He supposed they hadn’t liked him all that much, but they’d thought he acted normal where Manny had been a quiet, insecure child. “We were friends.”

“No, I was the sad boy who begged for the scraps of your friendship.” Manny was excellent at rewriting history and quite good at ignoring his own psychosis.

“Do you think I don’t remember how many times I was compared to you?

Me, a genius. You can’t begin to compare to my intellect.

You’re nothing, Ben Parker, and I’m going to make you see that.

I can’t quite figure out what to do with you.

Shall I cut off your limbs one by one? I would allow you to heal each time, to begin to adjust, and then I’ll take another until you’re nothing but a torso in a box.

Or I could use certain training techniques on you.

I could train you to be my slave. That could be fun.

Or I could force you to watch as I take another woman from you.

I’ve been thinking about Kala Taggart. Such a fun female to break. ”

“You didn’t break her.” Nothing broke Kala.

He caught sight of a tiny red dot. A camera. Manny was watching him. Like he was some kind of entertainment.

“Oh, didn’t I? The little bitch doesn’t go in the field much anymore. She’s learned her place, so I think I should move my attentions to her twin.”

The threat was an actual ache in his heart. “Stay away from her.”

“Yes,” Huisman’s voice purred over the speakers.

“I will spend some time developing techniques to test on the other Ms. Taggart. I’ve avoided it because her father can be formidable, but I have my second wind now.

I’ve joined a group more powerful than you can imagine.

I’m going to assassinate the fucker and put his head on my wall.

So he can watch while I violate his daughter.

She would give me strong boys, I suppose. ”

The thought made him nearly blind with rage because he knew Manny wasn’t above it. “I will kill you.”

He should have done it ages ago. He should have done it that night, but he’d told himself he had to be better.

Now his weakness was going to cost him everything.

“I’m sure you will try,” Manny replied with a long-suffering sigh.

“I have to go. Our scientist is awake, and it’s time for her to begin her work.

You’ll stay in my prison until such time as I have use for you.

Don’t worry. There are a couple of guards to see to your basic needs.

Try not to die from cold, and I hope you enjoy the vermin you’ll be sharing with.

By the time you see the light of day again, I’ll have taken out everyone you care about. Again. Good night, Benjamin.”

He heard the call cut out and fought the urge to rush the bars and attempt to tear them apart like he was the fucking Hulk or something.

How was he here? Where was Kenzie? Was she out there cursing his name?

He sat in the darkness, trying to breathe, to find a way out.

And that was when he heard it. Such a small sound. A ping, and he glanced up.

The camera was off.

Somehow, he didn’t think that was Manny’s doing.

Ben struggled to his feet. What was going on? He still couldn’t see much, and his legs were shaky.

“Hello, lover. Want to tell me why Lou is gone but your mistress is still all happy and whole?”

Kenzie was here, and she was holding a gun on him. And he couldn’t blame her.

He loved her. He loved her so much.

He dropped to his knees, the pain clanging through his body, but so much less than the way it twisted in his heart.

He leaned over, holding onto the bars so he could feel the press of the silencer against his skin.

“Do it.” It would be better than living without her.

He closed his eyes, and his life flashed before him. Well, the parts that mattered.

His life with her.