Love Another Day

by Lexi Blake

  It was far too late for that. There was no way Stephanie would let him ease her out of the room and allow him to handle this. No way.

  “Steph should probably be receiving aftercare, from what I understand,” Taggart shot back. His voice lowered and he leaned toward Brody. “Did you find the ‘anal-gesic’ packs? It’s perfect to ease the way after a good plugging.”

  “Focus, Taggart.” The man had no discretion.

  “Is it a body part?” Steph moved toward the conference room table, her voice a bland, flat tone that told him she hadn’t heard Taggart.

  “It’s probably a bad sign that I have boxes of these here.” Taggart dragged a pair of latex gloves over his hands. “Let’s see exactly what we’re dealing with. Still, at least I won’t be leaving fingerprints everywhere. We might have to rethink leaving the police out of this. Maybe I should call in Derek.”

  Brody was not interested in dealing with the local police because he knew exactly where that would lead. “It won’t be Lieutenant Brighton who handles this case and you know it. First they’ll call in the FBI, and then Interpol will want a piece of it, and potentially whatever the hell agency Ukraine has to track down kidnapped citizens.”

  O’Donnell stepped in beside Taggart. “I’m with Carter. We can’t let this leave our house. We’ll lose control of both the case and of Steph’s protection. We wouldn’t be consulted at all if they decide to take it out of the US. We don’t know that the mercenary team is even still here.”

  “We can call in the police if it means saving Anya.” Steph hadn’t moved. She hadn’t smiled or held his hand since that moment when she’d realized the future wasn’t going to leave them alone. At least Brody thought that’s what had happened.

  She’d opened up to him. Something had happened when he’d forced her to meet his eyes in the mirror. She’d softened and been willing to talk about what she’d gone through all those long months that he’d been gone. The connection that had always been between them had flared to life and he’d held on to it with all his strength. He’d known he’d gotten to her and that they could talk. She might listen to him, might understand his apology went far beyond words.

  One knock on the door and she’d folded back in on herself.

  “It won’t save Anya,” Brody insisted. “In this case, bringing in a bunch of feds and different international agencies will only complicate things. We have no idea which corporation is involved in this or how far reaching their influence goes. If you were on your own, yes, you would call in law enforcement, but you’re not. You’re surrounded by some of the smartest men in the world when it comes to intelligence and security. Let us do our jobs.”

  Her arms came up, crossing over her chest. “I want her saved. I’m the client. I want saving Anya to be made a priority over everything else. Unless that’s a head in the box and she’s already dead.”

  “It’s not a head.” Tucker sounded horrified. “I wouldn’t have brought a head in here. I don’t know what I would have done if it had been a head.”

  Sometimes Brody thought Tucker had been a mistake on Dr. McDonald’s part. All of her other experiments had been warriors, and they still acted like it for the most part. Though Robert was calmer than the rest of the Lost Boys, there was still a deep darkness in the man. Tucker seemed so close to the light that he wondered if it was a part of the bloke or if the drugs had so thoroughly wiped his memory that he couldn’t conceive of the world he’d landed in.

  “It’s a digit. In my opinion it’s the fifth digit of the subject’s right hand. It was excised at the distal phalanx. I would be way more freaked out if it was a head.” Tucker continued pacing.

  And then there were times that he thought Tucker remembered far more than any of them imagined.

  Taggart glanced up at Steph. “Distal phalanx?”

  “He means it’s only the tip of the finger. The digits are composed of three segments called phalanxes. He’s referring to the portion of the finger that contains the nail. They cut off the tip of her pinky finger and sent it to us in a box.” She’d paled, but her tone remained calm. “He’s had medical training. Likely a lot of it if he recalls those kinds of facts easily. I know doctors who would have called it the pinkie finger. His training was hardcore.”

  Taggart lifted the box lid and looked inside, his expression never changing. “Well, we’re still learning a lot about the drugs that were used on him. The doctor who experimented on those men was a genius. An evil one, but a genius all the same. She managed to wipe out personal memories without getting rid of important functions like language skills and how to fight. And it seems like a good portion of the puppy’s medical training stuck, too.”

  “Personal and emotional memories are stored in different sections of the brain,” Steph replied. “She obviously figured out how to chemically alter the section that holds personal memories.”

  “She messed with my limbic system,” Tucker said with a shake of his head. “That just came to me. Limbic system. I know that’s the word to use. How do I know that? How do I know what to call a pinkie finger in a box, but I can’t tell you who my mother was? I’m sorry. This trip was apparently more stimulation than I was ready for. I’m sorry I screwed up the forensics. I should have known better.”

  O’Donnell had pulled on a pair of gloves, too, and now he reached into the box. “Not as badly as you thought you had. You missed something in your very reasonable reaction to receiving a body part in a box. There aren’t many people who wouldn’t have a reaction to that.”

  “Seriously?” Taggart threw his old friend a questioning look. “You’re getting soft in your old age.”

  “He’s practically a toddler, Tag. We have to go easy on him. He’s not a hardened agent.” O’Donnell pulled out a small piece of paper. “And he didn’t lose the note.”

  “O’Donnell’s right. We’re actually lucky it was Tucker and not one of the others who came with me. If it had been Sasha or Dante, they would have played with the damn thing.” Brody tried to move closer to Steph, but she stepped away. He thought about forcing the issue, but decided to wait until they were alone. She responded better when they were alone. “We don’t know that’s Anya’s finger.”

  “According to the note it is.” O’Donnell’s eyes shifted as he read the note.

  “Could you read it out loud?” Steph asked. “I get that you think I’m a delicate flower who’s never seen a lopped off body part, but the least I can handle is reading a few words.”

  “They know you’re not a shrinking violet, but they also know it’s different when you know the person.” He wasn’t sure how to deal with her. She seemed to have distanced from everything and everyone.

  O’Donnell held the note in his gloved hands. “It’s from de Vries. He says he’s got Anya Shadrova and will exchange her for the thumb drive you took. If you don’t give him the thumb drive by midnight tomorrow night, he’ll send a bigger piece next time. If we call in the feds or any reporter, he’ll put us all on a hit list.”

  Taggart rolled his eyes. “Like that’s never happened before.”

  “This is serious,” Steph said.

  Taggart shrugged. “You’re used to body parts. I’m used to people trying to murder me.”

  “Did he leave us a time and place to meet him?” Brody would be there. Eagerly. Happily. He was ready to get in a room with that fucker.

  “There’s a phone in here along with his present,” O’Donnell explained. “It’s a burner and he says he’ll only talk to Steph. If anyone else answers the phone, Anya…well, we all know where that’s going. He claims he’ll call sometime in the morning and set the meeting for tomorrow night. He won’t tell you where until thirty minutes before.”

  “We’ll figure it out before then. There are only so many places he can go,” Taggart pointed out. “Now that we have a name, we should be able to find the fucker. We need time though.”

  “I won’t let anyone die because of me.” She’d gone even paler than before and h
er voice finally shook.

  “No one’s going to die,” Taggart replied. “And Anya will get a discount on future manicures if that’s hers in the first place. I don’t know. I don’t like her Ukrainian mob connections. It feels awfully convenient.”

  Steph straightened up, her eyes narrowing on Taggart. “It wasn’t convenient for me. And I don’t have a thumb drive. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I didn’t go through the reporter’s things. The situation was urgent. We cut his shirt off and cut off the khakis he was wearing. We would have thrown them out as medical waste. They were covered in blood. I never saw any piece of luggage he was carrying. No backpack. No wallet.”

  A nasty theory was playing through Brody’s head. There was something convenient about all of this, but it didn’t have anything to do with Anya and her mob connections. He didn’t want it to be true, but it was far too important to put his head in the sand and pretend. Besides, his loyalty had shifted somewhere along the way. “Remind me of something, luv. Was Alfi ever alone with the journalist?”

  Steph turned his way. “Yes, but he wasn’t conscious. Alfi said he never woke up.”

  Yes, but Alfi had been known to lie.

  “Fucker,” Taggart spat, obviously picking up on Brody’s thought process. He pulled his mobile. “Shane, I need you to take Declan and haul ass over to the safe house. Bring me the Aussie asshole. No. Not that one. He’s one of ours. The other Aussie asshole. Yeah. You don’t have to be tender with him either.”

  So he’d been a big hit with the bodyguards. Well, he’d been called worse.

  “Why would Alfi lie to me?” Steph asked, finally stepping close to him. Her chin tilted up and for the first time since they’d walked into the room he saw some vulnerability in her eyes.

  For a hundred reasons, but he could only think of the one that might make sense to her. He smoothed back her hair, desperate for a physical connection. “If he thought he could make money off that thumb drive, he would do it in a heartbeat, the bastard. He would take the drive and get the hell out of there until he could figure out what he had.”

  “But he wasn’t at the house when I left,” Tucker said. “He said he needed to go buy a six-pack.”

  “So he walked to the store?” Brody asked the question, though he was afraid he knew the damn answer. He should never have left Tucker alone with Alfi. He should have known Alfi had come here with nefarious purposes, and leaving Tucker behind to watch him had been like leaving a child in charge of the house.

  Tucker’s cheeks had gone a nice shade of red. “He promised to grab me a couple of bags of chips if I let him borrow the car. I was super hungry. I ate supper at like five. I need to eat every couple of hours or I get low blood sugar.”

  “Then why the bloody hell didn’t you go with him?” Brody was ready to throttle the kid.

  Tucker winced. “Because American Ninja Warrior was on and I don’t know how to work the DVR.”

  O’Donnell stepped in between the two of them. “Now, Carter, take a deep breath. If we murder our young we’re no better than animals.”

  “Also, Charlie had the carpet cleaned in here a few days ago.” Taggart was back on his phone. “Adam, I need you to find an escaped Aussie. Yeah, the one from your place earlier this afternoon. He’s in Carter’s rental. Check the traffic cameras around your place.” Pause. “If I knew where he was going, I wouldn’t need you, would I?”

  “Why would he come here?” Steph asked. “Unless he’s planning on selling the thumb drive back to the mercenaries. Would he do that? If he does, what happens to Anya? He’s probably on his way there right now. If they get that thumb drive, they won’t have any use for her anymore. They won’t want to keep her around.”

  “Or she’s been involved the whole time,” Taggart said, hanging up his phone.

  “She’s not,” Steph shot back. “Anya’s innocent in all this.”

  “You can’t know that.” Taggart was looking down at his phone, texting away.

  “Of course I can know it. I can use my brain and logic this sucker out.” Steph moved away from him again. “Why would she be involved with a bunch of mercenaries? What does she get out of it? She just happened to get a nursing degree so she could spend a year in Africa waiting to set me up because she knew a journalist would someday get himself shot and stumble into my clinic? And she knew that Alfi would steal the thumb drive and she could be used to get it back. She’s a fucking psychic, Taggart. You should put her on the payroll because she could solve all your cases for you.”

  Taggart stopped, staring at Steph for a moment with those arctic eyes of his. Steph didn’t back down at all, but then she’d always had a death wish. Brody got ready to shift, to come between the two of them and let Taggart know that he couldn’t top his sub.

  Then Taggart sighed. “All right, put like that it does seem a bit on the farfetched side. Score one for logic. Sorry, Doc. I’m used to being betrayed. It’s happened almost as many times as I’ve been nearly murdered. All right. We’ll assume Anya Shadrova is an innocent and needs to be saved.”

  “Thank you,” Steph said with a sigh.

  “You want us to save the Aussie, too, Lady SoftHeart?” Taggart asked with a wry smile on his face.

  “Nope, you can rough him up all you like, but we need to get that thumb drive from him.” Steph turned and shook her head, walking toward the door. “I need to go check on Nate. The party was over an hour ago. The staff needs to go home.”

  “They left thirty minutes ago,” O’Donnell explained. “It’s Avery and Charlotte in there now and they’re perfectly fine. Nate’s in good hands. If he’s not sleeping, then he’s being well taken care of. Now tell me how you’re doing. Do you need anything?”

  He hated the rush of jealousy he felt. He watched how Steph squeezed Liam’s hand. He couldn’t help but step up and reply. “I’ll take care of her. You go and help Miles find Alfi so I can rearrange his innards. I’ll figure out where that thumb drive is.”

  Steph held a hand up. “Before you guys do anything at all, I need to make one thing clear. Anya comes first. That’s the mission. Saving her comes before everything else.”

  Was she high? Was she still in subspace because she had to be if she thought that was going to work.

  “We’ll do everything we can,” Brody assured her. But that wasn’t his highest directive. She was, and he knew damn well it would be O’Donnell’s, too.

  “She comes before me.” Steph looked between the two of them as if trying to figure out exactly what they were doing. Suspicion was plain on her face. “If we have to give me up to save her, we’re going to do it.”

  “Of course,” O’Donnell replied. He reached for Steph’s hand. “You’re the client. We’re going to take your direction.”

  Taggart’s eyes had gone wide but his expression shifted the minute Steph looked at him. “Of course. Like Li said. You’re the client. If you want to be dumb enough to martyr yourself, who am I to say nay? Can I get a check from you before your inevitable death?”

  “Ian,” O’Donnell said between clenched teeth.

  “Well, you said she was the client,” Taggart replied. “Clients usually pay.”

  Brody ignored Taggart, but the men were onto something. Arguing with her would lead them absolutely nowhere, but he had to play it right. He couldn’t simply scream out that he would save her no matter what. She needed a softer touch.

  And a shit ton of lies because there was zero chance that he was going to trade her for Anya.

  “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure we get the outcome you need,” he promised. “I know what you want, Steph. You have to know I’ll try to keep you safe, too.”

  She stared at him as though trying to figure out if she should argue or not.

  He was saved when the door came open and Adam strode in. “Turn that computer on to the security cameras. I found our lost Aussie.”

  Taggart had the screen up on the wall in front of them in a second. “He came her
e? Why would he come here?”

  Steph gasped as the picture became clear. Brody stepped in front of her as though he could protect her from the men on the screen.

  “I don’t think it was his choice,” Adam said.

  No. It didn’t look like Alfi had a choice at all. He was on his knees in front of the gate, his hands held high. Two men stood behind him, their faces covered in dark tactical balaclavas. He could see rifles in their hands. It looked like a scene straight out of Afghanistan, but it was happening in front of Sanctum.

  “All right then.” Taggart pulled out his mobile. “Boys, get ready for war.”

  * * * *

  Steph watched the monitor.

  “That’s a lot of guns,” Avery said, leaning in. When the men had gone outside to confront the intruders, Avery and Charlotte had joined her so she wouldn’t be alone. Serena had stayed in the nursery, watching over sleeping children while Adam and Jake had taken up positions they claimed would allow them to watch over the situation.

  Or in other words, they were in sniper positions. It made her shiver.

  Avery was right. It was a lot of guns. Moments after the two men and Alfi had shown up in front of the gates, Shane and Declan had been standing on the other side. Four guns pointing at each other. Four chances for someone to die. Although it was certainly more than four chances since any of the bullets could do damage, and there would be plenty of bullets.

  Brody was walking out there right now. Brody was striding out with Taggart and Li, and their guns would join the bodyguards’.

  “Don’t worry. They know what they’re doing.” Charlotte’s words didn’t reassure her.

  They did know what they were doing, and she knew they were lying to her. Brody had no intentions of giving her up for Anya. Neither did Li. She wasn’t a complete idiot.

  “What exactly are they doing?” Tucker had stayed behind. He was sitting at the conference table watching the scene at the street play out.

  “They’re talking first,” Charlotte explained. “Ian needs to figure out who he’s dealing with before he murders them all. That’s lesson number one, Tucker. Always figure out who you’re brutally killing and get everything you can out of your victim before you start in on the actual vicious torture and death part.”