Endgame (26 page)

Jake sighed. “I’ll protect you.”

She closed her eyes. “Can you get them to edit the tattoo part out? Perhaps Aaron’s agent could say something or maybe…” They all knew what she was thinking—Chase. “Never mind.”

“We’ll see, sweetheart.” Jake slid into the front and said to the driver, “Drive around the corner to the side lot. We’ll ditch the crowd, and they can go home in my car. I’ll handle it from there.”

Charlotte practically curled into a ball and stared out the window.

Double shit. Aaron expected her to rage, pull her gun and just shoot him dead, not this quiet creature staring out the window, far away in a world that didn’t have him in it.

He needed her, though, and he thought she needed him, too. He whispered softly, “Thanks for saving my ass.”

Her smile was faint. “You’re welcome.”

“Them showing your tattoo…how much trouble will you be in?”

She heaved a sigh. “Tons. Thank God, it was taping.” She glanced at him sharply. “It
was
a taping, right? Not live?”

“I think so.”

“If it’s live…” She shrugged and took a deep breath. “I don’t know why he sent me. He knew this was risky. Damn it, I should have just sucked up my issues, stayed home with Kate, and let Tia come guard you. But no, I have to be difficult.”

That confused him. He had thought she wanted to be here, because of what he had made her feel in England. “Why couldn’t you stay home?”

“Because, Aaron. Baggage.”

“Charlotte—”

“I don’t do children. Period. If I stayed home, I would have had to help take care of Chase and Kate’s baby. That was what we decided as a group. I don’t do babies. Tia does.”

“Charlotte,” Jake warned, temper flaring. “Maybe that’s what you want to think, but it’s not all true.”

“Shut it, Jake.” She went back to staring out the window again.

He wanted to ask so badly why she hated kids but figured he should shut it, too. Suddenly, a future with her didn’t seem quite so bright. She had lots of issues. He wanted lots of kids. It was all hopeless.

He stared at her a moment, her face so much more pale than usual. She’d had a kid at some point. She had a scar like his mom’s C-section scar from giving birth to him, since he’d been breech. His heart clenched in his chest, the muscles constricting, his lungs shutting down. No wonder she said fuck you to God. He prayed right then and there that her child hadn’t been a victim to doomsday as well.

He must have sucked in a breath because Charlotte glanced at him, her blank stare growing confused, then concerned. She opened her mouth as the limo stopped but turned away.

Jake ushered them to another new rental car, this one a generous, sleek sedan. “Get in,” Jake ordered.

After they’d settled in their seats, Charlotte pressed against the far door again, Jake at the wheel, Aaron demanded, “So what exactly does this mean? If someone saw her tattoo, what’s going to happen?”

“We don’t know,” Jake said, glancing over at Charlotte.

“How long will it take to know?”

“We don’t know that, either.”

“Well, what the fuck do you know? Because if I’m reading all of your secrecy between the lines correctly, she’s less safe than I am. Why the hell would you send a spy you don’t want visible to be with me?”

Why indeed? Charlotte had never understood the reasoning but had trusted her boys would see to her safety. The original plan had been to get Aaron to agree to going home to the ranch, but he’d shot that down. But why would two men who loved her set her up to be on the arm of an up-and-coming actor? Especially if they knew the cost of her being made by the motherfuckers?

“Christ on a motorbike.” Charlotte bolted upright and stared at Jake in the rearview mirror, finally getting it. “They wanted to blow my cover. That was the plan from square one.”

“What?” Aaron turned to Jake. “Is that true?”

Jake held her gaze, and by the way those blue eyes of his became shuttered from emotion, she knew she was right. Damn them to hell.

“When were you going to fill me in on the plan, Jacob? Right before I walked out the door for the premiere tonight?” She never called him Jacob unless she was deadly pissed. “And don’t deny it. I know I’m right. Just tell me.”

“We planned to move in Manhattan,” Jake muttered.

“You don’t think it would be smart to involve me in the plans for my future, since it is my ass on the line?”

“Low risk, sweetheart. We would have told you in D.C. before we left.”

He was right, of course, about risk. “And what about Aaron? He’s on my arm, too. What happens when the asshole I set up in Egypt decides Aaron needs to settle my score?”

“We’ll see to his safety.”

“And yet you shoved me into his bed, knowing what this would trigger?”

Jake sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “I only wanted you to be happy. Both of you.”

“Happy?” She closed her eyes again and counted to ten, slowly, and then did it again in French. “I can’t believe this. I trusted you.”

“You have no reason to stop trusting me, or Chase. Yes, we should have informed you sooner, but Chase didn’t feel you needed to know until it was time to move.”

Of course not. Here she’d thought all along she was a queen, waiting to move with them. She was just a pawn, set out on the board, waiting to be taken. She fought the despair and sadness, channeling the anger instead. “Was this your idea or his? Or were you in agreement on something for a change?”

“His.”

Her phone went off—Chase’s ring tone. She fished her phone out of her purse and handed it forward to Jake. “You deal with that.”

Jake answered on the second ring. “Chase. She doesn’t want to talk to you. She knows.” Jake listened a moment, sighed, and handed Charlotte the phone. “That was a live taping, Char, and he’s not thrilled. Just talk to him.”

“
He’s
not thrilled? Jesus, as if I give a bloody flying fig.”

Aaron sucked in a breath next to her—she’d almost forgotten he was there. He was so quiet, taking it all in. He fumbled for her hand, and she let him hold it though her body felt so cold she could barely feel his fingers around hers.

Charlotte put the phone to her ear and ground out, “I have nothing to say to you.”

“That’s right, start pointing fingers, sweetheart.” Chase’s laugh was bitter. “I’m not the one who forgot to cover my tattoo, so don’t go blaming this on me. We didn’t plan for it to happen this way, days early, with no support in place. Christ, Charlotte, what were you thinking?”

“That the two men I love wouldn’t set me up to have my cover blown, that’s what I was thinking. Now or New York, why does it matter?” She thought of Blonde Bitch and how the woman had singled out her tattoo. Too convenient, knowing what she knew now. “Did you tell that bitch to pull me on stage?”

“What? No.”

“Don’t lie to me, Sanders. You fuck everyone over eventually. Get me flustered by telling Jake to push me at Aaron, tell that bitch to look for my tattoo. You couldn’t be up front with me about this, so I didn’t have to feel like a bitch about babysitting?” She thought for a moment and hissed out a breath. “When you die, the devil is going to greet you with open arms, you bastard. I can’t believe you used your son to force me out here.”

He’d given her a choice—go to California or stay home. It was hard for her to be around kids. When she looked at a child, she did the math in her head. Her baby would be almost five, riding a two-wheeler, learning to play soccer, thinking about kindergarten, beginning to read and write. She’d chosen to go to Aaron instead.

“Charlotte, no. I wouldn’t have made you stay home with Kate. Honest. I gave you a choice because you looked exhausted and I thought you needed to come home. You need to start separating work from personal. They’re two distinct entities. Right now, this is work.”

Yes, and she was faced with the struggle Jake and Kate faced every day—loving Chase while working for him. Though right now, Jake was just as high on her shit list. “It’s all looking fairly blurred to me from where I sit, and I’m having a hard time telling the truth from the lies.”

“The truth is we don’t know if you’ve been made yet or not. We won’t know for a few days, and I plan to use this to our advantage. You’ll go to the premiere tonight, make sure your tattoo is visible. You’ll go on to Manhattan, and we’ll set up a support team there. We’ll have Aaron’s agent put out press statements about you attending together, since you’re sure to be America’s sweetheart now.”

“Fuck you.”

“Love you, too, sweetheart.” Chase paused, papers rustled. “We’ll have support for you in New York, and we’ll have Jake stand in as Aaron at the premiere. We’ll stash Aaron in a safe house with security.”

“And I’m supposed to just wait.”

“Yes. We’ve offered the bait—you. We’ll see what bites.”

She never envisioned her endgame happening this way. She pictured a high altitude plane jump followed by ass kicking in a warehouse filled with gun crates and cocaine. At the very least, she pictured her and the ringleader facing off, her killing him a split second before he killed her. It worked for her.

But none of it started with her at a movie premiere, her cover blown because of a tattoo her husband had marked her with. “Why not just tie me out on a street corner to a lamppost? They can pick me up at will.”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“What do you want me to be, Chase?” she asked softly, one step from feeling dangerous. “Because I don’t think we’re on the same page here.”

“I want you to be the best agent you can be. I want you to do your job. You have your orders. Go to the premiere, go to New York, be visible, stay safe.”

“Stay safe? Really?”

“They don’t want a dead woman.”

If she had any blood left in her veins, it would have frozen at the tone in his voice. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“You wanted this,” Chase reminded her coldly. “This is what you asked for, trained to be. Here it is, sweetheart. You ready? I hope so, because once this rolls, there’s no stopping it. Now put Jake back on.”

She handed the phone back to Jake, numb. She struggled internally with the part that wanted to curl up and die. Chase had never gone off on her in boss mode. Never. She’d always watched as he told others to suck it up and get on with the job. Yes, he was a bastard. She knew this. But he’d never been a bastard to her. He’d always been her favorite. Now…she didn’t know.

“Hey,” Aaron whispered. “You okay?”

“Yes,” she lied. “We’re going to the premiere tonight, then tomorrow off to New York. It will be okay.”

“You don’t look like it will be okay.”

“I just found out my two favorite people in the world lied to me. How do you want me to look?”

Aaron picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles, the act sweet and endearing in the midst of the hell she was suffering. “This is my lucky day. I just moved way up on your list. You might even love me best now.”

Despite not feeling like smiling, she couldn’t resist the tiniest of one. “Punk. You’re on your own list, and there’s nothing about love on it.”

Aaron’s grin faded as he studied her. “You can’t explain more? I’m not trying to be nosy. I just want to help you through this.”

She glanced forward to Jake, still on her phone as he drove. “No.”

“Is there anything you can do? I can do for you?”

“No.” But she thought about it. Why did she have to sit here and wait for them to set her up? This was her endgame, not his. He should have informed her, involved her in the moving of the pieces. But no, because that’s not what he did. He ran the show, and God forbid anyone move anything without Chase knowing.

Her mind flew a million kilometers a second. She didn’t have to sit here. What was stopping her from going to England and finding out the truth? Every time she wanted to move, Chase wouldn’t let her. She knew where to go, who to ask, but Chase always shut her down, told her she’d blow the case so wide they’d never recover enough to nail who they needed to nail.

Her old boss, Albert Reese, still lived in England, retired now, but they’d never moved in on him because Chase and Jake had said she’d ruined the case when she destroyed evidence they needed. Her first huge mistake, one that would land here, under Chase’s vigilant watch.

As far as she was concerned, the case stopped and started with Albert Reese. There wasn’t anything to keep her here any longer. If Chase and Jake were willing to toss her to the motherfuckers, then she was going rogue.

Somehow, she had to get herself out from under Jake’s nose and across the pond. Aaron, she’d miss him, but Jake would keep him safe, out of danger. She wouldn’t need to worry as she struck out alone.

She laid her head against Aaron’s shoulder and inhaled, needing his spicy scent to keep her sane. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and held her close, kissing her forehead.

“I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this,” she whispered.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” He kissed her again, on the temple this time. “Just tell me you’re going to cooperate with Jake and Chase?”

“Why would you ask me that?” He’d joked that he wanted to learn her, and unfortunately, he might have succeeded. She’d need to be careful going forward.

“Because the look in your eye doesn’t bode well for either of them.”

“Everything will be fine, love. Just fine.”

And it would be. The endgame had started, and she was playing the game on her terms. She’d go to a premiere tonight, she’d make love to Aaron afterward, and in the morning, she’d jump-start her own path and purpose. She just had to find a way.

****

On your knees, punk.

Those four words in a text were enough to make Aaron break out into a frenzied sweat. His cock stirred, and he struggled for air despite the fact he was surrounded by two hundred of his co-workers, all dressed up for a film premiere.

He adjusted his jacket to hide the evidence of his arousal and glanced around the theatre foyer, decked out with a feast for the occasion. Charlotte had ducked off to powder her nose or whatever women did. Something told him she wasn’t one of the usual women, holding hands on the way to the bathroom, whispering about their dates’ asses. She was probably casing the place or talking to Jake. Maybe she had to pee, but she’d do it fast and efficiently, like she did everything else.