Blamed (19 page)

He was saved from responding to the pain in her soft voice by the wheels touching down, the pilot announcing their arrival in London over the intercom. Stilted silence fell between them as they donned their coats and gathered their bags, Beth’s purse tucked inside her duffle, leaving her hands free should they be accosted on the tarmac.

They weren’t accosted, per se, but a surprise awaited them at the bottom of the stairs. “Casey!” Beth shouted before launching herself at her oldest brother.

Casey Faraday, ex-Army, ex-CIA, swung his squealing sister around in a gleeful bear hug as Vick moved to shake Tobias’s hand. The winter sun had long since set, and a cold wind whipped across the tarmac to freeze them through their heavy coats. “She wanted to come,” he said by way of explanation.

Tobias gave his usual assessment with unreadable eyes. “And you have trouble saying no to my sister.”

“There are worse problems,” Vick murmured, watching Beth interact with the man who’d once saved his life. Casey Faraday was only a couple of years younger than Vick and built like a brick shithouse, to use the colloquial term. Over six feet tall with a rugby player’s physique and dressed in boots, cargo pants and a quilted North Face jacket, the former soldier and current head of Faraday Industries’ tactical operations division possessed the same dark hair, tan skin and gray eyes that tied the Faraday siblings to one another.

He didn’t, however, have Tobias’s aloofness or Beth’s warmth; Casey practically vibrated with leashed aggression and had all the subtlety of a hammer in most of his interactions. After the Colombia rescue, when Casey had checked up on him, Vick hadn’t been initially inclined to like the obvious alpha male. But there was something about those Faradays, a something Vick seemed particularly vulnerable to, so Vick found himself with a new tally mark in the Friend category.

“
Not
Wendell Martin.” Arm slung across Beth’s shoulders, Casey sauntered to a halt in front of Vick. “You’ve been keeping secrets, buddy.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Hello. He’s a spy.”

“Spy or not, it’s good to see you, man.” They shook. Checking his watch, Casey hefted Beth’s bag for her, more Boston evident in his voice than in his siblings’. “We have a couple hours before the meet. Want to freshen up? We’re booked at the Savoy.”

“Under ‘Faraday,’ I presume, since you’re not trying to sneak around.” Vick blew on his bare hands, rubbing for warmth. “MI6 will have bugged your room already and be monitoring your movement through CCTV. Did you rent this vehicle?” He gestured to the black SUV with tinted windows.

Casey scowled. “Yes.”

“Leave it here and take a taxi to my flat—I’ll give you the address, and Beth and I will meet you there.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “You want to put Yang off her game. The best means of doing so is to keep Beth’s presence in London a secret until the last possible second.”

It was Beth who spoke. “We can go to the hotel after this is all settled.” Her tight smile might fool her brothers, but it didn’t fool him—she was nervous as hell. “Maybe we can even do a little sightseeing tomorrow.”

“Anything you want, Bethie.” Pressing a brotherly kiss to the top of her head, Casey nodded to Vick and Tobias. “I’ll call someone to pick up the SUV once we’re on the road.” And with that, the subject was closed.

A line of taxis greeted them at the exit. Tobias and Casey—with Beth’s bag, to make it seem as though they’d come to the airport merely to pick up a package—climbed into one while Vick and Beth, avoiding the CCTV cameras as much as possible, chose a cab from the other end of the line.

After giving the cabbie an address near Piccadilly, Vick dropped his bag at his feet and fell back against the seat with a weary sigh, turning his head to study Beth in the shifting lamplight. His left hand lay on the seat between them, close enough that the tips of his fingers picked up some of the gentle warmth from her body heat. Her own hand rested palm-down a few inches away. It wouldn’t take much to bridge the gap and entwine their fingers, but her “theory” from the plane lingered, stinging him, shaming him.

I
may be your weakness
,
but you’re mine.
He made her weak, vulnerable, and instead of protecting her, he had conspired to send Beth straight into the lion’s den, where her life would be used as a bargaining chip.

She stared out the window, the city rushing past, dark and damp. London wasn’t nearly as cold as Chicago, but February was an unkind month no matter where you went in the Northern Hemisphere. “I’ve never been here before,” she said suddenly, breaking the fraught silence.

“Never?”

“Faraday doesn’t have an active presence in the U.K. There hasn’t been a reason for me to visit.” So subtly he wouldn’t have noticed had he not been attuned to her smallest movement, her littlest finger reached toward his. Not touching, no, but reaching, and his heartbeat accelerated.

“If you’d known I was MI6, would you have traveled here sooner?”

“If I’d known you were MI6, wild horses couldn’t have kept me away.” She lifted her hand from the seat, settling it in her lap, and Vick felt its loss like a stab to the heart.

Their taxi arrived mere seconds behind the Faraday brothers’. Vick paid the driver, offering his hand to Beth to help her out. For a too-brief moment, her fingers rested within his, and then she joined her brothers on the stoop of the generic five-story building wedged between a shipping company’s headquarters and a loading dock. Reaching into the notch he’d fashioned behind the postbox in the foyer, Vick fished out the single key and tossed it to Casey, who caught it with ease. “Second floor, first door on the right.”

Beth entered the studio apartment after her brothers, Vick shutting and dead-bolting the door behind her. “This is where you live?” Her glance took in the bare walls and barren decorating. The bed and bathroom were along the far wall, with the cooking appliances opposite the tiny closet. The living area contained a sofa, coffee table, floor lamp and reclining chair. It had been furnished when he’d moved in four years earlier, and the inclination to update or personalize had never manifested.

“It has everything I need.” Swallowing his defensiveness, Vick stuck his hands in his pockets. “I don’t really ‘live’ anywhere, darling, but this does the trick when I’m not in the field.”

“But it’s where you recuperated after Afghanistan.” She nodded toward the small kitchen. “And where you learned to cook.”

He had the sinking suspicion they had circled back to where they’d started two days ago, before she knew he was alive, when she still thought dating boring what’s-his-name would make her happy—though how so few hours had passed between then and now, Vick had no clue. Years raced by in those two days, but time had reversed again, leaving him standing apart from her. Unable to touch, taste, soothe or seduce.

Somewhere along the line he’d lost ground with her. That “niggling” in the back of her mind...she was right to distrust him, but he mourned the intimacy of their hotel room. Despised the distance her words about where he lived—as though his living here again was a foregone conclusion when he planned on nothing of the sort—placed between them. From waking up wrapped around her naked body to miles of space wedged into a few inches, they’d traveled far in a few hours.

Vick wished it was a journey never made. “When this is over, I want to cook you a meal.”

She unbuttoned her coat, her expression strangely soft. “You already cooked for me.” And evidently that was that, and she walked away from him into the living area.

Tobias closed the blinds over the front windows as Casey flipped on the floor lamp, dropping Beth’s go-bag on the sofa.

Vick moved to set his bag next to hers. “What location did Yang give you?”

The final blind fell, and Tobias removed his overcoat. “30 St. Mary Axe, floor twenty-nine.”

“The Gherkin? Ballsy,” Vick muttered. The iconic skyscraper, with its geometric glass panels and panoramic views, sat at the heart of the City of London and represented the global financial power and reach of their small country. “T-16 is looking to impress or intimidate. Probably both.”

“They’ll strip us of our weapons at the door.” Like a magician, Casey started emptying his pockets. Guns, blades, utility tools, zip-ties, matches and a lighter, fishing line and a garrote soon covered Vick’s coffee table. They watched in silence, unmoving, until he finished. Casey waved an encouraging hand. “Well?”

“Not everyone carries an entire arsenal on his person,” Tobias said wryly, but nonetheless removed his suit jacket to shrug out of the sleekest shoulder holster Vick had ever seen.

Vick hadn’t even noticed the telling bulge of a carry beneath the tailored lines of Tobias’s suit. “Where did you get that?”

“Gillian. The pistol and holster are a set, designed to lie along the curve beneath the rib cage, on the
latissimus dorsi
. Passes a metal-detector test because it’s made of plastic and organic polymers, and the holster fabric is designed to obscure the gun it conceals from scanners.” He slipped his jacket back into place. “Gillian tells me it’s ‘sexy,’ but mostly it’s just convenient.”

“Can I buy one of those from Gillian?” Because, damn, Vick coveted the thing. It
was
sexy
.
He bent to remove his ankle piece, then dropped the switchblade from his trouser pocket onto the table with the rest of their cache.

Casey smirked. “Faraday tech is for Faraday employees only, bro.” Eyeing Beth speculatively, he jerked his chin. “All right, Bethie. Give it up.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, scowling at the deadly pile of weaponry. “My Beretta’s in my bag, and I’ll have to leave my bag at the door anyway, so what’s the point?”

“You only carry one gun now? Not even a pocketknife?” The oldest Faraday appeared crestfallen. “It’s like I taught you nothing.”

Ignoring one brother, she turned to the other. “What is it you always say, Tobias—go into a situation aware of all possible outcomes, but know which is the only acceptable outcome for you?”

“So you
do
listen when I lecture.” A glimmer of amusement curved his mouth before sobering again. “The only acceptable outcome is the removal of the contract on your head. Whatever game T-16 is playing with the Russians, it’s a game they will lose.” Tobias gave Vick a speaking glance. “The only acceptable outcome is a loss.”

It was then that Vick began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t been as careful as he believed. Because Tobias was looking at him now with a million threats in his cold eyes.

Beth cleared her throat. “Tobias.” He didn’t respond, locked into a stare-down that made the small hairs on Vick’s arms stand on end, so Beth tried again. “Tobias.”

“Yes?”

“He knows they won’t succeed. That’s why he’s with us,” she said solemnly.

Vick’s heart shattered under the crushing weight of her undeserved trust.

Unaware of the destruction she’d wreaked, Beth knelt to rummage in her bag. “Casey, what’s the first thing you taught me when I started training with you?” When she straightened, she held a red-soled shoe in each hand, gripping the arched bodies to leave the sharp spikes of the heels free.

Casey grinned. “Never go into a fight unarmed.”

“Ta-da.” Stepping into the gleaming black stilettos, Beth propped her hands on her hips and smiled grimly, a woman who absolutely did not require a man’s protection but accepted it because she knew the men in her life were desperate to shield her. “All right, boys. Let’s do this.”

Chapter Sixteen

They made the elevator ride to the twenty-ninth floor of London’s famous Gherkin building in complete silence. Casey and Tobias stood at the front of the car, but while Tobias remained coolly collected, Casey shifted his weight back and forth, like an athlete pumping himself up before the big game.

Beth observed Vick out of the corner of her eye. He was paler than usual, the grim set of his mouth highlighting the grooves on either side of his lips and accentuating the crow’s feet at the corners of his long-lashed eyes. He’d neglected to shave before their flight, and the few days’ worth of stubble called to her fingertips, urging her to soothe away his stress.

It hadn’t taken much to put two and two together, once she’d had a moment to think. The epiphany had hit her in the middle of the night, at the hotel, when she’d roused briefly after their bathroom-countertop interlude to find Vick wrapped around her in bed, his arms unyielding steel that vowed never to release her.

Her death at Vick’s hands had never been on the table, she’d realized. It was a ruse, but to what conclusion she wasn’t sure. Was his demise more important to MI6 than Beth’s own? Tobias was right—Yang had been too quick to agree to a meet for the hit to be their endgame. The missing pieces to this puzzle were driving her mad, and she suspected Vick had those pieces in his pocket, holding back until necessity drove him forward.

Not two days ago, Beth thought of love as a delicate amalgam of need and pain, that hurting was intrinsically tied to the longing she felt for this man. She hadn’t been wrong—because knowing Vick wasn’t sharing the whole truth lashed at her heart—but now she wondered what it would be like to love without doubt or fear. How deep and true would
that
love be...and would Vick want to share it with her?

Until he mentioned wanting to cook for her, their future together had been mostly unspoken. Sure, when they were banging each other’s brains out, it was easy to make promises about “together” and “always,” neatly avoiding anything concrete, like, “Do you think we should move in together?” or, “I prefer the right side of the bed,” and the ever-important, “Whose family are we spending the holidays with this year?” Okay, so perhaps some of those questions were more Distant Future than Near, but specifics were specifics, and Beth wanted some, damn it. With everything else up in the air, starting and ending with whether or not she’d walk out of the Gherkin alive tonight, she needed specifics to focus on. To...give her hope.

Beth realized she needed hope when it came to her and Vick. When the thrill from the past few days faded, she could take the hope in her heart and offer it to him. And then they could see what that hope could bring them, together.

The only chance of that hopeful future happening was if she let go of her mistrust. Whatever information Vick withheld, they would know soon enough, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t withheld knowledge from her in the past. Before, she’d understood, accepted, moved on. So long as she didn’t wind up dead in the ground because of his deliberate silence, she could do the same now.

As the elevator doors whooshed open, Beth exhaled slowly, then reached over to tangle her fingers with Vick’s. He glanced at her, obviously startled, but then some of the tension leeched from his expression, and his grip tightened.

Letting go of him...hurt. And that, she supposed, was that. Vick was hers, for better or worse, and when this was over she would do her damnedest to live “better.” With him.

Their quartet stepped from the lift toward the entrance to the office suite. The name of whatever company typically leased the space had been removed from the reception desk, and through the glass-and-chrome doors, Beth saw row after row of desks draped in dust cloths.

The earpiece-wearing guards on either side of the doors kept their eyes trained on them as Beth and company approached, one a broad-shouldered young man of Middle Eastern descent, the other an auburn-haired beauty. As Casey had predicted, they were thoroughly swept for weapons and bugs, and Beth’s purse was confiscated. The female agent’s moss-green gaze clashed with Beth’s for a split second before she gave a near-imperceptible nod and waved them through.

Beth nodded in return, heart rate spiking as they strode into the office space occupied by five individuals. Two looked vaguely familiar—a short, dark-eyed blonde with incredible bone structure, the other a nondescript, fortysomething man with thinning brown hair. Another two were obvious muscle, similar to the pair outside the doors, but it was the tall, elegant woman with the sleek silver bob who captured Beth’s attention.

The woman’s tip-tilted eyes narrowed on Beth when she and her brothers came to a halt, Vick a pace behind, guarding her back. “Ms. Faraday. What a surprise.”

Beth swallowed with a throat gone dry. She may have entered with the intent of shaking Colleen Yang’s hand, but actually doing so took more courage than she anticipated. Still, she extended a hand, stepping forward. “Not a fan of surprises, I take it?”

“I prefer to be apprised of the known variables going into a situation.” Yang strode forward and grasped Beth’s hand with her own cool palm. Nothing ruffled T-16’s section chief. The older woman’s gaze shifted over Beth’s shoulder to land on Vick. “Needless to say, I was operating under the assumption you remained in the United States with my agent.”

The bottom dropped out of Beth’s stomach with nauseating force. “Don’t you mean ‘former agent’?”

Yang dropped her hand. “Let’s not pretend, shall we? Raleigh Vick is now and has always been a loyal servant of the Secret Intelligence Service.” Her perceptive gaze swept over Beth. “Though I comprehend how that loyalty would be tested. You’re a beautiful young woman, Ms. Faraday.”

“You’re lying.” Beth heard the men shift behind her but didn’t dare peek over her shoulder, her entire body gone cold at the section chief’s arrogant tone. The woman spoke with conviction, a conviction that filled Beth with dread from head to toe. “You had him
shot.
”

Vick’s low voice behind her. “Beth, love—”

“Agent Vick was aware of the potential risks when this mission began. And while I will admit that your presence was never expected nor required, he has wholly succeeded in his mission—your family is here.”

Beth was going to vomit. No, seriously, she was going to throw up, her entire body shaking with the urge as a clammy sweat broke out along her hairline...unless she pulled herself together and remembered that she couldn’t afford to show a single ounce of weakness. They were negotiating for her life—a life that, apparently, hadn’t been quite as safe in Vick’s hands as she had wanted to believe.

So this was his secret.
Her subconscious had known all was not as it seemed, and lo and behold, here they stood. Totally fucked over. But, God, it just seemed
wrong.

Yang lifted her chin, looking beyond Beth’s shoulder at the three men standing in tense silence at her back. “Now, then. Let’s get down to business. Mr. Faraday?”

Tobias appeared at Beth’s side as she struggled not to topple under the blow she had just been dealt. “You seem eager, Ms. Yang. I don’t trust eagerness.” His even tone brought with it a wave of calm, dragging Beth back from the edge of a complete and utter breakdown.

“It’s not eagerness, but an impatience to put this situation to rest.” Yang arched an ebony brow. “I’m certain you feel the same.”

“While Faraday Industries wants to resolve the ‘situation,’ as you put it, we won’t rush the process on the basis of potentially faulty intelligence.” When Yang didn’t respond, Tobias shrugged, the casual quirk at odds with his perfect posture and façade of stone. “We don’t have to discuss the veracity of your intel now, if you’re feeling...sensitive.”

“Sarcasm will do you no favors,” Yang said coldly.

Tobias gave her a chilling facsimile of a smile. “Neither will leveling death threats at my sister, so tell us what it is you really want.”

“Faraday.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard me.” Yang’s own smile was victorious. “We want Faraday Industries. Access, information, resources, personnel. We want the same assets at our disposal that are currently available only to the U.S. government.”

At Beth’s back, Casey grumbled an expletive, but Tobias parried the section chief’s offensive strike with ease. “We’re not mercenaries for hire, Ms. Yang. The jobs we accept are from vetted government officials, and we act knowing that we are merely an extension of American reach. A finger on a hand, for example.”

The short blonde with the killer cheekbones snorted. “Yeah—the
middle
finger.”

There was something about the blonde that bothered Beth. How she stood, perhaps, as though ready to spring into action at any moment. She was petite but athletically built, like she knew her way around a soccer pitch. Or a sniper rifle. “I know you.” Beth frowned, trying to think around the pounding in her head. “How do I know you?”

“Colombia. We went in for Vick,” the blonde answered shortly, not inviting further speculation. “I’m McCallister.” She pointed to the man in his forties, the other one who’d seemed somewhat familiar. He watched Beth with unnerving intensity. “Nash was also there.”

Yang continued as though their interruption had never occurred. “It’s a fairly simple proposition. Faraday Industries signs a contract granting the Secret Intelligence Service—and by extension the United Kingdom—access and usage identical to that of the United States, to be compensated equally. In exchange, we negotiate the termination of the hit on Beth Faraday...though we will need to tread carefully around the volatile Moscow issue.”

The woman had titanium balls, that was for sure, but Beth couldn’t get past the
wrongness
of Yang’s earlier words, naming Vick as her agent, now and always. Yes, Vick had lied to them, setting the Faradays up to be forced into a business arrangement, of all fucking things. Beth had already known Vick withheld information; he’d admitted as much their first night, because classified intel was classified intel. Beth herself wasn’t at liberty to share the details of her past jobs, whom she’d killed and at whose behest. But she truly believed him when he had said he didn’t know anything about the Russians, remembering the anger and frustration in his voice during their phone call with Yang.

That wasn’t his lie—it was Yang’s, and Beth suddenly knew without a doubt that they were still being played. Locking Faraday Industries in with a contractual ball-and-chain may have been T-16’s initial goal, but as Beth studied the section chief, she saw what Tobias had probably been aware of all along: a distinct tension tightening her eyes and mouth and the occasional flicking glance in...Nash’s direction?

Vick may have betrayed her, threatening the very foundation on which Beth planned to build her future with him—and she damn well intended to learn why, as soon as she got her fury under control—but Vick had been used. That much was clear, at least to her. Vibrating with repressed fury, Beth interjected, “If you’re so concerned about the welfare of your agents, then why shoot Vick? That gut wound could have killed him.”

“Agent Vick’s assignment required him to convince you of his new loyalty to you. As time was of the essence, a failed assassination attempt seemed most expedient. Granted, the original intent was not to injure him quite so badly—” again, Yang’s gaze flitted to Nash, “—but as you can see, the damage was not severe.”

Dear God, his own people—Nash, apparently—had shot him on purpose. And Vick had
known
this was going to happen, as a ploy to soften her toward him. Not that she’d needed softening, oh, no. Had T-16 known the ace it held up its sleeve in bringing her lover back from the dead? Beth would have welcomed him with open arms even if he
hadn’t
cut ties with his employer.

A thought occurred, terrible and true. With a steadying breath, she risked looking over her shoulder at the one man who had the power to break her heart like none other. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Tobias didn’t text you that day.”

Vick didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. “No.”

Nausea curdled her stomach, and she couldn’t help but lay a hand over her belly in a useless attempt to hold in the pain. “Who was that sniper for, Vick?”

“Me. Another planned attempt to soften you and your family toward me.” He shook his head, blue eyes bright and beseeching under the fluorescent glare. “You weren’t supposed to protect me, darling. She wasn’t supposed to hit you.”

Tobias shifted between them, his façade of calm cracking the tiniest bit. “She? She
who?
”

McCallister cleared her throat, and when Tobias glared daggers at her, she smirked and saluted.

Stupid. Shooting Vick to ingratiate him into their lives was so needlessly, pointlessly stupid. Was it so impossible to have a straightforward conversation? Pressure built at Beth’s temples. All of this spy bullshit, they loved it. MI6, the CIA, her brothers—they were all the same, turned on by the complicated twists and turns of deadly intrigue and uncaring of the lives they ruined in pursuit of spy wet-dream nirvana.

She was sick and fucking tired of being surrounded by danger boners. Tearing her attention from Vick, she whipped around to pin Yang with her rage once more. “You know, it’s kind of counterintuitive to freaking
blackmail
your way into a business deal. We’d never trust you not to turn on us, or sell us out.”
Or shoot me right here
,
right now to make a point.
An agreement between them wouldn’t suffice, Beth could see that much. Her blood was still on the negotiating table.

“We don’t need you to trust us, only to work with us. Faraday Industries is a business—we’re not demanding fealty, nor a belief in some greater purpose.”

It was Tobias who responded, having ripped his seething glare from the blonde to recover his calm mask. “Again, you liken us to mercenaries, when we are, in fact, a weapons developer and manufacturer with a division specializing in tactical missions the military is not permitted to undertake.” He seemed to grow taller in the space of a breath, pride straightening his shoulders as he explained their family’s legacy. “We serve the United States because the United States has earned our loyalty. Trust me, it’s not blindly given.”