Chapter Seventeen
Chapter
Seventeen
Mal held Vivian’s hand like he couldn’t let
it go. Like if he did, he would lose her. All he could remember was that moment
when he’d seen Oliver on the ground, covered in blood with his leg at that
awful angle and he’d known someone terrible had his Vivian.
Sitting in the conference room, he still couldn’t quite stop
thinking about how she’d been in that library, surrounded by dead bodies. He’d
known she could have been one of those bodies. When he’d finally managed to sleep
the night before, he’d dreamed that she’d been there lying in a pool of her own
blood, lost to him forever.
He’d woken in a cold sweat and had only calmed down when she
wrapped herself around him and promised she was okay.
Vivian leaned over. She looked polished again, but he knew
that sweater she wore covered the bruises on her arm where that fucker had
nearly killed her. “I’m okay. And look, Oliver’s okay, too. That’s one stubborn
bastard.”
Archie and Sami walked beside the hospital bed that was being
wheeled in. Damon pushed the bed along, and Penny had a careful hand guiding
the IV. Oliver looked brutalized, which he was, but the minute the conference
doors opened, he gave Mal a smile and a thumbs-up.
“Hey, Mal. Thanks for the save,” Oliver said, oddly cheerful
for a man who should absolutely still be in the hospital. “They said if you’d
been a minute or two more, I would be dead instead of here on these glorious
drugs. Morphine is quite lovely.”
Archie shook his head. “He’s the stubbornest ass in the
entire world. I swear he’s going to be the death of us all.”
Vivian stood, concern on her face. “Oliver, you just got out
of surgery. Sophy told me you would be in the hospital for weeks.”
“Yes, we might have had a bit of a tiff about that,” Oliver
admitted. His left leg was in a cast, his torso wrapped from surgery. If there
was an inch of his body that wasn’t bruised, Mal couldn’t see it. “But The
Garden is the perfect place for me to recover. I even have a doctor coming to
see me every day, and a lovely nurse sitting at my side twenty-four/seven.
She’s beautiful.”
Sami’s eyes went wide. “Your nurse is a fifty-four-year-old
man.”
Oliver nodded. “Yes, see, morphine solves everything. I
really thought it was a hot nurse. She had lovely breasts.”
Penny shook her head and stepped back. She leaned over and
kissed her son on the top of his head. “I love you, son, but you are a pain in
the arse.”
“We’re here now.” Damon was obviously relieved but also
irritated. He looked around the conference table, which now seemed smaller
since there was a whole-ass hospital bed near it. Lucy was sitting in her chair
looking like she hadn’t slept all night even though he knew she had since she’d
been drugged. Robert and Ariel were across the conference table. There were several
open seats. “Ian’s not back?”
Penny sat beside her husband, and Archie took the seat on
her other side. “He’s on his way. They traced Sosa to Southampton but lost her
there. They’re only a few minutes out, and I doubt they’ll take a break.”
“I don’t understand,” Archie said suddenly. “How did she get
away?”
Damon’s jaw went tight. “I don’t know. That’s why we’re
having a debrief. Be glad I’m even allowing you in here. Sosa is now an MI6/CIA
mission. I expect you to keep everything quiet.”
“Of course. You know I have a fairly high security level,”
Archie argued.
“With Scotland Yard and Interpol,” Damon shot back.
“Sami, why does Archie sound like he’s in a soap opera?”
Oliver asked.
Archie ignored him. “I need to know what happened to her.”
“She got your brother shot,” Damon growled.
“Damn,” Oliver said. “I thought it was that French bastard.
Why would Sosa shoot me? I taught her chess.”
“Oliver.” Penny managed to make her son’s name a clear
threat.
“Well, I’m confused,” Oliver admitted. “The last thing I
remember I was following Vivi up the stairs and trying not to stare at her
remarkably curvy backside.”
“I should have left you,” Mal said with a growl.
“I said I was trying not to look at it,” Oliver objected.
“The problem is it’s a very nice backside. And then I was shot, so perhaps I
won’t look at it again. When I woke up Sosa was gone and the Taggarts were
chasing her. Tatiana turned herself into a kebab over a dogeared copy of Beowulf.
I didn’t think Tatiana read.”
Vivian stood up and faced Damon. “Sosa did not shoot
Oliver.”
Archie nodded. “She would never shoot one of us. You don’t
understand her.”
“If anyone is at fault, it was me,” Vivian said. “Oliver was
on those stairs because of me not Sosa.”
“He was doing his job,” Mal said.
“Well, if we’re going that way then it’s Mal’s fault because
he told me to go,” Oliver replied. “Hah, so I don’t owe him.”
Sami groaned. “Can we give him a sedative?”
“We were all in the dark because of Sosa,” Damon insisted.
“She knew who and what Tatiana was and she chose to allow us to walk in there
blind. She put every one of us at risk, and Oliver paid the price.”
Archie stood, his jaw tight. “She wouldn’t hurt Oliver. I
know her.”
“No one knows her,” his father insisted. “She doesn’t know
herself. Archie, please, can we deal with this later? Your brother is still in
a hospital bed and has months of recovery coming. Could I have a few hours when
I don’t have to calm you down?”
“I just…” Archie looked tortured, but he sank back into his
seat. “Of course, Father.”
Sami reached out and held her father’s hand. “Oliver is
tough.”
“And he’s happily on drugs,” Oliver added, and Mal noticed
he had a small cup of pudding. Chocolate, it looked like.
“When I found him, he cursed the world and said he would
find a way to blame this on his sister so she would have to take care of him,”
Mal admitted. He’d been so scared he would lose Ollie, too.
His family. He hadn’t started out with them but they were
here, and they were his because they chose to be.
Sami’s eyes glistened with tears as she laughed. “Well, he
gave me enough of a scare that I probably will. He likes my chicken curry.
Needs it every time he gets sick.”
The big doors swung open and the Taggart family walked
through. “Well, will someone please tell me what the fuck is happening?”
Charlotte put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “What he
meant to say was how is Oliver doing?”
Taggart took a long breath. “Damon, I’m sorry. It’s
obviously been a rough twenty-four hours.” He looked at Oliver, who held up his
pudding cup like it was a champagne glass he was tipping toward a friend. “Fuck
me. I thought you would be in the hospital for weeks.”
“He should be,” Penny said. “But the truth is we don’t want
anyone to know how close he came. MI6 is sending over doctors and rehab specialists.
He has a nurse.”
“It’s an elderly male who I think is a hot young woman,”
Oliver announced.
Taggart snorted. “And he’s got the good drugs.” He sobered.
“How bad was it?”
“The doctors are optimistic. The bullet missed his heart by
a few centimeters. The other one landed in his shoulder. It was the fall that
was worse. His leg was broken quite badly. He’s got months of rehab ahead, and
we need to figure out how to explain it.”
Penny put a hand up, waving it away. “That is a problem for
tomorrow. Today, we need a full debrief on what we know. Vivian, I understand
it was traumatic.”
Vivian shook her head. “I’m fine. I can talk. I would like
to know if we’ve figured out who the man was.”
“I don’t know who he actually is,” Lucy said, “but I know he
goes by Charles Surmont, and I believe he has also used the alias Charles
Martin.”
“Sosa mentioned a Charles Martin,” Charlotte said, settling
in beside her husband and daughters. None of them look like they’d had a
moment’s sleep.
“I was told the man talking to Eddie and Tati was named
Charles,” Oliver added. “Fucker shot me. Hey, Tag, I’ve got lemon pudding,
too.”
“He should get shot every day,” Tag said with a hint of a
smile.
“I’ve verified that this was the same man who brought Gabby
to MDWM,” Lucy said with a yawn. She had a thermos of coffee near her. “He was
going by David Gatton at the time.”
“Well, that would be excellent information if he was alive
so we could ask him what he stole,” Kala pointed out.
“Sosa was trying to save me,” Vivian explained.
“Sosa is the one who put you in the position,” Damon
insisted. “She knew. She knew he was coming. She’s the one who tried to have
Tatiana kidnapped, so we can put that at her feet as well. And she never said a
bloody thing. She simply sat back and sabotaged us.”
Charlotte sighed. “I think it’s more complex than that.”
“It is definitely more complex than that,” Vivian agreed.
“Did anyone read their letter? She said she left them for us?”
“I have them.” Lucy stood, a stack of letters in her hand.
“She left a sticky note on my forehead telling me where they were.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Kenzie asked as she took the one
marked Bratz Doll.
“She’s fine. Drugs can’t touch Lucifer.” Kala took hers.
Lucy gave her the finger as she passed them all out.
Oliver opened his and grinned. “She left me a picture of a
dick. I think she did a good job.”
Mal sighed. He really needed sleep. He opened his, and it
was only a few words.
Don’t fuck this up or I’ll kill you.
Brief. To the point. Very Sosa. He sighed. He wasn’t going
to fuck up with Vivian. Not ever.
Lucy held up the last one. It was simply labeled The
Truth. “Shall I?”
Taggart seemed to brace himself. “Yes.”
“Dear Team, I am sorry I am not there to give this
briefing myself, but to be near you is to court certain dangers, and I cannot
bring that on you. I have left individual letters, so I won’t muck this up with
sentimentality. I have known from a young age that my kidnapping was different
from the others. I was kept with what they called their elite group. While
there are many operatives bought off the streets, they poured resources into
us. Into me and Gabby and Milena and Claire. I’m sure there were more, but we
were a team. I have lied about many things. For this I am sorry, but I have