15. Nash
15
NASH
E njoy my shower!
This woman is frustrating as fuck. I hate how in equal parts I want to kill her but also want to fuck her, show her there is nothing wrong with my dick. I noticed the way she was baiting me earlier with the way she opened her legs, she nearly got me, too. It’s not my fault she is insanely beautiful, but then she opens her mouth and crazy spills from it. Then she flips me on my fucking ass like some kind of ninja and pushes a knife to my throat all under the guise that she learned it in self-defense.
Bullshit.
That was a perfect defensive maneuver. It felt good when I was able to turn the tables, I still have it. The fact that she didn’t flinch at all when the knife was against her throat, there is no way in hell that woman is a journalist. But why are Brooks and Sophie lying to me? Why the hell was she pushing me to fight her this morning? The woman is certifiable. I can’t work out what her game plan is. Who is this friend she is trying to save? Is there a friend or is she trying to get into the cartel for another reason?
Getting out of the shower, I get dressed and head straight over to my computer and open it. I sneakily took a photo of her from my security camera yesterday as an insurance policy. I log into my secure system and load up her face. I should have done this yesterday, but I trusted my oldest friend, now I think he’s fucking with me, and I don’t know why. I input her photo into the system and wait for the hits to come up. If she is hiding something, it will come up here. My computer pings, that was quick, and when I stare at the screen I still. There are photos of Ellie traveling the world working as a journalist, everything she has said is right there under the internet’s images. I shake my head because it doesn’t seem right, it’s too clean, too perfect. On the surface, it looks normal, but to someone trained to look for inconsistencies, it is the perfect cover, but what the fuck for?
I pick up my phone to call Brooks as he needs to give me answers, but it vibrates in my hand with a message from my bank; five thousand dollars was deposited into my bank account from Ellie. What in the fuck? I grab my gun from my desk and slide it into my pocket—no one knows about this account—before storming out of my room to where she is sitting in the living room on her phone.
“Did you just transfer money to me?”
Ellie looks up at me. “Yes.”
“How the hell did you get my bank details?” I never gave it to her.
“Brooks.”
I shake my head. “He doesn’t know about this account.”
“Or maybe you don’t know your friend,” she says, giving me a saccharine smile.
“Or maybe I don’t know who the fuck I let into my home.”
Ellie shrugs. “Probably that, too.”
I pull the gun from my pocket and aim it at her. “Get the fuck out of my home. I want no part of whatever this is you are doing. Fuck you and fuck your friend. I’m not helping you anymore.”
Those eyes land on the gun, then on me, she doesn’t even flinch. “You can’t do that.”
“Watch me. Get the fuck out.” I point to the door, while still having my gun trained on her.
“Nash, please.”
I shake my head. “Leave.”
Ellie stands. “This is so much bigger than me bruising your ego.” She starts to stalk toward me, slowly, evenly, like a fucking panther.
“You think I’m doing this all because of my ego? Because you insulted my dick. Please. I don’t give a fuck about what you think of me. I’m doing this because my friends are lying to me, and they have never in their life done that before. What have you got on them? You’re obviously blackmailing them.”
“I’m not blackmailing them,” she says coldly, continuing to get closer.
“Bullshit. You’re a fucking snake in a summer dress,” I spit at her.
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Don’t take another step,” I warn her.
“Or what?” She smirks. See like I said, she’s insane.
“I’ll fucking shoot you.”
“No, you won’t.” She continues to get closer to me. “Under all that gruffness is an honorable man. There is no way in this world you would ever shoot a woman. Your moral compass is too strong.”
I swallow because she’s right, I don’t want to fucking shoot her. I aim the gun away and pull the trigger, shooting the bullet into my wall as a warning shot. I don’t get to see her reaction because she is on me in two point five seconds flat, grabbing for my gun, and we end up in a scuffle until the next thing I know, the barrel of the gun is pointed at my temple, and I hear a click.
Fuck.
I didn’t see that happening. Ellie slowly gets up off me while holding the gun at me. I swallow, it looks like I have severely underestimated this girl.
“Now, I guess you and I need to talk calmly, without violence, unless that’s what you’re into. It’s been a while since someone’s roughed me up.” She keeps the gun aimed at me as she gestures for me to take a seat in the living room. I do as I am told because I know when I’m beaten. I sink into the sofa and glare at Ellie. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so …” she turns her nose up, “so you …” she adds.
“Same could be said about you,” I bite back.
Ellie takes a seat and then I watch in fascination as she completely deconstructs my gun and throws the ammunition in one direction and the gun in the other. “Just so you know, Brooks and Sophie never wanted to keep you in the dark. I didn’t trust you. I don’t trust anyone. But unfortunately, I underestimated you and that rarely happens. Usually, I take more time in researching people, but this time I didn’t, and now it’s biting me in the ass.” I raise a brow at her, what the fuck is that supposed to mean. Ellie then picks up her phone and presses a couple of buttons. Who the hell is she calling? “Hey, we have a situation,” she says into the phone.
“You didn’t kill him, did you? You promised me. Brooks will be fucking pissed,” Sophie chastises through the phone.
“It was fucking close.” She grins.
“Oh, thank God.” Sophie sighs through the phone. Why did Sophie sound genuinely relieved Ellie hadn’t killed me?
“Unfortunately, things have escalated and here we are,” Ellie explains to Sophie.
“What do you mean escalated? It’s been a couple of days,” Sophie questions her.
“Where the fuck is Brooks,” I call out to Sophie. “He has some fucking explaining to do.”
“Oh,” Sophie says, registering hearing my voice.
“Like I said, we have a situation,” Ellie explains to her.
“How bad of a situation?”
“He pulled a gun on me and tried to shoot me,” she explains.
“Fucking, Nash,” she curses.
“How the fuck is this my fault? You lied to me, Sophie. Both you and Brooks sent the devil to my home. What she failed to tell you is that it was a warning shot and then she disarmed me and held the gun to my head.”
“Right, I see.” Sophie chuckles. Is she fucking serious? “Maybe you shouldn’t have shot at her. Honestly, you’re lucky you’re breathing.”
My mouth falls open at her remark before my eyes fall on Ellie who just shrugs as if this is all normal. “Who the fuck is she? And why are you and Brooks lying to me?”
“Brother, I didn’t lie,” Brooks adds, joining the conversation.
“Omitting the truth is still fucking lying. I know she’s not a journalist. I searched for her online, everything was too fucking perfect. You set me up,” I say angrily to my friend.
“I didn’t set you up, but I also didn’t think things would turn south so quickly either.”
“The woman is the most insane, frustrating, infuriating, annoying person I have ever met. It’s been two fucking days and I’m ready to kill her.” Brooks bursts out laughing. “This isn’t fucking funny.”
“It kind of is. Never seen you this worked up before about a woman.”
“Fuck you. I got a ticket to the fucking gala. She can have it. I’m out. I want this bitch gone. Whatever you guys have going on I don’t want any fucking part of it,” I yell at my oldest friend. “And while we’re at it, never call me ever again for a favor.”
“Nash,” Brooks says my name and I can hear the hurt in his voice.
“No. I never thought my brother would do me like this. I thought we were closer than that.”
“Nash … I …” Brooks starts to try to explain.
“This wasn’t at all how I wanted things to go,” Ellie states as she stares at me. “And this sentimental friendship bullshit doesn’t normally affect my blackened heart, but …” Ellie lets out a sigh, “we’re family now and I … you know … guess … fuck … ew … this is all weird for me.” I frown at Ellie whose accent has changed from an English hybrid to Russian. What the hell is going on?
“Ellie,” Brooks says her name in warning, this has me sitting up straighter.
“This is Nash, we can trust him,” Sophie tells Brooks, and I hate the fact that she has to remind him in that moment, which makes me realize this is more mission than favor.
“If I’m involved in something and I don’t know, we know that’s when things go south,” I tell him.
“Yeah, it sucks doesn’t it,” Brooks bites back, reminding me of my fuck up. That was like a dagger to my heart.
“It’s not his fault, Nash. It’s much bigger than our friendship,” Sophie explains.
“Does this have anything to do with your sisters being kidnapped?” I ask. Brooks called me to help him find out what had happened to Zoe and Grace when they disappeared, if by some chance, they had wound up in the cartel.
“Yes,” Sophie answers honestly.
“Does your trip to Dubai have something to do with that?”
“Yes.”
I run my hand over my shaved head a couple of times as I try to connect the dots. “This has something to do with the Bratva?”
“Yes,” Sophie answers honestly again.
“Is she Bratva?” I turn, looking at Ellie, seeing her with new eyes.
“That is a difficult question to answer,” Ellie says.
“Seems like a simple yes or no to me,” I bite back.
“Ellie’s right, it’s not that simple,” Brooks adds.
“She is my sister, that is true,” Sophie says.
“Sisters-in-law,” Ellie explains.
Wait a minute, sisters-in-law. How? I’m confused. Why would one of her sisters marry someone in the Bratva?
“It’s complicated,” Ellie suggests.
“Damn right it is. I don’t know what the fuck is going on anymore. Are you even here to find your friend?”
“That part is true,” Ellie advises.
“You remember that Sophie’s sisters were kidnapped by the Bratva and turned into jewels,” Brooks says. I nod even though he can’t see him. “And Zoe was saved and then Grace was kidnapped in revenge for all the shit that went down with Zoe.” Again, I nod. “Ellie is who saved Grace.” I turn and look up at her.
“Her?”
“Yeah. She’s the reason Sophie has her sister back alive,” Brooks explains, and I can hear the appreciation in his voice toward Ellie.
“Believe me, I’m not her biggest fan,” Sophie adds.
“Sophie makes my life hell,” Ellie adds.
“But she put her life on the line for my family and I will never ever forget that,” Sophie adds. Okay, this is freaking me out. Who the fuck is Ellie Clark? And how the hell has she brainwashed my friends? “Please let her explain, and if you still don’t think you can have her around then we totally understand.”
“It will all make sense, I promise,” Brooks adds.
“How do I know she’s telling the truth? I don’t even know if you guys are making up shit because you need me for something.”
“When have I ever lied to you?” Brooks asks.
“Never. But you have omitted things when on a mission,” I answer.
“Exactly.”
Fuck. “I asked you if you were on a mission and you denied it.”
“We didn’t want to involve you,” he explains.
“Having me set her up with the cartel wasn’t involving me?” I question him.
“I asked them not to say anything, and in hindsight, I played those cards wrong,” Ellie confesses. “I truly mean it. Whatever you want to know I’ll tell you. I need your help, Nash.” I still at her words. That sounded almost genuine.
“This is fucked up. No matter what, I’m going to lose in this scenario. You’ve ruined my slice of paradise. You didn’t give me a choice,” I explain to them all. Of course, I still would have helped, but at least it would have been my choice.
“We’re sorry, Nash,” Brooks says.
I get up from the sofa and walk out. I suck in a deep breath of the ocean air and head straight to the beach to clear my mind.
“Nash, wait,” I hear Ellie call after me.
“Just give me a fucking moment, will ya?” I groan as I continue to kick the sand through my feet as I walk across the beach.
“Please don’t blame Brooks and Sophie, they wanted to tell you, but I asked them not to. I don’t trust people easily. I’m used to doing things on my own. The only person I can trust in my life is me and even sometimes I don’t know if I can trust that,” Ellie confesses. “I promise, I’ll tell you anything you need to know.”
I stop and she bumps into me. “Does it matter? I think nothing but bullshit is going to come out of your mouth. You will say whatever you need to say to appease me to get what you want.”
Ellie swallows, and I can see the war waging across her face, she’s let her mask fall for me to see. “I’m CIA.”
Of all the things I thought she was going to say that sure as hell was not one of them.
“What the fuck, Ellie. You can’t blurt that out in the open like that.” I hiss.
“No one knows. Not even my family. You said you couldn’t trust me and I’m showing you, you can.” I stare at her in shock. “Sophie has an inkling but isn’t one hundred percent sure. Brooks knows up to certain points due to his security clearance. Grace knows because we worked together and because she married my brother.” It's like now that I’ve opened Pandora’s box everything is coming out.
“Maybe we should discuss this in a secure area.”
Ellie nods. “If we move closer to the water, the sound of the waves will muffle our conversation.”
We head toward the shore, Ellie then continues to walk into the breaking waves. I follow, and then out of nowhere, my arm reaches out and pushes her into the water. She goes flying, splat, which makes me feel a little better, watching her go under and come up spluttering. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Neither can I.”
She looks like a damn mermaid with her wet hair, the white dress she is wearing completely see-through, showing off every ounce of her body.
“Guess I deserved that,” she says.
“You did.” I smirk, which earns me an unimpressed side-eye. We head further into the water until it is up over our waists, well and truly away from anything that could listen to us. “So,” I say to her.
“So,” she answers back, looking slightly uncomfortable for the first time. “Right. Yeah, well, just so you know, I’m supposed to be dead. Everyone thinks my brother and I are dead. We only just came back from the dead a month ago.” Again, didn’t think she could shock me.
“The CIA think you’re dead?”
She shakes her head. “The CIA killed us. The Bratva thinks I’m dead. And they need to keep thinking I’m dead.” I knew she was Russian, but her accents when she switches are undetectable.
“Why? Did you see something you shouldn’t have? Did you sell their secrets to the CIA?”
Ellie looks out toward the horizon and sucks in a deep breath before slowly releasing it. “Because I was the CIA’s most dangerous asset and became compromised.” My brows pull together as I stare at the woman in front of me, trying to picture her as dangerous—annoying, yes, but dangerous? She’s a spy. I don’t see it.
“So, they killed you off?”
“Technically, we were run off a bridge by my very pissed-off ex who was in a helicopter shooting at us. My brother and I were swept downstream where an extraction team was ready for us. Unfortunately, that meant we had to make his fiancée, Sophie’s sister Grace, think he died,” she explains.
“Wait, I’m missing a lot of pieces to this story. Why was your ex shooting at you? And why did you have to pretend you were dead?” I question her.
“Because he found out I had betrayed him. I was a honey trap and had fucked his uncle.”
Oh. That would do it. “I didn’t think the CIA used honey traps anymore?” Ellie is beautiful, I could see why they would use her.
“They very much use us especially as they sold me back to the Bratva.” There is steel to her words, and it sounds like this was something she may have been forced to do. I don’t understand. Why would the CIA force her to sell herself for them?
“Back to the Bratva?”
“My brother was in the Bratva, he was one of the most feared assassins. The CIA kidnapped me and a friend when we were eighteen and told us that we could either rot in jail for the rest of our lives along with our families or help them bring down the Bratva and get immunity for our families.” Fuck. That’s kind of messed up. “You know what I chose.”
“Wait, you said you and a friend were kidnapped. What’s happened to your friend?”
“I haven’t seen her since the end of our training. I’ve spent years looking for her.”
“She’s the friend you’re looking for?” Ellie shakes her head. “No, I am looking for a jewel named Pearl. She was sold as a plaything to Dominguez for his twenty-first birthday.”
“Fuck,” I curse, running my hand over my buzz cut.
“I was a jewel also. That’s how I know Zoe and Grace. I’m Emerald.”
I’m confused. “But they aren’t CIA, are they?”
She shakes her head. “No. They were trafficked. I was planted. Unfortunately, I was kept apart from the other jewels on most occasions, so I never knew what was happening. I thought they were all like me, honey traps. It wasn’t until I saved Grace from my ex that I found out the true devastating cost that Zoe and Grace went through. I hate myself for not being able to save them earlier.” It's the first time I see true emotion on her stone-cold face. “I can never forgive myself for what my ex did to them. It’s now my mission in life to bring him down and rescue every single jewel.”
“Is that why Brooks and Sophie are in Dubai?” I ask.
“Yes. One of the girls is being sold at a slave market.”
“Shit.”
“You know Sophie’s family has started up a charity saving women from trafficking,” Ellie explains. I shake my head, I didn’t know. Brooks and I are friends but we’re also men and don’t always talk.
“And they are working with the CIA?”
“Kind of, it’s a little delicate. I’m supposed to be on holiday. Vacation they call it. Apparently, I needed one after all my years of service,” she says, rolling her eyes. “They don’t know what to do with me anymore. They need me but they also don’t. I’m too valuable to dispose of.”
She means too valuable to kill.
Fuck.
I’m still not sure who the fuck she is.
“Why are you so valuable? Is it because of your looks?”
Ellie smirks. “What about my looks?”
I roll my eyes. “Please, you know you’re hot.”
“You think I’m hot, do you?” She grins, splashing water on me.
I wipe my face from the droplets. “Now who has the ego?”
“It’s been a while.” She shrugs.
“What’s been a while?”
“Sex.” I swallow hard. How the hell did we veer off to this topic? “Being dead makes it hard to get laid.” She smirks.
“Right, guess it would. Is that why you stood in the shadows and watched me like a peeping Tom?”
She splashes me again. “You wish.”
Am I flustering her? “Seems to me it’s you that wishes. I’m not the one who hasn’t been getting laid.”
“Clearly.” She rolls her eyes. “That was transactional sex, I know the difference.”
I raise a brow, she’s not wrong. “What makes you say that?”
“Because it seemed too vanilla for you.” She huffs, glaring at me, and then stills as if she realized what she said.
“How the hell would you know what I like in the bedroom?”
“It’s my job to read people. Plus, when you had the knife against my throat it made you hard.”
“No, it didn’t,” I bite back.
“Liar.” She grins.
“You think I like to force women to have sex with me?”
“No. But in that scenario, it would have been consensual force. If you had spread my legs, you would have found me drenched.” What in the hell? I don’t know what to say. I’m fucking speechless, and my dick is hard at the image she’s created in my mind of that moment. Thank fuck it’s hidden beneath the water. “I can see it on your face, you’re imagining it now.” She smirks.
“No, I’m fucking not.”
She reaches out and her hand cups my hard dick. “Liar.”
I take a step back from her touch. “Is this how you would lure your victims to their death?”
“Sometimes.” She giggles.
Fuck, what a way to go though. No. She’s a killer. “I’m not interested.”
“Have you told your dick that?”
“Please, he isn’t picky.”
“Obviously, if you slept with that woman last night.”
“Rosita is a beautiful woman,” I argue with her.
“She is, but you still weren’t interested in fucking her. I’ll say you gave just enough to make her think you were into it.”
“You’re changing the subject and using sex as a means of distraction.” She’s good.
“It’s all I know,” she confesses, making me still as I look at her.
Did she just give me something vulnerable? Nah, she’s a professional liar. I don’t know if I can trust her. “You really think that or is this bullshit to make me try to feel sorry for you.”
“Fuck you,” she says, flipping me off.
“How am I meant to know if what you say is real or not? Am I a mark?” I ask her.
“If you were my mark, I would have been on my knees for you as soon as I walked through your front door. And you sure as hell wouldn’t have had a chance to fuck Rosita.” I glare at her as she glares at me. “Then after you came, multiple times, I would have put a bullet through you and walked off.” She turns and does just that, walks away.