Chapter 18 Tag
TAG
The castle was silent except for Leila’s breathing beside me.
I’d been awake for an hour, watching her sleep, cataloging each bruise like evidence of my failures.
The purple marks on her throat formed a necklace of violence.
Her wrists bore matching bracelets where the zip ties had cut deep.
The medics had cleaned and bandaged the worst of it, but nothing could erase what had been done to her.
I checked the time—zero eight thirty. When I shifted to check the message more carefully, she spoke without opening her eyes.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“An hour. Maybe two.”
“Creepy, MacTaggert.” But her hand found mine beneath the covers. “When is the inquisition?”
“Thirty minutes.”
She opened her eyes. “Help me up. Everything hurts.”
I did, supporting her weight as she stood. She moved like someone three times her age, each step carefully taken to minimize pain.
“Shower,” she said. “Then war paint.”
“War paint?”
“Makeup to cover these.” She gestured at her throat. “I’d hate for your sister to see me like this. She’d probably be horrified.”
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“Con made the arrangements.”
I thought about how long it had been since the three of us were together. Years, it felt like.
“I can’t wait to meet them.” I saw something in Leila’s eyes then. Regret maybe? Or was it simply the sadness that came along with missing her brother?
“They’ll love you, just like Idris loved me.” I winked, but her expression turned even more serious.
“He did, you know. He trusted you and wanted me to know I could too. In fact, and this is very hard for me to admit…”
“Go on.”
“Initially, my brother wanted me to contact you. More, to hand off what he’d given me.”
In my gut, I’d wondered if that had been the case. However, Idris should’ve known better. Known that she would never do that. I rubbed the ache that settled in my chest, wishing he could see the woman his sister had become—strong, fierce, stubborn, independent, and most importantly, loving.
“Tag?”
My eyes met hers. “If you’d done as he asked, I’m not sure if I could’ve saved the world in the same spectacular way you did.”
“You’re teasing—”
“Yes, but I also mean every word. You were meant to carry on your brother’s work. You. I’m glad that I was able to be at your side for some of it, as I’m sure many others on the team are, but as you said to me more than once, you could and did handle much of it on your own.”
“You’re not angry?”
I smiled. “How could I be anything other than proud? And I mean that sincerely. Idris would be too.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
“They aren’t empty words, Leila.”
She nodded once. “I know they aren’t.”
While she showered, I stared at the breakfast tray Mrs. Murray had delivered—full Scottish breakfast, tea, toast, all of it growing cold.
Morag Murray had been with my family for forty years, since before my mother left, taking care of three motherless children, one of whom grew up to be an assassin for the Crown.
She’d seen us through every crisis, every injury, every loss. Now, she was seeing us through this.
Leila emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, dressed in dark trousers and a high-necked sweater that covered her throat.
She’d applied concealer with the skill of someone who’d hidden injuries before, but I could still see the damage underneath if I looked closely. And I was looking very closely.
“Stop staring,” she said, pulling her still-damp hair into a severe bun. “We need to go.”
“You could stay here. Rest. I’ll handle the debrief.”
“Like hell.” She moved past me toward the door. “I need to hear everything. Understand everything. That’s how I’ll process this.”
The walk downstairs took longer than usual. She gripped my arm, pretending it was affection rather than necessity.
Voices carried from inside my study when we approached. I recognized Typhon’s deep rumble, Viper’s clipped tones, and surprisingly, my brother Cameron’s laugh. The sound stopped me—when was the last time I’d heard him laugh in this house?
The room looked different with the morning light exposing every mote of dust, every crack in the ancient leather bindings.
Someone had rearranged the furniture, likely Gus and Douglas, and brought in extra chairs that formed more of a circle rather than the formal arrangement we usually used.
It made the medieval room feel less like a tribunal and more like what we actually were—a group of people trying to make sense of horror.
Typhon stood when we entered, as did Viper. The rest of the room went silent.
Cameron and Maggie stood too, and walked over to us.
“Thank you for being here,” I said when they approached.
Maggie was the first to embrace me, then my brother did, but neither spoke.
“This is Leila,” I said, as if her name alone conveyed everything she was to me.
“It’s lovely to meet you both,” she said, stepping forward to embrace them like they had me. I almost warned them not to hurt her, but apparently, they’d been briefed about her injuries, based on how gentle they both were.
“We’ve been advised that our presence will not be required during your meeting,” said Cameron.
“Forbidden is more like it,” Maggie muttered.
“Mrs. Murray has taken pity on us, though, and insisted she has a special treat for us in the kitchen. As though we’re still children.”
I chuckled. “I think she’ll always see us that way.”
Maggie squeezed my hand. “We’re staying on here, if that’s all right with you.”
I turned to face her. “This is your home as much as it is mine. It always has been, and it always will be. I hope you know that.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I do, but—”
“But nothing. Stay on as long as you’d like. In fact, I’d not mind if you never left.”
Both my siblings raised brows, and I chuckled again.
“Save me some of Mrs. Murray’s special treat,” I called out when they left.
“Not a chance, big brother,” Cameron said over his shoulder.
“Shall we?” I said, pulling out a chair for Leila.
I sat beside her, took her hand in mine, and squeezed. She squeezed back as I glanced around the room at those gathered.
Con and Lex sat as close as Leila and I were, and I noticed Lex’s hand gripped his with white-knuckled intensity.
McLaren had been her mentor, her friend, and the woman who’d shown her how to be brilliant in a world of dangerous men.
Witnessing her bravery in the face of certain death was something she’d never forget.
None of us would.
Gus sat at a table, his laptop open in front of him. My guess was he’d worked through the night, tracking money with renewed vigor, now that he had a better idea where to look.
Renegade looked haggard, worse than I’d ever seen him. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his usual fluid grace had been replaced by the mechanical movements of someone running on autopilot. He took a seat by the window, staring out at the Highland morning as if answers might be hidden in the mist.
Archon and Prima had arrived together, then Ash entered last with Sullivan. I was glad she was here. It was her investigation into Eric Weber and Tower-Meridian that led us all to this point. If it weren’t for her intransigent nature, God only knew what the Labyrinth Project would’ve turned into.
“Before we get started,” Typhon said, “you’ll want to know that Vanguard is recovering well. His injuries, the worst of which is a concussion, were serious but not life-threatening. He’s at the military hospital in Glasgow and should make a full recovery within a few days.”
“Thank God,” Leila murmured, and I saw the guilt she’d been carrying ease.
“He sends his regards,” Viper added. “And his apologies for not being here.”
“Let’s begin,” Typhon said once everyone was settled. “The immediate threat is neutralized, but we need to understand the full scope of what we faced. More importantly, we need to understand how we missed it for so long.”
He waited as the display lowered from the ceiling.
The technology felt incongruous in a room that had hosted war councils since the fifteenth century.
The image that appeared on it showed four men at a charity gala, all smiling, all looking harmless.
It had been taken recently, perhaps in the last few months.
“The Forgotten Sons,” Viper began, taking control of the briefing. “A name that would be pretentious if it weren’t so accurate. Four men united by accident of birth and consumed by resentment over what that accident denied them.”
She tapped her tablet, and the display shifted to show a complex diagram.
“Before I detail each member, you need to understand the scope of what they built. This wasn’t just four bitter men meeting to complain about their brothers.
This was a sophisticated operation that took years to construct.
Between them, they controlled access to seventeen properties.
They had shipping routes through MacKenzie’s company that reached every major port in Europe.
They had an art market worth forty million pounds annually through Dalgleish’s gallery, which provided both funding and money laundering.
And through Ambrose, they had something even more valuable—invisibility.
The doddering uncle no one took seriously, who could go anywhere, ask anything, and be dismissed as harmless. ”
Con leaned forward, asking the same question I had. “How did you gather this magnitude of intel between last night and now?”
“I can answer that,” said Leila. “So can you, Con.”
“It’s true that Kestrel helped,” said Viper, surprising me with the admission. “As did every agent and operative I could round up from both MI6 and Unit 23.” She pointed at Gus. “But Orion deserves the most credit.”
He raised his head and looked directly at Leila. “The information was right in front of me. I just had no idea what it all meant. Not until last night.”