by Tara Brown
The End of You
A Single Lady Spy Series Novella
Copyright 2014 Tara Brown
http://TaraBrown22.blogspot.com
Amazon edition
This ebook is a work of fiction and is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No alteration or copying of content is permitted. This book is a work of the author’s crazy mind—any similarities are coincidental. Any similarities are by chance and not intentional.
The novel is recommended for readers eighteen and older.
Cover Art by Once Upon a Time Covers
Edited by Andrea Burns
Other Books by Tara Brown writing as
TL Brown, AE Watson, Erin Leigh, and Sophie Starr
The Devil’s Roses
Cursed
Bane
Witch
Hyde
Death
Blackwater
Midnight Coven
Redeemers
The Born Trilogy
Born
Born to Fight
Reborn
The Light Series
The Light of the World
The Four Horsemen
Imaginations
Imaginations
The Blood Trail Chronicles
Vengeance
The Single Lady Spy Series
The End of Me
The End of Games
My Side
The Long Way Home
The Lonely
LOST BOY
First Kiss
Sunder
In The Fading Light
For Love or Money
Blood and Bone
The Seventh Day
The Club
Greed.
Five simple little letters that can mean many different breeds of sin.
There is gluttony and voracity. There’s financial greed. There’s the need to own people, places, and things.
To me the worst kind of sin committed in the name of greed is the one that leaves the hole inside of you bigger than when you started out. Because essentially greed is just that, an attempt at filling a void. We need more because we have less. We are less.
Chapter One
The dark of the night made it impossible to see what he was thinking. Coop paced, passing by the window and casting shadows about the room. I kept my breathing even and relaxed so he wouldn't know I saw him there. I could sense the end of us nearing. I could sense his thoughts straying to other women, younger women. I could feel every insecurity my dead husband lovingly bestowed upon me, lingering in the air with the man who had never given me a reason to doubt him.
But I did.
Not like a college girl doubts the feelings and affections of every boy she smiles at, but the way a woman doubts the man she loves because deep down she knows she doesn't love him as much as she should. It’s a dark place where she admits this to herself, deep in the recesses of her soul where she doesn't want to look. But experience and wisdom have taught her to know better.
Girls blame the guy, believing themselves in the right and screaming of the injustice. Women silently blame him and push away the obvious fact that it’s their own shortcoming.
There, in the dark room with the handsome young man pacing back and forth like a caged cat, I knew which one of us was to blame for the moment we were each wordlessly having.
The lights of the airport in Denver shone through the blackout curtains we didn't close all the way. They provided the dim light I needed to see the doubt on his face. The doubt I required to justify my desire to end things.
We had been playing at our secret agent—spy—lover—instant family roles long enough for all the dust to be settled. The dust unfortunately had been filtering out the important things, blocking them out so we might be fooled by the lack of clarity. But there in the dark room I believed we both saw it for what it was. I was a single woman, desperate to fill the void my husband’s many betrayals had created. I was a single mom, even more desperate to not to be parenting in the world alone. And lastly, I was a broken woman struggling with the possibility I had caused my husband to stray because there was nothing desirable about me.
Coop healed all those places. He loved my kids. He made me feel beautiful. He made us all feel safe. Something we hadn’t felt in a long time. We weren’t alone with him, none of us. He slipped into the holes, like plaster filling them up and patching the cracks.
And the worst part of it all was that I had let him.
I had been selfish and greedy enough in my desire to be normal again that I forgot the one sacred rule about relationships. That one special thing that will always find a way—love.
He continued to pace, pausing in the window. His stomach was flexed, making me wish I could push it all away—all the doubts and worries about us and the lack of love I feared I felt for him. The lust could be enough if I let it.
I closed my eyes, letting myself believe that was a better option. Lust could turn to love. I could let it.
Somehow I slept with that as a blanket tucking me in and telling me to sleep, like my mother had when I was a girl.
I woke to Coop staring at me from the chair across the room. He was dressed and ready to catch our flight to England. I rubbed my eyes, praying the stone-cold expression upon his beautiful face was caused by the sleep in my eyes. But when I blinked it was still there, the awkward stillness in him from the night before with the pacing.
“I think you should go home.” Finally, he had spoken the words I could tell he was thinking, only they weren’t what I expected.
I cocked an eyebrow, confused and too tired to actually fight about whether we should both be on a mission with the kids at home with my mother and Fitz.
He lifted a hand, holding off the argument I was brewing in my still foggy brain. “I think you should go home and try to keep some sense of normalcy. Luce and Jack are coming. We are meeting Servario in Dubai. I think you should let us take care of this.” Luce and Jack were our partners, people we trusted with our lives and those of the people we loved the most—my kids.
I shook my head. “My mom has the kids. She’s fine. She and Fitz are better spies than you and I will ever be and ten times the assassins.” The image of my mother peeling the flesh from a man who was still alive would haunt me all the days of my life.
He nodded, wincing as well. We both would never recover from the viciousness of my mother and Fitz. Thank God they were on our side.
His eyes darted to the ground. “This is going to be another human trafficking case, Evie. I don't want you to see it.” I couldn't help but wonder if that was really what he was worried about. Or if he just didn't want me there because he knew we were nearing the end of us.
Granted, the memory of rescuing children from human trafficking still haunted me. It was something I would NEVER recover from. It was a stain that permanently dyed my heart and soul black.
Not all of me, just the parts that had been previously innocent or naive in any way. They were gone, completely. But the idea of backing out because it would be hard, like I was some sort of delicate female, actually made me annoyed. The stubborn bitch inside of me dug her heels in. “I’m coming.” I had a terrible feeling this wa
s more about me seeing Servario and less about human trafficking.
My heartbeat picked up its pace with just the mention of Servario inside my thoughts. He was the one bad thing I wanted for myself but being a mom and a responsible human being prevented us from ever testing that water out. He was the bad guy and I was the good girl and never the twain shall meet, not in this world. Not even by accident. I had to stop those accidental fuckings.
I glanced at the tense look in Coop’s steely-blue eyes and nodded, not so much at him but just in general.
“You need to consider what we will see when we get there.” His voice was firm as if he were giving me an order.
I shook my head. “I’m going to take it as it comes and pray we aren’t put into a situation that's worse than the others we’ve already survived.”
He stood abruptly, not looking pleased by my choice, but it was still my choice. He might have been my superior at work, but I could tell the order was coming from the guy having the relationship with me. As my boss he had no reason at all to try to make me stay behind. Not since I saved his ass last time we were counting.
We wiped down the room, still living in the awkward silence we had started the day out with. We left it stripped and ready for housekeeping. We looked like we might be polite and helping the hotel staff out, but honestly, we didn't like leaving behind traces of ourselves.
When we boarded the plane I was fortunate to be sitting next to an older lady who was content to show me pictures of her grandkids and tell me about the garden she had grown in the summer. She reminded me of my mother, before my mother confessed to being an international spy and assassin.
Now I saw her more as something from a movie. She wasn’t soft, she wasn’t sweet, and she didn't ever let anyone off the hook. The whole thing was insane and bizarre, and yet somehow true. Finding out my parents were both spies was about the biggest lie I had ever been the victim of. Bigger than the affairs my husband had before he died. Bigger than the lies the government told the rest of the world. Bigger than the lie I told myself about my feelings for a man who was too dangerous for my own good.
Coop had taken the flight before me, just an hour earlier. He was meeting Luce and Jack in London at Heathrow and meeting me in Norwich. We were then flying from Norwich to Dubai on a private jet.
It would have been exciting had it been for any other reason than the one we were traveling for. No one ever said being a spy was fun, no one who actually did the job. The rest of the world saw James Bond and Mission Impossible and believed it was all glamour, sex, and disguises. The movies rarely filled people in on the dirty side, like letting a piece-of-shit cartel rat put his dick in your mouth because it served the greater good. The image of stabbing the last man who had done that to me made me feel ever so slightly less dirty.
My mind drifted as the older woman rattled on and eventually I was asleep.
When I woke we were in Norwich.
I cleared customs as Barbara Newton, a Canadian who was on vacation and visiting her great aunt who was on her deathbed. When I rounded the corner to the baggage claim, my bag instantly caught my eye. Not because it was lime-green and stuffed to the max with vacation clothing, but because the hand holding it made my thighs tighten.
His firm grip and large body made me quiver at the sight. My gaze didn't lift to his face; I didn't need to see it or the smug look upon it.
I knew his hand well enough to know exactly who was holding my bag.
Glancing around, I wasn't certain what my options were. The man holding my bag was the man who also, coincidentally, held my heart captive. He was the ultimate package and not in the way you would expect or want. He was the sort of man who could make you want him—make you choose him over considerably smarter choices. Everything about him was too much. His intense kind of love was the type you dreamt of and avoided at the same time. It burned too hot for you to survive it. The mystery surrounding him was the appetizer, something to wet your pallet and get the games started in your head. Just when you thought you had him figured out, he did something incredibly evil or saintly or sweet. It was confusing in every way. He took opposite stances on discussions regular people wouldn't ever consider thinking.
His name was Servario, Gustavo Servario, and he was a very bad man in all the right ways.
Before my eyes drifted farther than his hands on my bag, he turned and walked from the airport. That was his way of telling me I had to come with him.
He was the double agent every woman wanted to date, or just fuck. But he was also the international millionaire bad boy that every woman in the world, who was in the know, wanted to love. And just for me, secretly and on a level of down-low I didn't even understand, he was the man who had been in love with me for years, watching from the shadows and protecting me.
My footsteps followed him, my vagina tried to convince my feet to run, and my heart desperately wanted to turn and go the other way.
Being around him was nearly impossible. He was the choice I was never going to make. I was a mom and daughter and an agent. Those didn't match his cover—international arms dealer who dabbled in human trafficking and drugs.
It wouldn't have been so bad had he not loved his cover like a real job, but he did.
Every step my ballet flats tapped across the airport and then the parking lot went in the wrong direction in my opinion.
When I got to the black SUV with the tinted windows and the door wide open, I contemplated running in the other direction. Being alone in a car with him was never a simple car ride.
Taking a large, deep, dissatisfying breath, I climbed inside and let the driver close the door. I didn't turn my head to look into Servario’s hazel-green eyes. I knew what lurked in there. He had a history of speaking with a stare. In my peripheral I could see his dark hair was a little long for him. Normally, he kept it short but it seemed to be playing with his ear, resting there with promises of feathery tickles. His skin was paler than normal. Usually he was tanned. Being Italian-Serbian made him a candidate for a year-round summer glow. He wore pale-gray slacks, like he had the first time we met. The way they fit him, you knew they were custom made by the very best Italian tailor.
His shoes were deep-burgundy Italian leather, shiny to the point I could see the back of the seat in the reflection. He wore a steel-colored dress shirt, opened at the top so you got a glimpse of the places your fingers naturally wished to explore.
The man was sex. He breathed sex. Lived for sex. Made you obsess about the type of sex you would have with him. The heat radiating from his body next to mine made me uncomfortable in a variety of ways. The main one was the way my thighs clenched together and my vagina begged me to just strip down and let him force me into positions I wasn't comfortable with.
“Hello, Evie,” he spoke softly but the confidence was there, even in a whispered greeting.
I nodded, forcing my eyes to focus on the back of the seat in front of me. “Hello, Servario.”
His hand moved from the bag. It didn't pause or hesitate. It moved directly to my leg, landing on my knee. He burned me through my pants as he trailed his fiery touch up the inside of my thigh. His hand tickled as it climbed up my leg. My lips parted, my heart pounded, and my insides twitched with the temptation he represented. He wasn't the serpent in the tree, he was the apple.
When he reached the top of my leg, the highest point he could inside of my thigh, he brushed his pinkie finger along my groin. I sucked my breath like a fool, letting him know how desperate I had been for his forbidden touch. He lowered the finger again, delicately and yet with enough force that I could feel every small touch he placed upon my underwear and what was beneath.
He didn't speak or tell me how much he had missed me in the days we had been apart. He didn't try to convince me to run away with him. He didn't offer me the world. He was painfully realistic in what he offered—momentary bliss and then forced abandonment. And for whatever disgusting reason, I wanted both. The ecstasy of the fucking was just as sweet
as the longing for the next time. I actually enjoyed the torture of waiting for the moment we would be alone and he would be inappropriately forward and convincing.
His finger ran up and down me, hearing nothing more than the initial gasp from me. I nearly held my breath trying not to let him see how obviously affected I was by even the slightest touch.
We drove a short distance to a sight I still hadn’t grown accustomed to, a private runway. Servario didn't like anyone to know where or when he was traveling. He liked to keep his movements unpredictable. His private jet was something I had grown familiar with in the last few months as we had become intertwined in each other’s lives, professionally and privately.
When the driver stopped the SUV, I glanced at him, finally taking his beauty in and letting my eyes wander his handsome face. “New plane?”
He nodded, smirking. I knew what he was thinking. His eyes were practically giving me the details aloud. He licked his lips, taking his bottom lip in his mouth. “I’m going to have to give you a tour of this one.”
My insides jumped. I nearly abandoned my bag and ran from the runway, screaming and begging for mercy. The first time I had ever been truly fucked by a man, it was on his last plane. It was the first time I knew what it meant to be consumed by a person.
Clearly my expression had answered his request. He laughed, nodding. “Relax, Evie. You know how much you like to fly.” He climbed from the SUV on his own accord as the driver got the door for me. Servario carried my lime-green luggage on board, not looking back to see if I had fled into the forest.
I sighed, hating how predictable I was, and followed him onto the new jet plane.
It was smaller than the previous one, seating only a dozen. The back of the plane seemed to be too large for it to end in a door. I had to assume there was another room back there.