Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Simone rushed back to the waiting black Bentley. The driver stood at attention near the vehicle, and when he saw her approaching, he immediately opened the rear door for her. She dove into the vehicle.
“Did you get it?” Konstantin demanded eagerly.
She lifted up the egg and tossed it toward him. Not the real egg, of course. Turned out that the CIA had a very close look-alike in their secret site. Ryan had told her that the CIA had prepared several fakes before he’d done his swap at Frederick’s country estate. Spies did like to plan ahead.
“What are you doing?” Frantic, he grabbed it. Caught it in desperate fingers. “Do you know how much this egg is worth?”
“I have a really good idea.” Not nearly close to thirty million. The CIA had not let her get near the original. What had they thought? That her sticky fingers might take it for good?
“Where is the chip?” Konstantin demanded. “Did anyone see you?”
She sucked in her right cheek. It still ached.
“I figure I’m dead now. My usefulness to you is at an end.
You’re going to shoot me and probably Logan.
” The driver was making his way around the vehicle.
But he wasn’t inside, not just yet. And that was why…
“Act fast, Logan,” she yelled to the silent figure in the front passenger seat. “They don’t have Nana any longer!”
Logan erupted. He shoved open his door even as she was thrusting open the back passenger door, too. The driver rushed back toward Logan, but Logan was ready. And furious. Logan began pounding his fist into the driver’s face. Over and over again. Logan took him down to the pavement and pummeled him.
Konstantin’s hands grabbed for Simone’s back.
She twisted and heaved away from him, hearing the material of her dress tear, and then Simone yanked her weapon from the pocket of her dress.
She truly adored a dress with pockets. The weapon that she pulled out?
A flashbang. The perfect weapon that Jezebel had given to Simone.
All Simone had needed was to get close enough to Konstantin, to preferably have him trapped in the vehicle when she deployed her weapon.
He’d never even realized she had it, not with the device tucked into her pocket and resembling the size and shape of the flashlight she’d had before.
She loved pockets.
“Choke on it, asshole!” Simone activated and threw the small flashbang into the Bentley. She slammed the passenger door shut and ran.
A huge part of her had been terrified to carry the flashbang.
It was a freaking grenade, after all. But Jezebel had emphasized that it was a stun grenade.
No shrapnel. Non-lethal, because Jezebel wanted Konstantin brought in alive.
Simone didn’t particularly care about him being brought in alive.
She just wanted him stopped. Jezebel had promised that the stun grenade would stop him.
“Simone!” Logan’s voice. “What are you—
The flashbang erupted. The loud blast reverberated behind her, and Simone found herself falling to her knees.
The hard road tore through her dress and scraped off her skin.
Dazed, she looked back. She’d been promised a boom, big flashes, and disorientation so that the agents could swarm and take down Konstantin.
Konstantin hung half-in, half-out of the rear passenger door. His hands had slapped down against the pavement. His head sagged in front of him.
“You fucking sonofabitch!” Ryan tore past Simone. He grabbed Konstantin…and started pounding the hell out of him. “You hit her! You took her!”
Konstantin didn’t fight back. He seemed too dazed.
Simone pushed to her feet. She thought she might have just seen a few of Konstantin’s teeth hitting the road. Yes, yes, that definitely looked like two bloody teeth not too far away from her. “Uh, Ryan?”
“You kidnapped Simone! You were going to kill Simone? My Simone?”
Weaving a bit, Logan headed toward Ryan and Konstantin. Had Logan been too close to the blast? She’d told him to run, hadn’t she? Maybe not.
Logan took a swing at Konstantin. Only it was a wild swing that missed the Russian by a mile. Oops. Yes. He might have been too close to the blast. He definitely seemed disoriented, too.
Her ears were throbbing. She kept hearing a whoosh. Huh. Maybe she was disoriented, too.
As she watched and tried to get her body back under her control, Ryan whirled toward Logan. He drove his fist into Logan’s face. “That’s for betraying Simone, you dick!”
Logan nodded. Didn’t even try to punch back. “Deserved…”
Ryan hit him again, then spun back for Konstantin but…
The other agents had closed in. MI6. CIA. Jezebel. Simone had to crane her head and stand on tiptoes in order to see what was happening. She definitely heard, “Under arrest” and the phrase, “Never seeing the light of day again…”
But Ryan didn’t stay in that swarm around Konstantin. He left the agents and the Russian and stalked toward her.
Her hands twisted. “Flash,” Simone heard herself say.
He stopped right in front of her.
“Bang,” she whispered. It had gone just as Jezebel predicted.
The plan that Ryan and Jezebel had hatched.
Simone had just needed to get close to the car.
To let Logan know that his grandmother was safe.
To distract Konstantin and to throw the flash grenade inside the car and haul ass away. That was all she’d needed to do…
And she’d been promised that the agents would finish everything else.
So she’d run back to the waiting vehicle, trembling and acting afraid as she frantically glanced over her shoulder, as if looking back to see if she was being followed. Acting like the perfect prey who was just doing as she’d been ordered by the big, bad international criminal…
And then, when Konstantin’s guard had been lowered, when he’d been frantically clutching that prized egg…
She’d made his world explode.
Ryan hauled her into his arms. Or maybe she hauled him into her arms. His mouth took hers, and he kissed her with wild, utterly uncontrolled passion, and she kissed him back just as frantically.
Joy, adrenaline, leftover terror—her whole body shook, and he was her anchor.
She held tightly to him and knew that she never, ever wanted to let this man go.
Not dead.
Very much alive.
Kissing her. Holding her. And…
His mouth tore from hers. “I love you.”
Loving her.
A soft meow sounded near her feet. Shocked and delighted, she glanced down. A familiar black cat with a ragged ear stared up at her. “What…?”
“Good luck,” Ryan told her. “We’re taking the cat home with us. He’s gonna be our good luck charm and we are going to have the best life together.” A promise.
“Did you…bring the cat here?” She was trying to follow along. It had been one hell of a day.
“I might have.”
“You…you don’t like black cats.”
“Hell, yes, I do.” Ryan scooped Simone into his arms. “They’re lucky. You’re lucky. I’m a lucky bastard because I am going to spend the rest of my life with you.”
The joy she felt buried her terror. “Again, I don’t think that is a real marriage proposal. You seem to have issues with that concept. A real proposal.”
Agents were running everywhere, but Ryan was walking away from the chaos and heading back toward the lurking off-the-books building with her cradled in his arms…and with a black cat dodging his feet.
“You’re going to have the best proposal in the world,” Ryan assured her. “Just wait and see.”
Simone curled one arm around his neck. Truth be told, she didn’t give a damn about the proposal. All she cared about was the man holding her. “I’m so glad you’re not dead.”
“Told you once before, I’d kill for you a million times over, but there is no way I’m dying. I’ve got too much to live for.” His gaze held hers. “I have a life with you waiting.”
“I’m…sorry.” Logan stared at the floor, broad shoulders sagging. “I betrayed you, Simone. I put your life on the line, and I know that you fucking hate me. I fucking hate myself.”
She gave her new lucky cat a long stroke and then let her sweet baby bound off through the hotel suite.
Not the same hotel, thank goodness. They’d switched to a new location once the insane scene with Konstantin had finally ended.
At the new place, they were on the top floor.
She had a killer view. And while the last hotel had gone heavy on the blues, this place was all about white and gold and she loved it.
What she didn’t love? The way Logan couldn’t seem to look her in the eyes. “I understand.”
“Understanding doesn’t make shit right,” he rasped. A bandage covered his cheek. He’d gotten seven stitches in that cheek. She knew because Jezebel had told her. Jezebel had taken a very strong interest in Logan.
Something that couldn’t be good.
“I love you both,” he said, voice gruff. “You and my grandmother are more important to me than anything else. I love you both,” he repeated. “Always have, always will. I was planning to kill Konstantin. I just was waiting for the best moment.”
She shook her head. “You couldn’t kill him when his goons were with Nana.”
“I’m flying back to see her. As soon as Jezebel and your CIA boyfriend give me the all clear. She has to be scared to death.” A ragged sigh. His hands fisted in front of him. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
She paced toward him. Her hand rose and cupped his cheek. The one that wasn’t currently sporting seven stitches. “Logan.”
His jaw clenched.
“Logan, look at me.”
Slowly, his gaze found hers.
“Hi, there,” she whispered to him. “Remember me? The girl you saved when she was a kid? The one who didn’t have a real home, not until you came along?”
“You had a home. They were taken from you.”
“Just like your parents were taken from you.” Two lonely kids. They’d become a family. “You think I don’t know you, deep inside? You think I don’t forgive you? Screw it. I do. I love you, Logan.”