Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
She’d been stitched up. Five stitches in her thigh. Four in her shoulder. The nurse had numbed Charlotte so she wouldn’t feel any pain, and she’d watched with a sort of dazed fascination as the needle slid in and out of her skin.
Charlotte knew she’d crash, eventually. The docs had checked her out thoroughly, even hooked her up to a heart machine after she’d told them about the electrocution. They’d been worried.
She’d just been glad the nightmare was over.
Logan had been taken away from her. Something that infuriated her. The local cops had insisted on questioning him. Jezebel had gone to the station with Logan. She’d promised to clear things up. Charlotte had assumed that meant her boss would work her magic and get Logan pulled from custody, ASAP.
I want my husband with me.
But she wasn’t alone in the hospital room. Harper was with her. Technically, it was Harper’s room. A too pale, too quiet Harper. Harper had been sewn up, too. She’d been patched. Examined. Poked. Questioned by uniforms.
Her answers had been brief. Stilted. Her voice too hollow.
Despite the protests of the docs and nurses, Charlotte insisted on staying close to Harper. Harper had been through hell. She would need friends and family to comfort her. She’d need counseling. She’d need—
“Sebastian.” Harper’s whispery voice. “When will we hear how he’s doing? I-I know they took him back to surgery at least an hour ago.”
Yes, yes, they had.
“He…he was some kind of cop, wasn’t he?” Harper asked.
“US marshal,” Charlotte said.
Harper reclined in the hospital bed. Her white gown dipped off one shoulder. There were so many bruises on her body. “Marshal,” she repeated. She blinked quickly. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He couldn’t. He was working undercover.”
“Like you?” Harper’s head turned as she eyed Charlotte.
Charlotte had flat-out refused to wear a hospital gown.
She was still on her feet. Dressed in borrowed sweats and a t-shirt.
As far as she was concerned, she was pulling guard duty with Harper.
Until Harper’s family arrived, Charlotte intended to keep a protective watch on the woman.
“Sort of like me,” Charlotte agreed. Not like she could confess to being a spy.
“Thank you for saving me,” Harper murmured. Her hands—with nails broken and fingers covered in small cuts—twisted in front of her.
“Hey, you were the one who had the great idea of choking the bastard with the rope.” Charlotte flashed her a wide smile. “Thanks for saving me.”
Harper started to smile back at her. Some of the shadows in her eyes seemed to lift.
The hospital room door opened. Jezebel poked her head inside.
Relief swept through Charlotte and she had to ask, “Logan?” Tell me you got him away from the cops.
“Your husband is in the waiting area,” Jezebel assured her. “Got that business all straightened out.”
A fast rush of air left Charlotte.
“You’re…you’re FBI, aren’t you?” Harper asked Jezebel.
“Um.” Not a yes. Not a no.
“Do you have any updates on Sebastian?” Harper inquired quickly. “Is he okay? I-I want to talk to him. I need to see him.”
“That’s just not possible.” Jezebel’s very definite reply.
“I’m sorry.” She looked over her shoulder.
Seeming to stare at someone outside the room before looking back at Harper.
“Your parents are here, Harper. They want to visit with you.” A wave toward Charlotte. “She’s safe now. You can leave her.”
Charlotte wanted to rush out and see Logan but…
She still found herself hesitant to leave Harper.
“Why isn’t it possible to see Sebastian?” Harper’s voice cracked. “Is he still in surgery?”
Jezebel inched toward the bed. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t look directly at Harper. “He…he didn’t make it out of surgery.”
Harper’s mouth opened. She tried to suck in air but couldn’t seem to accomplish the task. Her eyes widened. She gasped. Choked.
“I’m sorry,” Jezebel said again.
Harper crumbled.
Charlotte hurried to her. She wrapped her arms around Harper. Around the woman who’d been through hell. Charlotte held Harper as she broke.
“Where in the hell is my wife?” Logan glared when Jezebel left the hospital room and approached him.
An older couple stood to the side. Well-dressed, silver hair, haggard expressions.
Jezebel motioned toward the room she’d just left. “Mr. and Mrs. Channing? Your daughter needs you.”
They practically ran for the room. They went in. The door shut behind them.
But it didn’t reopen.
Still no Charlotte. His wife did not come out.
“She’ll be out soon,” Jezebel promised. “Harper needs her a little longer.”
Alarm flared through him. “Why? What happened?”
She glanced back at the room. “I had to tell Harper that Sebastian Shay did not make it out of surgery.” A long exhale. Her gaze slowly tracked to meet his. “She took the news harder than I expected. I wonder if there was more to their relationship than I realized.”
“He’s dead?” Fuck. Now he felt bad for giving the bastard such a hard time.
“Um.”
Hold up. That wasn’t an answer. His gaze narrowed in suspicion. “Is the man dead or not?”
“Carmichael Lennon is dead. You very nearly cut out his heart, didn’t you? Quite vicious.”
“He took Charlotte.”
“Yes. Though for a moment there, when you disappeared in the dark of that building as you searched for the breaker room, I did wonder if you would get back in time or if I would have to do the deed myself.”
He blinked. “You were fucking there?”
“I have to applaud you. The way you had things going down in the end, the way you waited for him to turn at you with that knife. Bravo. You clearly made it into self-defense and not murder. Even if we both know you went into that building, fully intending to end his life.”
He absolutely had gone into the building with that intent.
“Jamar is recovering,” she suddenly said, briskly changing topics. “He’s on the floor below us. Definitely ready for his retirement from the CIA. I think this situation just sped up his timeline all the more.”
“And your timeline?” Logan had to ask. “You still out?”
“I am closing out the pesky paperwork involved with this mission. Got to make sure all the I’s are dotted. The T’s crossed. That sort of thing.”
“Uh, huh. T’s crossed. Sure.” He shoved his hands into his back pockets and rocked forward.
“Would that I dotting and T crossing include the way you’re handling Ares?
” He recalled the fury that he’d felt when he’d spied Ares in the lobby of his hotel.
At first, he’d been ready to rip the man to shreds.
But the confession Evans had made didn’t sit well with him…
He looked me in the eyes, and I think he lied when he named Ares as the perp we were all after. Gut instinct.
So when Ares had appeared, Logan hadn’t immediately attacked the other man.
Sebastian had. But Logan had pulled the marshal off Ares. Ares had started talking then, fast. He’d been feverish, desperate. Afraid.
He’d explained that he’d come for their meeting, and that he’d wanted to return Charlotte’s knife and Logan’s brass knuckles as some kind of olive branch.
Since Logan knew jackshit about a meeting with Ares, he’d let the man keep talking.
Ares had suspected that he was being set up.
After all, his assistant had wound up in Pierre’s room with her throat slit.
Charlotte had been drugged—most likely—at Ares’s place.
Though they were still waiting on the tox screen results to come back on that one.
How long did that shit take? Did the CIA not have some magic pull they could exert?
But, back to Ares. The Greek had been desperate. He’d told Logan and Sebastian that he suspected they were working with the authorities. He’d begged them for a deal.
“Ares wants to turn on the Russians.” Jezebel’s quiet voice carried only to Logan.
“He hopes for a new identity in exchange for his cooperation. My supervisors are quite pleased by that unexpected turn of events. Fun discovery—Ares was hiding quite a bit of intel in his Vegas building. All sorts of interesting evidence pieces that he’d squirreled away and locked tightly in various safes that he’d installed.
His contingency plans, I suppose. Now he’s trading that material for his life. ”
Ah. Well, he’d suspected something important was in that building. Logan just hadn’t thought it was the sort of stuff that would give the guy a new life.
Though at the moment, he wasn’t particularly interested in Ares. Logan looked around Jezebel, his gaze darting to the closed hospital room door. He needed to see Charlotte.
“We have the tox screens back,” Jezebel murmured. “Drugs were in the champagne bottles, though I think we all know that already, don’t we?”
The damn door was still closed.
“And Evans is cooperating, both with me and Detective Meredith Reece. He’s already confessed to a number of crimes. He even took us to the body of the man who helped to transport Harper from her hotel room to that unfortunate cage.”
“Evans had better not see the light of day anytime soon.” A snarl.
“He won’t. No worries on that score.”
Did he look worried? Pissed, sure. But he wasn’t worried. If Evans got out, Logan would handle him. Why is the damn hospital door still closed?
“She’s guilty,” Jezebel announced flatly.
Guilty of stealing my heart, hell, yes, Charlotte is—
“Freya,” Jezebel elaborated.
Instantly, his stare was on Jezebel once again. “Excuse me?” Maybe he’d misheard.
But her stare was knowing. “Drop the pretense. I am aware that you’ve suspected her involvement for quite some time.
But since your grandmother was friends with her for so long, you didn’t want to act without total proof.
I can understand that.” A considering nod.
“But you stopped allowing Freya to visit your grandmother last year. Clearly a a sign that you believed Freya was a threat.”
“My grandmother is very fragile.” He had bodyguards and nurses with his grandmother all the time. He provided her with the best possible care and protection. He gave her everything she needed. “She can’t handle additional strains.”
“Like the strain of knowing one of her oldest friends killed her son?”
Logan did not let his expression change. “Stay out of this, Jezebel.”
“Why? So you can have Freya’s blood on your hands?”
Yes.
“You took care of a problem for me, and now I’m taking care of one for you. As of thirty minutes ago, Freya is in the custody of the Las Vegas PD. Detective Reece handled the arrest. She caught Freya right before she could board a nonstop flight bound to Puerto Vallarta.”
His hands flew out of his pockets. He surged toward her.
“She’s being charged with the murder of Adam Sterling and his wife Patricia.”
His breath shuddered out. “You don’t have evidence to hold her.”
“I do, actually. Turns out, her first husband Vance? He has decided that a guilty conscience is just not something he can live with. He turned on her. Implicated himself in the process because he helped her hide the murder weapon so long ago, but he understands that there is often a price that must be paid for doing the right thing.”
“How. The. Fuck. Did. You. Know?”
“Know that you wanted revenge?” Her head tilted to the left. The gold hoops in her ear lobes bounced. “It was easy enough to discern. Turns out, you and I are alike in many ways. You knew what I wanted. I knew what you wanted.”
You wanted me to kill your niece’s murderer, Jezebel.
“Logan, you helped me when you agreed to allow Charlotte to work undercover in your world. I appreciated your cooperation. The least I could do was pay you back for that debt.”
His back teeth ground together. “I was going to handle Freya.”
“Betrayal is one of the worst sins out there, isn’t it? For years, you thought she was helping you. And helping your grandmother. But when you began to suspect the truth, it became like a poison in your veins.”
Yes.
“Killing someone you once cared about? That act leaves a very deep mark, believe me.” Her dark stare held his gaze. “I owe you this. She’s going away. She will not get out.”
“I want to see her.”
“Of course. I expected nothing less. Go see her. Tell her to burn in hell. Then walk away and forget her. You don’t need fury and bitterness dragging you down every single day.” Her lashes flickered. “Trust me. That gets old. Bury Freya.”
Yeah, he’d damn well intended to do just that—
“And walk away. You have a future waiting.”
Behind Jezebel, the hospital door opened. Charlotte stepped out.
“Let the future matter more than the past,” Jezebel urged him. “Do it before it’s too late.”
Charlotte saw him. A wide smile swept over her face, and she rushed toward him with her arms extended.
What else was he to do?
He ran to her. Yanked her into his arms and held her as tightly as he could. He kissed her frantically, desperately, passionately. She was warm and sweet and safe in his arms, and he never, ever wanted to let her go.
His future was with her.
Yeah, okay, fine, Jezebel had been right on that one—the future mattered far more than anything else.
He pulled his mouth from Charlotte, glanced over to grudgingly tell Jezebel that she might be on to something…
But the CIA boss had vanished.
So he turned around and passionately kissed his wife.