"I need a drink," I announced as I passed the threshold of our apartment.I could see a thousand questions surfacing in Emily's expression. She began with: "What happened?"Growling out a curse, I slumped on the sofa. "I met with Vivienne Hart."Her mouth opened, and she stared at me for a few heartbeats before saying, "I think I'll have that drink too."A moment later, she brought a glass for me and herself and sat next to me. Then I told her about my not-so-pleasant meeting with Aiden's mother in detail. "I'm surprised she didn't offer you money to leave her son," she stated when I finished.I chuckled dryly. "Yeah, that would be fun... I wonder how it feels to tear a million-dollar check into tiny little pieces."Emily snorted. "Do you think she would have offered you a million?"My lips formed a thin line. "No. I think she would have offered me a hundred bucks so I could ‘afford’ a taxi home." I could even hear her voice as I imagined that scene, and once I did, my blood began to
AIDENThirty minutes earlierChristopher and Landon Allard knew each other. They could have known each other for years. And they were meeting in secrecy in the middle of the night. Knowing what Landon and his twin brother were capable of, I began to believe that I could have been greatly underestimating my quiet half-brother…Instead of looking for new suppliers of components for Hart Global's newest invention, I was sitting in my office in the residence and drawing a diagram of Landon's and Kastor's connections. Using Thomas Badley's notes and my own knowledge, I slowly matched the dots and filled the blind spots. The image I received saturated my guts with dread.Kastor had been cooperating with all kinds of underground organizations, from the Italian Mafia, Yakuza, and Chinese Triads to all groups connected to the Islamic State. The kind of services he offered remained unclear. Some called him their supplier, others the cleaner, but as I looked closely at my diagram, I began to ass
CHARLIEI heard someone's deep laughter just around the corner. My eyes swept the empty corridor, looking for any place to hide. I saw three other doors, all with key panels and red lights signaling that they were locked."Shit," I murmured as my thundering heart increased its rate. "Kevin… I'm begging you. Do something!""10 seconds!" he exclaimed through my earpiece, and the numbers on the panel started spinning once more.Two men appeared at the end of the corridor. Gasping, I plastered myself to the door as if I were trying to become invisible. The men were busy conversing, but as they walked forward, it was a matter of seconds before they would notice me, and I wasn't sure how I would explain standing in my awkward position. The numbers on the panel stopped...The light turned green.Sucking a sharp breath, I grabbed the decoder, jerked open the door, and leaped inside Christopher's office. I closed the door behind me just as I heard the two men a few feet away. The relief almost
AIDEN "We've spotted Landon Allard near the factory," Nick informed me. "Our team tried to get closer, but there were complications, and I called them off." My grip on the phone tightened. "What kind of complications?" "Someone activated some kind of jamming device around three warehouses, which shouldn't be a problem if they were only cutting off the signal... But whatever they used, it literally burned all our communicators," he said I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I understand your decision. Sending the team without communication would have been too risky. Did you see anything else?" He cleared his throat. "Many trucks going out of the factory. I wasn't sure whether it was something that usually happens there, but the numbers... It just seemed odd." "Well, Christopher mentioned moving out some of the equipment a few days ago," I explained, and normally it wouldn't have raised my suspicions, but now it was different. Now I was aware of Christopher's connections to Landon, and
CHARLIE Feeling a little paranoid, I hid in the toilet until the truck was gone, as if the driver could recognize me and drag me back into that box with machine guns. As soon as I assured myself that the coast was clear, I began to analyze my situation. I was at the gas station right outside Greenwich, Connecticut. My phone was dead—not like battery-dead but literally dead-gone-dead. It seemed like all its circuits had burned out, just like it had happened to my earpiece. Luckily, my wallet didn't suffer, and my credit cards were still in place. I drew a deep breath and stared at the mirror. I looked like I had run a marathon on heels during a desert storm. It took me fifteen or more minutes before I resembled a human being. I washed the dirt off my face and combed my hair using my fingers. I still looked like shit, but I had more urgent matters than improving my looks. I asked the clerk at the station if I could use his phone and called Kevin. He didn't answer. My stomach twisted s
AIDEN I had spent three hours in custody before that asshole, Murray, decided to bring me into the interrogation room. My hands were cuffed, and I was left in those cute bracelets for another hour before my lawyer showed up and demanded to take them off my hands. For the next fifteen or more minutes, Chandler and I were left in that room alone. Fuckers. So much for client-lawyer confidentiality. Luckily, I had nothing to hide, well, almost nothing to hide. Chandler scanned the room, a displeased grimace forming on his mouth. I couldn't blame him. Two cameras were hanging from the ceiling, gaping at us from two opposite corners with their red lights. The large one-way mirror also carried the promise of no privacy. "If anything you did is questionably legal, I suggest you keep your mouth shut," he grunted. I gave him a look. "If you want to know whether you're about to defend a guilty man, then my answer is no. Truthfully, I have no idea what the FBI was looking for or why. And yes,
CHARLIESixty minutes earlierI forced myself to stop crying. I had no time to shed more tears. I needed to focus. Forcing air into my lungs, I stretched my tightened ribcage. Every inch of my insides burned, but I ground my teeth and willed my hand to lower over Kevin's cold body.I closed his lifeless eyes. It might have been the hardest thing I had ever done, but I had to. I felt like he died because of me. I brought this upon him. I pulled him into this mess. He agreed to be a part of it, but he didn't have to. It was my war, and this time I couldn't save him. I wasn't his super-girl; I was the one who had come too late and let him die.I sucked another breath that seemed too shallow and groaned. "Focus, Charlie, focus!" I pulled the phone out of my jeans pocket and cursed. The battery died. I was too absorbed in everything that had happened to notice it...I looked around and saw Kevin's cell phone lying on the floor. Faint slivers of rationality seeped through, causing me to be
AIDEN I was making my fourth mental note to punch that Murray fucker as soon as this was all over. He insisted on keeping my detainee status, so I was currently cuffed and sitting in the backseat of his car instead of driving mine at full speed. "You're OK in there?" Murray asked, and I could clearly see the smug smirk in the rearview mirror. Deller was sitting in the front passenger's seat, and, fortunately, he turned out to be more rational than his asshole partner. "Not OK at all," I hissed. "You're too slow, and perhaps you're still not aware, but there are lives on the line!" "We're doing our best, Mr. Hart." Deller glanced at me, twisting his head over his shoulder. "We still need to follow the rules, and we can't just—" "Screw the rules!" I snapped. "Those people we're against follow no rules except for the ones they create! If something happened to Charlie because we were too slow, then I swear to God—" "Shut your mouth, Hart!" Murray roared. "Don't you dare say a word ab