by Blake, Lexi
Her father wasn’t her father. Her father had been some no-name teacher who’d been dumb enough to fall for a mobster’s wife. Her father had been the dumbass who thought he could run with her.
Her father might have loved her.
Ian held a file in his hand. “This is what we’ve dug up on him. He did have your blood type. Vladimir Denisovitch hated you because you were a symbol of your mother’s betrayal. At some point, he put it all together and when he found her again, he took it out on you.”
She took the file and opened it. There was a picture of a smiling young man. He was accepting a small medal. She could still read Russian with ease. Pavel Yokin was accepting first prize in a poetry writing contest for students. Then another about his first book being published. He’d been a gentle man, a man of letters. He’d written poetry. She could read it. She could learn about him.
“And you’ve kept this from me?” She looked up to see Charlotte crying.
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Chelsea, my father killed yours.”
“Vladimir killed lots of people.”
Charlotte reached out, but then pulled back as though she knew Chelsea wouldn’t want to be touched. “Do you remember the day he came back for us? He tried to leave you. I didn’t understand. I didn’t even realize he’d killed Mom. I just knew I was being separated from you. I begged him. He would have walked away from you then and there. You would have been scared, but someone would have taken you in, someone who wouldn’t have brutalized you. This is my fault.”
She could have been spared. She would have mourned her mother and sister, but she likely would have found a decent life.
A life without Charlotte.
She’d spent so much time dreaming of some other existence. Now that she knew that life could have been hers, she knew bitterness should have been welling up inside her. She should have been left behind and given a chance.
To grow up without Charlotte? To send her into the hell without anyone to hold on to?
She turned away and looked out at the night. It was dark, but the clouds turned everything to silver.
You could be so much more.
What would she give to spare herself pain? Would she send Charlotte off on her own? Would she give up her sister?
Would she give up those moments with Simon for a life free of pain?
God, she was an idiot. No one got a life free of pain. No one. She’d been dealt a shitty hand and decided to not even bother to play the game. She’d hidden and let herself be made small by a man who wasn’t worth anything. She’d decided to merely accept survival.
You could be so much more.
If she changed. If she accepted that the past wasn’t something that defined her. If she decided who she wanted to be. The man who she’d called father had told her she was weak and useless and she’d believed him.
She glanced back down and there was a list of her true father’s books. The first caught her eye. Dare to Dream.
She’d stopped dreaming a long time ago because it seemed naïve. But she’d just realized something. Naïve people were strong. Naïve people changed the world because they actively believed they could. There was strength in that. Power in that. Her mother had fought. Her father had died. Both had been brave. Her sister hadn’t given up. Not once. Not ever.
Why were they less meaningful than Vladimir Denisovitch?
She’d chosen this.
And she could choose again.
She stood up because there was one thing she could give her sister here and now. She could give her some freaking peace.
“Chelsea?” Charlotte asked as she moved past her toward her big brother-in-law who she’d fought with from the moment they’d met.
Ian. Big dumbass who acted like he couldn’t care less and did everything he could for the people around him. Even the ones he didn’t like. She’d thought she and Ian were alike. Both cynical and sarcastic, but Ian had a heart and she’d tried to kill hers long before.
“Thank you.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“For being good to my sister and to me. Thank you, Ian.” She walked right up and put her arms around him.
“What the hell do I do, Charlie?” Ian asked, his arms at his side.
“You hug her back, asshole. She used your name and everything. You hug her. Now.”
Very slowly his arms came up and enveloped her in what had to be the most awkward hug of her life. “Okay, but if she kills me it’s your fault.”
Chelsea felt Charlotte move in behind her. “She’s not going to kill you. She’s forgiving me.”
Well, at least her sister knew her, but she was wrong about one thing. “There’s nothing to forgive on your side, Charlotte. I’m just trying to make it up to you.”
“Couldn’t you bake cookies or something?” Ian asked.
“No.” She was horrible at baking. And cooking. And most everything at this point, but it was time for her to try. And it was past time for her to admit some things to her sister. “I did blame you, Charlotte, and that wasn’t fair. Forgive me.”
She felt Charlotte rest her head on her shoulder. “Always. Forgive me for being selfish and taking you with me.”
She’d just been a girl. She couldn’t have known. Chelsea had been a girl, too, and maybe it was time for both of them to forgive the children they’d been. “I wouldn’t change it. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’ve spent a lifetime wondering about what I would be if only a few things had been different, but I know something now. I wouldn’t. I would leave it all the same with one exception. Me. I would change me.”
She could still change her. She could be more. So much more.
“I love you,” Charlotte said.
“I love you, too.”
“I’m still being hugged and I didn’t do anything wrong,” Ian complained.
Her brother-in-law was always going to be an asshole. And she wouldn’t change that either. She broke away, letting him off the hook.
She turned and looked up at her sister. “I don’t know what to do about Simon. I love him, but I have to leave him. I have to leave all of you. I made a deal with Ten. He’s going to make sure Simon doesn’t face any charges.”
Ian snorted. “I already did that. Ten? Like I need fucking Ten to fix that problem. The new guy was on it. Mitchell Bradford. Nastiest lawyer in Texas. He’s been trying to get into Sanctum. I’ve turned the fucker down three times because I don’t need his money, but I do like having him in my back pocket. Life is about timing. It wasn’t time for him to play at Sanctum until I needed a massive favor from him. Now we’re all happy, including Simon in there who everyone including the DA now agrees was merely defending himself. I might have had to work a little dark magic on that one. Don’t tell Derek.”
Charlotte’s eyes got round. “Shit. Tell me you didn’t.”
“Mitch worked a deal, but she was the holdout. It’s not forever. It’s one year and I can’t kick her out.” Ian shuddered a little. “Maybe Derek won’t notice his ex-wife is suddenly in the dungeon.”
“Not a chance,” Charlotte said. “But we do what we have to. So see, Simon is fine. You don’t need Ten.”
It had all been for nothing. Absolutely nothing. Simon hadn’t needed her to protect him. He hadn’t needed her at all.
“Chelsea, are you all right?” Charlotte asked.
She shook her head. “I took the job with Ten to save Simon. I did it all for him, and there’s no way he’ll believe me.”
“He will if you keep telling him. You just can’t give up.”
She had to completely change her thinking. Could she even get out of her promises to Ten? Should she? None of it mattered if she couldn’t get Simon to believe her.
Ian sent his wife a grimace. “You’re about to plot. I can’t listen to this. It’s against the guy code. I’m going to join Simon.”
“We have to go to Venice,” she said quickly. They did have a job t
o do after all. She needed to get out from under The Collective’s threat no matter what happened between her and Simon.
“Well, of course you knew. You simply didn’t bother to tell me. We already figured that out.” Simon stood in the doorway to the cockpit, his eyes as cold as ice. He shook his head dismissively and turned his attention to Ian. “We touch down in Toronto in an hour. We’ll rest and refuel there. Adam says all the records will be changed by the time we take off again. If Derek and Karina don’t fool them, then records will show five people matching our description disembarked in Toronto and this Malone Oil jet suddenly belongs to a Canadian game show host. Apparently he’s a friend of Adam’s. Where does Adam come up with this shite?”
Ian moved toward Simon, slapping him on the shoulder. “He’s got a damn creative mind, my friend. Let’s talk. Jesse, move your ass. It’s your turn to watch the chicks. Watch out. Apparently now they spontaneously hug you.”
Simon disappeared again and Jesse sidled through the slim door, allowing Ian to take his place.
“Hey, don’t try to escape, Chels. I’m kind of sleepy so I’m going to take a nap if it’s all right with you. Let me know if you need a hug or something. Apparently you do that now.” Jesse sank into Ian’s old seat.
Charlotte took her hand. “It’s going to be all right. If there’s one thing I know about, it’s how to get a man to forgive you for a massive mistake. You just have to follow a very simple plan.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.” He’d looked through her like she wasn’t there.
“Are you willing to try?”
Chelsea took a deep breath. She’d given up trying long ago, and it had been a mistake. “Yes.”
She leaned forward and did what she should have done months before. She listened to her sister.
* * * *
Simon looked out over the Atlantic. Nothing but water as far as the eye could see. London was somewhere north in the distance, but he wouldn’t be going home anytime soon. He would want to avoid the inevitable lecture from his family. Despite the fact that Ian had gotten him out from under the cloud surrounding the deaths in his building, his parents would likely have heard of it. Just because he wasn’t guilty didn’t mean he would escape their judgment.
They’d spent the night before on the plane. It had been comfortable enough, but he’d dreamed that Chelsea had escaped, running back to Texas and Ten. He’d been surprised to wake and see her curled up with a blanket next to her sister.
They hadn’t said more than two or three words to each other.
“You know she thought she was saving you,” Ian murmured from his seat next to Simon. He was leaning back, his body relaxed, his eyes covered in a pair of mirrored aviators.
Perhaps his parents’ wasn’t the only judgment he couldn’t escape.
“I don’t care.” It was ridiculous. She’d truly believed Ten could manage things Ian and Derek couldn’t? Ten had very little pull in the States. Now if they were in a foreign country, Ten would be their guy. If Simon didn’t throttle the fucker the next time he laid eyes on him.
“Good.” Ian crossed his arms over his chest and yawned a little. “Just wanted to be able to say I did my part, man.”
“Consider it done.” The last thing he wanted to do was a postmortem on his non-relationship with Ian’s sister-in-law.
Another moment passed in blissful silence.
“Ten’s a good recruiter, you know,” Ian said. “For all I’m unhappy with the fucker at the moment, I have to say, I’d probably do the same thing in his shoes. Hell, I got recruited by Ten. Yeah, he knows exactly what to say.”
Ian rarely talked about his days with the Agency. “What did he use on you?”
Simon had always known he would join the RAF at some point. Every Weston did. And he’d been so desperate to be seen as a Weston, though he wasn’t sure why. By that time his relationship with his parents was distant. Pleasant enough, but he could always feel his father’s disappointment in him. Yet, he’d chosen a profession where he couldn’t tell his father what he did.
Chelsea wasn’t the only one who was damaged.
“He played on my god complex,” Ian replied. “I’m not sure if you know this about me, but I sometimes have issues with needing to be in control.”
It took everything he had not to roll his eyes. “Yes, I’d heard that about you.”
A little smirk curled Ian’s lips up. “I get better as the years go by. But back then I definitely had some issues with being out of control. I thought the Army would help. Drill sergeants in the Army break a man down. I mean a good DS will use every form of mental conditioning you can think of to break you to the US Army’s will.”
“Yes, we have something similar.” Just because they had different accents didn’t make the British military any more civilized. It was the job of every military in the world to break down and rebuild its soldiers, to break their old loyalties and forge new ones.
“And the whole time I was getting my face shoved in the dirt, all I could think about was rising through the ranks so no one could pull that shit on me again. I kept a list of everyone who fucked with me.” He chuckled a little. “When they eased up a couple of weeks into Basic, everyone else would beam with pride when the DSs would praise them, but I knew it was one more way to control me. They couldn’t work me with praise or pain. Only Ten ever figured me out.”
Because Ten was smarter, sneakier than the rest. He would have to be to do his job. He would have to be good at reading people, at knowing how to get them to do his bidding. “He played on your protective instincts?”
“In a way. He bought me a beer after my unit had worked with him on an op. He was smart enough not to flatter me. He just sat there and told me stories about some of the work he’d done and how good it felt to be free of the constraints of command. He talked about the men who make sure this country is free no matter what they have to do. They made the calls in the field.”
Yes, he could see how that would appeal to Ian. He would be doing good, but on his own terms.
Ian sat up and stared out over the ocean. “When he talked about his work, man, I knew what I wanted to do. It was more than just making the calls in the field. It was about the responsibility. I would be responsible for the safety of my country, actively out there making sure the people I gave a shit about were safe. That was all a man like me could ever want, right? I was naïve. I bought into it. Don’t get me wrong. Ten is necessary. I was naïve to think that was all I would ever want. I was stupid to think that I could watch over them and be uninvolved, but at the time it sounded so good. I could tell myself I loved them but I didn’t have to have all those messy emotions and shit. It actually still sounds kind of good.”
He had to stop Ian now. He wasn’t going to sit here while Ian tried to paint him into a corner. “If you’re trying to make some sort of comparison between yourself and me, you’re completely wrong. I’ve spent my entire bloody life trying to make ties, doing anything I could to make the people around me accept me. I was one of those idiots who wanted the respect of my superiors. Desperately so. I just kept fucking it up. So don’t compare us, Tag.”
“I wasn’t comparing you to me. You’re probably one of the smartest men I’ve ever met, Simon. I knew it even during the UOF op. Why do you think I scooped you up? And don’t think I didn’t fight for you. I sat down with Damon after you resigned. I talked him into accepting your resignation when he didn’t want to. His intention was to tell you you weren’t allowed to resign and put you back in the field.”
Simon shook his head, trying to digest that piece of information. He’d resigned his position with MI6 over a mistake he’d made. He’d allowed himself to be led into false information and tried to use it to break Ian’s team. He’d been on the wrong side of that fight. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“Because I wanted you working for me. Because I do the same thing Ten does. I recruit the best men for the job, and I want them to be lo
yal to each other and to me above all else. I’ve handpicked every single one of you. Even Jesse. If I can get Jesse’s fucking head on straight again, he’ll be an amazing asset. Every one of us has fucked up in the past and we all deserved a second or third or fourth chance to be everything we can possibly be. The Army did teach me that. I’m just a better me out here in the world, and I’m definitely better as a man than an operative.” He stood up and stretched as much as the cockpit would allow. “And I wasn’t comparing you to me. I’m far more like Chelsea. Chelsea is the one who thinks she has nothing to offer anyone past her work. She’s the one who could be easily manipulated by a devil’s bargain offering her a way to protect the ones she loved. For all her big brain, she reacts to things without thinking. If it involves an emotion, she goes on instinct and her instincts are shitty.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” He was through. Perhaps one day he could forgive her, but she had zero interest in changing. She would never trust him, and he couldn’t live waiting for the next time she “protected” him.
“Good. Talking is stupid. We’ll drink when you’re not in charge of flying a tin can through the air. That’s what men do. I always knew you would fit in here, Weston.” He sat back down and propped his feet up. “Besides, I bet Chelsea will be happy working for Ten in the end. I just get nervous with all Charlie’s talk about babies. That woman is after my sperm. I tried to tell her that any child of ours would likely come out of the womb guns a blazing. There won’t be a brain in that boy’s head. I guess I was kind of hoping he would have a smart cousin to balance him out.”
Sneaky bastard. “Just because you’re going to allow your sperm to be stolen doesn’t mean I’m offering up mine.”
But he’d thought about it. He’d thought about having children with her. They’d be smart. So smart. They’d have a ton of family around them, including their brutally obnoxious and stubborn uncle.