by Lexi Blake
“Spoken like a true shrink,” Charlotte said with a grin.
“What do you mean about the contract? A contract for what?” Some of what Ariel was saying sunk in. Nick had stayed.
“Nick and Des took the lifestyle seriously. Well, Des took the parts she liked seriously,” Teresa explained. “Once a year they signed a contract that covered all aspects of their relationship. Des ensured that she kept the relationship open. She wanted the right to have sex with anyone she liked.”
“I think Des would say she was keeping her job options open,” Ariel interjected. “Sometimes it’s the easiest way to get information.”
“Nick has certainly done the same,” Charlotte pointed out. “Sometimes our business can get a little dirty.”
She didn’t like the thought of Nick fucking for information.
Ariel reached out, as though sensing what was going through her head. “You do understand that the work we do here can save lives.”
“He worked to save my brother-in-law’s life. Try not to judge him or Des too harshly. They did what they had to do to get the job done,” Charlotte explained. “I know the tendency is to shame Des for having a healthy sexual appetite, but she didn’t lie to him. She wasn’t going behind his back. Desiree might have had some issues, but she didn’t hide them. Nick and Des’s relationship was what it was. No one should judge them for it. We weren’t there.”
But Hayley had been. At least she had been for one night.
“I know to someone who doesn’t understand the lifestyle, a contract could seem cold, but it’s actually an important tool.” Ariel sat back, toying with her teacup as she spoke. “It’s how we tell our partner what we need and expect. That was Des’s way of explaining in plain language to Nick what she would and wouldn’t give to him. A contract keeps things simple between two people.”
“Or more.” Charlotte winked up at Teresa as she placed a plate in front of her. “I have friends who share a wife. And I know some subs who serve the same Master. Anything goes in our world as long as you’re honest and honor your partner.”
A contract. She hadn’t asked him for a contract that night. She’d simply offered herself up on a platter and only had thought to ask for what she wanted after she’d slept with Nick. Would it have turned out differently if she’d tried it his way?
She started to eat as Charlotte told her war stories from the dungeon. Contracts gone wrong, as she called them.
But Hayley was already thinking. She would be stuck with Nick for a while. As long as it took to figure out why someone was trying to kill her.
It might be time to work a few things out of her system. Perhaps his as well.
She just needed courage and maybe someone who knew a thing or two about the lifestyle.
Chapter Five
Nick walked in the door to Damon’s office wondering if he wouldn’t be the one out on the street in a few hours. His boss’s office was elegant. Masculine and yet comfortable. It was the office of a man who had his foot in both worlds. The expensive furniture bespoke the successful business he ran while the pictures of a smiling wife holding a bundle of baby was testament to the fact that Damon Knight had figured out his life. He knew who he was. A husband and father first and then a man of business.
Nick had to wonder if he’d ever been anything but a killer.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Nikolai?” Damon gestured to the seat in front of him, sliding off the reading glasses he’d taken to wearing in the last few months after Penny had nagged him into it.
What would it be like to have a woman who cared enough to nag? Who watched him so carefully she could figure out that his headaches came from the deep and vain need to pretend his eyes were still perfect? “Of course. Although if you’re planning on firing me, you could simply say so and we could avoid a lengthy talk. I’m sure we’re both tired.”
Knight sat back, a frown creasing his face. Nick was certain that perfect face of Knight’s had served him well when the man had been one of MI6’s deadliest agents. “I’m intrigued. Why would I fire you?”
“Well, I thought the dead body in the conference room was a start.” He had to play this cool if he was going to keep his job. And there was no doubt he wanted that outcome. Now more than ever. He could give Damon half a dozen reasons to fire him. He’d been Owen’s partner and he hadn’t seen the trouble his best friend had been in. He drank too much. Far too much. He wasn’t half the operative Des had been and he’d failed to save her, too. He couldn’t save anyone who counted.
He kept his mouth shut because he was a selfish prick.
“I have to say I wish I hadn’t come home to a body in the conference room,” Damon admitted. “Perhaps we should designate a space when bodies come up.”
“I thought you would be more angry.”
Damon waved him off. “I was a bit put out. I was planning on going right to bed, but Ollie slept on the plane. The whole plane ride. Now the little guy is awake along with all those Taggart children. Perhaps it makes me an utter coward, but I might have used the dead body excuse as a way to run. I left Big Tag up there with his two crying twins, his infant son who can’t seem to go an hour without making poo, and my son, who’s wailing for his supper. Now that I’ve had some time to reflect, that dead body actually saved me from a rather uncomfortable evening. Though I do wish Dante and Sasha would stop poking the poor bloke. I swear those boys are the worst. It’s like they lost all maturity when they lost their memories. They’ve got the mentality and sex drive of bloody seventeen-year-olds.”
He wouldn’t argue with that. He was just happy one of the things Sasha remembered was how to speak English. That boy had a worse accent than Nick himself had when he’d first joined SVR. It was one of the things Nick had noted about Sasha in his report. The dark-haired man hadn’t been a Russian operative. If Sasha had been in the program, that deep accent would have been trained out of him. Of course Sasha also hadn’t been poor since his English was quite good.
It was one more mystery to be solved.
“They’re curious,” Nick said. “Sometimes I think they’re reveling in having no responsibility. No past. And then I also worry that they feed each other and make what they’re going through seem normal.”
“Ariel thinks they need each other,” Damon replied.
“I’m sure they do, but besides Robert, not a one of them seems interested in figuring out who they used to be, if anyone’s even out there looking for them. It’s like one of those American college clubs. You know, the ones with all the parties where someone ends up murdering a hooker.”
“You watch far too much telly, I fear. Or too little. I believe you’re talking about a fraternity and I think you’re right about the lads pushing reality to the side a bit, but Ariel thinks they need it for now so we all must indulge it a bit longer.” Damon stared at him for a moment as though assessing how to continue. “I don’t want to talk about the lads. I need to talk about Des.”
“Desiree’s been dead for more than two years. I should think if there was something to say, you would have said it by now.”
“I rather hoped I wouldn’t have to.” Damon’s jaw went tight. “You know I worked with her for years before she came here.”
“You two were in MI6 together. I knew that.” Was he about to get some seedy backstory about how they’d been lovers? Des had claimed she’d never slept with their boss during their time together serving her majesty. She rarely lied to him. She didn’t have to when the truth was a much more effective weapon.
“I had some reservations about hiring her on here.”
“She never mentioned that. I suppose that was because of me. I know she made it a term of her employment that you would take me on, too.”
Damon waved that idea off. “Not at all. I would have hired you in a heartbeat.”
Somehow Nick found that hard to believe. “Then you didn’t do as much research as I thought you would.”
“Are you talking about what you did to th
e Ivanov syndicate?”
This was exactly what he wanted to avoid. Talking about all his sins. “I don’t know what story you hear, but you should understand, it was bloody. I kill them with my own hands. I kill them all.”
“No, you did not,” Damon said quietly. “You killed ten of the top men and six others. The men who killed your sister. The men who had a hand in her death. You killed every single one of them and left the rest alive. You effectively killed the syndicate off, but there were a few men who you let go. Do you want to explain why?”
“There is nothing from that time I wish to talk about ever again.”
“You let them go because you were merciful. Those few men had no part in Katja Markovic’s death. They had been too young at the time or hadn’t joined the group. One of them had joined because he had no other choice but death, and you let him go. You rained death down on that group and yet still found mercy on those who deserved it. And that was you, not Desiree. You. I know that because I’ve worked with her. How hard was it to hold her back? She loved the kill.”
Nick felt shaken. He’d stopped thinking about it, hated thinking about those seven months of his life when everything had been blood and violence, or sex that felt a bit like violence. He had been forced to hold her back. She’d wanted to take them all down, but a few had no blood on their hands. No blood of his, and he would have been a horrible hypocrite to take them out because of their affiliations. “It was my mission. I was in charge. I made the decisions.”
He wasn’t going to give her up now. She’d been his partner. She’d been the one to bring him the intelligence when everyone else had disavowed him. No one would work with him. Only Des. He wouldn’t tell Damon how he’d been forced to stop her from bombing a house with innocent family members where their prime target had been visiting. He’d wanted to kill the man but had not found it in his soul to take down others to quench his thirst.
Des had called him a coward. Told him he was too weak to get the job done.
“You don’t have to tell me. I understand,” Damon said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“As long as you understand I might not answer.”
“What reason did she give you for her resignation from MI6?”
Here it was. One of those questions he didn’t want to know the answer to. Des never lied about her sexual partners. Never cheated on him behind his back when she could do it to his front.
Stop. He couldn’t do that. She’d never promised him anything more than she’d given. He wasn’t going to make her into a villain. “She didn’t give me a real reason. I think she probably left for me. She found out some vital information around the same time that she tendered her resignation and that led her to come back to Russia with me. When we were done with syndicate, you gave us both jobs, as she’d told me you would. Hiring on here was her plan, not mine. I wouldn’t have come to you because I was a failed operative. You only hired the best.”
“Failed operative? Because you didn’t go through with the Crimean mission? Because you figured out that Putin was trying to foment a rebellion that didn’t exist so he could waltz in and take over territory that held the key to providing natural gas to Europe?”
He’d figured it out quickly. He’d been sent to find those who were discriminating against natural Russians and found out it was mostly other operatives creating a situation for the media. He’d watched as fellow operatives hurt innocent people for the cameras, claiming to be the opposition.
“I tried to walk away.” He’d been such a fool. He’d walked in and told his commanding officer why he was leaving. He hadn’t thought about the consequences, hadn’t thought that his actions could cost more than him.
It had cost Katja everything.
“You refused to participate in an operation you believed in your heart was wrong. You followed your conscience. Do you know how many agents at your level manage to maintain a conscience? Most of the high-level operatives I know shed their consciences long ago.”
“My conscience cost my sister her life.”
“I understand. Well, I’ve read the reports. I suppose I don’t truly understand. She was leaving SVR as well?”
Nick nodded. “She believed the way I did. She saw the same things, but she went back in one last time. There was a man she cared about and she believed he was in danger. She asked him to come with us. That was when she found out her lover was a plant. He turned her over to the Ivanov syndicate. I was caught and turned over as well. The syndicate did the dirty work Putin does not want even his SVR agents to know.”
“Yes, MI6 made that connection as well. Ivanov gave the government plausible deniability when it came to certain operations they didn’t want to acknowledge. I’m sure they’ve found another syndicate to work with by now.”
“I would have suffered the same fate as my sister had MI6 not been working in the region.”
Damon nodded. “Yes, Desiree was active in that operation. She extracted you.”
“She saved me.”
“She had her reasons. Bringing you in gave us valuable information and likely saved her job.”
“I don’t understand.” The conversation made him restless, but he had to admit he was intrigued.
“Des was in trouble with our boss,” Damon explained. “She always had…projects on the side. Projects that weren’t exactly company approved, if you know what I mean.”
Ah, now he got it. “Yes, she figured she should make a bit of cash on the side when she could. I never agreed with that, but I couldn’t convince her to give it up.”
“She brokered information.” Damon stated the truth plainly. “She made millions off it.”
He was uncomfortable again. This was one aspect of Desiree’s life he’d tried to have very little part in, but he had participated in those dark days after his sister had died. “I helped her from time to time.”
“I know. You were her muscle for a few years. I also understand why you did it. You felt obligated to her. And you loved her.”
She’d been everything to him for a while.
And then he’d met Hayley. Then he’d known what it meant to sacrifice again.
“I loved Des, but I also knew what she did. After we settled in here, I stayed out of most of her extra operations.” Now that he knew Damon hadn’t been fooled, he had some questions. Why on earth would McKay-Taggart and Knight hire Desiree and her “muscle”? The answer washed over him like a splash of cold water. “MI6 asked you to watch her.”
Damon’s eyes were grave in the low light of his office. “Like I said, I would have hired you in a second. I would not have hired Desiree without some intervention. It wasn’t only MI6. The Agency was concerned about her as well. Ian and I decided to comply with their requests. A year into the investigation, she died. No one saw that coming. It’s taken years to comb through her business dealings. She had connections everywhere and more aliases than I care to keep up with. We’re still finding caches she kept in various places.”
“Why didn’t you come to me? I could have helped. I might not know everything, but I’m sure I could make the process go faster. I suppose this is why Hayley is only now receiving her portion of Des’s estate.”
Damon sat up. “Des sent her something?”
“Well, her lawyers did,” Nick clarified.
“I would like to see what she received.”
“Her house blew up shortly after the shipment.”
Damon groaned and his head fell back. “Bloody hell.”
“I don’t have all the information yet. She’s only been here for a few hours. I haven’t questioned her beyond a cursory interview, and then she insisted on finding a hotel. That was when we were attacked. I sent the photographs to Adam Miles in the Dallas office. He thinks he should have something by morning.”
“And now she’s agreed to stay here?” Damon asked.
“Yes, I think almost being murdered in the alleyway tipped the scales in favor of safety versus her disdain for me.” At least som
ething good had come of it.
“Disdain?”
He shouldn’t have mentioned that. “We have a history.”
“Of course you do if she’s Desiree’s cousin,” Damon replied, not unkindly.
Now that he was here, he couldn’t lie to Damon. “We have a sexual history.”
Damon’s eyes widened. “I see. Well, perhaps we’re going to need a bit of fortification. Scotch?”
He leaned over, opening the drawer to his desk and extracting a bottle of expensive Scotch and a couple of glasses. He poured out two fingers each and passed one over.
“I probably shouldn’t but I’m going to.” He could use it. He downed the Scotch quickly. “I thought this conversation was going to be about my recent failings, not the ones that felt like ancient history.”
“History has a way of repeating itself,” Damon said thoughtfully. “How long was this affair? I only ask because I need to know as much as I can if she’s going to be a client. I need to know that you can be professional with this woman.”
Honesty hurt sometimes. “I can’t. Not in any way. I know I should recuse myself, Damon, but I cannot do this either.”
“Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Yes, I know that feeling.” Damon took a short sip and put the glass down. “I always meant to have this talk with you when we got back from Loa Mali. This talk wasn’t meant to scare you straight or some shite. It was meant to drag you out of the place you’ve been in since Desiree died. It was meant to make you see that she’s not worth giving up the rest of your life. I intended to explain the real truth behind what would have happened if she hadn’t died when she did. We were roughly two weeks away from bringing her up on charges, Nick. The only thing that was holding me back was you.”
The idea shook him to his core. “You didn’t want to put me in jail?”
“I knew you weren’t the problem. Des had started blackmailing some important people. Did you know anything about that?”
That pit was back in his stomach. “No. I didn’t know. She and I had been fighting in the last few months of her life. She was more secretive. I thought she was up to something, but I didn’t want to know. Now I have to wonder if it doesn’t have something to do with why people are trying to kill Hayley.”