Chapter 14 #2
“This is different for us. Attending a formal event without being undercover,” Roman came in for the save.
The distraction. “I’m not standing here scoping out who I might need to shoot later,” he casually added, causing a woman nearby to audibly gasp.
“Kidding.” Roman winked her way but coming from a guy who didn’t wink unless there was something in his eye, it only appeared more sinister.
The irony was Roman had no idea there could indeed be a threat tonight.
Rory surrounded by so many people was just asking for trouble.
And it was the people Rory knew from her old life that worried him the most. What if one of them was out to harm her?
What if one of them had already hurt her?
Caused the scars? No, she wouldn’t have come if that were the case, right?
“Speak for yourself, I still might want to shoot someone,” Harper said once the woman left the bar area.
“If that woman who was cackling earlier starts talking to me about her castle slash mansion again, I might lose it.” Harper shook her head.
“I mean, who says, and I quote, castle-mansion? Who brags like that?”
“Rich people, apparently.” Chris shrugged, trying to fight off the fear that clutched and grabbed and told him something was wrong. Multiple somethings.
We would have made love if Harper and Roman hadn’t barged in. I’m not afraid of intimacy, he scolded himself as if responding to some inner Freud in his head. Fuck, maybe I am nuts?
“I know a few billionaires, and they’re not all bad.” Roman’s words drew both Harper’s and Chris’s eyes as they waited for him to explain. “What?” A dark brow lifted in question.
“Billionaires? Plural. Who have you been rolling with, and why don’t we know about them?” Chris asked. “What secrets have you been keeping hidden?”
“Forget I said anything.” Roman pointed to the ballroom. “I’m going to do a lap. You know, check the perimeter. Habits, what can I say?”
“I already did, but a second set of eyes would be good,” Chris replied, and Roman nodded and left the terrace.
Chris set his elbows on the bar, noticing a brunette on the other side angling her head, smiling at him. He ignored her and focused back on Harper.
“Kind of strange the guest of honor isn’t here yet,” Harper said, eyes still following Roman in the ballroom until he escaped their line of sight.
Something in her gaze, akin to worry, had him wanting to ask her if everything was okay, but she continued before he had a chance to ask.
“I may not know this Cutter guy, but I already don’t like him.
Maybe it’s the cutout images of him around the room standing in front of treasure that rub me the wrong way.
I don’t know.” She clinked glasses with him when the bartender set fresh drinks before them with heavier pours this time.
Chris couldn’t seem to shake his hate for Cutter, either. The idea that Cutter had once tasted Rory’s lips, felt her body pressed to his, had years of memories with her, made him a little, well, jealous.
He had a lot more to offer than Chris could, in his mind, at least, but—stop. Rory’s not Mom. She won’t choose money over love. She doesn’t even care about that stuff.
Harper set a hand to his forearm, and he grew angry at himself for going down the rabbit hole of self-recrimination. “What’s up? I lost you there for a minute.” Her tone was soft and comforting.
“You close with your family?” He looked at her before taking a sip.
“As close as I can be without disclosing the truth about our work,” she replied. “Why? Family problems?”
It was Harper and Jessica’s job to know pretty much everything about their backgrounds.
He’d had to complete a psych eval before joining Echo Team.
No risks could be taken if they were to work on missions for the President.
Chris had passed with flying colors because he was a stable guy, but he’d also learned how to withhold information if he were captured by an enemy, so he knew how to trick a machine and a shrink.
He’d also picked up a few tips on how to drive a psychiatrist nuts by watching Good Will Hunting.
Matt Damon’s character had been from Southie like Chris, and aside from Chris not being quite the genius like Damon’s character, Chris still related to the man.
“Lost you again.” Harper squeezed his arm. “And Rory’s on approach.”
Chris’s eyes darted straight to Rory striding his way as if she were gliding on air. Red satin fanned out, revealing more of her long legs as she moved toward them.
“I’m so sorry.” Rory frowned as she neared them. “Every time I tried to get to you, someone pulled me away. Literally.” She pointed to her arm as if she were sore from being grabbed. “Y’all feel like taking a look at the treasure? I can show you a few things.”
He didn’t give a damn about the treasure, but he’d love nothing more than to hear Rory talk about it.
See her face light up. Hear the inflections in her voice while she talked about one of her other passions aside from animals.
Plus, he had a feeling she was a bit on edge like him tonight, too.
Maybe because he’d seen her scars. Or because her ex was there.
Or hell, because she was nervous about sharing her secrets tonight.
“Sure.” Harper hooked her arm with Chris’s, urging him to move since he was stuck in place gawking at Rory.
Rory smiled brightly, and they went back inside and reconnected with Roman, who’d taken a moment to sample a few tapas.
“So,” Rory began, turning toward the first glass case closest to the terrace. “This piece is the first find that helped Andrew realize what he’d stumbled upon.”
Inside the case was a bronze cannon with dolphins on the side. It’d been cleaned and polished, but the age and wear from being beneath the ocean were evident.
“I looked for this galleon for years,” Rory said softly. “Most of the research he used to finally locate the ship came from me.”
“Wait, what? No finder’s fee, then?” Harper asked in surprise.
“I don’t care about that. Just glad all of these amazing pieces aren’t sitting at the bottom of the ocean,” she answered, and a beautiful kindness crossed her face.
“But those cannons were how Andrew realized he’d found one of the Spanish galleons that had gone down during the War of Spanish Succession in the early seventeen hundreds. ”
“Weren’t the rights to the ship disputed?” Roman asked, and of course, he’d know that. He knew everything.
Rory nodded. “Andrew found the ship, but it was Spanish in origin, so Spain tried to claim it. And then, since the wreckage was off the coast of Colombia, the Colombians wanted ownership. A three-way fight. But Andrew didn’t have any interest in keeping what he found, so both countries came to a deal and offered him a wreckage fee of one hundred mill, and the artifacts were donated to museums.”
“And the gold and silver?” Chris asked.
“Spain and Colombia are probably still fighting over that,” Rory explained.
And Rory’s research led to that? Wow.
“I can relate to the tug-of-war. My father’s side is from Spain. My mom’s family is Brazilian.” A smile formed on Roman’s lips. “And my grandparents fought over what language should be my native tongue before I was even born. Spanish or Portuguese.”
“What’d your parents do?” Rory asked.
“My parents moved to Florida, and I grew up speaking English,” Roman replied with a light laugh.
Chris took a moment to process the fact Roman had just opened up about his background, and then he set a hand to Echo Four’s shoulder. “Bet you went ahead and taught yourself both Spanish and Portuguese anyway, right?”
Harper smiled. “Of course, he did.”
“Looks like the organizers of the party chose Spain.” Chris motioned toward the décor, and Rory nodded in agreement.
“So.” Roman cleared his throat as if still shaking off the surprise he’d shared something about himself so candidly. “How’d Cutter salvage treasure?”
“He used a robot submarine with a dive range of up to four miles, same kind of tech used to locate downed aircraft in the ocean.” Rory’s eyes were bright and expressive as she continued to explain more about the wreckage while they followed her to the next exhibit.
“And you participated in dives for treasure back in the day?” Harper looked down at a sword sheathed by a metal scabbard, the brass-finished hilt and corded grip, on display in the next case.
How much was everything in the room worth? Would anyone risk a little armed robbery tonight? Chris blinked a few times and pinned his eyes back to Rory.
“Yeah, but, as much as I enjoyed my work, the end result always bothered me,” Rory shared.
“Think about it. The Spanish basically pillaged the lands in Colombia to pay for their wars in Europe. All those artifacts they took three hundred years ago didn’t belong to them, and the items I found over the years certainly didn’t belong to me just because I found them. ”
“I like you,” Harper said abruptly. “A lot.” She grinned and leaned toward Chris. “Don’t lose her,” she whispered.
I don’t plan on it.
“Rory McAdams,” a deep voice rumbled from behind. The voice probably belonged to Andrew Cutter.
Rory turned toward the man now standing before them wearing an expensive-looking tux. He reminded Chris of the dashing version of Brad Pitt in Ocean’s Eleven. A thief. And maybe Cutter was, too. His green eyes gleamed as he took in the sight of Rory, but there was something dark and sinister there.
“Hi, Andrew,” Rory said softly.
Cutter stepped closer and pulled her in for a possessive hug, setting his chin on her shoulder, which made Chris’s skin crawl.
Hello again, nagging feeling. There it was in the form of a polished suit and his one-hundred-million-dollar Brad Pitt smile.
Rory met Chris’s gaze from over Cutter’s shoulder, and he’d swear he caught an apology in her eyes.