by Lora Leigh
“As I said, Charlie was smart.” He lifted the remote and turned on the television. “He believed in insurance, and he had a bit of his own.” His composure seemed to crack then, along with his voice. “God, Bailey.” He turned back to her. “Charlie had a package that he left with a friend to give to me if something happened to him. There was a DVD in that package.”
Bailey could feel her palms sweating now. She stared into Wagner’s face and saw the brittle rage that reflected in his eyes.
“What do you have, Wagner?” she whispered almost in dread, sensing, somehow knowing that life as she knew it was going to be changed.
Wagner shook his head. “Sit down.” He indicated the chair across from the television. “Trust me, you don’t want to be standing for this.”
Bailey sat down warily as Wagner hit play and the DVD started up.
It was in Ford’s office. He was standing behind his desk as her father stalked into the room.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Her father growled, his deep voice resonating inside Bailey as she watched his beloved features.
“Searching for some papers.” Ford looked up from the desk. “What’s your problem? Getting cold feet?”
“Cold feet, your ass!” Ben cursed. “You little bastard. Who the fuck is Warbucks and what the hell is he doing with the test designs Serborne Research has been working on for the military? What the bloody hell are you up to?”
Bailey’s heart nearly stopped. Ford sat down behind the desk slowly. “What are you talking about, Ben?”
“I’m talking about the fucking rumor that the Mossad caught wind of. The rumor that an American traitor has military designs entrusted to my company. Designs that only you could have gotten access to. Designs you gave him.” Ben’s voice rose in volume as fury creased and flushed his face.
Ford regarded him silently over the desk for long moments.
“Forget you heard that rumor,” Ford advised him. “And advise your cousin Garren that he has his facts wrong. If you want to live, Ben, if you want your family to live, you’ll drop it.”
The fight progressed from there. Her father was out of his chair, fists flying. The fight turned bloody before Ben stormed out of the office, threatening to call Homeland Security.
As the door slammed shut, another door opened. Bailey wanted to scream in rage as Orion stepped from another room into the office.
“Take care of him,” Ford ordered him coldly. “Tonight. Before he has a chance to call anyone.”
“It’s going to cost you.” Orion’s smile was a monster’s grin of anticipation. “This won’t be as cheap as Mathilda and Anna’s was.”
She was going to pass out. Bailey stared at the scene with a sense of horror, praying the emotionless mask she had plastered on her face was still in place.
So many years she had fought to prove that Ford had hired Orion to kill his wife and daughter, and then her parents. So many sleepless nights spent trying to find proof, fighting to make Ford Grace pay for the deaths of those she had loved.
And here was the proof. Right here, in living color, taped by a man who had been smart enough to think about insurance.
“Price is no object,” Ford stated arrogantly. “Just make certain it happens tonight.”
Orion shook his bald head and gaze a mocking little laugh. “It’s always a pleasure doing business with you, Grace. Always a pleasure.”
Ford sniffed at the comment as Orion turned on his heel and left the room the way he’d come. That night, her parents had died.
She could feel the tears she needed to shed, ached to shed burning in her chest as she watched Ford return to his desk, straighten his papers, replace the phone on the desk, then pour himself a drink.
He was calm, humming to himself, as though he hadn’t just ordered the deaths of two people who’d loved him like a brother. As though he hadn’t just admitted to killing his wife and child.
And she couldn’t do a damned thing about it. Not yet.
Rising to her feet, she moved slowly to the television, found the controls, and ejected the disk. Holding it in her hand, she stared down at it, felt something shatter inside her soul, and prayed to God that she knew what the hell she was doing.
If Wagner tried to use this, then he was dead. Ford would have no compunctions about killing his heir if he turned against him like this.
“Tell me how to handle this, Bailey,” Wagner whispered roughly behind her. “Tell me how to make him pay.”
“Have you copied this?” she asked softly.
“Not yet,” he answered. “I can’t believe I even have it.”
She held the disk between her hands, took a deep breath, and snapped it in half.
“What the fuck!” Wagner was suddenly in front of her, incredulity marking his face as he jerked the pieces from her hand. “What have you done?” He stared at her as though she had gone insane. “Bailey, what have you done?”
She faced him, forcing ice over her expression, watching as he looked at the broken halves, then back to her.
“It doesn’t matter what you know,” she told him calmly. “Remember where your loyalty lies, Wagner. Remember who your father is. Before you end up as dead as your mother and sister.”
It broke her heart. She was going to strangle on the tears that fought to be free. She wanted to curl onto the floor and die, the agony was so intense. Nothing, except losing Trent, had ever hurt like this. Nothing else but the loss of the man she loved had ever ripped into her with the needle-sharp talons that raked over her now.
Agony pierced every bone and muscle, every joint and cell. She felt as though she were moving in slow motion, as though the air itself had thickened around her, forcing her to plow through it, making her body feel as though it weighed a ton.
She didn’t want to return to her room. She didn’t want to face John, she didn’t want to face herself. She wanted to find a hole, a very deep, very small hole, and crawl into it for a very long time.
“Is your sense of loyalty to the bastards really this strong, Bailey?” Wagner’s voice was a hard rasp as she reached the door and gripped the doorknob.
“It is.” She didn’t turn to face him; she couldn’t. “It always has been, Wagner. No one just ever cared to realize it.”
Her loyalty to her friends. Her loyalty to her parents. It had always been strong, it had always driven her to find their killer. As it should have driven Wagner.
“Good night, Wagner.”
Walking from the room was incredibly easy. As she moved down the hallway she watched as another door opened. Myron Falks stepped from his suite next to his employer’s and watched her, his gaze narrowed.
“Bailey.” He nodded to her as she neared. “Could we talk?”
She glanced at the watch on her wrist. Fifteen minutes before John came looking for her. Could she make it that long before she allowed herself to curl into the comfort of his arms? Could she bear talking to this monster for fifteen seconds, let alone a few minutes or more?
“Sure.” Did she really have a choice?
He moved back from the doorway, allowing her to enter. As she walked into the room, she glanced at the sitting area. Raymond stared back at her.
Rising to his feet, he moved to the bar, fixed a straight whiskey, and brought it to her.
“Sorry, whiskey is the only choice tonight.” He handed her the glass.
“Thank you.” It was exactly what she needed. She sipped at it rather than throwing it back as she needed to, to burn the shock and horror from her system.
“You met with Wagner,” Myron began with an air of curiosity. “We’ve been worried about him lately.”
“Really?” She sipped at the whiskey again and stared back at him with false interest. “Why would you be?”
His brows lifted as though in surprise. “The last few days he’s been rather upset with his father.”
She tilted her head and gazed back at him silently for long moments.
“Wag
ner will be fine.” She finished her drink and set it on the side bar before shoving her hands in her pockets again with an air of impatience.
“Perhaps if we knew what was wrong with him,” Raymond suggested, “we could help him.”
Her smile was tight as the fury brewing inside her threatened to spill over. Bullshit—they knew what was wrong with Wagner, or at the very least strongly suspected.
“Wagner will be fine now,” she repeated her earlier reassurance. “He had a few issues, but they’ve been resolved.”
“You took care of it then?” Myron asked.
“I took care of it.” She tightened her lips as though irritated with the fact that she had been forced to do it. “Of course, if others were more aware of their responsibilities, I wouldn’t have to take care of nearly so much.”
Myron’s lips twitched at the comment as she moved back to the doorway.
“If you’ll excuse me, it’s late, and John is waiting on me.”
“Are you going to marry him?” Myron didn’t beat around the bush. “I think you should know he’s gained approval of the families here during Raymond’s little house party. We’d hate to see that relationship come to an end.”
“As would I,” she agreed. “Trust me, Myron, I would hate to see that happen myself.”
Without giving them any more information, she turned the doorknob and left the room, praying she made it back to her own suite before she was waylaid again.
She forced herself to remain calm, to walk slowly and steadily, to keep her expression controlled. She forced herself to remember the prize, the punishment she could mete out if she just held on to her control a little while longer. Just until she was back in John’s arms.
Opening the door to the suite, she stepped inside, her gaze meeting John’s as tears filled her eyes. She closed the door behind her slowly, locked it, and stared back at him miserably.
“Bailey?” He moved toward her slowly. “Are you okay?”
She was crumbling inside. She could feel her emotions imploding inside her soul as she fought to hold on to her control, to keep from wailing in agony.
Pushing shaking fingers through her hair, she moved across the room to the sitting area before curling into the corner of the couch and pulling one of the small pillows over the ache in her stomach, fighting to hold back her sobs. They couldn’t be entirely certain the room was secure, and she didn’t have the control to be quiet. To rein in the agony if she actually let the sobs free.
She watched as he moved to the dresser and flipped on the white-noise generator he had there.
Tears filled her eyes. As though the machine had given her a measure of freedom, her emotions began to overwhelm her.
John moved to the sitting area and crouched in front of Bailey. She had curled her legs beneath her, fitting herself into the corner as if attempting to draw in on herself.
He stared into her swimming eyes, her pale face, and realized that he had never seen Bailey like this. Shell-shocked, so filled with pain and grief that it seemed to radiate around her.
“Baby?” He reached out to her, touched her cheek, and felt the first tear fall.
Some primal, primitive part of his being tightened in anger at the look on her face.
“So many years,” she whispered as she bent over the pillow, as though the pain inside her couldn’t be borne anymore.
God, what had happened? He should have never let her go alone. He should have stayed with her. It was his job to protect her, to shelter her.
“So many years for what, baby?” He cupped her face and wiped the tears away, only to have more replace them. “What happened, Bailey?”
She swallowed tightly as her breath hitched and her expression convulsed in agony. But she held it together. Even when he was sure she was going to break, she held it together.
“So many years I searched for proof,” she said, her voice jerky. “Proof that Ford Grace had killed Anna and her mother, and then my parents. And then there it was.” She held her hands out and stared down at them as though in disbelief. “It was right there in my hands. All the proof I could have ever asked for.” She shook her head, her gaze coming back to his as the tears fell faster. “And I destroyed it.” A sob tore from her chest as she bent over. “Oh God, John. I destroyed it.”
He caught her in his arms, jerking her against his chest as she seemed to fall apart from the inside out. She was shaking, shudders racking through her body as he fought to hold on to his own grief. A grief spurred by hers, because he knew, to the depths of his soul he knew, what it would have done to her to walk away from the proof she so desperately needed.
“I broke the disk,” she cried hoarsely, her arms tightening around his neck. He lifted her against him, pulling her into his arms and across his lap as he sat down in the chair behind him.
There was nothing he could do but hold her. There was no way to comfort her, no way to promise her that the decision, whatever it had been, was the right one.
“What happened, Bailey?” He smoothed her hair back, whispered the words in her ear, and prayed to God that she was finding at least a small amount of comfort from him.
He couldn’t bear to see her hurt like this. His Bailey was so strong, so proud. The wound it would have taken to produce this kind of pain would have to be devastating.
She shook her head again, another sob ripping from her chest and tearing through his heart.
“It was right there,” she cried, her voice low. “Ford admitting to killing Anna and her mother, ordering my father’s death. It was taped by his assistant and sent to Wagner after the assistant was killed last month. ‘Insurance’ was what the man had called it in a letter that accompanied it. His insurance. And it was in Ford’s office, with Orion. My father showed up, furious, questioning him about military design secrets that had been stolen and sold to the highest bidder. Father was enraged. They fought. He stalked out.” Her voice was broken, rasping with agony. “And Orion walked into the room. He walked in and Ford ordered him to kill my father.” Her nails dug into his shoulders as a low, broken wail tore from her throat and through his soul.
He could imagine what it had taken for her to maintain her control. To hide her pain.
“Oh God, I told Wagner to remember where his loyalty was.” Self-disgust colored her voice and mixed with the tears and the sobs. “I told him to remember it before he ended up as dead as his mother and sister. I broke the disk. And I warned him to remember where his loyalty should lie.”
Her fist clenched against his shoulder as a low scream vibrated against his chest. Her body tightened in her fight to hold back the rage tearing through her, nearly destroying her.
“I want to kill him.” She fought to breathe, and John felt his own eyes fill with tears as he tried to comfort her. Without words, because there were no words that could ever ease the pain he knew she was feeling.
“It was right there in my hands,” she sobbed against his chest again. “Right there, John, and I walked away. I walked away.”
Because she had no other choice. She knew it, and he knew it. Warbucks was too important, the recovery of the missiles too imperative to jeopardize it at this point. The needs of the many versus the needs of the few, and the agony tearing through one small woman.
“I have you, Bailey,” he whispered against her hair as he tightened his hold around her, kissed her tear-drenched cheek and wished he could find a way to ease that pain. “It’s okay, baby. I promise it’s okay. We’ll get him. We’ll make him pay for all of it.”
Because John knew what Bailey didn’t. The unit had been called in not to bring Warbucks to justice, but to gain the proof against him and execute him.
There was too much power contained here, in one place. If Ford Grace was Warbucks, then he had the connections to have any charges against him tampered with. Evidence would come up missing. Witnesses would die. It was that simple. There was no way in hell to preserve the facts of the case and ensure that justice was served.
No, Warbucks would die. It was that simple. At the hands of a member of the unit, whoever was holding the sniper rifle when the meet was arranged. The order had been signed before the unit had ever taken the job. It had come to them because the law enforcement agencies that had tried to capture him were too hampered by rules, regulations, and laws.
“He’s going to pay for this,” John swore again as he rocked her in his arms and felt a slice to his soul each time a sob tore from her chest.
“I hate him,” she cried out, a strangled low sound that the white-noise generator could cover, a grief-ridden, agonized sound that he knew he would never forget. A sound he would ensure Ford paid for.
“He took everything from me,” she charged. “Anna, my parents. You. He took everything, John. All of it, and never flinched. He didn’t care. God help me, he didn’t care.”
Death was too good for Warbucks, but there was no other way to make him pay. No other way to ensure that he didn’t destroy another life.
Brushing her hair back, he kissed her cheek again and simply let her cry. There was no way to fix this, no way to make it better, and if she was going to mend her shattered control, then she would need a chance to hurt first. To grieve.
The game could continue tomorrow. For now, Bailey needed this chance to rail at fate and at the job she had signed up for.
An agent who had truly turned would have to remain loyal to Ford, no matter what he had done. Thus, for now she would have to keep the end goal in mind and ensure that Ford Grace—Warbucks—had the chance to to continue his treasonous activities.
That would come to an end. John made the vow to himself. If he had to pull the trigger himself, Warbucks’s treachery would end. And it would end soon.
CHAPTER 17
BAILEY OPENED HER EYES as John lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. He laid her against the cool comfort of the silk sheets and began to draw the blanket over her body, his expression tortured.
She couldn’t sleep. There was no way she could sleep, no way that she could ever drift off fast enough or deep enough to still the agony, the betrayal she had dealt, or her own guilt.