Ian seemed to be talking to someone on the speaker phone. Charlie stared at the flowers. They were beautiful, just buds now, their graceful curves only starting to reveal the bloom inside. She’d been like that once. She’d been full of possibilities. She hadn’t even known what those possibilities were. Ian had shown her.
She wouldn’t bloom. Maybe Chelsea was right, and they had never really had a chance.
Fourteen flowers. She touched them all, a little worry sparking in the back of her brain. “Chelsea, how many flowers do you count?”
“I don’t care about the flowers.”
“I count fourteen. Fourteen yellow roses and no one knows who sent them.”
Chelsea suddenly seemed to care about the flowers. “It could be a mistake. Maybe whoever sent them meant to send a dozen and they got fourteen by mistake. They send flowers by the dozen here in the States.”
No one in Russia sent an even number of flowers to anything except a funeral. And no one sent yellow flowers except to show their profound sadness or to mark a betrayal.
These were funeral flowers meant for a Russian daughter. For her.
“We have to get out of here.” Chelsea tugged on her arm, pure fear on her face. It seemed she’d gotten the message, too. “They don’t understand how far our uncle will go.”
Liam strode down the hallway, a grim look on his face. He shoved his way into the conference room and immediately started talking. Everyone was facing him and then Grace started to cry.
Oh, god, what was going on? Charlie stepped to the window that separated them.
Charlie watched as the conference room seemed to tense and then Liam and Grace went running out of the room followed by a tense-looking Simon and Jesse, who was checking the clip on his SIG. Jake moved back toward his office while Adam was back at his computer, his fingers flying across the keys.
Something had happened. Something spectacularly bad.
Baz chose that moment to walk down the hallway. He stopped, looking into the conference room before poking his head into the office where Charlie was standing. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” But she needed to find out. Ian had told her to wait, but she couldn’t just sit here when it looked like everything was falling apart. What had caused Grace to cry? To run out of the room like the devil was chasing her?
She looked into the lobby and Grace had her purse. Liam was escorting her out of the office, his eyes moving, searching for a threat.
“Looks serious. I better go get Damon.” Baz’s expression never changed. He looked back, his eyes catching on Phoebe’s desk. “Nice flowers. Someone must be in love.”
But those flowers weren’t about love.
Ian stood up, looking at whatever Adam was doing on the computer. When his face lifted toward the door, there was a weariness to his eyes that she hated. He ran a hand across his brow, his shoulders slumping.
Alex and Eve were holding hands and suddenly Eve turned into Alex’s body, his arms wrapping around her. Eve was crying.
Charlie stood up. Fuck. What had happened? What the hell had happened? She couldn’t just sit here. Ian would just have to punish her. She moved toward the conference room door.
“Uhm, I don’t think you’re supposed to leave. Ian was very specific about it,” Phoebe said as she walked back in the office, pushing her glasses up her nose.
Charlie ignored her, moving into the hall. She looked to her left and Grace was locking the front doors as Liam paced by the elevator. They were locking down. Her heart rate picked up, thumping through her chest.
She crossed the space between them, her hands trembling as she opened the conference room door.
“Liam, Simon, and Jesse are with her, Sean,” Ian was saying. “They’re taking her out the back after they get Carys from daycare. Nothing’s going to happen to them, and Li might be a paranoid idiot, but I’m following his lead on this one.”
“I’m leaving the restaurant right now. Have Li text me the meet spot. Not at home.” There was a click and Sean’s voice was gone.
“What happened?” Charlie asked. Grace couldn’t go home?
Ian’s eyes pinned her, making her want to squirm. “I told you to stay in your seat and you are not allowed to talk.”
It was bad. Whatever had happened was really bad, and it was personal. “Please tell me.”
“Why, Charlotte? Why do you need to know?”
“Because I care about these people.” Because somehow through years of studying them, she’d come to love them. They had become her family.
Ian was so cold as he stood over her. All the heat that had been between them was gone, snuffed out utterly, and she could feel the vast distance that separated her from him. “Do you really? I have some questions about that.”
“I didn’t write those e-mails to Nelson. It was Chelsea.” He might never believe her, but she would defend herself.
“And Chelsea is your sister. Your ultimate loyalty is to her. I guess at the end of the day, it all comes down to family, doesn’t it? You’re always going to choose your family.”
But he was her family. “Please don’t believe an assassin over me. Please, Ian.”
“You did. You believed Nelson over me and now my family is paying the price.” He looked over and nodded toward the door. Damon and Baz stood there. “We’ve had a setback. We’re going to need to change some of our plans. How fast can we get to India?”
“I’ll have the jet ready as soon as possible. Let me make a few calls.” Damon stepped away, but Baz stayed, his dark eyes watching the scene playing out in front of him.
“Go back to your seat, Charlie. I can’t deal with you right now.” Ian dismissed her utterly.
She couldn’t accept that. “I want to help, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.”
Ian’s eyes went to the door, hardening slightly, and when he looked back at her there was an icy will in them. “Avery’s dead.”
“What?” She didn’t quite understand the words. They didn’t make sense so she had to have heard him wrong. Her paranoid brain was making connections that weren’t there.
“I said Avery is dead.” Ian drew out each word as if giving her time to process them separately.
The air left her lungs as the meaning hit her. Liam’s wife, the one who had smiled and welcomed Charlie, was gone? The one who was knitting baby clothes? Liam’s pregnant wife was dead? It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. “How?”
“Her brakes were cut. She lost control of her car and the ER doc pronounced her dead an hour ago.”
Charlie felt her knees go weak, but she forced herself to stand. Fourteen roses. She did a quick count and nausea rolled.
“Ian, what are you doing?” Alex asked.
Ian said something, but she didn’t hear anything else. All she could see was pretty, sweet Avery. Avery had been through so much and she hadn’t deserved to die.
Her uncle was coming after all of them, very likely in conjunction with Eli Nelson.
The two men who hated her most in the world were coming after her, and they were obviously playing for keeps. Fourteen yellow roses. One for each of them. They would kill everyone. They would take out Ian and his brother and their friends and wives and likely even their children.
A sob caught in her throat. They might not know about Jesse. He didn’t have ties to Nelson. He’d barely been on the payroll for more than a few months. She would be surprised if they knew about him. If that fourteenth rose wasn’t meant for him, then it had to be for the baby. God, there was a rose for Carys. There was a rose for Grace and Sean’s baby girl. Ian’s niece.