“Pink team for the win!” I exclaimed before I could stop myself. It wasn't my fault, I'd been quiet for too long and wasn't thinking properly.
“Try the other numbers,” Joe instructed.
Nasir repeated his inquiry to every number in London while Joe started pinning the locations on a map. Most were at or near Bond Street, then a few near St. Pancras station until the first call to Yuri which was close to Kensington where Simon lived. Or stopped living, anyway.
“Bond Street is where the fashion boutiques are,” Bella said. “He could've been hanging around there, waiting for me.”
“They got lucky with that last time,” Joe said. Nasir didn't ask, so either Miko already told him the story half a dozen times, or he just didn't really care. Neither would've surprised me. “What do you say for travel time between those areas? A cab is doubtful. Tube or buses. Same guy, maybe two?”
Nasir confirmed that it was likely two. Frank hadn't been in the country in years, and Bella hadn't taken public transportation in decades. Then Nasir did the same with the Paris numbers which were fewer in number and inconclusive to anything.
Reviewing the sketches on the table, Nasir reached in front of Bella and picked one up. The drawing was of an English assassin, Sebastian, who with a name like that should've been on the pink team himself. According to Miko, Sebastian was one of only two assassins he'd ever heard of who preferred killing women over men. “I would not say this definitively, not at the risk to your lives, but if I had to guess this is Bond Street. Sebastian has always been the needy type.”
“Sebastian is a little bitch,” I said, then smiled at Nasir since that was obviously what he meant to say. He did not smile back. I wasn't sure if he even knew how.
Joe said, “We can nab him. Try our hands at torture again.” He briefly looked to Frank and continued, “He may be less resilient than Yuri.”
The decision to keep Frank out of London had been made a week ago, but in light of the recent mishap with Yuri it seemed more like a precaution because of him than for him. It hadn't gone unnoticed, but it was Casey who spoke up. “Can I just say something here? Simon was playing a game. The same ridiculous manipulation game Silva played. And maybe Yuri volunteered to kill my parents because he blames Frank for his friend getting killed—”
“István,” I interjected. “He drowned someone in a toilet.”
“But don't you think this could've all ended six months ago if it was that straightforward? Yuri could've come to the funeral and killed every one of us. Instead, they let us believe Roger Foster was guilty. I mean, the guy used his own name as his password, does he really sound like a person who would let someone else take credit for his work?”
“Yuri was prideful,” Nasir said.
“Right. And someone hanging out on Bond Street isn't after Frank. They're after Bella. Someone comes to Portland, they're not after Frank, they're after the people he cares about. And the people she cares about. Bella told Miko at Hector's funeral last year that Simon could've killed Ophelia so he would come after the book. Joe's the one who gave Simon that last job that got his guy killed.”
“Simon did blame you,” Nasir said to Joe.
“Right,” Casey said. “So let's not pretend that Frank's the only one being targeted here. For all we know, Simon was evening the score with Joe.”
Bella grabbed his collar and pulled him in for a rough, and gross kiss. “Why the fuck are you so good at this?”
“Blackberry jam, baby,” he said, which didn't make sense to anyone but them. What did make sense was that Casey understood people. He was an impeccable judge of character, and apparently motivations. “At any rate, there's no more reason to keep Frank away than Bella, and it's not like Sebastian could've also killed my parents so you can set the blender on pulse instead of puree and maybe get some questioning in.”
Everyone turned to Frank, who just winced and asked, “Puree?”
Casey shrugged. Whether he'd gotten on his soapbox so Frank could go to London or so Bella could stay in France was unclear but I'd personally prefer Frank be the one putting Sebastian in the blender. Well, I'd personally prefer Frank as my wingman when I put Sebastian in the blender, but still. Someone was making smoothies.
“What do you say, Joe?” I tried cracking my knuckles in a display of aggression, and to get attention, but only one of them popped and it kinda hurt.
“None of them know my face,” Miranda said. “I could do some window shopping, let you know if I spot him. You can hang back, out of sight.”
Joe sighed. “Okay, we'll do this. But you two are flying. Stay away from St. Pancras.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course we're flying.” If Joe thought for a second that Frank was going to take the fucking Eurostar under the English Channel he must've truly believed that Frank had lost his mind. Then I remembered the last flight Joe had booked for us. “Do I have to fly coach?”
“It's an hour long flight,” Joe said, as if that had anything to do with anything.
“I'm injured.” I held up my hand.
“Frank hurt both of his.” Joe patted me on the back as he stood from the table. “He gets first class.”
“It's only an hour,” Frank said glumly, and only then did it occur to me that no one had actually asked Frank whether he wanted to go, and Casey volunteering him for London duty was probably the worst thing he'd inadvertently done to Frank since shooting him in the foot.
“Wanna come to London with me, honey?” I raised my eyebrows suggestively. “We can play a little EastEnders if you know what I mean.”
Frank cocked his head but left Joe to express his sentiments. “I don't think anyone has any idea what that means, Vincent.”
I might've actually admitted that it didn't make any sense but Nasir awkwardly raised his hand and said, “I understood what he meant. However, I do not believe it was appropriate for mixed company.”
“Welcome to chez Sullivan-Moreaux,” I said. “You'd best get used to that.” I kissed the back of Frank's neck. “Come with me, you miserable limey. We can make some margaritas.”
“That was a lime and blender reference?” Frank asked stoically.
I winked at him. “You know it, baby.”
He smiled just slightly, like he was playing along with me. Then he turned to Joe and said, “Put him in coach.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Heathrow was not nice that time of year, or at least it wasn't as soon as we got there. Only a little over week later, and it was like the fair weather I'd had on my last trip had never existed. It was pouring down rain, which delayed our landing and made the flight way longer than an hour. Frank didn't gloat. Gloating would've expressed far too much joy. Frank had an expression like he'd been standing in the rain for the last way longer than an hour, rather than sitting in his comfy fancy rich person seat. He trailed behind me through the airport so he could properly sulk while looking out for assassins.
Airports weren't really the best places for it. Neither were train stations, or anywhere with metal detectors. But if they knew we were traveling between England and France they'd be more likely to find us there than anywhere else. Except maybe Bond Street.
Miranda had gone ahead of us the day before to scope things out, and by the time our flight had arrived, she'd already spent that morning and well into the afternoon making purchases on Bella's credit cards. But so far there was no sign of Sebastian and we were instructed to get settled in rather than head out to do some shopping of our own.
I was in a hurry to get my hands dirty, especially since Frank kept going nuts and killing without me, but I was also in a hurry to get Frank back to our hotel so he could talk dirty to me in the accent he'd undoubtedly picked up. With as annoyed as he looked just being in the country, he would certainly have plenty of terrible things to say, though probably not terrible sexy things.
We kept our distance on the Tube, and I got to be the one to bump into Joe so he could slip me the keycard for the hotel he'd acqu
ired. Frank stayed back, taking it all in with a glare that was somehow that much hotter this side of the English Channel.
“Why do we keep traveling to places I hate?” he asked, in French, as soon as we were reunited in our hotel room.
“To kill people.” I kissed him and tried shoving him onto the bed, but he barely swayed with the force and then shoved me on instead. “Say something British.”
“Rain you could drown in,” he said dryly. Without the accent.
“Try again.”
“Tea. Misery.”
“You're gonna force me to cheer you up.”
“Impossible,” he pronounced, quite Britishly, a smile already on his face despite his best efforts to brood.
“Let's make some good memories.”
He gave me a smug, challenging smirk. “Impossible.”
I pulled my shirt off and threw it in his face. He held it there for a moment, closing his eyes and smelling it before folding it and setting it aside. But when I continued my striptease by getting ready to throw my first shoe at his head he put his foot down, wrestling it out of my hand and wrestling my hands above my head.
“Say 'cheerio'.”
“No.”
“Say 'bollocks'.”
“No.”
“Say you love me.”
He smiled and sat back on his heels. “Yes.”
I kicked off my other shoe and waited for him to do the rest, since my hands were still where he'd left them and if he wasn't going to tie me up I was going to just have to pretend.
“EastEnders, huh?” he asked once I was naked, getting the hint and going through my bag for some proper restraints. Which I hadn't packed. The closest thing to rope that I had were headphones, but those were so we could play walkie talkies with Miranda when she found Sebastian.
“It's a soap opera. A British one.” Which was why I'd never watched it around Frank.
Setting aside my bag, Frank relented and used his belt to strap my wrists to the headboard. I shamelessly suggested, “If you don't feel like talking you could...”
“Subtle.”
“You're the one opposed to speaking.”
He traced his fingertip over the head of my cock, but I could already tell it would take more than coming in his mouth to spread some English cheer. I pressed my foot against his chest and gently kicked him away. “Untie me. I'll be damned if I let you give me the saddest blowjob in the world after having to ride in coach.”
Frank laughed and did as instructed, watching intently as I jumped off the bed and dug through the pockets of my discarded pants for lube. I tugged his shirt over his head and shoved him onto his back, then unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down around his ankles.
“You, sir, are going to enjoy yourself even if I have to do all the work.” I squeezed lube over his cock, hoping it was cold enough to make him suffer, while still hoping it wasn't cold so I wouldn't have to endure any decrease of size.
Frank raised his eyebrows as I straddled him. I'd never properly ridden him, partially because I liked the comfort of his weight on me but mostly because I was lazy. He brought his hands to my hips to guide me onto his cock and I smacked them away.
“No. First you're going to smile.”
He gave me his I'm-smiling-against-my-will smile and promptly returned to resting bitch face. Then he promptly returned his hands to my hips. I smacked him again and lowered myself just far enough to touch him. And test my resolve. Now he really smiled, knowing that any amount of denial on my part would be felt far more severely on my end.
“See? That wasn't so hard.”
“Wasn't it?” He put his hands behind his head like he could wait for this all day.
“Oh my god you suck,” I grumbled and dropped down on him fully. Then I sighed with relief, placing my hands on his chest and just rocking with the pleasure of him inside me before I actually exerted myself.
It took a lot of legwork to get the deep plunge I craved, to have his full length in and out of me, but the smile hadn't left his face as he watched me suffer for it. “I'm glad you're enjoying this,” I panted.
“Cheerio,” he said contentedly. “Bollocks.” He pulled his hands out from under his head, but instead of lifting me he grabbed hold and flipped me onto my back to fuck me like I deserved, pounding me until I forgot who was trying to cheer up who. Somehow we both ended up in a jovial mood. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said. And as my cellphone rang at the perfect post-coital time, it seemed god up above also loved us.
It was Miranda. “I just spotted him,” she said. “He's at Tiffany's.”
Chapter Thirty
We exited the Green Park Tube station since it was closest to Tiffany's, Frank keeping to one side of Bond Street and me walking parallel to him on the other. Traffic was heavy, buses continually blocking my sight line of not only my husband but the entire other side of the street.
Miranda had lost him during the time we'd lost her underground, but now she was ahead of us, calling off the names of shops as she went by so we could track her movement, me with headphones and Frank on Bluetooth, much to his dismay.
I could see the trademark blue color flags hanging outside of Tiffany's on Frank's side of the street and I kept heading up the street, only now I had “Santa, Baby” stuck in my head and it was likely to be there until Christmas.
“Cartier. I don't see him,” Miranda said fretfully. She must've been painfully aware that Joe loved me more than he loved her, and if she got me killed he'd probably never forgive her. “Bvlgari. Damnit he was just here.” She made a groaning sound and for a second I thought Sebastian had gotten her, but she was really groaning at me. “Vincent, please stop humming that awful song.”
“Someone's getting coal for Christmas,” I snipped, stopping to admire myself in a shop window before moving along. It was possible he'd crossed to my side, but the end result would be the same. We needed to lure him away from the area, get him to follow whoever he picked as his bait so we could follow him. I was better bait of course, and I would've certainly looked like a lost tourist, glancing around to keep an eye on Frank and an eye out for Sebastian.
“Miu Miu,” she sighed. She was a ways ahead of us according to the map of shops but we still had plenty of ground to cover. Then she gasped and said “Coach,” and I practically skipped. He'd crossed over. “He's heading your way. Dark trench coat, carrying a Tesco bag.”
Fixing my hair in anticipation of my dramatic entrance, I sped up, the thrill of the hunt in full force. Dark trench coats were plentiful on this dreary London day, but I let instinct take over, averting my eyes from the throngs of travelers, letting him be the one to see me first.
I knew Frank was watching me, I'd never felt his gaze leave me for more than a second. But now I felt another's gaze and I innocently raised my eyes to our mark. Pausing long enough for him to get the full effect of my deer in headlights expression, I turned around and started walking quickly in the other direction.
Pulling out my dummy cellphone, I looked anxiously over my shoulder as I pretended to dial for help and then clumsily let the phone fall out of my hands onto the sidewalk. It broke apart beautifully, which he unfortunately wouldn't be able to see from where he was, but I was method acting, damnit. I scrambled to pick up the pieces and kept moving, all alone in the world with no one to protect me.
Sebastian was gaining speed but a professional wouldn't be stupid enough to kill me on the street in the middle of the afternoon. As he closed the distance between us I feigned an attempt at putting the shards of phone together again, looking back to him once more before glancing to my left to cross Conduit Street.
And then promptly remembering that traffic didn't come that way.
I leaped out of the path of the honking, careening car, quite proud of my amazing catlike reflexes when I landed on my feet completely unscathed. Until I turned around and saw the car smashed against the building, Sebastian and his not as good reflexes crushed between bum
per and bricks. He was folded over the hood, blood coming out of his mouth as he stared right at me with an expression like he wasn't sure whether I'd actually killed him or this was a total freak accident, and he wasn't thrilled about it either way.
“Bloody American,” Sebastian choked out, which settled the panicking driver enough to remember why his insurance was about to go up. He turned an accusatory eye on me but I was too busy gaping at a fuck up that I couldn't possibly blame on Frank to let some shitty British driver make me feel guilty.
Frank's voice came over my earphones, the first thing he'd said since we got off the Tube, “Was that pulse, or puree?”
“Um?”
“Get the fuck out of there, V,” he said impatiently, as if I hadn't allowed him to revel in his own savagery. I'd even been considerate enough to record it for him.
“Tea time!” I exclaimed and fled the scene.
Chapter Thirty-One
It was raining again as Frank made his way back to their hotel. He wasn't angry about what had happened. He wasn't even particularly disappointed, even though this would likely be their last chance at finding someone to torture for information. He was just annoyed. Annoyed to be there, annoyed by the situation, and extremely annoyed with the Alcotts.
This was the London he knew and loathed. A state of perpetual misery on the faces of everyone he passed on the street. The smell of damp. Of rotting. But Frank did know London, knew it especially well in his present state, and he was wandering through Knightsbridge Station before even noticing he'd taken the wrong train to their hotel.
What he'd planned to do there was a mystery, and with an increased paranoia over not only being killed by Simon's men, but done in by his own head, he boarded the right train.
Vincent was in bed, the TV on, the sound muted. He was holding his temples but this was a dramatic, rather than pained posture. He straightened up, registering whatever expression was on Frank's face. “What took you so long?” he asked. “I thought you were right behind me.”
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