Chapter Nine #4
Kenzie was well aware she was most men’s type on a physical level. She had a banging bod and a pretty face. There was something wild about her that drew them in, but they didn’t stay.
Because men didn’t marry the Bratz doll. They all wanted a respectable Barbie. She was a Marilyn. Not a Jackie.
“She looks like the translator,” Ben murmured.
“I’ll send you dossiers.” He should have them since they would be working together.
Well, since he was on the team. She was starting to think it wasn’t smart for them to actually be partners.
Sami and Oliver knew Europe better than she did, so it might be best to split them up and pair them with members of her team.
And then she could figure out what the hell to do with her life.
Her sister was moving on. It was like she didn’t even miss the field, and it was supposed to be their dream. Mostly hers.
Shit. Did she feel abandoned by her sister?
Kala had always had Lou, but there was a place for Kenzie. Now Cooper took that spot. Tasha had Dare.
Was she trying so desperately to find someone so she wouldn’t be alone?
She needed a session.
Would she be the worst person in the world to call home and ask one of the Doms she worked with to fly all the way to London so he could spank her ass and she could cry and get the tiniest bit of clarity?
It wasn’t like Gabriel Lodge had a nine-to-five job. He could even bring one of his “friends” and they could both top her since Gabe liked to keep a male switch around. He was a deeply fluid man in a sexual sense.
“I would rather hear it from you.” Ben turned her way.
“Oh, god.” Kala pushed back from the table, and her expression shifted to one of general horror. “It’s coming. I can feel it.”
Their father turned. “You are not performing another exorcism. Do you even remember you’re not Catholic?”
“Kala, this is ridiculous,” their mother complained.
“What’s happening?” Tim asked, and then his face lit up from behind his laptop. He’d seemed to be working, politely ignoring the tension between Ben and Kenzie, but now he was animated and happy. “Is it the chick with all the goats? Kala hated her. I thought she was fun.”
“I thought you looked nice tied up and ready for slaughter,” Kala shot back.
Lou sighed. “I’ll get the sprayer.”
Kala pointed her best friend’s way. “I melted down the sprayer. Both of the ones in your luggage and the one my dad snuck in. I kept one and I’m filling it with holy water so I can smoke her out when I need to.”
“How should I handle her?” Ben asked.
Lucy. Lucy might be a good sounding board. Despite what her twin thought, Lucy was forthright and tended to be brutally honest about what she saw, though she never meant it unkindly. “Ignore her. Kala’s always had a problem with Luce.”
Kala hissed—actually hissed—as Lucy walked in and immediately rolled her deep brown eyes. She was in jeans and a sweater, her long dark hair in braids.
Kenzie stood and walked right up to her. “Hey. Missed you.”
“I’m going to vomit,” Kala muttered.
“No, you’re not,” her husband assured her. “Nor do you need to make the sign of the cross, love.”
Oliver laughed as he settled into the seat on the other side of Kenzie. “I forgot. Those two are like oil and water. This is going to be fun. LB is so reasonable most of the time. It’ll be fun to see the unflappable get flapped.”
Sami sat down on the other side of Tim. “I hope you’re the one assigned to escort them around. I’ll take the Canadians.”
She winked Ben’s way.
Maybe Sami was the one who needed a damn exorcism.
Lucy hugged her tight. “Hey, Kenz. Missed you, too. I have so many stories to tell you, but don’t lose your shit on Sami. She doesn’t mean anything by it, and she’s going through some things.”
Kenzie took a deep breath and nodded. She kept her voice low. “Okay.”
“Ladies, can the reunion wait? I’ve heard the younger crowd is planning on playing tonight. I’d like to get the assignments done so we all can get some rest,” Damon said, taking his place at one end of the table.
“We’ll talk tonight. We can order some curry and I’ll tell you about my new Highland cows and about all the whacky shit Poppy’s doing.” Lucy gave her a big smile, the kind Kenzie rarely saw on her face.
Kala didn’t realize Lucy was her mirror. Or maybe she did and it rankled.
Kenzie nodded and moved back to her seat.
Oliver winked her way. “You can share with me, love. It looks like we’re short a chair.”
If he wasn’t such a heinous flirt, she would ask Oliver for a session. He was a good top, but he did like to get into his subs’ panties, and she wasn’t going there. Ever. She sank down into the seat beside Ben.
“Somehow I think the long-term D/s couples will work it out,” she murmured. She noticed Ben looking Oliver’s way, but he didn’t say anything.
Lou was already on TJ’s lap, her fiancé having snatched her up at the first mention of the missing seat. Lou simply reached over and grabbed her laptop. He grinned Cooper’s way because Coop had been reaching for Kala. “You snooze you lose.”
Lucy kept a careful distance between her and Kala, although she managed to shoot her the finger before she sat next to Ariel.
“Excellent,” Damon began. “Charlotte, why don’t you start?”
The lights dimmed, and she felt Ben move beside her, settling back.
Her gut twisted because he seemed so far away. Maybe this whole epic love story thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She didn’t like this desperate feeling going through her body.
It pretty much sucked. Did she want to be the sad girl chasing after a man who couldn’t forgive her?
No. No, she really didn’t.
She was in love with this man but if he could shut her down so easily and so quickly, maybe her father was right and they needed time to think.
They weren’t on the same page. They weren’t even in the same book.
She was in some spy romance where everything ended in happily ever after and he was in a thriller where the hero probably died sacrificing himself for the good of the world and to assuage his guilt.
He would never choose her over what he considered to be his destiny.
“All right,” her mom began. “I sent you some information, but this is what we found in broad strokes. One of the treasure troves we got out of the mission to Nepal was a lot of information on Disrupt’s financials.
Thank you, Lou and Tim. I genuinely don’t believe he thought you could get to that information. ”
Kenzie took a deep breath as her mom started to go over all the myriad ways Disrupt made its money. Including a corporation located in France that Sosa had recently told her ran the organization she belonged to. Had been kidnapped by.
All in all it was a daunting report and showed what they were up against.
“They have billions?” Sami asked, obviously incredulous.
“Yes,” Dad replied. “If you add up all the property, stock, cash, investments, it’s considerable. Huisman won’t have any trouble buying whatever he needs with one exception.”
“The bombs.” It was time to stop worrying about her love life and concentrate.
“Shannon Reed managed to make the ones he’s been using without giving up how she programs them.
He can build them but he can’t replicate the protocols for detonation that would make the bombs even deadlier.
He has used them but not in the fashion he would like to. ”
“He didn’t kill as many people as he wanted,” Ben said flatly. “He’s been experimenting since he lost Shannon’s skills. He thought she’d properly primed those bombs, but she tricked him, and not even the couple he got out of her work the way he intended.”
“She wasn’t going to blow up half a country,” Cooper pointed out.
“Not even to save herself and her sons. My biological mother is done causing harm. She never meant to in the first place. If he caught her today, she would force him to kill her rather than work for him. The only reason she pretended to go along with him was to spare Devi.”
Which was why it was a good thing she was in Colorado along with Kenzie’s brothers and nephew and cousin. They could use Zach, but she understood the need to protect family.
Tim nodded, taking up his partner’s explanation. “We believe the recent attacks on subways in Hanoi and the transportation systems in Kinshasa are all Disrupt.”
“Kinshasa is the capitol of the Congo. It’s a hub for minerals and gems coming out of Africa,” Lucy said, her eyes on the folder in front of her.
“From what I’ve learned, Disrupt wants to do what its name says.
Disrupt established authority and in particular unsettle the economies of First World countries by decimating supply lines.
On the surface they say they’re doing it to make the world a more fair place, but it’s quite the opposite.
Vietnam has one of the world’s largest deposits of rare earth metals, and they would like to disrupt those chains so their companies can buy them up and keep them for themselves. ”
Rare earth metals powered the batteries for electric vehicles and had many other high tech uses. A battle for control of them was already beginning.
“But the authorities managed to stop the worst of those attacks, though they did send several of the world’s markets into a tailspin,” her mother continued. “He’s close to being able to destabilize whole parts of the global economy.”
“Because he’s stayed away from the First World,” Oliver said. “He’s able to grease the wheels in most of the places he’s attacked.”
Her father’s head shook. “Don’t be so arrogant to think he can’t do it right here in the UK. As we all found out in Liverpool a couple of months ago. Or the States. We have plenty of assholes who would love to take Huisman’s funds. I believe this is all a big play for money.”