Fuck. He hadn’t even thought about that. In the distance, he could hear sirens wailing.
“She’s not Mrs. Taggart,” Ian said, his teeth locked in a grind.
“I have the papers to prove it,” Charlie replied.
There was no point in arguing now. They didn’t have the time.
“So who’s trying to kill you, Charlie?” There was no doubt in his mind this was all about her.
“Maybe someone was trying to kill you,” Charlie shot back, a frown turning those gorgeous lips down. “Have you met yourself? I can think of any number of people who you’ve pissed off enough to try their hand at a little assassination.”
She wasn’t entirely wrong, but Ian knew damn well this wasn’t about him. “Charlie? The cops will be here any minute. How much do I have to lie to them?”
She shook her head. “Not at all because you don’t actually know anything.”
How could he go from saving her life to wanting to strangle her in less than ten seconds? “You are going to go back upstairs with Jacob because god only knows what the cops have on you. You’re going to my office and you will stay there. Is that understood?”
The sweetest smile flashed across her face. “Yes, Master. I will absolutely obey that dictate. Jacob?”
Jake helped her up. “I’ll take her through the back. I think I can make it without losing cover. Adam will shut down the cameras, and he’s already got a call in to Brighton.”
Derek Brighton was their DPD contact. He was also a Dom at Sanctum. If Ian was going to have a chance of not getting Charlie involved in this, he would need Derek.
He watched as Charlie followed behind Jake. She was calm and collected. No one would ever think she’d damn near had her head taken off by a sniper.
It wasn’t sexy. Nope. It was annoying. He tried to tell himself he would like it better if she was one of those women who would scream and cry and be terrified.
He found those women to be deeply annoying.
That was it. He never really loved her. He just liked the fact that she was quiet during a shootout. Yeah. That had to be it.
Just as Charlie disappeared into the maintenance door, the cops showed up, sirens wailing, tires screeching. They couldn’t be quiet during a shootout either.
But they could fuck everything up.
Ian couldn’t let that happen. This had just become his op.
Two hours later, he was finally able to go back to his office, having convinced the officers that it must have been a car misfiring since there was only the one sound. People, he’d told the officers, were just too jumpy these days.
While the police were talking down frightened onlookers, Alex had already found the bullet and started his own investigation.
“I want to know where the fucker was, what he was shooting, and who he fucking works for,” Ian said, walking into the conference room.
Adam was sitting in the back, his head down as he typed. Jake and Alex were staring at a bullet casing through the plastic bag it was held in.
Grace was holding Phoebe’s hand as she breathed in through her inhaler. She sent Ian a dirty look. “Really, Ian? What is wrong with you? You made her walk up fifteen flights of steps?”
“I didn’t make her do anything. She took one look at the elevator and ran the other way.” Again, another reason to prefer Charlie. Phoebe was a pretty woman. She had curves in all the right places, though she attempted to hide them all. She pretended to be frumpy, but there was a lovely body under all those clothes. Unfortunately, she also seemed to have a ton of fucking inhibitions. If he’d told Charlie she was late, she would have shot him the finger and gotten on the elevator.
The elevator. He’d forgotten how much she hated them. She was painfully claustrophobic, but she still got on them. He would never forget the way her hands shook, but she could keep her face perfectly placid. Only the fine tremble in her hands gave away that anything was wrong.
“She’s got to take a self-defense class or something,” Jake said, sighing. “That is the single subbiest female I have ever met in my life. Okay, Charlie’s fine. She’s been on the phone with her sister.”
“Did you tape the conversation?”
Grace gasped. “Tape the conversation? He wouldn’t do that.”
“Of course,” Jake replied, ignoring her entirely. Security protocols weren’t part of Grace’s employment training. “I texted Alex with a 540 right before I brought her up the maintenance elevator. She was a little shaky.”
Not about the shooting, but the elevator would do that to her. “Good.”
“What is a 540?” Grace asked.
He should have cleared the room, but at the end of the day, Grace was family and Phoebe did a decent job. They deserved to know how McKay-Taggart operated. Though he would never tell them about a 640. It was code for what to do if they all came under fire. Grace, Eve, Phoebe, and any other women were to be protected first and foremost to the point of the men giving their lives. Every single man he employed had to agree to the protocol. Even the latest, Jesse. He’d practically jumped up and down at the prospect. That was when he’d known he would hire the little fucker. Underneath his puppy dog exterior, he was a protector. He was a Dom. “It’s a code for watch and observe. Alex turned on the cameras in my office. Adam’s been watching her from the moment she walked in.”
“Her sister said she’d call her back, but that she thought she had a line on someone. Charlotte didn’t bother to mention she’d just been shot at,” Jake explained. “She told her sister to call her back and now she’s waiting.”
“She seems to like to smell things, boss.” Adam looked up. “She’s been smelling the jacket you keep in your office. She’s nosy, too. She’s looked through all your drawers. She also called out for pizza. She doesn’t act like a woman who’s terribly worried about being shot at.”
“Because she’s used to it.” He wondered just how many times something like this had happened to her. What had the last five years really been like? If she was telling the truth and she’d walked away from both the syndicate and screwed Eli Nelson, then her every moment had to be a delicate balance of working to stay alive. The Russians alone would be hell to stay clear of, not to mention someone with Nelson’s talents.
Absently, he reached over and grabbed a donut. It had been a nasty day. He needed it. He watched the monitor on Adam’s computer. Charlie was sitting at his desk, her legs curled into her chest as she dropped her head back and closed her eyes. He could see the long line of her throat and how it sloped gracefully toward the curve of her breasts. Though the camera was black and white, he knew how perfect her skin was, the only thing marring it being the scars, and yet he’d always paid such attention to them. He’d kissed her scars over and over, tracing them with his tongue as though they were a roadmap to the woman and he could learn her through touch and taste.