“Oh, everyone’s at the office already. They’re in the meeting.”
Ian stared at his friend. “What meeting? I didn’t call a meeting, and you were supposed to be on a plane. Has Adam decided to start a coup, because let me tell you, I’m in the mood to put someone on their ass.”
“Uhm, your wife called a meeting. Seems she thinks she owns half of McKay-Taggart and she said since the boss was sleeping one off, she would take over for the day.”
The cold water could no longer touch him. “She wouldn’t fucking dare.”
“Oh, she dares. See, totally worth missing out on vacation,” Alex said with a grin.
Ian turned off the water. He wouldn’t bother getting clean. It was going to be a bloody kind of day.
* * * *
“Give me one good reason why I’m sitting here.” Simon Weston’s clipped British accent cut through the quiet of the conference room.
“Because I’m your boss and I told you to be here.” The best way to get through a rough sea was to plow straight ahead. Charlie had gotten through many a tough situation because she just acted like she owned the place.
She wondered if her asshole Master’s head was aching. He’d been downing Scotch like it was going out of style the night before. She knew he kind of deserved it with all the name calling and such, but she couldn’t help but wish she was there to take care of him. Sean better have done his job and taken care of his brother. They were family. It was what family did.
Or at least that was what Ian had taught her. Family didn’t give up. Family kept going even when one of them was a complete nitwit jerkwad who called his wife a whore.
Simon was staring at her as though mentally fitting her for a straightjacket. “I don’t know about that.”
Eve McKay set down her ever-present travel mug of coffee, a grin on her face. “Come on, Simon. You know why you’re here. You’re curious. Just like the rest of us.”
Adam clapped his hands and tossed his body into one of the chairs. “I’m thrilled. I think Kris is going to set Ian on his ass, and I’ve been waiting for that.”
She liked Adam, but she had to side with her Master. Despite the whole punching him in the face thing—which she would totally do again—she was trying to be a good submissive and that meant siding with her Master. It was obvious he had some difficult employees. “You should respect Ian, Adam.”
Adam frowned. “I thought you would be more fun than this.”
Eve leaned over. “Alex told me Ian has a black eye.”
Adam fist pumped. “Fuck, yeah. You go, girl.”
Serena slapped at her husband’s arm. “Be polite.”
Jake was on the other side of Serena, a mug of coffee in his hand. “He doesn’t know how. He thinks tact is a made-up word.”
Adam frowned. “Well, we all know tact just means lying about shit. How many of us cheered when we found out Kris was Ian’s long lost wife? Come on.”
Eve, Jake, and Serena raised their hands.
“Well, I was just pissed to find out she’d lied about her name.” Jesse Murdoch was sitting beside Simon, a sour look on his face.
“I was undercover.” She didn’t really like Jesse. He’d totally shot her.
“So was I but I used my real name. It’s confusing to keep changing names,” Jesse shot back.
He was a little behind the curve, but she’d sworn to be kinder to all of God’s creatures, even the slow ones. “Sorry, Jesse. It’s Charlotte. I’ll try to be more clear in the future so you know the full name of the woman you’re shooting and leaving horrific scars on.”
She was perfectly satisfied with the way he blanched.
Simon chuckled under his breath. “She’s got you there. Don’t be such a fucking idiot. I’m your damn sponsor. Don’t make me look bad.”
“I’m only here to find out what you know about Eli Nelson.” Liam O’Donnell wasn’t playing around.
God, she felt like shit when she looked at him. The only way to deal with Liam was honesty. “I know I’m the reason he had the chance to blow up the apartment you were in and send your brother running with the bearer bonds. You might not believe it, but I didn’t know what he was planning. He didn’t let me in on it.”
Liam hadn’t brought his wife with him. Charlie knew this wasn’t entertainment for him. This was serious. She’d betrayed more than just Ian. “Would it have changed a damn thing knowing what would happen?”
She hated the answer but had to be truthful. “No. Eli Nelson had my sister by then.”
“Your sister, Chelsea Dennis. She was taken from her elementary school in North Carolina by her father, Vladimir Denisovitch, and brought to Moscow. He kidnapped her right off the playground. You were older. Did he use your sister to get you to go with him? Or were you afraid because he’d murdered your mother by then?” Adam asked, proving just how smart he was.
Charlie felt her jaw drop. She thought Chelsea had buried that information. “How do you know that?”
“Is your sister the hacker?” Adam’s eyes flared as though he’d found a challenge.
Charlie nodded. “She’s the best in the world.”
Adam sat back. “Second best. Tell her she didn’t go far enough. No information is ever really lost. You just have to know which threads to follow and which lead to nowhere. I have amazing instincts. It’s not just about talent. I’d met you. I didn’t know if it was you or someone else who had covered the tracks. I made an educated guess. Can she walk? Her medical records were inconclusive.”
Charlie took a deep breath. God, he’d found out far more than she’d expected. “She has a pronounced limp.”
Adam’s voice had a gravely tone, as though he was deeply sympathetic. “From the compound fractures of both the tibia and the fibula in each leg. I can’t imagine the pain of that. She was left like that for a long period of time? I found the X-rays online. They showed a healing process. The doctors had to refracture the legs to set them. She was ten?”
The truth could only help her here. She needed these people on her side. But it was so hard to talk about. Especially with Ian’s accusations running through her head. “She was ten years old. The only reason my father took her to the hospital is that I agreed to comply with his training. My father was the head of the Denisovitch syndicate. My mother ran when she was pregnant with Chelsea. She realized she didn’t want her daughters being raised by a monster. She paid a man to smuggle the two of us out of the country. We lived in North Carolina for ten years. She thought he’d forgotten about us. He hadn’t. He killed my mother and took my sister and me back to Russia. I was a bit rebellious, to say the least. He realized that Chelsea was his best method of controlling me so he broke her legs one day. I did what he asked after that.”
“How terrible,” Serena said, her eyes tearing up.
Terrible didn’t begin to cover it. One day she’d been a happy junior high kid whose mom adored her. She’d had a future. She’d wanted to go to college. The next her mother was dead and her only future was with the Thieves-in-Law. “My father ran drugs and women, and Eli Nelson tried to make him out to be an arms dealer. Nelson used my love for my sister to get me to run an operation for him. He told me he would off my father if I would just spend a couple of weeks distracting a CIA operative for him.”
“Ian.” Eve sat forward, an encouraging look on her face. “You were trying to save your sister.”
Well, at least they were giving her more room than Ian had. “Yes. I didn’t know Ian then. My mission was to spend a little time with him. I didn’t expect to marry him. I didn’t expect to love him. He would have done the same for Sean.”