A Dom Is Forever (39 page)

“Just shut it down for now.” Ian sighed over the line. “We can talk about this in person, and everyone can be at the table. All right? Can we just take out this fucker first?”

“Right, boss.” He settled back into silence, watching the restaurant, but his head wouldn’t quiet down. Avery was still in trouble, and there was something wrong with Molina. He needed to get a meeting with the bastard, even if it was just to get an in-person assessment of the man. Something was off about the whole thing, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. If Rory had been working with Nelson, what had happened to him? Had Nelson killed him when he was no longer useful?

And he wasn’t sure about Simon Weston either. He’d been forced to turn Avery over to Simon when he’d left her at her office this morning.

How the hell had he gotten into MI6 confidential files? Adam might be able to do it, but Adam had been hacking systems since he was old enough to sit at a computer and type. Nothing in Weston’s background made Liam think he was capable of it. Ian wasn’t thinking. Ian had stopped thinking the minute he’d been forced to think about his wife again. Maybe he’d stopped thinking the minute he’d hit the ground in London.

And maybe that was just what Eli Nelson had planned on.

A cold chill went up Liam’s spine. The restaurant was so open. Why had a rogue CIA agent sat outside on the patio in the bright light of day when London had one of the most active systems of CCTV cameras in the world?

“Alex?” Liam asked.

“Yep.”

“You have a sight line of where Nelson was sitting in the picture we got, right?”

Alex was set up to scope the front of the patio on the Thames side.

“Where’s the nearest camera? The one we caught him on?” The one that had taken the footage that sent them to London in the first place.

Adam’s voice came over the line. “I’m standing under it.”

“Is it hidden?” There might be a chance he couldn’t see it, that Nelson hadn’t known.

“No. It’s in plain view.”

“Motherfucker.” Ian’s curse burned over the line. “He knew. He had to know. He wanted us to see him.”

“Well, he wanted someone to see him. And he’s fifteen minutes late,” Jake added. “He’s moved the meeting. He’s not coming.”

There was another loud curse over the line as Ian proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he knew an awful lot of cuss words. He was inventive. Liam had to give him that. Ian went over a number of items he intended to shove up Nelson’s bum, and Liam rather thought he would do it without the aid of lubrication. Ian also, it seemed, intended to go medieval on Nelson as there was something about entrails and wrapping the man’s intestines around his throat, but only after the aforementioned anal torture.

Liam kept quiet as he packed up his gear. Nelson had drawn them here. Nelson had always known they were here, so why hadn’t Molina tried to take them out? What the fuck kind of game were they playing?

“Meet back at the club. We have to rethink everything.” Ian sounded tired after his rant. A long sigh came over the line. “Liam, move her tomorrow. Get her out of here. But do it quietly. Nelson will be watching us tonight. Everything has to look reasonably normal. Pick Avery up at work, take her back to your place, and then don’t leave until dark. Check in with Adam and Jake at six and they’ll get you armed for the night. You and Avery talk about going to dinner and a show. Molina’s listening so Nelson is listening, too. Don’t say anything that could tip him off. Find the biggest crowd you can and lose yourselves in it. Stay out for the night. I’ll have Eve get you both new IDs, and we’ll move you in the morning. Meet her in Liverpool station, eight a.m. Do you want this girl?”

He wanted her more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life, but he had questions he needed answered. “Ian, I think Nelson killed my brother.”

“You have a decision to make, man. If you decide to stay here, I’ll let Adam move her.”

“And you will have lost your chance,” Alex said, speaking for the first time since the revelation. “Li, do you trust us? I’ll do what it takes to find the truth, but you’re going to have to choose between revenge and her. I doubt if you walk away that she will ever let you back in.”

But Liam knew something about Avery that the rest of the team didn’t. He knew how forgiving she was. She would eventually forgive him, and he could have both. He could find the truth. He’d waited years to discover the truth. He dreamed of it every night—except for those few days with Avery when all he’d dreamed about was her.

She would forgive him, but he would prove that he’d learned absolutely nothing. The past was done. He couldn’t bring his brother back, and he couldn’t fool himself any longer into believing that his brother had been a good man. Nelson would have needed one of them.

And Rory had been the one to buy the pints. He’d been the one to convince Liam to just have one before they turned in.

Fuck.
His brother had very likely slipped him a
roofie
. He’d been drugged by his own brother and then saved by Nelson. Nelson had known the house was going to blow, but Rory had been the expert in explosives.

None of it made sense unless they were working together, but then why the hell had Nelson saved Liam? The answers were here.

And he was going to walk away from them because he loved a girl. Because she mattered more than anything, and he wasn’t going to trust her safety to anyone else. He could get her out tomorrow. He could make sure she was safe. That was his real mission in life. “Tell Eve to get at least two different passports and then send us somewhere warm.”

“Will do,” Ian replied. “Go pick up Avery and batten down the hatches for tonight. The rest of you get your asses to the club. We have to figure out what this fucker wants.”

Liam took a long breath. He was walking away from everything he’d held close for years. For years, all that had mattered was figuring out what had happened to him, but now he had a future. He was going to grab it with both hands and never let it go. Avery would forgive him. She had to because he was going to prove he could be worthy of her.

He pulled the radio off and packed up his gear and left the key card on the bed. He needed to get to her as fast as possible. He’d rather take her away tonight, but Ian was right. There were issues to be settled, and they didn’t want to tip Nelson off. Or Molina.

Liam opened the door and out of his peripheral vision caught a flash of metal. He leapt back, shoving his bag up and catching the gun just as it went off with a quiet little ping. Silencer.

Fuck.
He’d been followed, and he hadn’t even known it. He was losing his edge.

Adrenaline flooded his body. His opponent was caught off guard, and Liam reached out, grabbing the arm that held the gun before the man could aim again. He pulled his attacker inside. The last thing he needed was to get Scotland Yard involved. He brought his knee up, catching the man in the gut while he twisted the hand with the gun. It fell neatly to the floor while his opponent tried to fight back.

Liam let his instincts take over, forgetting everything but the fight. He brought his fist up in a neat uppercut that caught his opponent right on the jaw. A nice crack split the air as the bone broke and blood started to flow. The man fell to the floor but not before Liam managed to get his gun in hand. It was time for a little torture.
Fuck.
He hoped the guy could still talk. Liam looked down at him. Maybe he could just write down all the pertinent information. Liam hadn’t broken his hands. Yet.

It was turning out to be a terrible day, but a little interrogation was just what the doctor called for. His inner sadist nearly stood up and cheered.

Until the second bastard invaded.

“Mr. Molina says hello, Mr. Donnelly. He wants you to stay away from his lady friend. Permanently.” The second guy was dressed in an immaculate suit and had come equipped for a gunfight.

Liam put a foot on the unconscious, hopefully-wasn’t-dead-yet man, though he might have used a little too much force because the bloke wasn’t moving. Liam had to admit he might have sent pieces of bone straight up into the
git’s
brain. He could be a little forceful at times, but he wasn’t going to tell his current attacker that his partner might be dead already. “How about you put the gun down, and I don’t kill your friend here.”

The new guy fired once, and Liam was no longer worried that he’d killed the first attacker. The bloke on the floor now had a bullet in his brain. His new opponent simply smiled. “I never liked him much anyway.”

Liam got off a shot before he rolled away behind the big four-poster bed. It wouldn’t provide much cover, but it was all he had. This bloke wasn’t playing, and he was far better trained than the idiot he’d sent in as his first line of fire.

“You aren’t what you say you are, Mr. Donnelly. I thought I was shooting a guy who was unlucky enough to be fucking the woman my boss wants, but you’re here for something else, aren’t you? Who sent you? You’re not a bloody construction worker.”

And now this guy had to die, too. He couldn’t just get away. Liam huddled behind the bed, catching sight of the man moving in the mirror over the dresser on the opposite wall. He stepped over his dead compatriot and had the deeply bland look of a man who had killed hundreds of times.

Liam flattened his body to the carpet and took the only shot he had, splitting the guy’s ankle and sending him to the floor, where he promptly proved what a pro he was. There was the briefest glimpse of his body falling and then a shot that went straight under the bed and across Liam’s left bicep. Pain flared, fire running over his skin.

And there was not a second to consider the pain. He got to his knees as a second shot grazed his hip. He rolled to the side and let everything but the fight fall away. There was nothing past this moment and this man. He would live or die and everything crystalized. Time seemed to slow down, his vision getting sharper as though he could laser focus.

Breathe in. Move to the side.

Breathe out. See the target, a little spot right between his opponent’s eyes. Lift the gun.

Breathe in. Fire.

The man’s head jerked back, blood splattering behind him, but on his forehead there was only a neat little hole.

Ian was going to kill him. Liam slumped down, his back to the wall. His left arm ached, but it looked like it had only grazed him. He sighed. He’d fared far better than his opponents. MI6 was going to ream him a new bloody asshole for those corpses.

But Molina didn’t know who he was or at least he wasn’t telling his people. The would-be killer had called him Lee Donnelly, and he’d done it with the arrogance of a man who thought he was holding all the cards. Either Molina was hiding it from them or Nelson hadn’t let Molina in on the fact that they were here.

Very interesting.

Liam forced himself to move, getting to his feet so he could rifle through the dead guy’s wallet. Malcolm Glass. Citizen of England. He had a couple of
tenners
and a bunch of credit cards in several names. Nothing that really told him a damn thing.

Liam picked through his bag. He found his phone and dialed the one person he didn’t want to talk to.

“Yeah, you on your way to pick up your package?” It was a cell line. Ian would talk in vague language.

And so would Liam. “Ran into a bit of a problem, boss.”

There was a low growl. “The kind we can still ask questions of?”

“Nope. I would say all the questioning is over.”

“Fuck. I’m sending someone to you. How bad is it?”

“Just a little. But we might need to call our friends and get the name of a good cleaner.” Because someone was going to have to deal with the bodies.

The cursing began, and Liam let himself slide to the floor again. Ian would handle it from here. A sense of peace came over him. Sure it was fighting with the adrenaline that came from being shot at, but it was there all the same. He wasn’t alone. He’d fooled himself. He hadn’t been alone for a long time. The moment he’d woken up, filthy dock water in his lungs and a blank space in his memory, had been the moment he’d been reborn. For the first time, he understood a little tiny bit of the spark that kept Avery going despite everything she’d been through.

A man wasn’t his past. A man was his future, and it was something he had to fight for. And family wasn’t necessarily blood. The bonds of friendship could form tight family ties.

Adam pushed through the door. He must have been closer than anyone else, and it was obvious he’d run his ass off. “Holy hell. Jeez, what did you do to these guys? And that’s my shirt. Motherfucker. You got blood on my shirt.”

Brothers. They could be hell on a man, but he was damn glad to have them.

* * * *

“Why didn’t you tell me my brother is alive and well and fucking my secretary?” Molina only waited long enough for the waitress to walk away before he started in on Nelson.

“I didn’t realize it myself until about a year ago. I found myself working with his team on the operation that led to my early retirement from the Agency.” Nelson leaned over, his face very serious in the gloom of the pub. Unlike the last place Nelson had insisted on, this pub was dark and on a quiet street. The restaurant before had been in the open. “Are you telling me Liam O’Donnell is here in London?”

“Are you telling me you didn’t know,
ya
bloody bastard?”

“Careful, Thomas.” Nelson placed emphasis on Thomas. “People might wonder why an American millionaire talks like he should be standing on the docks of Dublin with a pint in his hand.”

Molina tried to rein in his emotions. They seemed to be running rampant ever since the moment he’d realized dear Liam was still alive. “How did he get out of that house? I set it to blow the morning after I left. Early. He should have still been metabolizing the drugs I gave him.”

Nelson shrugged, a negligent gesture. “He must have had a stronger constitution than you guessed. You never told me why you didn’t just kill him like you did the rest of them. Why did you feel the need to kill those kids?”