by Olivia Gates
Now it was different. This woman he’d been sharing every intimacy he’d never wanted to share with another with was the woman he’d thought she was in the past. She’d told the truth when she’d said she’d never acted with him. And she’d never made personal use of the money she’d taken from him, except to build a new persona. He had to find out what had driven her to that mercenary life in the past, then to go through such effort and pain to escape it.
Yet he didn’t know how to start a new investigation, or if one would actually lead to anything other than more dead ends.
But he could investigate someone close to her. Hiro. His past was heavily documented, and maybe some threads from her relationship with him would lead to unraveling her mystery.
* * *
Investigating Scarlett’s relationship with Hiro turned out to be a simple matter of entering their names in an internet search engine.
At the click of a button, he got dozens of results detailing the incident that had brought them together.
About a year ago, Hiro was on one of his private jets, returning from a charity event on Kyoto. Scarlett was among the dozen people who’d organized the event and had been invited to go back to Tokyo with him. Then the plane was hit by lightning.
Five people died in the crash, and others had assorted injuries but had managed to pull themselves out of the wreckage. But Hiro was trapped. They’d tried to extricate him, but on realizing the plane was about to explode, they’d run out, leaving him to his fate. All but Scarlett.
Risking her own life, she’d refused to leave him even when he’d begged her to save herself. She’d finally managed to drag him free and away from the plane in the nick of time. Then she’d stopped the bleeding from the major artery in his leg, which would have killed him anyway, and continued to care for him until rescue teams arrived. Through it all, she’d ignored her own injuries.
Hiro had been on record so many times in the media lauding Scarlett’s fearlessness and heroism, and stating unequivocally that he owed her his life.
In addition to the press coverage Raiden found, his own investigations revealed they’d been best friends ever since, but that there’d been no hint of romantic involvement in their closeness. Apart from their friendship, Hiro had been donating massive amounts of money to her causes. But there was never enough money to establish the ongoing services she was setting up. And it was far better to have personal money she had immediate access to, since Hiro’s donations would always be tied in lengthy legal procedures before being made available for her to use.
That further proved Scarlett was the person he’d always felt her to be, and that what she’d told him about her and Hiro was true. That revelation cleared away his last misconception about her.
But it still gave him no insight into her past.
Which meant there was one last option open to him.
Enlisting the combined investigative powers of his brothers.
He’d never before considered doing that. It had been the last thing he’d wanted—for them to find out about her, and about how close he’d come to unwittingly exposing them all.
But discovering the truth about her had become imperative. It now meant more to him than learning the truth about himself ever did.
Six
“So there’s a woman out there who knows everything about you. And you deem to tell us now? Five years after the fact?”
Raiden looked steadily across his executive desk at the three juggernauts who sat facing him in a semicircle, looking like a tribunal of demigods.
They were the three of his six brothers who’d been able to come for the face-to-face meeting. He’d just told them the short version of his history with Hannah/Scarlett.
The first one to talk after he’d finished was Numair, the leader of the Black Castle brotherhood. His leader.
Numair Al Aswad, or Phantom, the name he’d known him by for their twenty years in The Organization’s prison, had been the oldest among them and the one who’d been there longest. Each had found him already established as The Organization’s rising star when they’d come to the prison they’d eventually called Black Castle. Almost twenty-five of Numair’s forty years had been spent there, at first being trained, then later training others, starting with them. He had taught them his every stealthy and lethal method in espionage and execution.
He hadn’t only been the best operative in The Organization’s history, he’d also been the shrewdest, the one who’d chosen Raiden and his brothers out of hundreds of boys, judging them to be not only the best of the best but kindred spirits. Taking them on, making them his team, he’d guided them through the endless years of captivity. He was the one who’d forged their brotherhood and their blood oath to one day escape, amass wealth and power and bring down those who’d sold them as slaves and The Organization itself.
Numair had worked to that end since he’d been only ten. It had been his mind-bogglingly convoluted and long-term plan that had made it possible for them to finally escape, disappear and create their new identities. He and Richard, Rafael’s former handler, had also been the ones who’d led them into creating Black Castle Enterprises.
But like Raiden, Numair had remembered no specific details about his family before he’d been sold to The Organization. He’d only remembered a few names. One he’d ended up calling himself. The others he’d long realized were those of desert kingdoms. He’d searched, like Raiden, for his bloodline since their escape, and he’d recently found out that not only did he come from one of those kingdoms, but before his abduction, he’d been the heir to its throne.
But reclaiming his legacy wouldn’t be as easy as it was for Raiden. Numair’s return to his kingdom would turn his region upside down. It could even ignite a war.
Which was fine by Numair. Nothing would stop him from claiming what was his. And it wouldn’t be the first time he’d instigated armed conflicts.
Now he regarded Raiden with eyes as still and fathomless as an abyss. But his absolute calmness didn’t fool him. That abyss was filled with flesh-melting acid.
Raiden had compromised everything Numair had strived for—their freedoms, their achievements, their very lives. Numair was coldly angry. And when he was like this, he was deadly. Anyone with any sense of self-preservation would be afraid. Very afraid.
“So what took you so long to let us know?” That was Wildcard. Of Russian origins, he’d come to The Organization old enough to remember his past life. But he’d chosen not to make contact with his family after his escape, adopting the name Ivan Kostantinov instead. Still a Russian name, but he hadn’t told any of them the significance of his choice. Many of his rivals in the cyber development world thought Ivan the Terrible suited him far more.
Ivan’s mockery grew more caustic when Raiden made no response. “Did you change your name from Lightning to Turtle without telling us?”
“Maybe since he’s a ninja, he’s always been one.”
Ivan glared at Bones, the most blasé of the brothers. If only in comparison to the rest of them. To the rest of the world Antonio Balducci was a whirlwind of energy and achievements, an enigmatic, awe-inspiring figure who was a wizard in medicine and with the women who catapulted themselves at his feet. As their former medical expert and field surgeon, Antonio was now in charge of Black Castle’s medical R&D business and a reconstructive-trauma surgical god whose work bordered on magic.
On the personal level, ever since their days in Black Castle, Antonio and Ivan couldn’t stop harassing each other, but neither one could live without the other, either.
“You knew that she knew,” Ivan said, resuming the corrosive scolding Antonio had interrupted. “And you not only let her go then, you’re back with her again now. Don’t you—”
“I had no idea what she was up to until it was too late,” Raiden interrupted Ivan. “I let her go bec
ause she gave me her word she’d never use her knowledge. She kept it and I—”
“You had no way of knowing she would,” Numair interrupted him in turn. “That was a blind, insane gamble. You jeopardized yourself and, by association, all of us. You compounded your mistakes when you made the decision to keep us in the dark. It could have meant our very lives.”
From the bare facts, it did look like that, Raiden conceded. But it had been his gut feeling that he’d gone with then. Still, he couldn’t admit that. It would make him look even more unreliable, and Scarlett more dangerous.
He finally exhaled. “I made the call to believe her. And I was right to.”
Antonio snorted. “How do you know that? There’s no proof yet that this woman hasn’t leaked strategic info about you, or us, in the past five years. For all we know, every single problem or loss we suffered could have been her doing.”
Raiden’s answering snort was more spectacular. “Don’t you think if she’d leaked info about our identities, the least we would have suffered would have been bullets between the eyes, not the tame business setbacks we did? She leaked, and will leak, nothing.”
Antonio shrugged. “Then you lucked out. So far.”
“It wasn’t luck. It was a judgment. I stand by it.”
“I can understand you making a mistake once,” Ivan said. “Though I can’t get my head around it, not from you. But to be doing it again... That’s totally incomprehensible to me.”
“Whatever mistake I made in the past, none of the same variables apply now. I’m not making a mistake again.”
Ivan’s lips twisted condescendingly. “Says the man whose wedding is in three weeks. The wedding that will secure your entry into the family you’ve searched for for ten years, an ultraconservative clan who would reject you at the slightest whiff of scandal.”
Antonio shook his head. “And you didn’t even wait until all the legalities were concluded and you had your family name back to indulge your desire for this black widow.”
Ivan nodded. “You are risking everything you’ve dreamed of and planned for all your life by associating with this woman at this critical time. And worst of all, it seems you don’t realize you’re doing that.”
Oh, he did realize. Especially in the past week, since he’d dropped his precautions, had been surprising Scarlett at work, insisting on taking her out, then to and from home, no longer able to bear getting there or leaving separately, or any other secrecy measures.
When she’d at first refused to relinquish their precautions, he’d insisted he knew what he was doing. Which he certainly didn’t. The only thing he knew was that he could no longer compartmentalize her presence in his life. He wanted her with him in every possible moment, couldn’t bear wasting the time he could have with her on secrecy procedures. How that would ultimately affect his plans, he was at a stage where he no longer cared. He knew his time with her was draining away like accelerated sand in an hourglass, and such a realization was messing with his restraint, rearranging all of his priorities.
From his brothers’ point of view, that would all prove that he’d lost his mind. He couldn’t contest their diagnosis. For he had no sanity to speak of when it came to Scarlett.
When he didn’t make a comment, Antonio exhaled. “From her own admission, she’s a Mata Hari who’s played at least five dozen men before you. You think you’re so special to her that she won’t do the same to you...again? How could you resume your liaison after she blackmailed you for fifty million dollars?”
“I did after she asked for double that this time.” The trio of his brothers just stared at him as if he’d sprouted two extra heads. “Apart from the money she used to create her current identity, she only uses the money in her humanitarian work.”
“And you realized that when?” Ivan scoffed. “Long after the fact, I’m certain. This woman demands money, and no matter how outrageous the amount, and whether you have reason to succumb to her demands or not, you give it to her. Without consulting any of us.”
“And without letting us know of the danger she could have posed to all of us back then, and could still pose now or any time in the future.” Antonio shook his head in incredulity. “This is even worse than I at first thought.”
Raiden’s gaze swept the three men, felt them passing judgment. From the fury on Ivan’s face, the dismay on Antonio’s and the nothingness on Numair’s, he knew the sentence they would like to pass was a painless death. To put him out of their collective misery.
Cocking his head at them, he sighed. “Are you done?”
“Actually, no,” Ivan growled. “How did you expect us to take this? Don’t you realize the magnitude of what you risked? And are still risking?”
Numair sat forward, moving in pure effortlessness, the first trait that had earned him the name Phantom before the rest of his stealthy methods had. This meant he’d decided this back-and-forth exchange was over. He’d reached his verdict.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t leave this office and go eliminate this woman’s threat.”
Silence detonated in the wake of Numair’s tranquil words.
Feeling his heart about to do the same, Raiden drew in a sharp breath. Once Numair made up his mind, nothing could stop him. So Raiden had to stop his mind in its tracks before it latched on to a course of action.
“One reason. Me.” His voice was a steel blade as he transferred his gaze from Numair to the others, letting them know Scarlett was one line he’d never let anyone cross. Not even them. Then he let the lifetime of history and empathy between them enter his gaze. “We survived hell, then conquered the world by trusting each other absolutely. You depended on me and my instincts countless times. I now ask you to trust the instincts that never led us wrong.”
“They led you wrong in her case,” Antonio pointed out.
“No, they haven’t. I now believe she’d been forced to spy on me. And this is why I called this meeting, why I told you about her. I need you to help me find out exactly who she is, and how Medvedev found her, and what power he had over her.”
“She was a professional honey trap with a long history behind her before Medvedev hired her,” Antonio dismissed.
“And I want to find out how that happened, how she’d entered this life, the life she’d gone to such lengths to exit.” He gave them a moment to absorb his demands and the new considerations, then went on. “Promise me you’ll do everything in your power to help me settle this issue once and for all.”
“I can certainly settle her issue with no effort at all.” Numair’s voice was laced with chilling, hair-raising humor.
“Numair.”
At Raiden’s booming growl, Numair held his enraged gaze for seconds before he shrugged. “It would be better for you and for all of us if she just...disappeared. If this were my call, I wouldn’t forgive anyone who betrayed me. Not for any reason. If I were you, I wouldn’t care why she did.”
“You’re not me, Numair. Now give me your word.”
Numair inclined his head vaguely, looking like a malevolent genie from an Oriental fable with his shoulder-length black hair, slanting eyebrows and striking features.
“Give me your oath, Phantom,” Raiden gritted.
He had to have that, or Numair would leave his office and fulfill his not-so-veiled threat. When it came to protecting their brotherhood, Numair would do, and had done, literally anything. But he also had an unswerving code of honor, would give his life to uphold an oath he’d made. But he had to make it first, unequivocally, not just imply it, before it became binding.
Pursing his lips, Numair regarded him with the same steadiness he had since Raiden had first seen him when he’d been five, that of the stern older brother who knew best. He didn’t approve, but he now realized that Raiden wasn’t defending his mistakes in the past or his whims now. He was defending the wo
man he wanted with every fiber of his being.
Though he still had no reason to make that oath, none but Raiden’s conviction, Numair finally said, “You have it.”
* * *
“I don’t have good news.”
Raiden’s heart rammed his ribs viciously at Numair’s declaration.
Numair hadn’t stood up to receive him when Abbas, his right-hand man, had let Raiden into his presidential suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. He said nothing more than his opening statement. Instead, he continued staring out of the window at the glittering nighttime Tokyo as Raiden approached him.
Raiden barely noticed his luxurious surroundings as he came to stand before him. Numair only leaned forward on the immaculate brown silk sofa and poured himself a straight whiskey from a crystal decanter. Still without looking at Raiden, he tossed the shot back.
It hadn’t surprised Raiden when only four days after his meeting with his trio of brothers, it had been Numair who’d called him to tell him he had what Raiden had been looking for.
As Phantom, his investigative capabilities were unmatched. Now as Numair Al Aswad, or Black Panther as he was known in the intelligence field, where he was now one of the world’s biggest experts and contractors, his reach had multiplied a hundredfold. The only one who could rival him was Richard, or Cobra, Rafael’s past handler. Not that he’d even considered enlisting Richard’s help. Not because he still felt any hard feelings toward him as one of their past captors, but because of the way Numair felt about him. There was still a possibility those two might end up killing each other. Whatever made the two forces of nature abhor each other so much, even after becoming allies, neither man would ever say.
Dread eating through the rest of his tattered control, he gritted his teeth. “Just give me what you have.”
Numair at last looked up at him. His eyes weren’t indifferent anymore. They were heavy.
Then he said, “Sit down. And pour yourself a drink.”