What the fuck? “Are you talking about what’s happening in the Samara Oblast?”
“You do not know. I thought you would know.” He suddenly looked like a man who might keep his balls on his body.
“Tell me what Nelson is doing in Russia.” Ian tried to come up with something. The mob tended to rule Russia. The last thing Ian heard was that Nelson was setting himself up as an arms dealer. Was he buying old weapons from the mob and selling them in Africa and the Middle East? What did that have to do with a pipeline?
“I think not. I think I keep this information for Agency or whoever shows up for me. I give this information to you and I have nothing to bargain with.” He smiled a little, showing uneven teeth. “I am surprised you do not know this. I would think the whore would tell her lover.”
“Ian,” Li began.
But Ian was a little sick of listening to this fucker and he was pretty sure their discussion was over. If he was in the man’s place, he wouldn’t give up the intel to anyone except a person in power either. Ian leaned forward, trying to keep his hands on the table instead of wrapped around the man’s throat. “You want to explain to me who you’re talking about?”
A humorless laugh came out of the assassin, and he pointed at the picture of Nelson. “I speak of your whore wife. She knows this man well. Very well.”
“Yes she does, because she hired him,” Ian insisted. He really didn’t like the insinuation the man was making.
“You have my computer. Maybe you should check it. We all get file on whore. I call her this because everyone in syndicate know how she stay alive so long. She fuck everything she can. Charlotte Denisovitch is called the Moscow Mare because so many of us ride her.”
Ian saw red. Pure grade-A blood-red filled his brain, his sight going to a weird almost watery version of the color. Blood pounded through his system, a violent rhythm. It was funny really. He didn’t even remember going over the top of the table. One minute his brain was trying to process what the man had said and the next Alex was pulling at him, shouting at him to stop because he had Zhukov on the ground, his chair thrown back and the table kicked away. Somehow he’d been the cause of all that chaos, but it didn’t matter now. He had one job to do in all the world, and he felt good about doing it.
“Ian, you’re killing him,” Alex yelled. “You have to stop.”
But Ian didn’t want to stop, not when the fucker had just started to turn blue and his eyes had begun to bulge. It wasn’t time to stop yet. He squeezed a little harder. The asshole’s throat was thick, but Ian easily handled it. His hands were big enough to do the job.
“Ian, stop it.” Liam was getting in on the action, trying to pry his right hand back.
“Ian, we need him alive.” Alex was on his left arm.
Neither man was making much progress. They didn’t really need this shithead. According to him, there were several more just like him, and Ian didn’t care who gave up the information. He did care about killing this motherfucker. He squeezed a little harder and managed to get his knee in the guy’s crotch.
An image of Charlie underneath this shitbag nearly seared into his brain. He couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t be rational about it. He no longer cared about the op or the deal or anything except killing the man who might have violated his wife.
“Ian, he was lying.” Eve was the only calm voice in the whole world. She knelt down, her face coming into view. “Please talk to me about this because I believe he was lying to put you in a bad position.”
Ian bared his teeth, looking down at the man who was only weakly fighting now. “Who’s in the bad position?”
“What’s happening?” Another voice finally pulled him out of his killing zone. “Ian?”
He dropped Zhukov and turned to Charlie. She was wearing yesterday’s clothes but her hair was still damp from her shower. She wore no makeup and looked young and vulnerable.
But then she would want to, right? A good agent knew to look the part. Charlie looked the part of the sweet, innocent sub who just needed her Dom to protect her, to love her.
Fuck. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to think about this. He couldn’t talk to her right now.
“Get ready. We need to go to the office.” He started to walk away.
“Ian, what did he say?” Her hand came up to stop him.
He stepped back. He couldn’t touch her right now either. His head was wrong. All he could see was his wife draped around Eli Nelson. Had she lain in bed with the fucker, plotting his downfall? Had she given up all her sweetness to the man and then turned around and tossed herself in Ian’s bed?
“It doesn’t matter. Get ready.”
“It does matter.” Her eyes filled with tears. She started to walk toward him, but Liam was there, pulling her back.
“Give him a little space, darlin’. He can’t talk right now. He needs to go and cool off before he speaks another word to you.” The words came out of Liam’s mouth like a warning and one Ian was definitely going to heed.
“Li, do you have this asshole’s computer?” He’d said there was a file on Charlie. Ian wanted to read that fucking file.
Charlie was staring at him, her face pale, but she let Liam hold her back.
“Yeah. Adam’s already got it. Boss, I think we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Li said.
“I want those files ready for me by the time I get to the office.” He stepped away, nearly running to his room where he shut the door and tried to get the image out of his head.
* * * *
Charlie looked back in the interrogation room, her whole heart sinking. “What did he say?”
Liam shook his head. “You got to talk to Ian about that.”
He wasn’t going to be helpful. Charlie looked to the other woman in the room. “Eve, please.”
Alex was hauling Zhukov up, forcing him to his feet. The assassin, for his part, was just trying to breathe. “Charlotte, you just need to give Ian a couple of minutes, okay? He’ll come to his senses.”
What did he need to come to his senses from? He’d been ready to kill Zhukov. She didn’t blame Ian for that. The assassin had been one of her father’s right hand men, a silent killer with evil eyes. She’d always been careful to steer clear of him.
Eve stepped forward. “Why don’t we go and fix some breakfast? Maybe that will put the men in a better mood.”