Primal: London Mob Book Two

by Michelle St. James

  “I have a job,” she said. “Rent, my family…”

  “I’ve had Kate and your mother under surveillance since Cornwall.” He held up a hand to stop her when she opened her mouth to protest. “I had to do it. I knew you would want them to be safe, and if someone came for your family it was only a matter of time before they came for you.” She was torn between anger and appreciation. But denying his logic would have been foolish, and a secret part of her thrilled that he had gone to such lengths to insure the safety of the people she loved. “None of it matters now anyway,” he continued. “You can call them when we get where we’re going, and if you want to find another job when this is over, I’ll print your damn resume. But right now we need to get you and Lily out of here before whoever sent Albert Beake sends someone more competent.”

  “And you’ll make sure they’re safe?” she asked. “My mother and Kate?”

  “You have my word.”

  She searched her mind for an objection that made sense. For something that wouldn’t make her seem as stubborn as Farrell accused her of being.

  She had nothing.

  She already knew her mother and Kate wouldn’t agree to come. Keeping them alive in London was the best she could hope for. Her number one priority was Lily, and after tonight she could hardly argue they were safe here.

  “Okay,” she finally said. “But I’m not going back to Cornwall.”

  7

  He knew what it cost her to go with him. Knew what it meant that she was packing Lily’s things, leaving the little apartment. She took pride in taking care of everything alone. She didn’t like depending on anyone, least of all Farrell.

  He was under no illusion that she was going because of him. It was about Lily. About protecting their daughter from men like the one who had threatened them in the alley. Frankly, Farrell didn’t give a damn about the why of it. He would get Jenna and Lily out of London. Then he would make his move against the people who had tried to take them from him.

  And he would make sure it hurt badly enough that they would never try again.

  He’d thought about leaving the city straight from the alley, had hated coming back to the flat knowing someone might be waiting for them. But a sudden and dramatic move would have frightened Lily, and Jenna, too. He needed to be careful, and he waited patiently while Jenna packed, one eye on the door even though Leo was on the other side of it, armed and ready for anything. They told Lily they were taking a holiday, and Farrell helped her into her nightclothes while Jenna packed their things. It was getting late. Lily could sleep on the plane.

  It was after ten by the time they locked the door of the flat and slid into Farrell’s Audi, bought when he’d started visiting Lily on Sundays. It was staid compared to the Lotus, but he wanted Jenna to know that he would always be responsible with their daughter, regardless of his chosen line of work. Now he only drove the Lotus when he was alone, relishing the speed and agility of the vehicle when he took it to visit Evan.

  “Where are we going on holiday?” Lily asked as he buckled her into the booster seat.

  “It’s a surprise,” Farrell said. “You don’t want to ruin the fun, do you?”

  Her face was very near to his, and he caught the faint scent of biscuits and tea, of sweetness and innocence. His heart swelled, and he felt a fresh wave of rage move through his veins at the thought that anyone would try to harm her.

  She shook her head, then rubbed her eyes. He handed her Bunny, her favorite stuffed animal, and tucked a blanket around her legs. “We’ll be at the airport soon. Have a rest on the way, love.”

  “I’m not tired,” she said through a yawn.

  He grinned. “Right.”

  A moment later they were pulling away from the curb, Leo behind them in his own vehicle. They made their way out of the city toward Heathrow. The lights from the dash, the surrounding darkness, and Jenna’s presence beside him slowly soothed the jagged edges of his fury. His family was safe now, and he would give his life before letting something happen to either of them.

  “Where are we going?” Jenna asked.

  He glanced over at her, and his breath caught in his throat. She was beautiful, light from the street lamps passing across her face at even intervals, illuminating the high cheekbones and full lips that had occupied his dreams every night they’d been apart. He wanted to stare at her forever, embedding her face in his memory for the next time she decided to leave him.

  “You don’t want to spoil the fun, do you?” he asked her.

  The corners of her mouth lifted into a small smile in the moment before she managed to suppress it, turning her face to the window. “I suppose not.”

  Less than an hour later they pulled into the charter terminal at Heathrow and made their way to the plane lit up on the tarmac. He stopped the car a few yards away and waited for Leo to pull in next to him. Then he got out and unbuckled Lily, lifting the sleeping child into his arms. Leo got their bags from the trunk, and they walked up the stairs to the waiting plane.

  “I’m going to buckle her in while we take off,” Farrell said softly to Jenna. “We can move her to the bed once we’re in the air if you like.” Jenna nodded, helping him adjust Lily in the seat, using a pillow to prop her head and covering her with a blanket. “She sleeps like the dead,” Farrell marveled a moment later.

  Jenna laughed softly. “She does.”

  Farrell turned as the pilot stepped into the cabin. “We’ll be ready for take off in just a few minutes, Mr. Black.”

  “Thank you. What’s our timeline?” Farrell asked.

  “About two hours to Florence,” the pilot said.

  “Fine.” Farrell gestured to the seat next to Lily. “You should get settled before we take off.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “We’re going to Florence?”

  He held her gaze. He would tell her everything in due time. But they needed to get the hell out of here while they could still do it without a show of force.

  “Right,” she said, sitting next to Lily. “I guess this is yet another thing I simply don’t need to know,” she said bitterly.

  He leaned down, pulled her seat belt across her lap. His pulse quickened as his fingertips brushed against her stomach, the cleft between her thighs. Was it his imagination that she was breathing fast?

  He slid the buckle into place. “You’ve had a rough night. Let me take care of things for awhile. I’ll tell you everything when we’re safely away from London.”

  He was relieved when she didn’t fight him, and he sat across the aisle from her in one of the wide, leather seats. A moment later, Leo sat in the next row, leaning back his seat and closing his eyes as the pilot shut the door.

  The plane’s engine hummed to life. Then they were barreling down the runway, lifting into the sky and banking over London. The Eye was lit up, the Tower Bridge standing like twin sentries over the Thames as Buckingham Palace stood guard at the center of the city. Farrell watched it all disappear as they left it behind.

  They’d been in the air less than ten minutes when Jenna unbuckled her seat belt and bent over Lily. Farrell rose to help, lifting the child into his arms.

  “Daddy… go to the river,” Lily mumbled in her sleep.

  Farrell stroked her back. “Shhhh…”

  She turned her face, settling deeper into him, and he felt her soft breath against his neck. He carried her to the sleeping cabin at the back of the plane and lay her gently in bed. Jenna pulled up the covers and tucked Bunny in next to her. Farrell was about to suggest Jenna join her for a rest, but when he looked at her, she was staring at him, her eyes full of questions.

  “What now?” she asked softly.

  He ran a tired hand over his face. “This isn’t business you should be mixed up in.”

  “My father’s the one who found out about the research at Stafford, remember? The one who died trying to get it to me. I’m already mixed up in it.”

  He knew from the expression on her face, the way her eyes flashed and he
r jaw was set into a hard line, that he was engaged in a losing battle.

  “I don’t want to wake Lily,” he said.

  They returned to the main cabin, leaving the door to the bedroom ajar in case she woke up. Leo was awake, as if he sensed the impending conversation. He stood and went to the bar, then handed them each a glass of whiskey to match the one in his hand before sitting across from Farrell with his own.

  “I made a copy of the research papers,” Farrell confessed. “When we were in Madrid.”

  She shook her head. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “There wasn’t time,” he said. “We’d only had the papers a few hours before we were under attack. Everything moved too quickly after that.”

  He thought about the time in Madrid. The magic of finally possessing Jenna's body again, of knowing she was still as consumed by him as he was by her. But then he’d found out about Lily. The knowledge had rocked him to the core, and he’d left the hotel in a haze of confusion and fury, wandering the city alone until his head cleared and he finally realized the only thing that mattered was that he and Jenna shared a daughter. That they had a chance to be a family. He’d come back to find a swarm of men preparing to invade their suite in search of the research papers. There hadn’t been time to tell Jenna that he’d made a copy.

  “What did you do with them?” she asked.

  “I spent the last three months pouring over them, digging into the Marburg virus and the study at the Institute, trying to trace the people behind it all.”

  “And what did you find?” she asked.

  “Not much,” he admitted. “Whoever funded the study has gone to great lengths to stay hidden.”

  “It has to be someone in Parliament,” Jenna said. “Maybe even Bernard Morse. Adam was Morse’s Senior Aide. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say you’re probably right,” he said. “But I don’t like to guess.”

  “What about the virologist?” Leo asked. “Any luck finding him?”

  Jenna sat up straighter. “What virologist?”

  “Erik Karlsen, the head researcher on the study, is a leading virologist in molecular and cellular biology. He did some groundbreaking work on Ebola twenty years ago, then went into private research.”

  “And he was working at the Institute?” she asked.

  Farrell took a drink, then nodded. “Was being the operative word. They claim he doesn’t work there anymore, and when I had someone hack into their employee network, we found no mention of him.”

  “What do you think happened to him? Do you think he would help us?” she asked.

  He hesitated. Her use of the pronoun “us” concerned him. He had no intention of bringing Jenna along to confront whoever was behind the Marburg research. It was too dangerous, a plague level virus that could wipe out most of the population if someone figured out how to effectively distribute it — and that’s exactly what it seemed like they were trying to do in the study.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not even sure I can find him, although I did find a listing for his daughter in Amsterdam.”

  “That’s something,” Leo said. “Want me to look into it?”

  Farrell looked at him. “You just got back from Prague.”

  A shadow dropped over the other man’s face as he shrugged. “I could use the distraction.”

  Farrell wondered if it was about the girl Leo had a thing for. He claimed they were simply friends, that they’d been friends since they were kids, but Farrell didn’t buy it. Not when Leo sometimes went hours out of his way — even taking jobs that landed him halfway across the world for less than twelve hours — just to see her for dinner.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Farrell said. “I’m still figuring it out.”

  “We’re going to have to figure it out fast,” Leo said, “especially if Morse becomes sitting MP.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jenna asked.

  “You haven’t heard?” Leo asked her. He continued without waiting for his answer. “Rumor is Morse is in line to become Chancellor of the Treasury.”

  The news had turned Farrell’s blood cold. Morse had taken the British government by storm, quickly moving through the ranks and developing a reputation as an ambitious politician. All well and good unless Morse was somehow involved in the bioweapons research.

  “Do you think he knew about the study at the Institute?” Jenna asked.

  “I have no idea,” Farrell said. “But if he was, I’m betting he’s just another cog in the wheel. Even someone like Bernard Morse doesn’t have the power to fund that kind of program.”

  “What about Alex Petrov?” she asked.

  “Disappeared,” Farrell said. “I’ve had people trying to find him since Cornwall. He’s a ghost.”

  He could hardly think about Petrov without wanting to punch something. Or someone. The guy was a dirtbag, cozying up to Jenna while she was still grieving when all along he had been involved in her father’s murder.

  “What if we went to the press?” Jenna asked. “We could release the papers and let them sort it out.”

  Farrell looked at her. “Is that something you’d want to do?”

  She bit her lip. “I’ve thought about it. I mean, I’m not stupid. I’ve known Lily and I were vulnerable since Cornwall. I didn’t expect someone to come after us on the street, but I did wonder how long it would take them to come looking for the papers. Going to the press was one of my options.”

  “If you knew you were in danger,” Farrell said, trying to control his temper, “why didn’t you go into hiding?”

  “I didn’t want to do that to Lily,” she said. “She’s already been uprooted too much in the past few months. Besides, I knew you had Leo following me.”

  Farrell glared at Leo before returning his eyes to Jenna. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  She shrugged. “I felt better knowing he was there. If it were just me, I would have managed. But I liked knowing someone was watching out for Lily.” She hesitated, then met his eyes. “I just didn’t expect it would be you.”

  He thought about all the times he’d kept watch over them. All the nights he spent standing outside the flat, looking up at the light behind the curtains, imagining Jenna tucking Lily into bed before getting into her own bed alone. Imagining her naked body between crisp sheets, her skin as smooth as porcelain, her breath soft as she drifted into sleep.

  “I would never let anything happen to you, Jenna.”

  She gave him a small nod before looking down at her drink. “So what about the press? Is it a viable option?”

  He thought about it. “I think it's a last resort. If we go public, everyone involved will scatter to the wind. The Stafford Institute will serve up some bullocks press release about how the research isn’t really a bioweapon, about how it’s a strain used to combat Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or ALS. Or maybe they’ll just close down, disappear altogether. Either way, our chance at getting to the people who are really behind it will be gone, and I think it’s safe to say they’re not going to simply throw out all the progress they made.”

  “Farrell’s right,” Leo said. “This is a high dollar investment: buying illegal stuff on the blackmarket, paying virologists and biologists and people like them with the expertise to run this kind of study, not to mention all the equipment they’d need…” He shook his head. "Whatever they planned to do with it was big — big enough to make all the expense worthwhile. If we go to the press, they’ll just go further underground.”

  “Then what do we do?” Jenna asked.

  Her eyes were shaded with dark circles, her face drawn and worried. Farrell wanted to pull her into his arms, shield her from all the ugliness in the world. Somehow he doubted she would make that easy for him.

  “We’re beginning our descent,” the pilot said over the intercom. “Buckle up for landing.”

  Farrell stood. “I’m going to get Lily buckled in. Then we’re going to get y
ou both somewhere safe. That’s all that really matters. We’ll figure out the rest later.”

  He headed for the back of the plane in an effort to avoid her eyes. She could always see through him, and he didn’t want to tell her that he already had a plan, and it involved her and Lily staying in Italy while he got the fuckers who were responsible for trying to kill them in London.

  And making sure none of them lived to threaten them again.

  8

  It was still dark when they landed in Florence, its old buildings and bridges lit gold with street lights. Farrell carried a sleepy Lily off the plane and deposited her in the back seat of a waiting Range Rover next to Jenna. He slid in on the other side, and emotion clogged Jenna’s throat when she looked down at Lily, nestled between them. This is how it should be. Lily should have both her parents. Should feel them beside her every day, shelter from the harsh realities of the world. Could Jenna ever find a way to reconcile Farrell’s business — his life — with her need to keep Lily safe? She felt no closer to the answer now than when she’d first returned to London three months ago. And it didn’t really matter; getting Lily to safety was the most important thing. She would think about the rest of it when she wasn’t worried about keeping them alive.

  Leo navigated the Rover off the tarmac, out the gates and into the city. The streets were mostly quiet, dark except for the eerie yellow glow of street lamps spaced every few feet. Then they were on a highway, speeding not toward the city as Jenna had expected but away from it. She thought about asking where they were going and quickly discounted the idea. As always, Farrell was in charge. He would tell her what she needed to know when the time was right.

  Kate would say she was crazy — like some kind of Stepford wife willing to forfeit control of her own life for the sake of comfort. She would say Jenna was being cowardly, even weak. She would even be right. It was cowardly. It was weak. But Jenna was tired. So very tired. The incident in the alley had crumbled what little security she’d managed to build, the little confidence she had that she could take care of Lily on her own. Someday Jenna and Lily could go back to living a normal life. To cereal for breakfast and counting the steps on the way to Mrs. Hodges. To work and the park and pizza on Friday nights. But these were extraordinary circumstances, and there was no denying they were safer with Farrell than without him. Not after what had happened earlier in the evening. What had almost happened.