Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
“So strange,” Simone murmured as a faint tremble shook her body.
“In my most vivid nightmares, I could never imagine that a man would say that I was the love of his life in one breath, and, then, in the next, he’d tell me to get the hell away from him.
” She let out a long sigh. “You know how to make a woman feel incredibly special.”
He’d changed before going to the little chat with Logan in the sitting room.
Expensive dress pants. Crisp, fresh, white button-down.
Not a wet one that clung lovingly to his muscles.
So disappointing. He’d even put on a suit coat.
Gray, to match his pants. She strongly suspected he had a gun holster—and a gun—hidden beneath that coat.
Logan’s jaw hardened. His dark eyes glittered. “You are special.”
“Thanks. Just beautiful words. Really.”
“You are special to me. That’s why I need you safe. I need you away from me. I can’t trust the team here. I told you before, I trust my brother, one hundred percent, but Nash isn’t with me. I don’t know Harry. I barely know Jamar and Charlotte.”
“Surface level,” she heard herself say.
He nodded. “If I can’t count on the people near me, then I have to count on the person you trust.”
Her head turned toward Logan.
“I am not trustworthy,” Logan fired back in an instant as his hands fisted. “Ask anyone.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know I trust you with my life.”
“Don’t,” Logan bit out.
“We don’t have time for this!” Ryan snapped. “Look, I need you to take her away.” He took a phone from his pocket and pressed it into Simone’s hands. “I’ll call you when things are safe. Until then, I need you to go with him.”
Her fingers curled around the phone. “You expect me to just leave you to face the danger on your own?”
“Oh, baby.” His hand rose to caress her cheek. “This is what I do. It’s what I’ve done for years. I will close this mission. Count on it.”
“You need me.”
“More than you will ever realize. More than I thought could be possible.” His head lowered.
His lips brushed against hers. “There have been too many attacks on your life.” Another careful kiss.
“I can’t trust the people near me. That means I can’t keep you safe.
Please.” Rough. Gruff. “Go with Logan. I swear, this phone will ring as soon as the case is over.”
She didn’t want to leave him.
“Yeah, okay, before you two start making out again…” Logan cleared his throat. “I happen to have a few questions of my own. Question one, just how the hell did you two even hook up? How do a spy and a, uh, retrieval specialist get together?”
“We were in the same gallery, taking different prizes.” Ryan’s hand lingered against her cheek.
“We got together before that. The gallery incident was during date number three, remember?” Her head turned. Her lips pressed against his palm. “I expect date number four to be killer. Know that my expectations are high.”
“Yeah…” Logan sidled closer. “I get what you were retrieving Simone, but, Ryan, what were you there to take?”
“An egg,” Simone supplied. “Fabergé. Worth a cool thirty million.”
Logan whistled. “I could go for an egg like that.”
“It had secrets inside of it.” Simone squared her shoulders. “The kind of secrets that spies need.”
“So…” Logan was right beside them. “Where might the egg and the secrets be right now?” He glanced around the suite. “Guessing they aren’t just stashed in the suite’s safe, huh?”
“No.” Ryan pulled away from Simone. “Jezebel has them.”
“Oh, shit.” Logan rocked back on his heels. “She’s here, too? Look, that lady came to see me a time or two after the big dust up in Vegas. Got to tell you, I think she was threatening me. Maybe even blackmailing me.” His voice went flat. “Really fucking hate it when I’m blackmailed.”
Ryan just nodded. “Sounds like Jezebel.” He looked at his wrist. At the big, silver watch that circled his wrist. “Time to get moving. I need Simone out of here before the meeting. Out of the suite. Out of the hotel. Hell, out of the city would be good.”
Logan grimaced. “Sure, I’ll just fly her back to Vegas. No big deal.”
“It is a big deal.” Simone remained rooted to the spot. “I don’t want to leave you, Ryan.”
“People are going to die, baby. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
That terrified her. She did not want him dying. In fact, that was going to have to be something that was completely forbidden. No dying for Ryan. Ever.
“I’m trained for this.” His voice was low. Soothing. “You aren’t. If you are here, I will be focused on you. My attention will be split. That split attention could jeopardize the mission.”
“You’re just saying that, so I’ll feel guilty and agree to leave.” He hadn’t been talking about any split attention when he and Jezebel had been pulling her into the big mission in the first place. Now, two tiny attempts on her life later, and he was singing a new tune.
Ryan’s lips kicked into a half-smile. “I’m saying it because it’s true and because I need you to feel guilty and leave with Logan.”
Tears stung her eyes. “This phone had better ring the instant you are done. And you do not get shot. You do not die, understand?”
“Say you love me. One more time.” He swallowed. “I want to hear it.”
“I love you.” Easy. So why did emotion nearly choke her as she spoke those precious words? “I love you.”
“Good, then—”
“But I am not crawling through an air duct vent for you. That is just not happening.” She actually would do it if necessary. She was just pissed that he was sidelining her.
“You don’t have to do that,” Ryan assured her.
“I’ll get the guards to move position. I’ll clear the hall long enough for you and Logan to make an exit via the stairwell.
I strongly suspect you already plotted a way out that would have you hidden from pretty much everyone’s line of sight anyway, didn’t you? ”
Yes, she had. “The guards in the stairwell will need to take a break.” It wasn’t enough to just clear the hall outside of the suite.
He nodded.
“And you will absolutely have to stay alive.” How many times should she press that particular point?
Logan began to pace. “I really don’t like this plan. It’s shit.”
They both looked at him. “You got a better option?”
“I’m not the damn spy!”
No and neither was she. She was just a thief who had fallen completely and totally for the spy who swore that he loved her.
Meeting time.
Eight a.m. Ryan sat at a table in the back of the restaurant, one that would allow him a perfect line of sight to study every person who entered the establishment.
He’d already ordered the full English breakfast—eggs, hash browns, black pudding, toast, and sausage.
The waitress brought him freshly blended coffee along with the meal.
The waitress—Charlotte. She sent him a covert wink before disappearing into the kitchen.
And he waited.
Time ticked past ever so slowly. He kept a napkin in his lap. A gun beneath the napkin.
He didn’t need to check his watch to know that Simone should have left the hotel by now. She’d left, and she would be safe.
Her safety was what mattered most to him.
“Excuse me…” A voice said into his ear. Directly into the earpiece that he’d put in place during his elevator ride down to the restaurant. The female voice belonged to Jezebel. “I can’t help but notice that you seem to be missing a companion.”
He brought the coffee mug to his lips and blew softly over the rim.
“Did Charlotte just tell you that news? Or do you have a little camera in here?” He used the mug to cover the movements of his mouth.
His words had been nearly soundless. That was the thing about CIA tech.
Sophisticated as hell. And nearly microscopic.
He’d always enjoyed the toys that he was given from the CIA.
“Both,” Jezebel responded. “Simone was supposed to be there with you for this meeting.”
“Um. Change of plans.” He sipped the coffee.
Then he caught sight of a familiar figure striding into the restaurant.
Ryan tensed. “It looks like I may not be the only one experiencing a change of plans.” He put down the coffee.
His hand drifted toward the napkin in his lap and to the gun that waited beneath the napkin.
Tension poured through him as he watched Hugo Thomas approach the table.
Hugo eased into the chair right across from him.
Beneath the napkin, Ryan’s hand curled around the gun. He pointed the weapon at Hugo. He’d had the chair Hugo now occupied positioned in that exact spot deliberately. To give me the perfect shot. “Pretty sure I was supposed to meet with your boss. Not you.”
“He’s otherwise occupied. So you get me.”
Charlotte began to approach the table.
“I don’t want you.” Ryan was not interested in underlings. “My deal was with Frederick. Clearly, that deal is over.”
Charlotte was mere steps away.
Hugo reached out and snagged a piece of sausage from Ryan’s plate.
“I am starving. Killing someone does that. Always gives me an appetite. Maybe it’s the adrenaline.
” He munched on the sausage. “I don’t know.
” His head tilted. “What happens to you when you kill a man? What happened when you killed Alexei Morozov?”
Charlotte arrived. “Good morning, sir.” She beamed at Hugo. “What can I get you?”
“Same thing he’s got.” Hugo flashed her a grin. “And he’ll be picking up the tab. Why don’t you bill it to his suite?”
He knows about my suite. He knows far too much, I can see the truth in his cocky grin.
Charlotte backed away.
Hugo kept his asshole grin in place.
Ryan kept his hold on his gun.
“Oh, come on,” Hugo chided. “Please don’t be boring. I know who you are. What you are.” He snatched another sausage from Ryan’s plate. “You’re no billionaire. You’re a spy. You think you’re going to take down Konstantin, but that isn’t going to happen. He’s miles ahead of you.”
“I want to see Frederick.”
“I can make that happen.” A nod. “Let’s get out of here. The Rolls Royce is waiting.”
“I don’t need to go anywhere. Frederick can drag his ass in here.”
Laughter. “Doubtful.” Hugo’s fingers tapped on the table. “Okay, let’s try it this way…” His smile vanished. “If you don’t leave this restaurant with me right now and get your ass into the Rolls Royce, then I’ll tell Logan to kill Simone.”
What. The. Fuck?
“Good for you? Bad for you?” Hugo’s boyish face twisted. Flashed with evil intent. Then he pulled out his phone. Held it up. “One phone call is all it takes. So you tell me, super spy, do you want Simone to live or die?”
This isn’t happening. “You are bluffing.”
“Nope. Not at all. See, Konstantin heard every word of your conversation with Logan earlier. Easy to do…because Konstantin has access to listening devices, too.” He touched his ear then motioned to Ryan.
“You got one in right now, don’t you? Konstantin said you’d be monitored by your boss. A lady named Jezebel.”
Wasn’t Konstantin a bastard who knew far too much? Ryan was so over that prick. But he really wanted to get back to the part of the conversation about how Konstantin and Hugo had heard “every word of your conversation with Logan earlier.”
“You gave Simone up to Logan, thinking she was safe.” Mocking laughter from Hugo. “What a fucking dumbass move that was.”
He knows that Simone left with Logan. The sonofabitch knows.
“Here you go,” Charlotte announced brightly as she appeared at the table and put the fresh food down near Hugo. “Let me know if there is anything else you’d like. Coffee, tea or—”
Hugo grabbed her. Yanked her down in front of him. Shoved his gun into her side.
Ryan did not look away from Hugo’s scowling face. “I think you’re scaring our waitress.”
“Get on your feet, spy! Walk the fuck out of here with me. And I won’t put a hole in the pretty lady.”
He saw Charlotte’s jaw lock.
“Better plan,” Ryan counter offered. “You let her go, and I don’t shoot your dick off. Because, see, I’m aiming at it right now beneath the table.”
“What?” Automatically, Hugo glanced down.
And Charlotte slammed her fist into his face. First her fist, then she yanked up the plate she’d just delivered and rammed it into his forehead. The plate shattered, sending chunks of porcelain and chunks of eggs to the floor.
In a flash, Ryan was on his feet, around the table, and yanking Hugo against him. He put his gun to Hugo’s chest. “What in the hell is happening with Simone?”
“Uh, Ryan…” Charlotte began.
Hugo started laughing.
Ryan nearly killed him. Right then and there. But he was supposed to be the good fucking guy. Wasn’t he?
But…Simone. No one hurts Simone.
Then Hugo yanked out a hidden knife and drove it toward Ryan’s chest.