by Dianna Love
“Diabolical wasn’t it?” Frank continued, as if I were paying attention. “Suzette was the one who came across the drug initially when her uncle, who was a French research scientist, described it to her. Originally the drug was designed to help women in therapy but instead could be used against them. Suzette saw its larger and darker potential but needed to be able to test it before buyers would fork over the kind of money she wanted for it. Only drawback to the drug seemed to be that mostly women were susceptible to it.”
Including Dominique.
As if I’d spoken aloud, Frank said, “Yes, I caught the irony that Dominique was caught in her own web.”
Too bad Bran saw me as solely responsible for killing her. Another thing I refused to think about. Instead I asked, “What happened to the uncle?”
“He died from a hit and run accident.”
“How convenient.”
“Wasn’t it?” He rolled his eyes ala the old Franco. “Suzette no doubt went to work for Dominique with one goal in mind, to use the tour, and its access to women all over the world—”
“Women who in turn had access to anything from art to government intel.”
“Precisely. It was the perfect staging ground. Different victims. Different thefts. Different locales so law enforcement wouldn’t add up all the pieces until it was too late. Which it almost was.”
“So what alerted Interpol?”
“Suzette got greedy, using more and more of the thefts to create a cash flow while she waited for the big break. We couldn’t link them to her because the money she was making was channeled through her uncle’s accounts. Accounts she could use because she was the executor of his estate.”
“So Suzette’s cash flow didn’t alert anyone,” I said.
Frank nodded. “A few less jobs, or a few less valuable pieces stolen and Suzette might have realized her ultimate plan. As it was she created a strong body of evidence that the drug worked.”
And to think the woman was only human. Who knew what she might have done if she’d been involved with the non-humans.
“And Dominique?”
“Suzette saw all too quickly that Dominique could also be manipulated, so she used Dominique’s need to be a true power-player, coming out from Bran’s shadow. Suzette brought Dominique into the scheme in small stages until the woman was truly committed.”
I leaned closer. “And the non-human element? Did Suzette know what she was getting involved in?”
“I don’t think it mattered, but by bringing in Dominique, Suzette altered others who saw the potential in the drug, too.”
“Against humans.”
“If humans were the enemy, then yes. Dominique won’t have cared so much if humans were casualties. She was willing to do anything, including destroy Bran.”
My heart twisted. He hadn’t deserved more betrayal from his family.
“That part I don’t understand.” I let my anger slip into my words. “Bran had made her successful.”
“Successful in some ways, yes, but it was always his name on everyone’s tongue. He was the one with the ultimate power. She wanted what he had only more.” He lowered his voice as he asked, “Did you figure out what she was? I never did.”
“She was a Grimple. More demon than human. Very nasty.”
“I so agree.” Frank shuddered, not that I blamed him.
“So possessing and selling the drug was going to set Dominique up in a different league than Bran,” I mused aloud.
“While destroying him at the same time.”
For that alone I could hate the woman. My tone didn’t hide my disgust. “Nice lady.”
“Not very.” Frank’s frown agreeing with mine. “But then ‘nice’ was never a word one associated with Dominique.”
True. “So what happens now?” I asked. “To you?”
“Me? Why I go back to work. I do such a fabulous job.”
I couldn’t help the grin. The first one in days. My Franco was not gone all together.
“And you?” He asked, his brows angled. “What happens with you and Bran?”
“Nothing.” The word sputtered out. “There is no Bran and me.”
“Come, come, dahling, this is Franco here. There is no need to prevaricate with me.”
“I’m not—”
“Of course you are.” He moued his lips, which looked odd on him now. “This will never do. I owe Bran. You know he stepped in front of me when Dominique simply wanted to kill me. He earned a nasty blow for his efforts and Dominique’s shot landed in my shoulder instead of somewhere more vital.”
“I didn’t know he’d interceded.” The move sounded like something he’d do, heroic and foolish at the same time. “By the way, what happened then? Had she discovered who you were?”
“Sadly, yes. It seems Suzette forced Sasha to tell everything she knew before she was killed. Sasha didn’t know anything about you and a little too much about me.”
“So Dominique knew you were MI-6 since the yacht?”
“Yes, which was another reason Suzette placed the knife in my room, as an attempt to remove me from the scene. But when that didn’t work, thanks to you, Dominique had to bide her time until she could eliminate me. But enough about me, we’re discussing you and Bran.”
Time to nip this in the bud. “Listen closely, Frank, as I’m only going to say this once. There is no Bran and me. End of story.”
“That’s not what he said.”
That quick my emotions slammed to the fore. Which was ridiculous. The mission was over, the man was out of my life. He had his world, I had mine.
Franco leaned closer, his eyes gleaming. “I know for a fact he wondered where you went.”
“Why?
“Pshhh.” It was a classic Franco sound. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid to talk with him?”
“Course, I’m not.” I clamped both hands around my mug, glad it was sturdy stoneware and not porcelain. “There’s nothing to say. Job’s over.”
“Job might be.” He made to rise. “But the relationship isn’t.” Looking out the window as he added, “And since I owe not only Bran, but you, too, for saving my life, I’ve decided to help you.”
“Help me what?”
He slid a piece of paper onto the tabletop.
I eyed it as I would a poisoned rattler. “What’s that?”
“It’s where Bran is now. His corporate offices are here in D.C.”
Another thing I didn’t know about Bran. I shifted clenched shoulders. “I told you—”
“You do not strike me as a woman who fears much. And yet you fear intimacy.”
“You know nothing about me.” I kept my voice low, hard as it was.
He leaned over the table, his eyes serious, more the seasoned agent than the Franco I’d known. “You’re right, I don’t know a lot about you, about your background, about what drives you, but there is one thing I do know.”
He paused until I bit the bullet, strangled my coffee cup instead of him, and asked, “So what do you know?”
He whispered. “I know that even folks like us deserve a life.” Then he straightened, adjusting the sleeves of his jacket just so. “Think about it. Bran’s there now. Don’t be afraid.”
Afraid my hiney. Noziaks didn’t do fear.
I so was not afraid.
Liar.
Okay, maybe I was, just a little, but not about intimacy.
Liar.
I’d had sex with the man, and more than that I’d shared magic with him; what was more intimate than that?
I didn’t even wait for my answer as I slammed to my feet. I’d show Frank, and myself, that I wasn’t afraid. I could at least talk to Bran. Say my official goodbyes, if that’s what I chose to do. What was the harm in a final farewell?
Besides, if I didn’t say goodbye in person, my team would never let me live it down.
Yup, I’d do this for the team.
But before I left I turned to Frank and asked, “Do you know anything about my brother V
an? Dominique mentioned Paris.”
“Sorry, kiddo. I’ve been out of the loop.”
He must have noticed the slump to my shoulders as he leaned forward. “But if I do hear anything, I’ll be in touch.”
It was enough for now. I waved him away, catching the other women in the coffee shop checking him out as he walked away. Franco the stud-muffin. Who knew.
But there was another stud-muffin I needed to see. No time like the present.
CHAPTER 66
Vaverek feared no man, but the one who sat behind the Eames desk, so casual, so controlled, made the blood in him freeze.
“Is he still alive?” the cultured voice asked, his face in shadows though afternoon sun streamed through the window behind him. Parisian sun, unlike anything else on earth. Vaverek was a pragmatist more than anything and yet he still enjoyed the light of Montmartre.
But for how long?
“I asked—”
“I know what you asked.” Vaverek stepped forward, aware of the sweat dampening upon his skin, aware the other could smell his fear, but knowing this one only respected arrogance. “I also know my job. He’s alive.”
For now.
“Good.” The man picked up a letter opener. A very old, very sharp instrument but then the way Vaverek had heard it, this man could make an ice cube into a weapon.
Not an individual a smart person wanted to cross and Vaverek prided himself on his brains. More brains than most of his kind.
“If the shifter dies, you die,” the other spoke again, voice husky and low.
“I am aware of this.”
“Good. We don’t want any mistakes.”
Then they should have told him earlier not to be so rough. First they wanted only information, all of it, and the quicker the better. Then they changed their minds.
Vaverek cleared his throat, aware asking too many questions could be lethal, but being kept in the dark could be, too. “I can’t promise how long—”
The hand holding the instrument stilled. “A few more days.”
He nodded. “That I can do.” He inhaled the first breath he’d taken since reaching this office with its view of the Eiffel Tower beyond the bank of windows. “But I can’t promise much longer. Even shifters can die.”
“As can we all.” It wasn’t the words but the tone that had Vaverek stepping back.
But the man wasn’t looking at him, those ice eyes watching the opener slide through his fingers. It was as if Vaverek didn’t exist.
Vaverek cleared his throat. “I’ll be going then.”
The other raised one manicured hand and waved him off. Only after Vaverek had left did he lift his landline and punch in the single digit number. He spoke before the other said hello. “Is she coming?”
The woman answered. “We expect confirmation at any moment.”
“Alone?”
“No.” A pause. “But we’ve taken that into account.”
“I want her.”
“Patience. A few more days, then she’s yours.”
“And the brother is yours.”
“It’s good to work with a professional.” A click.
He returned the phone to its cradle. At last, the pieces were coming together. Alex Noziak would be his.
The next stage would begin.
CHAPTER 67
I found him at the address Franco had given me. Sexy, difficult, out-of-my-reach Bran. He was bent over a worktable, Collette at his side, gesturing over a set of drawings when I arrived and was shown into the house by a silent butler who asked no questions once I gave my name.
And now I was here and Bran was there, just across the room. I jammed my hands in my jean pockets as I cleared my throat and he glanced up. His gaze lasered in on mine as the room shrank in size. He looked tired, strain bracketing his eyes, his lips pressed in a flat line, even as he straightened and stilled.
“Alex.”
The single word had my mouth going dry.
“Bran.”
“Well.” Collette cleared her throat and glanced between us. “Since I’ve become a third wheel, I’ll take that as my clue to leave. Nice to see you, Alex.”
She left in a flurry of motion. Not that I really noticed. Not while Bran continued to drill me with his gaze. Why didn’t he say anything?
Damn him anyway.
“You disappeared.”
At last he broke the impasse, though it sounded more like an accusation than a hello.
“My job was finished.”
“It always comes down to that, doesn’t it?” His tone was harsh, his gaze bleak. “A job?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have to kill her?” How like a warlock, a jab to the jugular, no slow finesse.
I answered with the truth. “I don’t know.”
“Have it your way.” He glanced away and shut me out.
But I hadn’t come this far to get dismissed. I swallowed hard and stepped deeper into the room. Hearing my own fears. Parasitic witch. Killer. Murderer.
Well, phooey on all of the words. They weren’t true.
“That’s it then?” My voice sounded strained as I stepped toward him. “I saved your life. The least I deserve is a thank you.”
He raised his eyes and narrowed them on mine like a hawk sighting a prize. “Is that what you came for? A thank you?”
“It’s a start.”
“And then what, Alex?” He straightened and threw the pencil he’d been gripping onto the table. “I say thanks. You say goodbye?”
I hadn’t worked out all the details yet.
Before I could find the right words he leaned forward, splaying his hands on the table as if bracing himself for a fight.
“Listen,” he said, eyes fierce, his voice low and intense. “It may have been a job for you, but it wasn’t for me. Never.” He glanced away as if battling his own demons. “They showed me a photo of you before you ever arrived and I ached.”
That knocked all the wind out of me. “You did?”
He ignored my breathless response. “I told myself it was fear of losing my reputation—merde; I told myself a thousand different reasons and then you arrived.”
I couldn’t turn away. Not with the lump in my throat, the shaking in my hands.
“I work with women every day. Beautiful women. Accomplished women. Famous and infamous women. And yes, I’ve worked with my share of witches.”
I bet buttons to bluebells he didn’t work with many pig farmer’s daughters. And if he was buttering me up he was doing a hell of a poor job of it.
He shook his head as if trying to understand his own jerky words. “And then you came into my life and changed everything.”
That was better.
“I didn’t want you around. Not as an agent.” I could read the bleakness in his eyes. “Yet every time I dealt with you your job was thrown in my face. You were a witch. I was a warlock. I knew the lines and if I didn’t you drew them between us.”
“Not every time.” I was drowning here. Out of my depth. Crud, give me something to fight.
His eyes darkened. “You wouldn’t let me protect you. I fumbled around like a damn schoolboy at a loss at how to make you mine.”
“Bran...” Words escaped me. Reason escaped me. This was not cool, controlled, aloof Bran. This was a man in torment. As I had been in torment. “I—”
“Don’t.” He raised a hand to stop my words. “Don’t tell me again that what was between us is the job.”
“You’ll never forgive me.” There, I inserted the truth into the conversation even as my heart splintered.
“You’re right. I won’t.” Knife to heart.
“What do you want from me?” Stepping off a precipice, an emotional one, one I’d feared my whole life, I unclenched my shoulders and spoke around the huge lump in my throat. “Do you want us together?”
“I thought I did, at one time.”
There, that was it, the death knell. Somewhere I found my voice and my backbone. “I’ll be leavi
ng then.”
“Wait.” His voice stopped me. That and the chill etching the word.
I straightened my spin. I wasn’t going to be anybody’s punching bag. He’d made his opinions of me clear. What was left? To make me bleed a little more? Not possible, the wounds of his words went deep. Not lethal but close. Damn close.
“What do you want?” I bit the words out. Witch speaking to arrogant warlock, the only barrier I could erect right then.
“I need your help.” He sounded as happy saying the words as I was hearing them.
“To do what?”
“I can find Vaverek.”
The second death knell. The man I wanted and needed to find Van. The carrot to dangle before the IR agency to get them on board with helping me. The sole clue to find out who or what the Seekers were.
In the hands of a man who made no bones over the fact he now hated me.
“That a guess or a certainty?” I asked, ignoring the increase in my heart rate, the sweating of my palms.
“A certainty.” His Celtic blue eyes sliced me. Daring and taunting at the same time. “I know where he is.”
“And what do you need my help for? You’re a powerful warlock.” I threw the gauntlet down.
“Acies acendo adamo,” he said, each word, slow, measured, and certain. That damn Latin portent he’d used before.
I shrugged, though my shoulders were so stiff they wanted to break. “Spell it out.”
“The time of loss. When a powerful warlock and an even more powerful witch join forces, the time of change starts.”
“Not clear enough.” I wanted to be crystal clear about what I was getting into. I had no doubt I’d go along, it was my only chance to find Van, but like using magic, it was always better to go into a deal with the devil with my eyes open.
“I need your ability to combine powers with mine to find and crush Vaverek. He’s also behind Dom’s death and I won’t stop until I make him pay.”
First time I’d laid eyes on Bran I’d thought he’d be a ruthless man to have as an enemy. It seemed I was about to find out how ruthless.