Undercover Attraction

by Katee Robert

  They quickly outlined the issue to James, who cursed. “How much open ground is there around the warehouses?”

  “Too much.” Romanov circled a finger around the southern one. “And Alethea owns the surrounding buildings, effectively removing the ability to get a clear shot.”

  So snipers were out. They could theoretically work their way through any sentries in the buildings, but it would take time that they didn’t have, and if one of the Eldridge guards got out a call for help, it would ruin everything.

  Aiden could feel the seconds ticking down. If Mae had visited both warehouses, it meant she was trying to confuse the trail—and she hadn’t been at Charlie nonstop for the last hour and a half. He had to hold on to that knowledge, because if he thought too closely about what she was going through—and whose fault it was—he’d drive himself mad.

  “Then stealth is out to some extent.” Aiden looked up at Romanov, his fear for Charlie threatening to get the best of him. Was he content to play “Who Has the Biggest Dick?” when her life was on the line? No fucking way. “What do you suggest?”

  To Dmitri’s credit, he didn’t gloat. “If they follow the same schedule they have for the last eighteen months, their guards will change shifts at three. If we attack in the midst of that, it will confuse things and give us the chance we need in order to succeed without undue casualties.”

  Without Charlie being killed.

  Aiden looked at his watch, feeling sick. “That’s two hours from now.”

  “Yes, it is.” There was no sympathy on the man’s face. “Can your woman hold up for that long without breaking?”

  She could. He knew she could. But that didn’t mean he wanted her to have to. Charlie had been to hell and back because of the man in front of him, and now Romanov was telling him that she’d have to do it again. He couldn’t blame the Russian this time. The only person who’d put her firmly in the path of danger was Aiden himself.

  He stared at the map. “What do you think our odds are if we attack now?”

  “Perhaps fifty-fifty. If we wait until the shift change, I would increase that to seventy-five–twenty-five.”

  He didn’t like either of those odds, but he wasn’t going to be happy with odds that weren’t 100 percent in favor of her getting out of that warehouse safely. “We’re not leaving her in there.”

  “You’re risking a significant amount.”

  “Yes. I am.” She was being hurt right this goddamn second. If he’d left her in that little bar two weeks ago, she’d be safe right now. It was his fault she had a target painted on her back, and he wasn’t going to leave her to bear the burden of it. “We’ll get her out. Now. I’ll take my men here.” He pointed to the north warehouse. Aiden was pretty damn sure that was the same one where he and Charlie had gone to play poker last week. “Halloran, you will hit this one.” He moved his hand to the south building. “Romanov, you will split your men between us.”

  “We’ll talk about your giving me orders another time.”

  Yeah, just like they’d talk about Romanov’s determination to make Keira his wife another time. Aiden looked up and met his gaze directly. “Tonight, we’re allies. This isn’t the timeline we’d set up, but it will serve the same purpose. Once the Eldridge threat is eliminated, we’ll get back to politicking and that other bullshit.”

  “Indeed.” Romanov moved to a cabinet built into the center of the shelves and pulled out a bottle of vodka and three tumblers. “I know you Irish with your unrefined palates enjoy your whiskey, but you’ll have to make do with vodka tonight.”

  “Now isn’t the time to be drinking.”

  “We’re about go into battle. It’s the perfect time to be drinking.”

  Aiden took the tumbler without another word and downed the entire thing. It burned his throat, and he welcomed the feeling. Two years ago, the three of them would have happily gunned each other down in the street, and yet here they stood, ready to take on a mutual enemy and trusting one another other not to fuck them over. He looked at Dmitri Romanov and James Halloran and wondered how they’d gotten to this point.

  Love, you idiot.

  His thoughts once again turned to Charlie. He hadn’t told her he loved her, hadn’t wanted to scare her more than she already was. He regretted that now. Didn’t he know better? There were no guarantees in life—especially a life like theirs. They had to live and love and do whatever it took to keep moving forward.

  He had to believe that she’d walk out of that warehouse. She’d faced down more than her fair share of shit, and Mae might be the worst yet, but Charlie was so damn strong. She’d survive. She had to.

  Stay strong, bright eyes. Just stay strong.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Charlie had thought she was tough. She might not have always admitted that to herself, but it had been a deep core belief she’d needed to keep moving. Being at Mae’s mercy threatened to prove her wrong a hundred times over. Time lost meaning as Mae asked her questions over and over again. A cut here. A punch there. More questions.

  To which she claimed she didn’t know. She denied. She did anything but give Mae the information she wanted.

  The woman had taken a call maybe five minutes ago, which was just long enough for the hopelessness of Charlie’s situation to sink in. She shifted and winced. She definitely had a broken rib—or three—and her exposed skin was covered in blood from the shallow cuts Mae seemed to enjoy giving her. It was more blood than she should be losing, but overall she wasn’t in danger of dying. Yet.

  With each minute that passed, she was less and less likely to make it out of this warehouse alive.

  The door opened, and she tensed. Mae strode in, a smile on her face. “Now that that little task is off my plate, I can devote the rest of the night to you.”

  There couldn’t be that much of the night left. She’d been snatched off the street around nine, and it had taken several hours to make the drive to New York from Boston, even if Mae had broken all the speed limits. It might feel like she’d been torturing her forever, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or two. She didn’t know if that was comforting or if it meant that Mae planned to condense a whole lot of pain into a very short period of time.

  Mae disappeared deeper into the warehouse and came back with a giant jug of water and a hand towel. Charlie stared, her entire body shaking. She wasn’t afraid of being cut or beaten. She’d experienced both before and lived to tell the tale. Being shot? It would suck, but it was a risk she’d had to come to terms with before she became a cop.

  But drowning?

  Drowning scared the shit out of her.

  When she was twelve, she’d heard some of the older cops joke about waterboarding terrorists, and she’d even gone so far as to ask her dad about it after. John Finch wasn’t one to coddle his daughter, so he’d sat her down and explained how it worked. She’d had nightmares for weeks afterward, though she’d managed to stifle her screams so that her dad never knew.

  Mae saw where her attention was, and her smile widened. “If it’s good enough for the US government, it’s good enough for you, don’t you think?”

  “I’m ready to talk.” Anything to keep that water away from her.

  “You’re just going to lie some more.” Mae sighed. “Though I suppose you can’t answer questions if you’re hacking up water. Okay, I’ll play. Let’s have a chat.” She grabbed a nearby chair and turned it around so she could straddle it, resting her chin on the back.

  The woman looked so … young. Maybe even innocent. She was all smiles and big brown eyes—at least, as long as Charlie didn’t pay attention to the knife she’d set close enough to grab with ease. I’m in a nightmare. I’m going to wake up soon.

  She knew it was a lie. This wasn’t some construct of her sleeping brain. This was real.

  “How does a cop’s daughter end up engaged to Aiden O’Malley?” Mae picked up the knife and ran her finger along the edge.

  Charlie debated lying, but she didn’t
see much point in it now. These questions were a formality. If Mae knew who she really was, then she knew that Charlie never would have ended up with Aiden unless there was an ulterior motive involved. “He wanted my help bringing down Dmitri Romanov.”

  Mae blinked. “What makes you so special?”

  She’d been asking herself that for most of the time they’d been together. As time had gone on, it was clear he hadn’t needed her. Not really. He could have accomplished his goals without the charade of being engaged. It added a layer that didn’t make sense. But she’d been so blinded by her need to make Dmitri pay that she hadn’t cared about the inconsistencies as long as the end result remained the same. Then sex came into the picture and further muddied the waters.

  Apparently, she’d taken too long to answer, because Mae swiped out with the knife, leaving another blazing trail in its wake, this time across Charlie’s thigh. “Hey, I’m asking you a question. If you don’t want to talk, we can skip right to the next event.”

  Waterboarding.

  She tried to swallow her fear, but it lodged in her throat. “I don’t know why he picked me.” There were plenty of women who would have jumped at the chance. Yes, she was qualified because she knew the world he moved in, at least in theory, but since he’d mostly kept her contained to the house, it wasn’t necessary knowledge.

  “You don’t seem to know much.” Mae tapped the knife against her lip, leaving dots of Charlie’s blood shining against her red lipstick.

  She met her gaze directly, and Charlie realized this had all been a game. She didn’t have any answers that Mae needed. The woman was playing with her the way a cat toyed with a mouse before ripping off its head.

  “I know!” Mae cocked her head to the side, her expression brightening. “Maybe it’s because you’re John Finch’s daughter.”

  “What?”

  Mae continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Yes, I think that’s it after all. You see, your daddy is a pain in the ass of every single family-run business on the eastern seaboard. So imagine my surprise when I discover that his beloved only child is fucking Aiden O’Malley.”

  “I think ‘beloved’ child is going a bit far.”

  “Do you?” Mae casually drew the knife across Charlie’s other thigh. “I think that John Finch is a man with no weaknesses—at least at first glance. You know what I also think?”

  Charlie gritted her teeth, the pieces slowly coming together. This isn’t about Aiden at all. “I think you’re dying to tell me.”

  “I think every single one of us—Eldridge, Romanov, O’Malley, and the rest—would cut off our own nose to spite John Finch.” She grinned, eyes cold. “Or maybe I’ll just cut off yours instead.”

  I should have gotten in that car that Dad sent.

  She’d been so incredibly blind. So sure of her righteous rage. So sure that her dad was wrong—about Aiden and about her. “What exactly are you hoping to accomplish?”

  “I’ll settle with breaking John Finch’s heart.” She leaned forward and tapped Charlie in the chest. “When I’m done with you, I’m going to send him yours in a box. If that doesn’t break him, then maybe your daddy really doesn’t love you.”

  It was a lose-lose situation. It didn’t matter if she protested, because Mae was going to do what she promised, if only to see how Charlie’s dad reacted. Would it break him? She didn’t know. Frankly, she was more concerned with getting out of this mess alive, but she didn’t know how she was going to accomplish that quite yet.

  She wouldn’t give up.

  She’d done that once before, and maybe things would have been different if she’d been more stubborn. Fought harder. Something.

  “Aiden will come for me.” The words were out before she could think better of them.

  Mae laughed. “Aiden is fucking you for the same reason I have the itch to cut off that cute little nose of yours. Your world and ours don’t mix. If he told you they do, he was trying to sell you something.”

  Wasn’t that exactly what Charlie was afraid of?

  He told me he wants to make a go of it. He might not have told me immediately about Romanov, but he did tell me.

  It came down to who she trusted more—Mae, who was telling her everything that dark voice inside her suspected, or Aiden, who had offered her hope several times over in the last few weeks. Last time she’d been faced with this choice, she’d listened to the voice that whispered she deserved whatever she got, because she’d never be good enough no matter how hard she tried.

  She wasn’t listening to that voice anymore.

  Charlie lifted her chin and stared the other woman in the eyes. Maybe if she could provoke Mae, the woman would offer her an opening. Or maybe the psycho would just kill her that much quicker.

  “You can pretend this is about my father all you want, but we both know the truth—you’re jealous because you want Aiden’s cock and I’m the one who has it. He knew you were practically panting for it, and instead he tracked down me—a cop’s kid—to play house.” She tilted her head to the side. “Or was it Dmitri’s cock you wanted? It’s really difficult to keep track. No one wants you, Mae. Not even the monsters.”

  “Aiden chose you—”

  “Because he wants me.” Charlie tried for a saucy grin, but it hurt too much to look truly convincing. “If he really wanted to hurt my dad, he would have snatched me off the street the same way you did.” She jerked her chin at the warehouse around them, and then lowered her voice. “Though, honey, seriously, he would have done the whole torture bit with more pizzazz.”

  “Bitch.” Mae slid forward, tipping her chair onto two legs, getting right in Charlie’s face. “I’m going to send your engagement ring back to that bastard—with your finger attached.”

  Charlie head-butted her. It wasn’t a clean hit, but she felt Mae’s nose give. The woman screamed and hit the ground, blood pouring from her nose. Charlie stared at her, weaving despite being tied to the chair. Going to have a hell of a headache if I live through this.

  She would have kicked Mae while she was down, but her ankles were zip-tied to the damn chair. She couldn’t even work up the fluid to spit on the fallen woman, but she managed to say, “You talk too much.”

  * * *

  Aiden moved through the dark, Romanov at his side. He wasn’t too keen on the arrangement, but it was a necessary evil—James was liable to snap Romanov’s neck if he had the opportunity. They approached the side of the north warehouse facing the water. There were two men milling near the door. The guards.

  They didn’t break their stride, moving almost as one. He shot the man on the left, and saw the one on the right drop at nearly the same moment. The silencers on their guns made the smallest of sounds as they delivered death. It didn’t seem right. Death should be an event—something loud and impossible to ignore.

  But the guards’ silent slide to the ground suited his purposes. He glanced back without slowing down. Mark and his men would remove the bodies and take out their replacements, leaving Aiden and Dmitri free to search the warehouse. There was a second team coming in from the back with the same intention. At the south warehouse, James was doing the same thing. One of them would find her.

  They had to.

  He strode into the warehouse and froze. Charlie sat in the middle of the space, her head lolling, covered in so much blood it was a wonder she had any left in her body. He started for her, but Romanov threw out a hand and stopped him short. “Not yet.”

  That’s when he noticed the moaning body at Charlie’s feet. Mae.

  Aiden shoved Romanov’s hand away and stalked across the space. A movement in the hallway between two stacks of pallets morphed into a massive man who looked intent on murder. Aiden didn’t give him the chance to take another step. He shot him.

  He kicked the chair across from Charlie out of the way and pointed the gun at Mae.

  “Wait.” Charlie’s voice rasped through the roaring in his ears.

  He didn’t look away from the woman on the gr
ound. “This is the only way.”

  “Aiden, wait.”

  He kicked the knife away from Mae’s side and then used the same foot to flip her over onto her back. Her nose was definitely broken, the bottom half of her face covered in blood. She blinked stupidly at him. “What are you doing here?” The words came out jumbled.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you.”

  “Aiden.” Charlie took a shuddering breath. “Aiden, call my dad. Do this the right way. Please.”

  He didn’t want to. Mae was a threat—even if the theoretical trial managed to come down in their favor and put her behind bars, she could orchestrate a whole lot of damage from a prison cell. “You won’t be safe as long as she’s alive.” His finger hovered on the trigger, his need to keep Charlie safe overriding everything else.

  But if he shot Mae right now in cold blood, he’d lose Charlie forever.

  He took one step back, and then another. “Romanov, get something to tie her with.”

  “This is a mistake.” But the Russian did as he asked.

  Aiden grabbed the knife from the ground and moved to cut Charlie’s ties. “How hurt are you?”

  “I’m alive.”

  It was an answer and no answer at all. He kept a hand on her shoulder so she wouldn’t slump out of the chair, and moved around to check her injuries. There were shallow cuts everywhere, but judging from the amount of blood that was half-dried, she wouldn’t bleed out like he’d feared before they could get to safety. He glanced over to make sure Romanov had secured Mae and then back to Charlie. “Fuck, Charlie.” He kissed her, quick and light, and then picked her up to cradle her against his chest. “Let’s go home.”

  The fact that she didn’t argue with his carrying her told him exactly how hurt she was. He turned to Romanov, but the Russian had a phone to his ear and a vaguely annoyed look on his face. He hung up and slipped it into his pocket. “We have to leave now.”

  “Cops?”