Wildfire (The Fire Series Book 3)

by Anne Stuart

  So why the hell was she supposed to make an appearance this evening? Archer liked to pretend theirs was a normal marriage, that he was a doting, devoted husband immensely proud of his courageous, beautiful wife. And she’d make herself pretty—she had learned long ago how to transform her ordinary features into the illusion of beauty, how to move, how to convince anyone that she was exquisite. She could do the opposite just as easily, and for a moment she was tempted. How would Archer respond to an aging troll who presented herself as his wife?

  He wouldn’t like it, and she was smart enough not to pull the lion’s tail, not when escape was so close. He could make her life very unpleasant if she displeased him. He’d hurt her before, and she still bore the scars. She imagined he probably did research on his ever-present tablet, looking for the most painful treatments for someone with a devastating spinal injury, and a thorough businessman like Archer MacDonald was very good at research.

  In the meantime, she was going to take a shower in her unobserved bathroom, and she was going to use all the customized adjustments as if she needed them. There was no lock on the door, and Rachel had burst in on her a number of times, running her cool, dismissive eyes over Sophie’s body and smirking.

  Sophie wasn’t built like Rachel and the women Archer usually slept with. Even at her thinnest, her most fit, she’d still had real boobs and hips. She was simply shaped that way, and the first year, when she lay in bed and could do nothing but eat and watch old movies on TV, she’d gained a good twenty pounds.

  Some of that weight was still on her, she suspected, but now it was muscle. Rachel might make the mistake in thinking her curves denoted weakness, but Sophie knew better.

  She took her time in the shower. It was going to be a long day, longer now that she knew someone was waiting for her. Hell, it might be her executioner—it wouldn’t be past Archer to import someone from the mainland just to finish her off in style. Joe would do it if Archer gave him the order, but he wouldn’t like it, and Archer liked to keep his employees happy.

  She didn’t think that was it. She knew Archer better than he realized, and even though she didn’t see much of him, she could read his moods. He wasn’t ready to close that chapter of his life. He was having too much fun keeping her a prisoner, by both the isolation and the supposed weakness of her body.

  She had managed to fool him when they’d met, and he held a grudge—Archer believed in retribution, not forgiveness. She still had a little time left, though there was no way to be certain how much. This was all going to come to a head before long. If Archer started bringing her downstairs more often, she could firm up her plans. Being a prisoner on an island, even one relatively close to the coast, made escape difficult, and she was no Diana Nyad to swim that distance. There was always the chance she could make it, but she was going to exhaust every other possibility before taking that rash step. There had to be someone to bribe, some escape route that Archer hadn’t blocked.

  In the meantime, she would spend the day as she always did, seemingly serene and content to the ever-present cameras, sitting in her wheelchair, reading. No one could tell she was doing isometric exercises as she made her way through dense Russian novels, another form of Archer’s torment. When the time came, she would be ready. Would it be tonight?

  Chapter Two

  He sat in the bow of the boat as it sliced through the open water, feeling the salt spray on his face. The night was calm, the cabin on the boat was warm and stocked with a bar, but he stayed where he was, perfectly still, staring out into the night sky.

  It was late autumn, and even in the Gulf of Mexico the nights were cool, the sun setting early. In the gathering darkness Malcolm Gunnison wasn’t worried he’d reach Isla Mordita on time. Archer MacDonald’s men would be responsible, and he didn’t think they were likely to take any chances with their mercurial boss.

  He laughed to himself without real humor. Mercurial was a good word. Sociopath, psychopath, monster were just as fitting. Archer MacDonald, Princeton graduate, son of old money, had aristocratic good looks and charm that dazzled enough people that he’d managed to build an impressive power base. The man was brilliant, with ceaseless energy and ambition, from his starting point as a dot-com millionaire through his interest in highly illegal arms deals and drug exports, up to and including the creation of a mysterious new biological weapon, and he was a force to be reckoned with. It was no wonder he’d retreated to his private island where he could control his empire without interference.

  Not that Malcolm cared. He worked for the Committee, a covert, international organization that paid no attention to legal or moral implications in its quest to make the world a safer place. He’d spent the past two years in England, but now he was working out of the new American branch in New Orleans, disingenuously titled the American Committee for the Preservation of Democracy, and facing a whole new world of problems.

  The Committee wasn’t an entity that ignored flagrant danger, nor were the powers that be troubled by due process. Mal’s job was to charm Archer MacDonald right back, find out who his sources were for the biological weapon he was planning to distribute, and then kill the man.

  Escaping the island with his life after the deed was done was a given, of course. Whether he chose to save Archer’s wife was entirely up to him.

  He had no plans to have anything to do with her. He knew he might have to kill her if she got in his way. Intel about what actually went on at Isla Mordita was sketchy, but word was that things were not going well between Archer and his wife. From his research Mal knew that Sophie Jordan MacDonald was a smart woman—even if she’d been blinded by Archer in the first place she’d probably seen through him by now, almost three years after their hasty marriage. There was always the possibility she could be an ally to Mal, but he wasn’t going to count on that. She’d made a massive error in judgment by marrying Archer, believing in the charming front he presented to the world. If she had been too stupid to see through that front, then she was unlikely to provide much help. And she’d screwed the pooch three years ago, so no one really gave a damn about her.

  Including him. He could probably avoid killing her, and once Archer MacDonald was dead and the source of the weapon neutralized, the danger would be past. He’d make his getaway before any of MacDonald’s thugs could stop him, and the wife could figure her own way off the island, if she survived.

  He’d never known Sophie Jordan back when she’d first started working for the Committee—he’d been stationed in Africa—but he’d seen pictures of her, ordinary ones from her childhood in Virginia, photos after she’d gone through her training with the Committee. She’d been striking—even in the black-and-white photo he could see that her dark eyes were mesmerizing. They should have known better than to send a new trainee to Archer MacDonald, but back then his boss had his own agenda as far as the Committee was concerned.

  Mal preferred the new American branch. He’d spent the past four weeks at the old house in the Garden District in New Orleans, absorbing intel, training, letting his hair grow too long as he slowly became another person, and he wondered how Sophie Jordan had transitioned. After her time in the State Department and later under the shady auspices of the Committee in London, she could have been so used to acting a part that she might not have even known who she really was underneath. That was always a danger in this business.

  He was prepared for anything. He hadn’t gotten to where he was, survived as long as he had, without being able to handle the unexpected. The fact that he was tired, burned out, and edgy would make no difference, not in this operation. He’d deal with all that when he got back to New Orleans—assuming he did.

  He’d be a fool not to realize that any job might kill him. Hell, a taxicab coming around a corner might mow him down—there were no guarantees in life and particularly not in his. All he could do was look straight ahead to the job he was doing and ignore the rest. The past was done—nothing he could do to change it. Maybe the future would be better. Maybe
not.

  He thought back to Sophie Jordan. She might have thought she was getting out of the game when she fell in love with Archer MacDonald and married him. So she wasn’t entirely to blame for her stupidity. So many years ago she’d been sent with a small team for initial surveillance, her very first mission, and her job had been to watch and learn. Instead, she’d caught the eye of their target, and Archer’s sudden interest had been too good of a chance to let slip by. She’d been given the job to kill him, and instead she’d turned her back on the Committee and the world, believing him to be innocent. Malcolm doubted she was still as naïve, although how someone could have been that gullible in the first place, after all her training, eluded him. Only what passed for true love could cause someone to make such a fatal mistake. It was a damned good thing he knew true love was a myth.

  He leaned forward in the boat, staring into the darkness. He hadn’t been given a particular timeline for this job—it depended more on outside influences and how completely MacDonald believed him. Like how long it took him to discover where MacDonald was sourcing the potentially devastating new biological weapon that the Committee had picked up on its radar, and when he could neutralize that source. It was interesting that it had taken his supposed former involvement with the Committee to make Archer drop his guard enough to invite Mal to his island fortress. Most people didn’t even know the Committee existed, even those with the power and resources that Archer had. But then, it would never do to underestimate MacDonald. If he knew about the Committee, did that mean he knew about his wife having been sent to kill him? Most likely—three years was too long to live a lie, even the best of them. For all he knew, Sophie Jordan might be long gone. He didn’t think so.

  Archer didn’t do anything without a reason, and Mal was ready to move at the first hint of something off. He only hoped the mission wouldn’t take too long. Playing a part was something he did automatically, but he didn’t like it.

  I’m a machine, he told himself wryly, staring out into the darkening sky. He could see the distant outlines of the island up ahead, and he straightened, narrowing his eyes. For however long it took, he could be a machine—humanity was waiting for him back in New Orleans when he finished the job.

  He just wasn’t sure he was looking forward to it.

  Joe carried Sophie as carefully as he always did. She was wearing a long dress, one that covered her legs, and sandals on her feet. One of Archer’s servants had even appeared earlier and given her a pedicure, so that her toenails were a bright copper that matched the color of the dress. It had been hard as hell to remain limp and unmoving as Elena had manipulated her feet, but Sophie had practice from the hours of massage and rehabilitation she’d been put through, and she’d been motionless, listening to Elena’s chatter.

  She was sitting in her wheelchair now, in the huge living room of the old colonial mansion, one of the rooms that Archer had almost finished. The ceilings were twenty feet high, fans spinning lazily overhead, the walls painted a creamy coral, the furniture large and overstuffed. Not that she would know—she stayed in the wheelchair on the few occasions she’d been allowed down there. There was a new painting on top of the unnecessary fireplace—it looked like a French master and she had little doubt it was real. Archer liked the finer things in life, and he didn’t stint himself.

  “Darling!” her husband said, coming in one of the far doors, and she slapped a smile on her face, putting just the right amount of longing in her eyes. She would never give up trying to fool him, and she knew there was always just a drop of uncertainty in his hatred for her, the possibility that he might be wrong about her treachery.

  But Archer MacDonald was not a man who spent much time considering his own fallibility. He came over and embraced Sophie’s sitting body with careful enthusiasm, kissing her freshly painted mouth. “You look magnificent!”

  “So do you, Archer,” she said, trying to sound shy. It was nothing but the truth. Archer MacDonald was gorgeous. He’d been on People magazine’s list of sexiest men several times, as sexiest dot-com millionaire and then sexiest entrepreneur. Sophie had laughed at that term when she’d been doing her research before she’d met the man, thinking it was a naïve euphemism. And then she’d met him and drunk the Kool-Aid and everything had gone bad.

  “I won’t have you sitting in that fucking thing,” he said, swooping her into his arms and carrying her to the sofa. “We don’t need to be reminded that you’re a cripple.”

  She looked at him with composure. He always used the words to wound, but she was made of Teflon nowadays. Nothing could stick to her. “Thank you, Archer,” she murmured.

  He grinned at her. “Always happy to oblige,” he said, the smile never reaching his eyes. “Joe, make me a scotch on the rocks and a gin and tonic for my wife.”

  “Yes, sir.” The big man moved to the bar that was set up discreetly in one corner.

  To Sophie’s quickly masked horror Archer dropped down beside her, draping an arm on the sofa behind her back, casually domestic. “Any sign of our guest?”

  “Boat’s just docked,” Joe said. “I can keep Miss Sophie company if you want to go greet him.”

  Wrong thing to say, Joe, she thought. While Joe’s loyalties were firmly with Archer and always would be, he was fond of her. And Archer wouldn’t like that.

  “I think I know what I’m doing, Joe,” Archer said affably, his grin still in place. This time it even reached his eyes, Sophie thought with distant admiration. It was no wonder she’d been fooled.

  Archer moved a little closer to her, and she could smell his expensive cologne, feel his body heat, and the memory of sex came rushing back. She’d been celibate for more than two years now, and with Archer her only possibility, she intended to remain so. The thought of him touching her made her sick.

  Every now and then some new, good-looking man would show up on the island on some sort of business, and Archer would make certain Sophie got to meet him. She knew their practiced attempts at flirtation were on her husband’s orders, but too bad for Archer. She had no idea why he played that particular game—when he’d been in love with her he’d been uncomfortably possessive. Maybe he simply wanted to watch as someone else fucked her limp body—he was perverse enough. Maybe he wanted to watch as they blew her brains out.

  But all those handsome men left her cold. She’d learned her lesson: never again would she trust in some man, particularly in the high-stakes world she’d chosen for herself.

  Archer was watching her with seemingly tender amusement. No, the amusement was real, but the tenderness was not. She knew Archer had discovered what had first brought her into his orbit, though he’d never admitted it, never questioned her directly. He’d simply ordered one of his men to shoot her.

  She’d managed to survive, and instead of ordering a second attempt, Archer played the brokenhearted husband. For the first six or seven months she’d expected him to finish the job, but she’d been in too much pain to care. After that, once she started getting feeling back in her legs, she began to work on a way to stop him and his destructive plans.

  He was her husband, and at first she’d had enthusiastic sex with him, thought she was in love with him—until she’d slowly begun to realize what a colossal idiot she’d been. In the beginning she’d berated herself, hated herself. Not any longer. She was going to finish her mission.

  She wasn’t troubled by any qualms now. She’d shoot him and happily watch him die. She still hadn’t decided whether she’d make him suffer or not. She supposed it depended on the situation. If time was short, she’d shoot him in the head and have done with it. If she was alone with no imminent threat, then she might take her time, not just for her own sake but for the sake of all the people he’d destroyed over the years.

  Joe handed them their glasses, and she raised hers, clinking against her husband’s shorter one. “Cheers.”

  “Here’s to good health,” Archer responded, moving closer, the smell of the scotch outweighing the smell of
his cologne. “And a long life.”

  She noticed he didn’t say whom he wanted to have good health and a long life. She smiled sweetly. “Amen,” she murmured.

  “Mr. Gunnison,” Elena announced from the doorway, and Sophie turned her head at the same time Archer did, prepared to see another pretty boy offered up for her frustration. Suddenly, unbidden, came words from her favorite poet, Dorothy Parker. “What fresh hell is this?”

  Chapter Three

  He was a dangerous man. Sophie recognized it immediately, from his cool green eyes to the way he carried himself. He was tall, lean, with too-long dark hair brushing his shoulders, a narrow, clever face, and the sexiest mouth she’d ever seen. He wasn’t perfect—he had an imposing nose along with his high cheekbones, but overall he was mesmerizing, a far cry from the male catnip Archer usually dangled in front of her. She looked the stranger over, the black suit so well tailored that there was no way it could hide the bulge of a pistol, so he must be unarmed. That should have set her mind at ease, just a little bit, but her inner alarm kept blaring. Here was a man who was so dangerous he didn’t need a gun. Archer surrounded himself with lethal men, but this one was on a whole new level.

  Archer rose, setting his drink on the table beside his laptop, and moved forward, offering his hand in greeting. “Malcolm Gunnison! I never thought this day would come!”

  Sophie saw the tiniest hesitation before the man put his hand in Archer’s—not long enough for Archer to feel insulted, but just long enough to make it clear he wasn’t Archer’s patsy. Interesting, she thought, her wariness amping up.