The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone (239 page)

“Any last words?”

“No” I answered as a calm aura enveloped me. There really wasn’t anyone or anything in my life that required my last words and I pulled in a heavy breath when I heard a gunshot shatter my eardrums.

I hadn’t been on the receiving end of the bullet and I spun round to see what was happening. I gasped as Mona fell to her knees and grabbed at the back of her knee. She wasn’t giving up though as she raised her pistol to me once more, her eyes fixed on mine with determination as I looked straight down the barrel of her gun.

Her eyes widened and blood trickled from her open mouth before she fell forwards and exposed a hole in the back of her head, her white hair quickly turning red as blood seeped everywhere.

A scream tore through the silence and I closed my eyes sadly as running footsteps grew nearer.

“No, no, no, no. . . .” Grace sobbed as she skidded to her knees and pulled Mona onto her lap and palmed her pale face lovingly. “NO!”

She suddenly dropped Mona to the ground and shot upright, her gun pointed to the Asian guy who had killed her nanny as her face distorted with fury.

“Beaumont, put it down” he told her calmly but I watched with anguish as her shoulders heaved and her hands shook.

“You killed her, Jamal. What the fuck do you expect, a pat on the back?” Her voice was steely quiet but there was no mistaking the vehemence in it. “YOU FUCKING KILLED HER!” She screamed as she took a step closer to him.

He lifted his hands steadily, his palms open and held out gently to soothe her. “Yes, I did.”

Grace’s whole body was trembling now and I inched forward ready but she growled loudly, her anger shivering like a mist around the three of us. “If you want to live Kade, you stay the fuck where you are.”

I halted but I remained ready and alert. “Why?” she stuttered to Jamal but he tipped his head sadly as he secured her gaze. I knew he was one of Grace’s colleagues from the expertise and intelligence he held her with, his body held firm and showing no amount of fear whilst he comforted her with his eyes.

“You know why, Grace. You even suspected it.”

“No!” she denied furiously as her head shook briskly.

“Yes, you did,” he reiterated slowly. “Liam found her connection to Baxter, Beaumont. She’s been his bloody right hand woman for years. Now put your gun down and let me hold that damn frigid body of yours while you give in.”

“No!” It was choked and I stepped forward to catch her when her legs finally gave way and she crumbled to the floor.

“Get off me!” she screamed as her whole body gave in and she punched me repeatedly, turning into me at the same time as she begged me to hold her.

“Let it out, sweetheart” I whispered in her ear as her distraught sobs tore through me and her arms clung to me tightly, her hands frantically fisting tightly to the back of my coat. The intensity and grief she cried with was so overpowering, I could feel each of her tears pierce my soul with their acidity, burning into me and scarring me deeply. The heartache in her was completely engulfing and every single one of her devastated whimpers touched something inside me, ripping me apart slowly from the inside out but I held on, held onto her for dear life as I tried to take it from her and appease the despair inside her.

Jamal gave me a small nod as he turned and pulled his phone from his pocket and my eyes dropped to Mona. What the hell was happening here? What the hell
had
happened here?

It was all crazy and a shiver racked through me. Who we’re we dealing with if he could make an old woman turn on the only family she’d had for the last thirty odd years?

Chapter Twelve

Grace

“YOU’RE LYING!”

Jamal sighed angrily and slammed the file on the desk in front of me. “God damn it, Grace. Why the fuck would we all lie?”

“I don’t know, but I know you’re lying.”

He shook his head in frustration, his hand pushing back his floppy hair from his face with his annoyance and held out his phone. “Fine, ring Liam then.”

I chewed desperately on my lip as the last six hours dragged at my spirit and I repeatedly swallowed back the vomit that wanted to be liberated. “But . . . it just doesn’t make any sense. Are you positive?”

He tipped his head as he lifted a brow at me, “You really think Liam would send me up here, with actual evidence in the file, if he wasn’t sure? Even you know him better than that Grace.”

I ran my tongue across my teeth and shook my head in disbelief again. None of this made sense and I pinched the bridge of my nose to stimulate my brain. “But. . . .” I couldn’t seem to find the right questions to ask or the right words to voice as my brain continued to frazzle with all the information and my heart ached for Mona.

Why would she do that? Why would she try and kill Kade? She didn’t even know him, and there was no way she would ever hurt me. I was like a daughter to her.

“You want me to stay?” Jamal asked, pulling me from my sombre thoughts as he crouched before me and took my hand.

I looked at him and smiled gently as I shook my head, “No, get back to Samira. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

I shook my head again and rubbed my hands over my face to wake me from the weariness that was threatening to overtake me. He patted my knee before he stood up but he paused at the door and turned back to me, “You know what Liam said, Grace. Heed it, please. You are too involved in this. Concentrate on Hamilton’s protection and leave Will to Liam.”

I nodded, “Yeah.”

He smiled and winked before he pulled the door shut.

I stared at it for a while before a cruel smirk lifted my lips. “Not a fucking chance!” I whispered as I flicked on the computer and logged into the bureau’s homepage, entering Liam’s master password, the one he didn’t know I was aware of. I knew it would alert him if I was logged in for more than seven minutes but right then, I didn’t give a camel’s left shitty toe and I drew in a breath when the customary desktop to my sectional division popped up.

Working quickly, I manoeuvred through all the separate procedures and private log in screens until I was in Liam’s personal database and then retrieved all his recent operations. Will’s name jumped out from one of the files and I inserted the USB into the drive and started to download, my eyes shifting to the small clock in the corner of the monitor as my eyes carefully watched the time, my nerves hurrying the damn thing on.

Four minutes remaining.

“Come on!” I muttered as the door opened and Kade stood watching me with narrow eyes and his arms crossed across his chest

“What the fuck is going on, Grace? You’ve been in here all day and now Jamal’s buggered off and told me not to leave your side.”

“Nothing!” I snapped as I flicked another glance.

Two minutes remaining.

He stalked over to me, his lean fluid body leaning around the desk to peer at the monitor but I stood in front of it, blocking his view as he scowled at me.

“Tell me.”

“No, this doesn’t concern you, back off.”

“No!” he said stubbornly as he tried to move my body so he could see what I was doing.

I drew my gun on him and he stilled immediately, “What the hell?” His eyes were wide and I scoffed at the small amount of fear in them.

“Do—not—fuck—with—me, Kade!”

“Okay, let’s just calm down, sweetheart. I’m just concerned, that’s all. I know whatever you are doing on that PC is going to get you into a shit load of crap and I’m worried about you.”

“Whatever I am doing on that PC is going to feed me the crap I need to take out . . .” I grit my teeth and stared at his confused expression. “To finish what I need finishing.”

His tongue swept out to wet his dry lips but his eyes never left my gun. “What the hell is wrong with people today? That’s twice I’ve been looking at one of those.” He reached out and took it from me and placed it on the desk when I lowered my eyes to the PC, “But at least I know you won’t actually shoot me.”

“Fuck!”
I hissed when the timer showed minus four minutes.

Think! Think, Grace.

My eyes landed on the huge portrait my father had done of the family and I snapped my eyes to Kade. “Go pack a bag. Hurry.”

His face wrinkled in puzzlement but I ignored him and lifted the painting off the wall, “Move Kade, now. We need to get out of here!”

“Why?”

God, this man was bloody hard work but I held him with a stern glare until he sighed and relented, giving me a disappointed shake of his head, “Fine.”

He shuffled from the room and I wondered if a kick up the arse would move him any faster or maybe a bullet in the back of his heel.

I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep lungful of oxygen to calm my nerves as I spun the combination lock, my heart leaping at each satisfactory click the dial made. It had been seventeen years since I had accessed it and I prayed to God that everything was right where my dad had left it for me.

A relieved sob ripped up my throat when I spotted the two backpacks and the laptop bag, “Thank you, dad.” I blew a kiss to the ceiling as I hoisted both bags on my shoulder, took hold of the laptop and my own laptop, and making sure I had removed the USB, popped it in my bra along with my gun into the back of my jeans; I went in search of the man who would drive me crazy on our journey into extinction.

* * *

“Tell me again why we are suddenly upping sticks and hiding from your boss, the man who has nearly brought you up as his own?” Kade asked as he peered out of the car window and hunted for road signs or anything that would tell him where we were or where we were heading. He was angry and he had every right to be.

“There’s things you don’t understand Kade, please, just trust me.”

“But, how can dragging me away from the whole protection of the Security Service, and isolating your intelligence help safeguard me?”

“My God, are you always this damn awkward?”

“No,” he turned to look at me and I could see the struggle as well as the apprehension on his face. “No Beaumont, I’m not always this awkward. But when you are being hunted like a damn hare at a greyhound track and have bullets fired your way, not to mention a gun thrust an inch into your face. Then watch as someone puts a hole in the back of an old woman’s head and the woman you are supposed to trust, suddenly changes momentum and thrusts you into a car and won’t give you any bit of information as to what is happening, then maybe I have every right to be bloody awkward.”

I sighed and glanced at him, “Okay. We’ll find somewhere to stay for the night and I’ll tell you as much as you need to know.”

He smiled softly and nodded, “Thank you.” His tone held genuine gratitude and I smiled unsurely as my stomach flipped with what I would, for the first time, divulge to someone other than Liam what I had discovered six years ago. Would I be able to handle it and would the grief of the situation destroy what little spirit I had left, as I opened the can of worms I had padlocked shut years ago, once again?

Chapter Thirteen

Kade

I WATCHED AS she flung the bags on the bed and started to pull things from one of the backpacks; a couple of guns with ammunition, knives, medical equipment and my favourite—rope, amongst other things, until she found a disc and inserted it into the laptop she had fired up ready.

I frowned at the screen when a shit load of data scrolled up and then a log in screen appeared. Grace closed her eyes, blew out a steadying breath and blindly keyed in a password. My heart stopped when what I presumed was her father filled the screen.

I watched her throat constrict as she opened her eyes slowly and sank her teeth into her lip as a shiver ravaged her body. She seemed to be struggling with herself before she moved her finger over the enter key and clicked the still image.

Her father spluttered to life as he smiled softly at the camera, the skin beside his eyes crinkling lightly with the love openly relayed in his expression.

“Hello, my darling.” He said with sadness as Grace reached out and touched the screen lightly, her fingers stroking across the image of the man she obviously loved dearly. “I presume he has succumbed and it has started if you are watching this.” He sighed and reached out to the camera, his fingers resting on the screen as though he was touching his daughter. Grace shifted her own hand until her fingers were covering her father’s exactly and I swallowed as a wave of grief flooded my heart.

“Hey daddy,” she whispered back, the tightness in her tone showing every bit of her sorrow but her face held a faint pained smile.

“First, before we get you out of there I need to tell you I love you Grace, as does your mother, above and beyond.”

“Above and beyond” Grace echoed quietly as a stutter broke her voice but she shook her head as I watched her physically fight the tears back.

“Right,” he said determinedly as he removed his hand and squared his shoulders. “Marcus will be safe, he has nothing to do with this, darling, so don’t you go worrying about him. Secondly, you need to go to Grant. He will know what to do.”

“Ahh shit.” she moaned but continued to listen as her father nodded his head and fixed her with a stern look.

“And Grace,” his brow creased with his anguish and he exhaled heavily. “Don’t hate him for this, darling. We all feast on the Devil’s temptations once in a while. He loves you, don’t ever forget that.”

“Oh, daddy, if only you knew.” She sighed and looked to her lap as the video stopped and a message to tell her that the footage was auto-deleting worked its way across the screen.

She sat silently, her thoughts lost elsewhere and I left her to sort through them but suddenly she shot up, picked up her gun and stood beside the door as she gave me a hand signal to go into the bathroom.

“What, there’s no-one . . .” A knock sounded on the door and I rolled my eyes, blowing out a defeated breath as I went to hide like I’d been strictly told.

“Yes?” Grace said through the door.

“You ordered fresh towels, ma’am.” A male voice on the other side informed her.

“Okay, thank you. We’re both naked at the moment; can you leave them there please?”