Mercy (25 page)

“No sane person would take a deal without reading it first,” Jarrett said as his gaze focused on the envelope’s movements.

Becca almost laughed over the irony. “Yet you want me to take the deal you made without me ever seeing the fine print.”

“The lady has you there.” Natalie picked up both envelopes and held them. She looked straight at Becca, ignoring the men in the room. “Your choice.”

Jarrett let out a string of profanity that would have made his old associates proud. “Natalie, shut the hell up.”

Becca made the decision and reached for the envelope before Jarrett stopped talking. “I’ll take number two.”

She was up and out of her chair with Jarrett behind her. He didn’t touch her, but his presence loomed all around her and the intensity of his stare burned into her back.

“Becca, listen to me.” He put his hands over hers. “I love you and I want you safe.”

“I know.” Right then, standing there, seeing the pain in his eyes, she did know. His execution was totally messed up, but he was trying to do the right thing. What
he
thought was right, not what she wanted.

Natalie nodded to Becca. “Open it.”

She ripped the seal and pulled out a memo with a familiar heading. She’d been reading them for years. This one provided the details of an internal investigation.

One word stuck out. “Todd.”

Jarrett stopped fidgeting. “What?”

“It’s an intel report.” She scanned the paragraphs. “Todd set up the sting at the club based on faked intel.”

Jarrett’s breath blew across her cheek as he read over her shoulder. “I already know that.”

“This didn’t come from above or from an informant. Todd sought information for his own use. So he could sell it and profit from it.” Natalie smacked her lips together. “Apparently Todd is working for someone other than us, and you were a way for him to stockpile cash.”

Becca reached the paragraph near the bottom of the first page that explained it all. “He got the CIA to poke around in your club based on one set of details while he searched for the real info he wanted about one of your members.”

Jarrett leaned in closer. “Who?”

Her finger traveled over the line, highlighting it for him. “A senator on the Intelligence Committee. Todd got what he needed and planted the drugs to put the spotlight on you. It gave him cover to get out and ruin your reputation.”

“How did he get in here to handle the drugs?” Jarrett asked, in a voice filled with confusion.

“That was me.” Natalie raised her hand. “I approved a plan for him to plant microphones and cameras in your place as part of the real operation but that’s not how he used it. Your security wasn’t as strong back then. I know because I’ve tried to break it since.”

“What?” Full-fledged fury replaced the confusion in Jarrett’s voice now.

Natalie nodded in Bast’s direction. “Then he saved you from a prison term with his negotiations and the spotlight shifted again.”

“Everything would have been fine because the CIA got legitimate information, which covered Todd’s tracks at the agency,” Bast said, filling in the blanks.

Natalie turned back to Jarrett. “While you and Wade were sitting in jail, we removed the surveillance equipment.”

“It all worked.” Bast held up a finger. “But Todd had one problem.”

“Becca,” Natalie said.

It was like some sort of rehearsed routine. Bast and Natalie tag-teamed. Whatever Bast had been negotiating, he’d done it directly with Natalie. As far as Becca was concerned, they qualified as the strangest bedfellows ever.

But there was one fact that didn’t fit. Probably more than one, but even through Becca’s muddled state, one jumped out at her. “How do you figure that? I was a mess when Jarrett went to jail.”

“True, but it was too neat. Jarrett got off and I poked around a bit. The assault on Spectrum started right after.” Natalie shook her head. “It smelled wrong. Too perfect and tied up too neatly.”

“When you put it all together, the only answer is Todd took out the other Spectrum agents to cover his tracks. If he was a victim but the only one left, there would be no one around to piece the information together or question him. The higher-ups at the CIA were satisfied Becca turned and tried to fake her own death with the condo bombing she escaped. Jarrett had his deal and wasn’t poking around.” Bast touched his tie. “At my suggestion.”

Jarrett nodded. “I didn’t want anything to do with Spectrum at that point.”

“Exactly, you’d decided what happened—you got set up and Becca helped do it—and you were looking for revenge, but not poking around in exactly what happened. That’s not where your head was.” Natalie smiled. “But I was. That’s the part Todd didn’t see at first.”

All the behind-the-scenes work and Natalie stayed quiet. Becca didn’t know whether to be furious or to go with the sensation of relief pouring through her. They knew who started it all and who tried to end her.

When it came to Todd, only one thing went through Becca’s head. “That son of a bitch.”

“He’s confined to a desk job, thanks to his injuries, but is clearly just laying low,” Natalie said. “Since he thinks Elijah is dead, Todd is probably using his time tracking you, Becca, so he can finish framing you, then get out of town with his money.”

“It’s genius really.” When Jarrett glared, Bast held up a hand. “What? It is. He’s hiding at his desk, with access to information right in front of him.”

“I put it all together when Jarrett handed me some of the information you compiled over the last few days. Until then I didn’t know you provided a coded message about a lack of evidence at the club,” Natalie explained to Becca.

She remembered the message and her fight with Elijah over it in this very room. She tried to explain but he insisted he’d never seen it. Looked like she owed one more apology. “Nothing happened with it.”

“Todd buried it at our end so he could go ahead with the arrest as planned. You just moved up his timetable.”

“But you saved the document, which told Natalie where to look in the system,” Bast said, filling in the final piece.

The weight that had been smashing Becca into the ground lifted. For the first time in months, she didn’t have the pricking sensation on the back of her neck. “So, what happens now?”

Natalie nodded at the two folders. “That’s for you to decide.”

They acted like there was a question. Becca knew the answer. There really only was one answer.

“I keep my life. I make my own decisions.” Becca glanced over her shoulder at Jarrett when she said the last part.

He was a mess she couldn’t untangle now. Not on top of all the other blows from today. She’d crawl off and try to heal. Part of her wanted to tuck away her love for him somewhere safe and never look at it. That way, it couldn’t disappear or die. The other, bigger part of her wanted to shake him until that hard shell covering him smashed into pieces.

But first, she owed a debt. “Natalie, I’m not sure what to say.”

“She made it happen,” Bast said. “Without her agreeing to listen and be open to options other than those Jarrett proposed this wouldn’t be happening.”

“‘Thank you’ is sufficient.” Natalie’s gaze bounced to Jarrett before landing on Becca again. “I’d also like you to come back to work and help us sort out this mess and see what else Todd might have done, but that’s up to you.”

“I’ll think about it.” Becca heard Jarrett start to say something and slowly turned to look at him. “Yeah, Jarrett. Me. I decide, and right now I’m deciding to leave.”

•   •   •

Jarrett watched her go. His feet were frozen to the spot. He’d run through every scenario on how this meeting would work. He prepared for angry Becca and hurt Becca. He never thought to look out for the joint power of Bast and Natalie.

Bast folded his arms behind his head. “You’re welcome.”

It was possible Jarrett’s head would explode. He could feel the rage boiling in there right now. “Are you kidding?”

“Natalie knows the identity of the mole and reason for the operation. She gets to be the superstar, Becca’s name gets cleared and you hold on to most of the information you thought you’d have to hand over, but you agree to provide Natalie with intelligence from time to time.” Bast ticked off the pieces and highlighted each one with a thump of his pen against his pad.

Natalie shook her head. “I reluctantly agreed to the last part.”

“This was the negotiation?” Jarrett still wasn’t sure what had happened. Somehow they talked about sex and he declared his love for Becca, in between offhanded references to national security breaches. It was the damn oddest fifteen minutes of his life.

And he noticed Becca didn’t respond to his comment about loving her, except to get angrier. He had no idea how to take that.

Bast smiled. “I guess I really am as good as I say I am.”

“I don’t like being conned and that’s exactly what Todd did, so I agreed to work with your negotiator,” Natalie said.

“Are you sure it’s not because you’re a romantic at heart? The thing with the two files where Jarrett could see what Becca really wanted.” Bast winked at her. “Brilliant.”

“Romantic?” Natalie gave one of her eye rolls, only this one didn’t convey her usual level of boredom. “That’s ridiculous.”

Bast lowered his arms to the table. “I’m not so sure.”

“I owed Becca this,” Natalie said. “Becca wanted to call off the operation. She had the good sense to send up a red flag and to double back. Unfortunately she went to Todd with her concerns and not someone else.”

Jarrett finally broke out of his haze long enough to catch up. “You?”

Natalie nodded. “I would have listened.”

“What happens to Todd now?” Jarrett hoped the answer included a firing squad.

“Please don’t tell him the answer to that.” Bast held up a hand. “We’re looking for plausible deniability here.”

Natalie gathered up the remainder of her files and folders. “The agency needs more people like Becca.”

Jarrett snapped right back into fighting mode. “Never going to happen.”

There was no way he’d watch Becca walk into danger again. She did it once and nearly got killed. She spent a lifetime running and hiding when it was obvious from how easily she settled into life with him both times that she craved a family and stability. He could give her those.

“You still think you decide?” Natalie ignored Jarrett and spoke directly to Bast. “He acts as if he’s already won her back.”

Those two working together scared Jarrett. It was hard enough fighting with one of them and coming out the winner. Getting double-teamed made him want to throw up the white flag. “What?”

Bast shook his head. “Sorry, man, but you’re skipping a step.”

“What are you two talking about?”

“Becca referenced your ‘asshole behavior’ and leaving, or did you miss those parts?” Natalie asked with a grin that spelled trouble.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s rappelling down the side of your building right now to get away from you.” Bast leaned back and looked at the window behind him. “For the record, I’m not negotiating the reconciliation of your love life.”

And she would do it, too. If she got sick of his heavy-handedness, she’d tell him off and go. She made that much clear.

Jarrett remembered her face and her words, and panic flowed through every vein. He was in the hall a second later. “You can see yourselves out.”

TWENTY-S
I
X

Becca stepped into the huge closet in Jarrett’s bedroom. Breaking this rule felt right. He could stick his juvenile “keep out” crap.

Hangers jangled as she skipped slipping clothes off and folding them. She went with grabbing them by the armful and dumping them in the suitcase she took off the top shelf of his side of the closet. It sat in the middle of his bed and was already overflowing.

Once she finished here, she’d move on to the guestroom. If he didn’t have another bag she could steal, she’d use trash bags. Anything to get finished and get out of there.

She turned for another clothing run and Jarrett stepped in front of her. He was the last thing she could handle right now. “Move.”

“What are you doing?”

He had to be clueless not to know, but she filled him in anyway. “Packing.”

She spun around him and headed back to the racks. This time she tugged on her pants, yanking them loose and sending the hangers flying.

Jarrett leaned against the doorframe and watched her. “Why?”

“Because you’re an idiot.”

“Not sure that’s a change. It was true when you got here.”

She stood in front of him with pants hanging over her arms. “This isn’t funny, Jarrett.”

His gaze slipped to her haul then back to her face. “You’re not going anywhere.”

There it was. The one phrase guaranteed to get her to raise her fighting instincts. “Why do you continue to think you own me?”

“I don’t.”

“Could have fooled me.” She tried to move around him but he shifted his weight. Rather than play the game, she stood there. She could call on all her stamina reserves and outwait him. This was too important to just drop. “I mean, what was with that ridiculous scene downstairs? You turned me over to Natalie so she could rush me out of town in secret.”

He frowned at her. “Is that what you think that was?”

“Wasn’t it?”

He put his hands on her elbows in a light touch that couldn’t hold her if she shifted. “I turned over everything. Every piece of information about the China deal. Every piece of leverage I had been holding back to stay out of the clutches of the CIA to buy your freedom.” He shook his head as he swore. “Hell, I would have given her the deed to the fucking building if that was what it took to keep you safe.”

The enormity of what he was saying crashed down on Becca. A man who built an empire on his own was willing to give it away, to forfeit his freedom, for her. The cost was so enormous. And the idea of a world without him in it threatened to double her over. Even when they were apart, she at least knew he was in his house and safe, but with the sacrifice he tried to make, he would have lost all that.

Her muscles turned to jelly and the clothing dropped out of her hold, piece by piece, right to the floor. “You could have been arrested. Or worse.”

His expression didn’t change. “I didn’t care. I still don’t.”

What was he saying? “I want you to care.”

“Why?”

She shook her head. She would have turned away but his hand slipped under her chin, forcing her to look at him. She wanted to evade, but the words came stammering out. “Because I love you.”

There, she’d said it. She’d felt it for so long and with such intensity, it was probably right that it came out during a fight. That summed up who they were. Two people yelling about their love while they argued.

He smiled as his thumb brushed over her cheek. “You do.”

Not a question. A statement. “That’s it? That’s how you respond?”

“I’m pretty fucking thrilled.”

“But you knew. How?”

“You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t.” He cupped her face in his palms. “I know the bullshit about limited resources and needing my access, but we both know you had other options. You could have turned to someone else and you came to me.”

“I never thought about anyone else.” That was the truth. Even in the beginning when she fought back doubts and worried he might send her away, she knew she had to try.

“I had to believe you seeking me out meant something.”

The memory of his words from that first time in his office bounced back at her. “You acted like you hated me.”

He claimed he wanted to humiliate her and use her for sex but his touch said otherwise. Oh, he fought it for days. Almost two weeks in, he still acted like an ass sometimes and stole her breath in others.

“I tried. I really did.” Pain echoed in his voice. “I can’t lie about that, but I couldn’t make the anger stick.”

That was the before. They could forgive those moments and explain them away. But they needed to tackle the now. “Why send me away? You were sitting down there with Natalie, wrapping up my life without ever talking to me.”

His hold moved to her shoulders and he brought her in closer to his body. They kicked at the clothes at their feet until her hand rested against his chest.

“I couldn’t take the risk you’d think you could take on the entire CIA by yourself,” he said as his gaze searched her face.

Some of the painful sternness had disappeared. Stress lines still pulled on his mouth and eyes, but she saw something else there. Something lighter, freer. Maybe hope. She recognized the sensation because it fluttered to life within her.

“With you.” She spread her fingers out, covering as much of him as possible. “Not by myself. I wanted to be with you.”

He leaned in and kissed her. A lovely touch that lingered before falling away.

“I love you,” he said in a whisper against her mouth.

It was so easy to fall back into this warm feeling. He finally declared his love and he stood there with his eyes glowing and a smile tugging on his lips. It was normal and healthy. But it wasn’t everything. It wasn’t enough.

When he lowered his mouth again, she caught him with a touch of her hand against his cheek. “I want more.”

“Anything.”

She hoped that was true. The anxiety bouncing around in her stomach suggested it might not be. “I’ve turned this around and looked at it a million ways and I’ve come to some conclusions. I think we’ve loved each other stretching back to eight months ago.”

He turned his head and kissed the inside of her wrist in that sensitive spot that drove her wild. “God, yes.”

“We settle into patterns, it all gets comfortable. You tone down the controlling crap and become tolerable.” When he started to talk she placed a finger over his warm lips. “But none of that counts if we don’t trust each other. If you can’t open up to me and we can’t communicate, it won’t matter what deal I have with the agency.”

He pulled her hand away and threaded his fingers through hers. “I trust you.”

That was too easy. It came too fast. “Since when?”

“Maybe always. Do you really think I would have let you in the building, in my condo, if I didn’t have a spark of trust?”

Not that she thought he was lying. She knew he believed it, but this was a time when actions spoke louder. “Jarrett, you just proved downstairs that you don’t. You didn’t let me make the decisions about my life.”

He started shaking his head before she finished the sentence. “That was about me being so desperate to keep you safe that I would have done anything, including drugging you and putting you in a crate and sending you away.”

“Your controlling side.”

“Guilty.”

“Is it that easy to separate from me?” Her breath caught in her throat as she waited for an answer. Actually held there until she wondered if her lungs had shut down.

The darkness that sometimes overwhelmed him moved through his eyes now. “You can’t believe that.”

“What am I supposed to think?”

He leaned back against the wall and brought her body between his thighs. “I need you to hear this.” When she nodded, he continued. “Losing you the first time broke me into pieces. The idea of getting you back only to lose you again shattered me. Ripped me the fuck in two. I’ve been sick with it.”

She touched his face then. His mouth and lips. “Jarrett.”

“I love you. I trust you. I want to spend my life with you. I don’t know how else to say it. It sounds simple but the emotions behind the words are complicated and huge.” His hands tensed against her. “You know my history. You know how difficult it was for me to get it this place with anyone, and it’s only ever happened with you.”

“You deserve it.”

“We both deserve a family and forever love. We can have it together.”

Her head dropped and her cheek rubbed against his. “I don’t want to be coddled or sent away. I want to be with you, as an equal. We talk, we work things out. We figure out if we have a future.”

He lifted her head and stared down into her eyes. His intense will thrummed into her, as if he silently pleaded with her to believe. “We do.”

Her doubts fell away, crashing on the floor around her. The lightness filling her head didn’t have anything to do with panic or fear. Or even anger. It spun with a kind of relief that made her giddy. “I want that.”

“Then believe me when I say I trust you. A part of me always did, but then you stuck the gun in the back of Elijah’s head and I was a goner.”

She smiled at the memory. It wasn’t funny at the time and it might take another ten years to get there, but at least it no longer made her tremble with rage. “I would have shot him.”

“So fucking hot.”

And the man knew a thing or two about hot. “Having a man risk everything to give me a white picket fence in Kansas was pretty sexy, too.”

“You want to live in Kansas, we’ll go to Kansas.”

Maybe not the best proposition for some women, but for Becca it sounded perfect. He was giving her a choice and a life. Handing her back the power. The willingness to follow her anywhere made her love him even more.

She kissed a line across his throat and loved the way his Adam’s apple bobbed under her mouth. “I’ll settle for moving into your bedroom.”

“On the condition we make a new agreement.”

With deliberate slowness, she lifted her head. If he said the wrong thing, she just might punch him. She held her forefinger and thumb an inch apart. “You are so close to not messing this up.”

“Trust me.”

Those were the magic words. When she heard them, her body relaxed and her arms slipped around his neck. “Go ahead.”

“We forgive all the times we didn’t talk to each other when we should have. We stop keeping secrets.” His hands rubbed up and down her back. “And we forget how we met and got together. Instead, we focus on how we stay together.”

No wonder she loved him. Through all the gruffness and snapping lay this. “That was a pretty romantic statement right there.”

“You know I want to add that you don’t work for Natalie again, but I’m trying not to be a douche.”

Poor bab
y.

But now came the biggest leap of all. Moving in a second time was big because it meant diving in and not holding back. This would be the real thing and not part of an assignment. And she wanted to be all in. “I was thinking.”

“Uh-oh.”

She tugged on his hair. “You might need someone to help out with membership. Maybe look into security and intelligence. After all, if there are congressmen in here with national security info someone might steal in a moment of ill-advised drunkenness, I can handle that.”

His eyebrow lifted, but he couldn’t hide that smile. “Really?”

“I think Wade and I could work well together. In time he might even grow to like me.” Probably way in the future.

“I feel safer already.”

“And from now on if someone wants to set you up, they have to go through me.” She planned to hang up her guns, except for a few. But for him she would bring out all the weapons. Her rule still stood—no one touched Jarrett but her.

His hands slid down to her ass. “Right now I want to be in you.”

The man was predictable and she was not complaining.

She ran her hands over his head and into his hair. “I love you.”

“Show me.”

He ended the words by kissing her. This one wasn’t sweet. It carried a naughty edge, complete with tongue and a bit of nipping.

When she felt him shift toward the bedroom, she lifted her head. “No, I think we should try the closet.”

“I love when you’re a dirty girl.”

Her hands went to his belt. “Then the next half hour is going to be pretty amazing for you.”

•   •   •

Wade waited at the door while Elijah stood at the head of the conference room table. He read a memo Bast said Natalie had provided. Wade knew what it contained because Bast knocked on the condo door and briefed him before he asked to talk with Eli.

Wade only hovered because of security concerns. The sooner all the extra people were out of the top two floors of the building, the better.

Eli got to the end and dropped it on the table. “So, this is over.”

Sitting there with the briefcase open and sitting in front of him, Bast nodded. “Natalie cleared the slate. Once we get the final signal, you’re free to return to your old job.”

“Like hell.” Wade didn’t even try to whisper it.

“Okay,” Bast said. “I don’t actually think that would be wise either.”

“Where’s Todd now?” Wade asked.

Bast cleared his throat. “I get the distinct impression he won’t be an issue by the end of the day.”

Eli stared at both of them, his gaze traveling between them. But he didn’t say anything. The hunted look hadn’t left his eyes and his shoulders still bunched with tension.

To diffuse, Wade stated the obvious. “By tomorrow you should be safe on the streets again.”

Eli shot him a blank look. “What happens if I want to stay here?”

That was easy. In those moments when Wade thought about giving in, he just had to call up the memory of walking into that conference room. Eli’s words played like a horrible tape in his head. “No.”

That door closed when Eli announced that his time in the building was about sex. Not even memorable sex. Just a release. Like something he could do with his fucking hand but had Wade do instead because he was
right there
.

“We need to talk about this.” If Eli cared about having a witness, he didn’t show it.

But it didn’t matter if fifty people hung around. The answer was the same for Wade. “You said everything already. I heard it.”