Endgame (38 page)

“She’s not a preschool teacher. She’s a fucking spy. She’s an assassin, Aaron. That’s her job. Did she tell you that? Because that’s who you’re fucking. A cold-hearted killer.”

Pain seized his heart, hearing the words he knew. “You made her that. Abigail wasn’t a killer.”

“Yes, and I did it for the reasons you said—to face John.”

“If she kills John, it’s over. She doesn’t have to kill anymore.”

“Your head seems to be mighty thick, so I’ll use small words. She is a
killer
, and she has a whole list of people who would just love to know she’s Aaron James’s girlfriend. So Charlotte will die…where? Your bed, your car, on your arm? That’s what you want?”

“She can quit.”

“She can’t quit. They’ll put her in jail. Your sweet Danger Girl ended up killing a bunch of people by withholding information that would have saved her and them. So the deal was, she gave ten years of service, or they toss her away for life. She’s five in.”

She’d hinted they wouldn’t let her go, but Aaron hadn’t wanted to believe. “If she kills John, wouldn’t that be payment in full? She could have plastic surgery. I don’t have to take her everywhere with me.” But fuck Chase, he was making sense. Aaron fought it. Hard.

Chase gave a sharp laugh. “Like the powers-that-be are going to allow that. I have bosses, too. My boss makes me look like Santa Claus and would send his son’s girlfriend off to die, no problem. So me, facing him, to set Charlotte free so you can eventually ditch her for some starlet? Not happening.”

Aaron ran a finger over her perfect lips, parted in sleep. “I wouldn’t ditch her. Ever.”

“Oh, you’ll ditch her. I know her, and I know you. She’s not an easy woman, and you’re a prick.”

That right there made him furious. They’d set Charlotte up to be a killing machine, never taking into consideration that she was a woman first. That she needed to be touched and loved, just like them. “You don’t think she’s lovable.”

“I think what you see and who she is are very different. She’s very special, Aaron. Too special for you.” Chase glanced at her, and his expression changed just a little. Maybe he felt something for her. “I can’t take the chance of you seeing her as I see her, because judgmental you will bolt. Your opinions have done enough damage in the past. She doesn’t need that from you.”

“You don’t know me or how I feel about her.”

The look Chase shot him was one that made him feel like dirty laundry on the side of the road. “I know enough about you to know you’re bad for her, and it’s not because of your career.”

“She’s taught me a lot in a week. I’m not the same man.” Yes, she’d accused him of being judgmental, too, and maybe he still was. Aaron stared down at her, smoothing her hair. He loved every facet of her, woman and bodyguard. Damaged, mean, brittle, funny, brave. So brave not to run, because if they had changed places, Aaron would have found an island in the Pacific to live on and ditch all this shit.

Yet, Chase’s words bothered him for other reasons. “Is that why you hate me so much? Because of what Jake had to say? Ryan? Corey? Paul, maybe?”

“This discussion isn’t about how I feel about you. It’s about Charlotte and what I’ll do to protect her.” But the shift of Chase’s shoulders told Aaron the man knew a lot, being Jake’s friend.

“I fail to see how you’re protecting her since you’re handing her over to John to get my brother back.” Aaron’s jaw clenched out of frustration.

“Enough.” Chase tapped the back of the seat with his fingers to get Aaron’s attention. “You love her? Really love her?”

“Yes.”
God, yes
. He closed his eyes and sank the despair down to his toes.

“Look at me.”

Aaron glanced up. Chase stared at him a long time, unreadable, unemotional and then said, “This is what you’re going to do if you love her. You are going to convince her to save your brother’s ass. You are going to sell attending John’s party. You are going to sell me as her escort because she
will
die if I don’t go. I can give her a fighting chance. You with me so far?”

“Yes.” Impossible sales. He had a better chance of selling her an igloo in Texas.

“Listen close. This is the most important part. When you have accomplished that, you will kiss her cheek, say goodbye, and you will walk away and let me handle whatever happens.”

Aaron wasn’t walking out on her, not when she needed him. He’d be there for her, somehow, and he’d hold her so the last thing she saw was how much he loved her. Not Chase, not Jake. Not that asshole, John. “No.”

“Yes. And if she’s somehow able to make it out of this mess alive, you will never, ever contact her again. Spies and actors don’t mix. Texas oil and European sparkling water—that’s what you two are. Do you get it?”

He still didn’t believe if she lived there still wouldn’t be a chance at a future. Somehow, he had to get her through this party. That’s what he would focus on—tonight. He’d worry about tomorrow when she lived. “What are her chances? Jake’s chances?”

“Jake—good. Her—slim.” Chase hesitated. “John wants her dead, Aaron. This is why I’ve been point blank with her from day one about this being a suicide mission. That’s why I trained her to kill, so someday, she could kill the man she once loved.”

That’s what Aaron had guessed. “She’ll fight. If she knows she has something to live for, she’ll fight.”

“She can’t fight.” Chase’s face lined with sadness as he shook his head, his first real emotion of the afternoon. “Do you know how evil this man is? He’s the former head of an organization that killed, raped, and pillaged whole villages in Africa over drugs and the sex trade. That’s just what he did to everyone else.”

“He wasn’t nice to Charlotte either.”

Chase shook his head. “Just be glad she doesn’t remember doomsday or anything around it. John was cruel in more ways than you can ever imagine. There are reasons why a person’s mind shuts down. Hers couldn’t take any more.”

“The nightmares…”

“John did that to her, not a hit man. John beat her almost to death and killed her baby. And more. So much more.”

An icy calm seeped over his nerves, the anger freezing over into something cold and determined that Aaron never believed he had in him. In that moment, he knew he could kill John for her. “I want in.”

“You have no training, and the orders are very specific. It’s his way or Jake dies.”

No way in hell was she facing that evil alone. “This party…who was invited?”

“Charlotte and her two men. Well, Abigail. John contacted Reese last night, after you left. So Reese set him up with me.”

That made sense. “You couldn’t negotiate something different?”

“No. I broke a lot of rules, and this is our only choice. It doesn’t help that we’re going in under the radar. My boss doesn’t know Jake is a hostage. This is me and Charlotte with whatever IT can send us in the short window of time we have when that asshole sends me an address.”

“Oh.” Aaron thought for a moment, a plan forming. “If Jake is me, then I’m going to the party as Jake.”

Chase shook his head. “Char will worry about you the whole time. I can’t let you come.”

Aaron didn’t take orders from motherfucker number three. He had to find a way to get into that party so he could be there at the end.

As ever the excellent actor, he sighed. Stared longingly at Charlotte—that part was easy—crossed his fingers behind his back, and said, “Okay.” And he vowed to say penance for that lie, too.

“Good.”

Aaron smoothed Charlotte’s hair again and looked around. “Where are we going?”

“To my house.”

His head snapped up. “Oh no. You want me to sell this? I can’t do that with Tia crying and Kate glaring. Charlotte will go off the deep end. You can take us to her apartment. Drop us off, let me sell her whatever shit you want me to sell her. Pick her up when you need to have a meeting about this. Party is when?”

He could see Chase was buying into the lie. “Party’s at eight. We’ll meet at six-thirty.” Chase glanced at the slumbering Charlotte. “She’s going to wake and go from groggy to fuck you in sixty seconds. I suggest you have a game plan.”

Aaron was already making plans of a different sort. “I can handle her. She’s my Danger Girl.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Charlotte woke in her own bedroom, in Aaron’s arms. Which was nice, but surprising, because she shouldn’t be here, she didn’t think. She struggled for memories. Airport, attacked Chase, spy juice. No, she shouldn’t be here. Aaron should be on a plane, and Chase should be here, looming over her like death warmed over.

Aaron must have felt her stiffen as she collected her bearings. He smoothed her cheek and dropped a quick kiss to her lips. “Hey, baby. Welcome back.”

She groaned and stretched, her muscles moving in slow motion. The drug made one feel this way, like they were underwater and everything, even blinking, was a huge effort. Great when you used it on the bad guys. Not for her. “I hate spy juice.”

“I bet you do.” Aaron frowned. “You don’t look very lively.”

“I was just drugged. I shouldn’t be lively.”

“Motherfucker three said you’d go from groggy to fuck you in sixty seconds.”

“He was yanking your chain. He has a warped sense of humor.” She tried to swallow away the metallic taste in her mouth. “The welcome good-guy side effect of spy juice is that you come out slow. Slow and no longer angry, or whatever you felt. They lace it with something that deadens all that and makes your victim very compliant.”

“Then that’s what Chase meant about needing to make you reset.”

“Yes, and I wasn’t surprised he drugged me. He knew I would be angry when I came off the plane. I would assume he wanted you on a plane back home and he wouldn’t want me angry in his backseat. But he wouldn’t have known you wouldn’t go when he injected me.”

“Hell, no.” Aaron set his jaw in that stubborn, Anderson way that Charlotte found so frustrating. But sexy. “I’m not leaving you at the end of all this. It’s my brother out there somewhere. Maybe he’s not scared, but I am and I want him back. But the fact that they just feel they can send you off to do this battle like a modern version of Joan of Arc or something… It’s fucking archaic.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. It
was
archaic. But it was the deal, and now that she was no longer angry, she understood. Chase would take her to the party, check her in at the door, and the pieces would move fast and furious. Jake would be given back, she would kill John, and that last bullet would be for her. So black and white, right there in front of her.

Aaron, her sweet punk, wasn’t her future.

She opened her eyes to plead with him. “I can’t fight with you about my purpose. It is what it is. This is what I’ve trained for. This is who I have become. I don’t have an option but to see it through, especially now.”

“Jake betrayed you, too.”

“Do you want to rescue him less for it?” She struggled to sit up. “He’s still someone I love, despite what he did. Despite what Chase did. I have to just remember that it’s part of the job. The two boys I love, who saved me, are a separate entity from the men who had to betray me for work purposes. Just as the woman who…cares…for you is not the same woman as your Joan of Arc.”

She shifted on the bed, trying to make him understand. “It’s a…role. For all of us, just like the spy movie was a role for you. Who we are at work is not who we are at home.”

“I get it.” Aaron nodded. “And work wins.”

“Yes. Always.”

His shoulders shifted in his special way that said he accepted everything and it was time to move on. “I’m sorry to tell you, but your nosy neighbor thinks we’re married and you had too much to drink on our honeymoon. Which is why I carried you in here, asleep.”

So naughty, her actor boy. “Is lying an Anderson thing?”

“Marry me and it won’t be a lie.”

“This isn’t Vegas.” And if it were Vegas, she would be sorely tempted to die as his wife. She glanced around. “Where’s Chase?”

“He went home. I convinced him to let you come here.” He touched her cheek and her forehead, as if looking for a fever. “You’re going to be okay, right?”

“It takes a bit to recover. Chase has never given me that much before.”

“He’s drugged you before?” He sounded horrified.

She glanced up at him. Looked horrified, too. Naive boy, if he only knew what she’d done for her job. “Of course. I need to know what it feels like. In training they do all this stuff to you. Drugs, torture, bondage. The goal is to see how much you can take and how long you can fight for before you go under.”

“He’s tortured you? Christ. Frenemy.”

“You train for your job. I train for mine.” She frowned and thought of a way to distract him. They’d been so busy in England they never checked box office numbers. “Speaking of
your
job, any numbers yet?”

“Nothing concrete until Monday, but my agent left a message saying the spy film was on its way to raking in the big money.” His eyes sparkled with joy.

She squealed and wrapped her arms around his neck, so pleased for him. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, of course he wanted the film to be a success. She gave him a sound smack on the lips. “Talented punk. See, you make a great spy on film.”

He grinned, and not an inch of it was cocky, more amazed, as if he never believed. “What about in real life, after spy camp?”

“Much better.” She kissed him again, so proud of him. “Congratulations, love. The whole world is going to know who you are.”

“Yeah.” His grin faded to a very sad smile. “If I could go back in time, I would have done it differently, if I could have you in the end. I’d give up the fame for you.”

She closed her eyes and wiggled away from his warmth, wishing her path had been different, too. She could have asked Chase for so much. Witness protection, for starters, instead of a kick-ass resume. But she didn’t. She thought for a moment, wondering where his braveness to admit his feelings had come from and sighed when she remembered. “I think I said something I shouldn’t have right before I passed out.”

“You didn’t say a thing.”

“Not a good liar, Aaron. Not this time. We need to discuss that.”