No one was going to want to hire him when he ended up in jail. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What had happened? Why couldn’t he remember?
He dialed Rory’s number again. Wake up, you bastard. I’m in trouble.
He clutched the phone to his ear, but a sound from another room called to him. Trilling. Familiar.
Rory’s phone was ringing. Inside the house. The next room. And he still wasn’t answering. Liam’s heart pounded as his mind sought all the reasons his brother wouldn’t answer. It was a bloody short list.
Liam stepped outside the dead girl’s room and found himself in hell.
Chapter One
London, England
Five years later
Liam watched the girl with the dark hair walk into the light. Girl? She was a woman in every sense of the word. Avery Charles was twenty-eight years old, but from what he’d pieced together she’d likely lived through enough crap for two lifetimes. So why did she still look so bloody innocent?
The woman in front of him wasn’t his type. Not even close. She was too soft, too curvy, too much. Too serious, quite frankly. He preferred young women who just wanted a good time. But something about her drew him in. Maybe it was her background or the way her skin practically glowed when she walked into the great rotunda of the British Museum. She did it enough. She was here almost every day, and he’d stalked her, watching her move from room to room, studying each exhibit before her lunch hour was up. She would glide from the dark corners of the museum into the brilliant light of the atrium to purchase a sandwich she would eat before heading back to the Tube and work again.
And every day she would stop when the light hit her face. She would move from the dark, hushed rooms of the exhibits into the stark brilliance of the white marbled center of the museum. She would tilt her chin up and bask in the light as though taking a moment to soak it in.
Liam never left the darkness.
“Is that the mark?” Ian Taggart asked, his voice low.
He didn’t need to be so silent. The museum hummed with activity, but his boss was a cautious man. Paranoid, but then when everyone really was out to get you, it wasn’t paranoia. It was smart.
“Yes,” Liam replied, his voice equally low. “Avery Charles. She works for Molina. She became his personal assistant six months ago.”
She was his primary target for the moment. It had been easy to gather data on Molina. He was a public figure. Within minutes of confirming that Thomas Molina, philanthropist, was somehow involved with the rogue CIA agent his firm had been tracking for months, he’d had a full dossier on the man. Molina was considered a bit odd. He’d been injured as a teenager in a riding accident. He’d had several spinal surgeries and had been left with legs that never functioned properly again. He disappeared for many years, living a life of seclusion after his parents had passed away.
He was now in sole control of a huge multi-national company, but preferred to spend his time on a charity operation called United One Fund.
It had been easy to find Molina. His personal assistant had taken more digging.
“Do we know if she has any ties to Black?” Somehow Ian managed to make the question sound like a threat. “Sorry. Nelson. We should call the devil by his real name. Does she have any ties to Eli Nelson?”
That was the big question of the day. What was seemingly sweet Avery Charles, who had never had so much as a parking ticket, doing working for a man who did indeed have ties to Eli Nelson, rogue CIA agent? “I doubt it. If I had to place a bet, I would bank money on the fact that she’s just the personal assistant of one of the world’s leading philanthropists. She’s got a do-gooder vibe I can feel from here. It makes me a little nauseous.”
It made him a little horny, but there was no way he was telling Ian that. And no way to explain it because she just wasn’t his type. No way. No how. Well, she wasn’t his type now. He’d given up on soft, voluptuous women for a reason. They fucked with a man’s mental capacities. Nope. She wasn’t his type now. It was just that he hadn’t gotten laid in a while. That was the only explanation.
“Alex is looking into Molina. He’s running financials on those charities of his.” Ian frowned as he looked around. “I don’t like it.”
Ian Taggart didn’t like charities? There was a surprise since the man was practically a charity in and of himself. Liam knew he was alive today based on the man’s sense of charity. “From the press surrounding him, he’s practically a saint.”
Ian smiled, though on him it was more a predatory baring of teeth. “I don’t believe in saints. Sinners. Now, I can believe that.” He sighed as he looked back in the atrium. Avery was ordering a sandwich and a cup of coffee. “Have Adam and Jake moved in?”
Ian’s eyes shifted around the big room, constantly seeking a threat.
They weren’t carrying. He felt a little naked without a gun. It was too dangerous in such a public place, and they weren’t exactly here in a formal capacity. That was his fault. Everyone on the team had tried to talk him out of coming back to Europe, but it had been years. He’d changed. Perhaps it was past time to face his demons and honor his brother’s memory.
After he’d taken down Eli Nelson.
“They moved into her building last week. We were oh so lucky that her neighbor decided to leave town for a while and was forced to sublet the place.” Liam kept his eyes on Avery as she paid seven pounds fifty. She smiled at the bloke in front of her. How did the woman smile like that, bright and open after everything that had happened to her? She smiled as though she’d come through that crucible and could still have a full heart in her body.
Of course, it could all be an act.
“I think you’ll find Adam and Jake are paying enough to well compensate the lady,” Ian explained. His body went on alert, shoulders squaring. “Who the fuck is that? I thought you said she didn’t have a boyfriend.”
Liam felt his eyes narrow as Avery greeted the tall blond man. He was obviously British. It was all there in the cool cut of his suit and the deeply pretentious way the bugger air kissed her cheeks. He had to bend over because Avery was short. She was short and curvy, and the Brit bastard was looking down her shirt.
“I haven’t seen him before,” Liam said. A solid week of following her around and he hadn’t once seen her even look at a man who wasn’t carved of marble and brought back to London from some far-off place during the days of British Imperialism. The only man he’d seen her with was her boss. She would wheel him around St. James’s Park twice a week, settling a blanket around his unsteady legs before making the jaunt. Molina could walk with the aid of a cane, but the millionaire used a wheelchair on those walks of theirs.