CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE #2
“No,” Ivy chirps with that sweet saintliness previously mentioned.
“Don’t do that. If you’ve found someone who you’re even willing to consider sharing your life with, who could help you carry …
all that you carry, that’s worth it, Axel.
” Another laden pause, ripe with a spearing query.
“Is it someone who might be an employee of yours?”
“What do you know?”
“Just that there was some commotion on Friday night. The woman in question …” She lets that dangle, leaving me to fill in the gossip she won’t lay credence to without my confirmation.
It’s my turn to probe, my chance to garner what I called for. “Let’s say it was.”
“Okay.” She hums, and her diplomatic musing of how to guide me thrums like a drum before battle.
“In that case, do not be seen together until you issue the claim because the tests are always worse if deceit is detected. She’ll pay the price for sneaking around, so in turn, you will too. And suspicion already surrounds you.”
“Understood.” I pour myself a mere finger’s worth of scotch from the plane’s office bar, not willing to risk a lack of sharpness for my venture.
“If I were to take temporary measures to issue an order of protection—because she’s found herself in a bind—before I claim her, how long would it provide me? ”
“Maybe ten days,” she estimates before she repeats the stringent reality I’m all too aware of.
“More than ten days won’t look good, and there is no leeway with being seen together.
Even a one-night stand with someone you’re employing, plus enacting an order of protection for, would be frowned upon.
I know it’s unreasonable. But this is the cost.”
She’s worth it. Priceless.
I don’t share that though. It’s dangerous. If I speak it, even within the margins of confidence, my longing for Zara will become an insatiable beast, and all choice on her part will rot.
I wish I could ascertain from Ivy’s responses whether Zara was working for KORT, but it’s entirely possible that she doesn’t know, or perhaps her encouragement is because she does, so she’s rooting for us and simply doesn’t want me to blow it.
“And, Axel?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t prepare her—in the sense of warning her that she’ll be tested.
They’ll know, and it will only make her look guilty.
” Ivy, who intuits more than most and empathizes to the depth of her marrow, sounds almost pained at her conclusion.
“If you don’t trust her completely, it’s best to let her go. ”
I bid her my thanks and appreciative goodbye before ending the call and staring at the clouds engulfing us.
I’ve never felt so lost.
My brothers and I enjoy dinner and review the details of our errand.
The skies are violet now, and we’re buckled in for our descent with our weaponry prepped.
Like they often do, they poke at me with the maturity of unruly teenagers, though it’s bracketed with the unwavering devotion of men who would lay down their lives for me.
Before I can let their lighthearted barbs soothe the deluge of turmoil plaguing me, my phone vibrates with an encrypted call.
“Yeah?” I clip.
“I apologize for the interruption, but there are updates that can’t wait,” Bernard informs without a greeting. “We had a security breach in the way of a listening device. It was detected on the sweep, of course.”
We have a sweeping team, dedicated to scouring the entire resort—aside from guest rooms—for bugs several times a day.
“And a death,” Bernard tacks on before I can ask more about the security issue.
“A death?” I repeat, and this has all four of my brothers freezing with interest.
“Shepherd Lange,” he supplies. “What appears to be a heart attack.”
The cause of death is more perplexing than the name. Shep was healthy, buff, and in his mid-thirties. Leave it to a guy who kills the most ruthless to die from natural causes, as if he were giving a middle finger to anyone who had him on a hit list.
“Do we have a next of kin for notification?”
“That is where things get … complicated. The cardiac arrest occurred while he was drinking the herbal tea that he had sent up to him every morning. Therefore, I’m not sure an autopsy would return what we want regarding other parties.”
What we want?
“I’m not follow—” I cut myself off because Shep was a closer, tasked with killing other assassins. “Or I am.”
“I suspect you are, and so the missing piece is sitting beside me. She claims to have no knowledge of any of this, of course. The bug was found in my office, and to be fair, Shep stopped by to see me last night. But … there are other things. I’m sending you the questionable evidence.”
“Got it,” I inform him a minute later.
Ignoring the weight of my brothers’ intrigue, I peruse what we have, which isn’t much.
Except my little Thorn hugging Shep in the lobby and spilling shit all over the computer in the dress boutique, along with other questionable behavior.
There was also an odd kitchen delivery to Bernard’s office that he claims he didn’t order.
I’m sure if we dug, we’d find more, especially whatever was pulled up on Amy’s computer, but …
“What does she have to say?”
“Just that it is a sad day because Shep was one of the best,” Bernard drawls, and it’s doubtful that Zara can decipher the humor in his dry bravado, but I know the man, and it’s there.
She grew on him by circumventing our regulations and feigning sympathy. That should irk me, but seeing as he’s the most distinguished staple of La Lune Noire—outside of those who carry the name—that appreciation for cunning tactics comes with the position.
“Put her on, please,” I order before deciding that I’d like him to remain present. “You can leave her on speaker.”
By the shift in the background noise, it’s clear he does.
“Hello, Mr. Noire.” Even from that brief address, it’s evident she’s in a mood, so the smart-ass follow-up isn’t shocking. “I am so sorry for your loss.”
Skipping the niceties, I jump right in. “Am I to believe you’re innocent?”
“That is a broad question. Are any of us innocent?” A hushed grunt befalls her, and because I’ve come to understand her, I realize she’s distressed more than this rigid facade she’s presenting would suggest. “You are to believe that I’m a survivor; that I am doing my job, as you instructed me to do; that I ascertained a situation.
But those things aside, I cannot be sure what occurred in another person’s body any more than you can. ”
By alluding to what she did, she’s trusting me, knowing the penalty for this is death at La Lune Noire.
Although technically, she’s not a member.
She is an employee, and there is one clause that permits them to act—if they are unduly threatened.
That’s in place because they are the weaker party compared to our members, which doesn’t apply to Zara.
Apart from that, her authenticity feels like a gift.
I push forward, if only for the sake of proving to myself that I’m capable of doing my goddamn job while she has me wrapped around her finger. “A member, whom you greeted, whom you knew, who was here on business to—”
“Surveil you, it seems.” She purrs a murmur of contemplation. “Perhaps you should consider this your lucky day. Who knows what he could have heard?”
Yep. She planted the bug to frame Shep. And poisoned him with his morning tea ritual. All from the La Lune Noire kitchen. But she isn’t heartless. She knew him. So, she deemed it necessary.
“Take me off speaker,” I demand, not because I don’t trust Bernard, but because I need her to have faith in me. Once I hear the change in the background, I cut through the bullshit. “How bad is it?”
“Anticipated failure,” she answers easily, meaning her client has lost confidence in her.
“How did you know?”
“I saved his life once.” There’s a heartbreaking inflection in that reveal, and it gains a foothold with the next. “That was seven years ago, so I … I gave him seven years.”
He warned her, somehow, to repay his debt.
It’s a tacit honor system in the assassin world.
That hug they shared—he must have dropped a hint, assuming she’d run and he’d afford her the head start.
Since he knew violence was prohibited on property, he underestimated her gumption to strike there.
But with her being caged at the resort and having the owner spellbound, why wouldn’t she?
This is why I instructed her to do her job, to keep them appeased. These things tend to escalate quickly if a client isn’t reaping the return they prefer. She’s either coming up empty or sitting on intel because she’s conflicted.
“Have you spoken to your handler?” I ask, staring out the window at the darkening night to track our descent and avoid the glaring intrigue of my brothers.
She huffs with a patent reminder that our bridge of reliance is flimsy. “I’m not sure I should answer that. It’s best to trust no one. Right?”
I’m wounded that we’re still so far from being allies when I feel like she’s mine to protect, with every part of me, no matter what she’s done, but I keep it professional. “You are making it difficult for me to do my job.”
“Well”—she lingers on the word, teasing the brattiness of her retort—“you made it nearly impossible for me to do mine. Nearly.”
“This isn’t over,” I warn because we will need to deal with it further. I can’t have her offing my members, even covertly.
I also won’t stand for her feeling threatened or afraid. But I’m handling that.
“Oh, I didn’t think it was, sir.” She snaps the honorific with enough cloaked venom that it’s practically unrecognizable beyond the finishing-school decorum, though to me, the hiss and fangs are unmistakable.
“It’s not like I’m about to get off this call and head to Magie Noire like nothing happened. ”
Wrath I was anticipating, but that I was not.
“What?”
“What?” she parrots innocently, and my patience has frayed to a tattered nothing.
“Zara,” I growl, sick that she might’ve heard something false or something true that sounds like more. “I met someone there in a professional capacity. That is all.”
I’m tormented that I can’t be there to hold her and reassure her.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, so saccharine that my teeth ache. “But whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be my business.”
Do you want it to be? is on the tip of my tongue. I can taste the full-bodied flavor of an invitation for prospects I never considered until her, but I’d have to follow it up with how it doesn’t matter because regardless of all the power I have, it only puts her in more danger.
Whether she wants one night of my complete devotion or something more permanent, I’ve hurt her, and I get it.
There’s so much I can’t tell her. And so much peril my involvement with her could bring.
The thing Ivy danced around but didn’t say is that those who fail their loyalty test or trial are killed because they are determined to be threats to KORT.
It’s considered a death for the greater good—a traitor among us is a menace to all involved.
I don’t disagree. My business has a similar approach.
But of course, that was before I found myself enamored with the angel of death.
So, I keep my reply curt until I can sort through my reservations. “We’ll talk later. Put Bernard on the phone.”
Once he returns, I issue my command, ready to get on with my night. “Escort Miss West to the penthouse via Maddox’s apartment. Mercy and Tessa are expecting her.”
“As you wish,” he says. It’s refined, as usual, but there is a shadowy edge enclosing it.
“You disagree?” I challenge.
“No,” he offers without hesitation. “That’s why he was here. We were on top of it.”
He knew Shep had come for Zara, so he simply wanted to gauge my reaction.
“Fine,” I grouse, not pleased that he held that back, but grateful that he is my all-knowing Oz at the resort and even more grateful that protecting Zara is his sanction, apart from mine.
Still, I ensure we’re on the same page. “Give her a bracelet and keep her under surveillance. From this point forward, she is never out of our sight.”
“Done.”
The second I kill the call, Maddox pounces as the other three study me with avidity.
“What trouble did our Slugger get up to?”
“Nothing.” I wave my hand to assuage their keen interest. “But Shepherd Lange had a heart attack.”
Ryker’s pinched brows frame his icy eyes with skepticism. “The closer?”
“That’s the one,” I confirm.
None of them miss the correlation.
“Are we still holding out hope that she’s a KORT asset?” he volleys, and it echoes my own thoughts.
KORT wouldn’t send a closer after her if she hadn’t yet found what we couldn’t uncover in years. Fuck.
Cash cackles—it’s one of arrogance, as if he could’ve predicted this outcome. “And surrender her trick she will not.”
A delighted scoff puffs out of Maddox. “So, maybe you sleep with one eye open.”
Jax chuckles, a bit of pride swimming in his hazel eyes for the girl he reveled in having with us on family night. “Let’s hope she loves you back, Papa Axe.”
I never claimed to love her, but still, I think, Let’s hope.