Spy Games: Lethal Limits (34 page)

“And she’s here because…”

The bubbly left Kate’s demeanor. “Chase is probably going to tell her about the zygote.”

Tia sensed this was not a good thing. “And that’s not happy news?”

“For her, no.” Kate shrugged. “Charlotte…she’s complicated. I can’t wait for Jake to have to explain her because he took great pleasure in Chase’s discomfort when they had to explain her to me.”

The mudroom door opened and closed again. Kate sucked in a breath, her eyes wide and afraid as she stared over Tia’s shoulder.

Before Tia could process Blondie’s change something cold and metallic pressed against Tia’s neck. A hand gripped the back of her ponytail and pulled. It wasn’t Jake’s hand, and from the look on Blondie’s face, the metal she felt at her throat wasn’t a butter knife.

“Don’t move. Either of you,” the man whispered loud enough for both Tia and Kate to hear, his accent Middle Eastern. “Especially you, pretty girl. Do you remember me? I’ve waited to see you again.”

“I should have killed you,” Kate said as she stared at him with growing recognition, her left hand at her neck, playing with her gold locket. “You’ve been following me, haven’t you?”

“I saw you in the airport, coming out of European customs. Hand in hand with your asshole boyfriend. I didn’t think spies hooked up.”

That must have been on the return trip from Paris. He knew Jake, too. Tia swallowed. “Who is he, Blondie?”

The man laughed. “Blondie. I love that. Go ahead, tell her. It won’t matter once I kill you both.”

Kate still stared at Tia’s captor. “He was a guard from my first assignment. I knocked him out. I killed his friend, though.”

“Yes, you did, bad girl. But lucky for me, I was patrolling when the bomb you set went off. Usually, I was stationed in his room to watch over him as he slept. Who knew you were such a deadly, beautiful girl? And now, you’re mine.”

“Why were you in the airport?” Kate looked thoughtful. “No, you were looking for me, weren’t you? Spies have to fly eventually.” She gave a sharp laugh. “You’re not as good as you think you are. I knew you were following me. I knew.”

“Yes, but I got in by watching everyone use your key code, and now I have you both. Your men will be sad when they can’t find you. Even sadder when they do find you.”

Tia shivered at the cold promise in his words.

Kate swallowed, nervous. “Mad as hell is more like it.”

He ignored that. “I plan on fucking you for a long time, Blondie. That’s what you promised me. Your friend, she’ll be just as sweet.”

“Leave her here. I’ll go,” Kate offered, her blue eyes transfixed. Anxious. “She didn’t do anything to you. Just me. Take me.”

“Oh, no. I saw her jogging in on the asshole’s arm. I want you both.”

His lips touched Tia’s ear in a wet promise of a kiss. Tia shuddered. She’d never been captured before, except for Jake’s pretend intruder game. She wasn’t enjoying this one bit.

Kate looked resigned to their fate, and that pissed Tia off. What the hell? Why didn’t she run? Yeah, he’d slit Tia’s throat, but Kate and her unborn child would live. Isn’t that all any of them cared about, anyway? Jake might be sad if Tia died, but Kate and her baby…that would crush him. Chase, too.

She mouthed, “Run,” to Blondie.

Kate blinked long lashes over her baby blues and shook her head slightly. Tia widened her eyes, trying to tell her to get a move on. Blondie would make it to wherever they were shooting before this asshole could kill her. But Kate still shook her head.

“I’m sorry, pretty friend of Blondie, but I can’t transport you awake. And Blondie, if you don’t cooperate, I kill her, now. It will be her blood on your kitchen floor.” He covered Tia’s nose with a cloth damp with chloroform. She struggled, trying not to breathe in, the knife biting into her throat right before the world went black.

Chapter Eighteen

“Here’s our girl,” Jake said to Chase as they reclined against the bench in the shooting area outback, doing more talking than shooting at this point. It was hard to get Chase talking but once he got going, it was hard to shut him up. The mention of Charlotte’s arrival had indeed shut him up, because this was yet another problem they would have to solve. Chase turned, saw Charlotte, and sighed, deeply conflicted.

Charlotte paused at the edge of the shooting range to take a phone call, wiggling her fingers in greeting as she animatedly told whoever was on the other end to fuck off. Probably Steve Crazwalski, another agent, since she was partnered with him at the moment and he pissed her off like no other man. Steve had given her the title Dragon Queen. Jake had to admit, it was a good code name because she was just that—all scales, armor, and fire in a glittering red package.

“Thanks for listening,” Chase muttered, still staring at Charlotte.

“I don’t think this discussion is over, but you’re welcome. I’m here for you. I want you and Kate to work, big-time.” Jake did, desperately.

Chase had been spilling his guts about Kate, desperate to save what he’d ruined, his marriage crashing faster than a plane with its engines on fire and not a parachute in sight. Jake had suggested politely, but very directly, that maybe Chase needed to solve the root of the problem—his uncle. If Chase hadn’t felt the need to protect Kate from what evil his uncle would do by using wacked out, extreme measures then maybe he wouldn’t be in the dog house, Kate’s wedding ring in his hand instead of on her finger.

Underneath the patented boss glare, Jake saw the endless depth of the fear in his buddy’s eyes. Jake sighed and let it rest, but he got it. Chase didn’t do fear, unless it came to Kate and his uncle, and the fact that he couldn’t face the man to protect Kate said volumes of horrible things. Hell, Jake was afraid of Ed Sanders, and he wasn’t afraid of much, either. The man was diamond hard.

Charlotte ended her phone call and strode toward them with purpose and grace, brushing a lock of her deep red hair from her face. She wore tight jeans and a loose purple shirt, which meant she was armed, her gun in a holster at the small of her back, probably a knife at her ankle. God knew what else was hidden elsewhere. Dangerous to the max despite looking more like a lingerie model than a spy—five-ten, thin in a sexy way, all pale skin and hard muscle.

“How are you going to explain our girl to Tia,” Chase asked in a low voice.

“Shit, I don’t know.”

They’d never thought of Charlotte as an issue until Chase fell hard for Kate. They’d saved Charlotte almost five years ago when a mission had gone horribly wrong and they almost lost her to the demons who had taken everything from her. They plagued her still in the form of horrible nightmares.

But they took care of what was theirs, and Charlotte sort of became their…pet wasn’t the right word. She was a sister now but more than that, one they protected with their lives, which was like two lap dogs protecting a junkyard dog, Charlotte being deadlier than the two of them put together.

In their eyes, she was still broken and battered, begging them to let her die. They rarely agreed what to do about her, and she had spawned more arguments than two men needed to have over a woman they weren’t fucking. It didn’t matter. She was theirs.

“It didn’t go so well when you told Kate, huh?” Jake knew it hadn’t gone well, but a part of him hoped if he asked again, the outcome would change. Stupid, but one could hope all they wanted. Kate had blown a gasket, and when she’d come to him for back up on a Charlotte situation, Jake had to raise his hands in surrender and take Chase’s side. Loving them meant Charlotte was part of the bargain.

“Nope. And Tia seems the jealous type. Good luck with that.”

“Tia doesn’t need another reason to hate me. I seem to be doing pretty good on that front all by myself.” Jake sighed. “Charlotte isn’t as enamored with me as she is you. Maybe this will be easy.”

Chase snorted at that. “She’s still going to be trouble.”

“Tia or Charlotte?” Neither were going to be easy.

Chase didn’t answer because Charlotte had reached them, her lips widening into a genuine smile, her violet eyes bright with delight. “Boys,” she murmured, her English accent throaty. “Having a spat, are we? Such naughty boys.”

Obviously she’d been to the house first, which meant she had met Tia, and Kate was now filling his woman’s head with nonsense. Jake wanted to groan but shrugged instead and opened his arms to welcome Charlotte. He hadn’t seen her since Paris, and despite everything going down, he missed his girl. “We’re good. You know we don’t fight for long.”

She hesitated, her eyes flicking to Chase, always wanting to go to him first. But Chase nodded in his direction, which pissed Jake off.

Charlotte went obediently to Jake and let him hug her. It was like hugging a female version of Chase, hard and lean, smelling of citrus and flowers, one daisy away from Chase’s scent. Jake never understood why she loved Chase more. It hurt, damn it.

“You took the kissing way too far in Paris,” she admonished Jake with a glare.

“I had to. Eyes all around.” This was true. He’d recognized two different spies in the bar, along with Tia, who had tried to hide behind a potted plant. Unlike the other two spies, Tia had been safe. At least she was on their side.

“You didn’t need to grope my ass.”

No, but sometimes it was just fun to piss her off. He loved the flash of anger she’d given him before she pretended to feel him up, her fingers digging into his hip for a brief moment. Then she’d dropped the zip drive into his pocket and that was that. “No one else is enjoying your ass. Might as well grope it. It was lonely.”

“Pervert.” Her glare turned wicked and mischievous. “You think your new woman will appreciate you groping me like that?”

“She was in Paris, too. She saw.” He’d never tell Tia he’d seen her, though. Better for her to think she’d pulled the wool over his eyes. The bondage session, yes, she had tugged the wool right down tight. Never saw that coming. “What did you think of her?”

“I think I can kick her ass.” So typical of Charlotte, but when they had given her a new identity after her doomsday, they created her to be tougher than titanium. She had been meek and gentle before, submissive and brainwashed at the hands of a madman. Now she waited to fight the biggest battle of them all, waited for the day when she faced the motherfuckers, as she called them, the assholes who had wanted her dead in the first place. Jake prayed often that day would never come.

“You think you can kick everyone’s ass.” The problem was, she could.

She gave Jake a superior smile. “I think you boys need to find women who are strong enough to play with me. I let Kate win the last time we sparred, only because you commanded it. Really, the things I do for my boys.”

Jake hugged her closer. “Tia doesn’t like Kate any more than you do, so maybe you’ll be friends. Allies.”

“Leave Kate out of this,” Chase snapped. “There is no reason why the women can’t all get along. You’ll play nice, Char.”

“If you’re ordering me to, then yes.” Charlotte titled her head. “So is that why you summonsed me? To meet Jake’s new…whatever she is?”

“Girlfriend,” Jake clarified. Just because it was Monday, and technically they were over didn’t mean he felt this any less. If he wanted to be really crazy, he’d announce to the world she was his wife, married to him with his class ring, under a tree with a tire swing, with really bad vows. But he felt confident enough to bust out the girlfriend label.

“Really?” Charlotte arched a brow at Jake’s smugness. “I don’t think she feels the same way. In fact, she rather seemed to hate your sweet, cowboy guts.”

“Tia will come around. You did.”

“At least now there’ll be something better to bet on at work. How long before she dumps you or kills you, seeing you’ve had to run like the rest of us mortals.” She turned to Chase, her sharp gaze hopeful. “I suppose you have something to say, too? I noticed Kate wasn’t wearing your expensive, sparkly proclamation of ownership.”

“We’re having issues,” Chase grumbled. “She’ll get over it.”

Charlotte shook her head in mock dismay. “My, my. I guess there will be lots to bet on at work. It will be sad if I have to step in to save my men from their pissy women. You’ll both pay if that happens.”

Yes, they would.

Chase sat on the shooting bench and opened an arm to her. Charlotte struggled out of Jake’s arms and eagerly curled against his buddy’s chest with a look of rapture that stabbed somewhere in the region of Jake’s heart. Chase had to stink, yet she inhaled him like he was the best Parisian cologne.

With a start, Jake realized something he hadn’t hit on as of yet. He felt second with Kate, but he was also second with Charlotte. He had rescued her, she was his collateral damage, and yet she always gravitated toward Chase to the point that when Chase had divorced his ex, Jake had expected the two to hook up. But the two had formed more of a sibling bond, the same he felt for Charlotte. And then Chase had met Kate.

“Kate’s pregnant,” Chase said, not beating around the bush for a change.

Charlotte stiffened as Chase’s words sank in. Jake held his breath, as he knew Chase was doing, waiting for the explosion, the wrath, the anger. Ever since losing everything, Charlotte had been quick on the trigger when it came to being pissed. Kate being pregnant was enough to ignite the anger on many levels.

But she hid the flash of pain as she untangled herself from Chase’s arms and shifted toward Jake. She bowed her head, staring at her sneakers as she said softly, “Congratulations. You’ll make a wonderful father, Chase.”

“Come here, sweetheart,” Jake soothed. His heart went out to her, because of all the things in the world she wanted, it was a child of her own. She’d lost her unborn child in the accident, along with the ability to have more. And though Charlotte wasn’t romantically attached to Chase, the fact that Kate could give the man who walked on water what Charlotte wanted so badly had to be devastating. Warped, but that was Charlotte.

Charlotte slid closer to Jake, and he wrapped an arm around her slender shoulders, relishing her need for his contact despite the circumstances. Deep underneath all of the training and kick-ass toughness, Charlotte was still human, needing love and acceptance. But being two guys, they hadn’t equipped her with the mechanisms to deal with heartache. Kill it and you’ll feel better, that’s what they’d taught her. Only she couldn’t kill Chase or Kate.