Endgame (46 page)

Was it for the best? The pain in her head throbbed with the ache in her heart. There was no way Aaron could truly love her now, not when he’d finally seen what she was, what she’d do for her job. She felt the cold, hard, and mean sink instead of rise, leaving her with an empty shell that reminded her way too much of Abigail. Unable to fight the sensation and Chase, she did what Charlotte would never dream of doing. She surrendered.

“Yes, sir,” she whispered, suddenly feeling small and defenseless.

“Good girl. I’m so proud of you,” Chase murmured.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” And in true, weak, Abigail fashion, she fumbled for the basin on her table and hauled it up to her chin. Charlotte was never ill, not from anything, yet here she was, barfing her brains out.

Chase held her hair, whispering, “It will be okay. You’ll see. Everything will be okay.”

No way could anything be okay. Not now.

****

Three weeks later…

The front door of Charlotte’s apartment opened, and the keys hit the kitchen counter a breath later, just like old times. Jake was still recovering from the gunshot wound he’d received during their battle with John and wasn’t cleared to drive yet. Charlotte curled up in her bed, tensing as she waited for Chase to come in and start hounding her to get out of bed so she could get her ass back in gear.

She curled tighter on the bed and squeezed her eyes shut, going back to the dream she’d been living since Chase had brought her home from the hospital. Her on the beach, with Aaron.

Chase had proclaimed she was depressed. Maybe she was. It was a hell of a letdown to prepare oneself for death for five years only to live. She had welcomed the return of the depression and sadness that had once been her friend. With the sadness came the silence, the refusal to talk. Even fuck you was by far too much energy.

She’d become Abigail again, small and lost, with not a single shred of Charlotte in sight. No dragon, no fire, no cold, hard, or mean.

How could she live that way?

Unlike the Abigail of the past, suicide wasn’t an option. That news would get back to Aaron, and it would hurt him. Never mind what it would do to Jake. Chase…she didn’t care about him.

The past three weeks, she’d spent mulling over her options. Suicide wasn’t one, neither was Aaron. So her mind went back to the beginning, when she’d chosen to take on the motherfuckers.

She just needed to find new motherfuckers. So that was exactly what she did. Now, it was a matter of telling them—Jake and Chase—her decision. They wouldn’t like it one bit.

“Hey, Char,” Chase called.

She opened her eyes and peered over her shoulder. He came to the doorway of her bedroom, hands in his pockets, dark hair tousled, cheeks red from the cold. Was it cold? She hadn’t been out in a few days. In her mind, it was warm. Warm on the beach. With Aaron. She lay back down and curled tighter into a ball, wishing she were Charlotte—brave again to just tell him.

“C’mon, Char. Please?” Chase heaved an impatient sigh.

“She still not speaking to you?”

At that slow Texas drawl, she bolted upright in bed, peering around Chase’s suited frame. Sure enough, Jake leaned against her breakfast bar, his face very pale as he clutched a pillow to his chest. She ignored the stab of pain when she looked at him, his hair still Aaron-long and darker brown like when her mission had started. Instead, she focused on the things that weren’t Aaron—the broader chest, then the eyes that were a shade lighter blue than her punk’s.

“Jake?” Of course, it was, but saying his name settled her.

“I had a doctor’s appointment, and I made Chase bring me to see you.” Jake huffed and shuffled forward, wincing with each little step. “He says you’re in Abigail mode again. You know that worries me.”

She rose on shaky legs, glad she had on a pair of Aaron’s clean boxers over her panties. Aaron’s shirt wasn’t quite so clean. It still faintly smelled of him. She refused to take it off except when Chase threatened to carry her to the shower and bathe her in it. Then she had run to the bathroom and locked the door. She reluctantly showered under her own power, only to return wearing the punk’s shirt. That pissed Chase off to no end.

Shoving Chase from her bedroom door, she reached Jake’s side and helped him baby-step his way to her bed. He lowered himself down with a low moan, his face pale and clammy.

“Oh, fuck, that hurts.”

“You should be home,” Charlotte scolded, her voice hoarse. She propped him up with the pillows.

“Needed to be here.” He sighed and lay back against the fluffiness. “Come here, Char. I want to hold my girl. I’ve missed you.”

His deep voice was more of an order than an invitation, but she found herself wanting to obey him for a change. She climbed onto the bed carefully, unsure where he wanted her.

He patted his upper chest. “Your head can go here. That won’t hurt.”

“Okay.” She snuggled under his strong arm, her back to Chase. A deep breath of Jake’s clean, manly scent calmed her, though she wasn’t liking the new note of slightly medicinal. She wrinkled her nose.

“You don’t smell any better.” Jake’s laugh turned to a cough, and he groaned. “So Chase says you’re depressed. I wouldn’t have believed him, but here you are, with the serious case of the mopes and wearing the baby cowboy’s dirty shirt.”

“I’m not depressed,” she lied.

“Seriously?” Jake snorted. “You got a bridge to sell me, sweetheart? Cuz I’d buy the bridge first. Tell the truth.”

She swallowed her fear. “Maybe a little depressed.”

“That’s better.” Jake rewarded her with a stroke to her hair, much the way Chase used to soothe her. “Well, not better, but at least for once you’re recognizing it. You can’t do this, Charlotte, not again. It’s time for us to regroup and move on. All of us. So…what are we going to do to get you out of this Abigail funk and back to being our brave girl again?”

“I…” And here was her opening to tell them. Both of her boys were here, and for some reason, telling Jake seemed so much easier. Chase would just have to listen. How weird their roles had changed in such a short time, how Jake’s appearance today had given her such a thrill and Chase deadened her soul. “I need to tell you both something.”

“Oh?” Jake’s head turned, and she knew he met Chase’s gaze over her head.

“You’re going to be angry with me,” she warned, her heart beating a little faster.

“I promise we’ll listen. Right, Chase?” Jake prompted.

Chase’s feet scuffed the carpet, and he blew out a breath. “Yes, of course.”

She inhaled Jake’s scent. “I made a decision a few days ago and I…acted.”

Three days ago, Chase had called and demanded she get her ass out of bed, take a shower, and quit being melodramatic. He expected her to be clean and ready to think about work when he showed up later in the day. At that point, she had wondered if he was right, so she’d pulled on sweats and decided to get her mail.

Downstairs, she had found Aaron’s smiling face plastered across a tabloid in her mailbox, his arms wrapped around a bikini-clad beauty as they frolicked in the waves.

Aaron had moved on, and a part of her heart had shriveled up and died in the lobby.

She wasn’t angry with Aaron, because for once, he was doing as she asked. She’d set him free, but a rusty knife to her heart would have hurt less. She wasn’t supposed to be here, to see that. She was supposed to have died. The magazine got chucked into the trash, and she had gone back upstairs to her bed and the silence, any hope of living now dead.

Until she had an idea, one the boys wouldn’t like. “I made a phone call.”

“To Aaron?” Again, Jake’s head jerked.

“No.” She swallowed. “To General Sanders.”

Jake stiffened under her, and Chase sucked in a breath and growled at the mention of his boss. The air immediately changed in the room, electrified with a super-charged spark of energy. Jake’s arm waved, probably motioning Chase to remain calm.

Jake tentatively stroked her hair again. “And what did you discuss?”

“I asked for the Russian job.” The undercover mission was incredibly dangerous, the duration a projected five years. She’d be so deep undercover she’d be unable to contact anyone from her previous life, including Jake or Chase. She’d become someone other than Charlotte or Abigail, a totally new entity seeking to take down the new group of motherfuckers.

If she couldn’t have Aaron and she wasn’t dead, this was the next best thing.

Complete silence from two usually noisy men—scary, even if she were in dragon mode. She wet her lips and bravely met Jake’s gaze. Oh, not good. Those blue eyes darkened with anger like the North Sea during a winter storm.

Jake exchanged another long glance with Chase. Finally, he unclenched his jaw to ask, “And?”

“I asked him not to tell you both until tomorrow. The paperwork goes through then. I leave Monday.”

“Why?” Jake barked out, again silencing Chase’s rumble with a motion of his hand.

“Many reasons, but the icing on the cake…” She shrugged sadly. “Aaron has moved on.”

“Jesus, you weren’t supposed to see that,” Chase snarled. “Fuck him for moving on this quickly. You need more time, that’s all.”

“You knew? Bloody hell, I don’t need enemies with you around, do I?” Charlotte sat up, and the freight train in her gut fired up full force in a blast of heat. She glared, pinning Chase under all of the anger she’d buried for the past three weeks. “What was Aaron supposed to do? You can’t blame him for wanting to forget me.”

“You don’t need to go to Russia to hide. I forbid it.” Chase crossed his arms over his broad chest, his feet shoulder-wide in a take-no-shit stance. “You don’t need that prick to live.”

“Chase,” Jake warned. “He’s my brother, for fuck’s sake.”

“Yeah, well, he didn’t get your portion of the gene pool.”

She stabbed an angry finger in Chase’s direction. “It’s out of your hands. You have no say in this. I went over your head, and I’ll be out of your lives by Monday.”

“You’re not going,” Chase ground out, his face stone cold. “I’ll find a way. But you are not going.”

“Chase, shut the fuck up.” Jake winced.

Only because Jake was freshly injured did Charlotte force herself to find composure. She sat back on her heels, faking calm as she met Chase’s cold glare. She somehow had to get him to listen. “There’s more to this decision than Aaron.”

“You’ll adjust. You’ll move on.” Chase waved a hand in dismissal. “We’ll find you someone else to love. Someone…safe. And not a prick.”

She shook her head, a little ill at the idea of finding another man. “I can’t risk love again. You know I’m not easy to love. Just like you, Chase. I’m hard in all the wrong places. So what do two you want me to do? I have nothing. I don’t even have a hobby anymore. I used to spend my time training, and what do I train for now? John’s dead. Aaron has moved on. I feel so empty, and all I want to do is sleep and never wake up. I need to find a new me. I need to fight new motherfuckers. Russia will give me both goals.”

“No,” Chase ground out through clenched teeth. “Over my dead body.”

Oh, yes, she could handle that. “Gladly.”

“Okay, enough, both of you,” Jake warned. “Chase, I think maybe you should go make that phone call we discussed since you can’t be civil.”

“Fuck, no.”

“Sanders?” Jake asked, his tone soft and dangerous. “How much do you value our friendship?”

Jake never called Chase by his last name, so this had to be serious. Chase’s mulish glare diminished, and a flicker of something unfamiliar flitted across his handsome face. She would have labeled it fear, but Chase didn’t do fear. Just like she never used to. He ran a large hand through his hair, tugging at the short ends to spike it, a sign he was truly frustrated.

But that look smoothed over to his usual cold expression as he nodded. “I’ll make the phone call.”

“Thank you.” Jake shifted, and they listened as Chase grabbed his coat and keys, the door quietly shutting behind him.

Jake patted his chest for her to return, and she did, his fingers tangling in her hair again once she settled. They nestled this way for a long time until Jake asked, “Can we play what if?”

“No.”

“Humor me. If Aaron hadn’t moved on, would you want to run off to Russia?”

“I don’t know.” Which was a lie. Of course not. But he wasn’t an option, so why entertain it? She’d thought a lot about her new assignment, had played what if in great detail. “The work it will take to become a new persona will keep me busy. Remember how long it took me to learn Charlotte’s accent? To walk like her, to learn the languages, to learn to fight and shoot.”

“Yeah. You worked hard, honey. But you don’t have to go half way around the world to stay busy. I’m sure we could do that here again.” He brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “I know it’s weird, how much Chase and I love you despite having wives, but we do. We’d do just about anything to keep you with us.”

It killed her that the “just about anything” excluded giving her Aaron.

She inhaled Jake’s scent again, clean and manly, one spicy note away from her punk. During her time with Aaron, she’d worked on being honest. She saw the merit to it here, too. Baring her soul to Jake, the man who saved her once…he would understand. He wanted to save her now.

She sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “If I stay here, I have to face my Abigail issues as well as my Charlotte ones. You and Chase, starting families. I see Aaron in every breath you take. I resent Chase for sending him away. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. And it all hurts so much.”

Jake’s chest started to rumble, and she silenced him with a finger to his lips. “Let me finish, okay? I want to be brave and be able to face it, but I think a very strong part of Charlotte died with John.” She slipped her finger from his lips and let it trail down to the dimple in his chin—again, like Aaron’s. “If I go to Russia, there will be no Abigail. And eventually, I’ll be less Charlotte, too. I know that’s weak, but it worked before, right?”

Jake sighed and closed his eyes. His lips brushed her forehead as he cuddled her closer. “Do you love him, Char?”