Brody stared at the package on the table and wished like hell that the bodyguards on duty this evening had thought to keep this discreet. They could have said anything to have gotten him out of the training room, but Steph had known something was going on.

Then again, it was really Tucker’s fault. He had Tucker to thank for accepting the package, opening the package, and freaking out about the package.

If it had been one of the bodyguards who had been given the package, they likely would have calmly called in and explained that a box had been delivered and Brody should probably come and take a look at it. If it had been Shane or Declan, the two guards who would come back with them tonight, Steph would not be staring down at that package, her face white as a sheet. He would have gotten her home and put her to bed and she could have been blissfully unaware.

“Did it come with a note?” O’Donnell had changed out of his earlier costume and now was dressed in jeans and a button down, his hair slicked back from a shower.

Brody wished they’d had time to shower. He hated the fact that he’d had to hurry her along. At least she’d had street clothes to change into.

“Of course it came with a note.” Taggart hadn’t changed, though he’d pulled off the long blond wig and bandana. He frowned Tucker’s way. “Unless the puppy forgot the note in his mad dash to erase any and all evidence we could have gotten off this thing.”

Tucker was pacing the floor, a frown on his face. “Well, I’m sorry. I’m not used to opening boxes and finding…that. I’m used to opening boxes and finding pizzas. Or cupcakes. Good things are supposed to come in boxes that are delivered to your front door. Damn it, I tipped that guy. I tipped him and he gave me that.”

“What is it?” Steph asked.

Tucker started to open his mouth and then closed it. “Maybe Steph shouldn’t be here.”

It was far too late for that. There was no way Stephanie would let him ease her out of the room and allow him to handle this. No way.

“Steph should probably be receiving aftercare, from what I understand,” Taggart shot back. His voice lowered and he leaned toward Brody. “Did you find the ‘anal-gesic’ packs? It’s perfect to ease the way after a good plugging.”

“Focus, Taggart.” The man had no discretion.

“Is it a body part?” Steph moved toward the conference room table, her voice a bland, flat tone that told him she hadn’t heard Taggart.

“It’s probably a bad sign that I have boxes of these here.” Taggart dragged a pair of latex gloves over his hands. “Let’s see exactly what we’re dealing with. Still, at least I won’t be leaving fingerprints everywhere. We might have to rethink leaving the police out of this. Maybe I should call in Derek.”

Brody was not interested in dealing with the local police because he knew exactly where that would lead. “It won’t be Lieutenant Brighton who handles this case and you know it. First they’ll call in the FBI, and then Interpol will want a piece of it, and potentially whatever the hell agency Ukraine has to track down kidnapped citizens.”

O’Donnell stepped in beside Taggart. “I’m with Carter. We can’t let this leave our house. We’ll lose control of both the case and of Steph’s protection. We wouldn’t be consulted at all if they decide to take it out of the US. We don’t know that the mercenary team is even still here.”

“We can call in the police if it means saving Anya.” Steph hadn’t moved. She hadn’t smiled or held his hand since that moment when she’d realized the future wasn’t going to leave them alone. At least Brody thought that’s what had happened.

She’d opened up to him. Something had happened when he’d forced her to meet his eyes in the mirror. She’d softened and been willing to talk about what she’d gone through all those long months that he’d been gone. The connection that had always been between them had flared to life and he’d held on to it with all his strength. He’d known he’d gotten to her and that they could talk. She might listen to him, might understand his apology went far beyond words.

One knock on the door and she’d folded back in on herself.

“It won’t save Anya,” Brody insisted. “In this case, bringing in a bunch of feds and different international agencies will only complicate things. We have no idea which corporation is involved in this or how far reaching their influence goes. If you were on your own, yes, you would call in law enforcement, but you’re not. You’re surrounded by some of the smartest men in the world when it comes to intelligence and security. Let us do our jobs.”

Her arms came up, crossing over her chest. “I want her saved. I’m the client. I want saving Anya to be made a priority over everything else. Unless that’s a head in the box and she’s already dead.”

“It’s not a head.” Tucker sounded horrified. “I wouldn’t have brought a head in here. I don’t know what I would have done if it had been a head.”

Sometimes Brody thought Tucker had been a mistake on Dr. McDonald’s part. All of her other experiments had been warriors, and they still acted like it for the most part. Though Robert was calmer than the rest of the Lost Boys, there was still a deep darkness in the man. Tucker seemed so close to the light that he wondered if it was a part of the bloke or if the drugs had so thoroughly wiped his memory that he couldn’t conceive of the world he’d landed in.

“It’s a digit. In my opinion it’s the fifth digit of the subject’s right hand. It was excised at the distal phalanx. I would be way more freaked out if it was a head.” Tucker continued pacing.

And then there were times that he thought Tucker remembered far more than any of them imagined.

Taggart glanced up at Steph. “Distal phalanx?”

“He means it’s only the tip of the finger. The digits are composed of three segments called phalanxes. He’s referring to the portion of the finger that contains the nail. They cut off the tip of her pinky finger and sent it to us in a box.” She’d paled, but her tone remained calm. “He’s had medical training. Likely a lot of it if he recalls those kinds of facts easily. I know doctors who would have called it the pinkie finger. His training was hardcore.”

Taggart lifted the box lid and looked inside, his expression never changing. “Well, we’re still learning a lot about the drugs that were used on him. The doctor who experimented on those men was a genius. An evil one, but a genius all the same. She managed to wipe out personal memories without getting rid of important functions like language skills and how to fight. And it seems like a good portion of the puppy’s medical training stuck, too.”

“Personal and emotional memories are stored in different sections of the brain,” Steph replied. “She obviously figured out how to chemically alter the section that holds personal memories.”

“She messed with my limbic system,” Tucker said with a shake of his head. “That just came to me. Limbic system. I know that’s the word to use. How do I know that? How do I know what to call a pinkie finger in a box, but I can’t tell you who my mother was? I’m sorry. This trip was apparently more stimulation than I was ready for. I’m sorry I screwed up the forensics. I should have known better.”

O’Donnell had pulled on a pair of gloves, too, and now he reached into the box. “Not as badly as you thought you had. You missed something in your very reasonable reaction to receiving a body part in a box. There aren’t many people who wouldn’t have a reaction to that.”

“Seriously?” Taggart threw his old friend a questioning look. “You’re getting soft in your old age.”

“He’s practically a toddler, Tag. We have to go easy on him. He’s not a hardened agent.” O’Donnell pulled out a small piece of paper. “And he didn’t lose the note.”

“O’Donnell’s right. We’re actually lucky it was Tucker and not one of the others who came with me. If it had been Sasha or Dante, they would have played with the damn thing.” Brody tried to move closer to Steph, but she stepped away. He thought about forcing the issue, but decided to wait until they were alone. She responded better when they were alone. “We don’t know that’s Anya’s finger.”

“According to the note it is.” O’Donnell’s eyes shifted as he read the note.

“Could you read it out loud?” Steph asked. “I get that you think I’m a delicate flower who’s never seen a lopped off body part, but the least I can handle is reading a few words.”

“They know you’re not a shrinking violet, but they also know it’s different when you know the person.” He wasn’t sure how to deal with her. She seemed to have distanced from everything and everyone.

O’Donnell held the note in his gloved hands. “It’s from de Vries. He says he’s got Anya Shadrova and will exchange her for the thumb drive you took. If you don’t give him the thumb drive by midnight tomorrow night, he’ll send a bigger piece next time. If we call in the feds or any reporter, he’ll put us all on a hit list.”

Taggart rolled his eyes. “Like that’s never happened before.”

“This is serious,” Steph said.

Taggart shrugged. “You’re used to body parts. I’m used to people trying to murder me.”

“Did he leave us a time and place to meet him?” Brody would be there. Eagerly. Happily. He was ready to get in a room with that fucker.

“There’s a phone in here along with his present,” O’Donnell explained. “It’s a burner and he says he’ll only talk to Steph. If anyone else answers the phone, Anya…well, we all know where that’s going. He claims he’ll call sometime in the morning and set the meeting for tomorrow night. He won’t tell you where until thirty minutes before.”

“We’ll figure it out before then. There are only so many places he can go,” Taggart pointed out. “Now that we have a name, we should be able to find the fucker. We need time though.”

“I won’t let anyone die because of me.” She’d gone even paler than before and her voice finally shook.

“No one’s going to die,” Taggart replied. “And Anya will get a discount on future manicures if that’s hers in the first place. I don’t know. I don’t like her Ukrainian mob connections. It feels awfully convenient.”

Steph straightened up, her eyes narrowing on Taggart. “It wasn’t convenient for me. And I don’t have a thumb drive. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I didn’t go through the reporter’s things. The situation was urgent. We cut his shirt off and cut off the khakis he was wearing. We would have thrown them out as medical waste. They were covered in blood. I never saw any piece of luggage he was carrying. No backpack. No wallet.”

A nasty theory was playing through Brody’s head. There was something convenient about all of this, but it didn’t have anything to do with Anya and her mob connections. He didn’t want it to be true, but it was far too important to put his head in the sand and pretend. Besides, his loyalty had shifted somewhere along the way. “Remind me of something, luv. Was Alfi ever alone with the journalist?”

Steph turned his way. “Yes, but he wasn’t conscious. Alfi said he never woke up.”

Yes, but Alfi had been known to lie.

“Fucker,” Taggart spat, obviously picking up on Brody’s thought process. He pulled his mobile. “Shane, I need you to take Declan and haul ass over to the safe house. Bring me the Aussie asshole. No. Not that one. He’s one of ours. The other Aussie asshole. Yeah. You don’t have to be tender with him either.”

So he’d been a big hit with the bodyguards. Well, he’d been called worse.

“Why would Alfi lie to me?” Steph asked, finally stepping close to him. Her chin tilted up and for the first time since they’d walked into the room he saw some vulnerability in her eyes.

For a hundred reasons, but he could only think of the one that might make sense to her. He smoothed back her hair, desperate for a physical connection. “If he thought he could make money off that thumb drive, he would do it in a heartbeat, the bastard. He would take the drive and get the hell out of there until he could figure out what he had.”

“But he wasn’t at the house when I left,” Tucker said. “He said he needed to go buy a six-pack.”

“So he walked to the store?” Brody asked the question, though he was afraid he knew the damn answer. He should never have left Tucker alone with Alfi. He should have known Alfi had come here with nefarious purposes, and leaving Tucker behind to watch him had been like leaving a child in charge of the house.

Tucker’s cheeks had gone a nice shade of red. “He promised to grab me a couple of bags of chips if I let him borrow the car. I was super hungry. I ate supper at like five. I need to eat every couple of hours or I get low blood sugar.”

“Then why the bloody hell didn’t you go with him?” Brody was ready to throttle the kid.

Tucker winced. “Because American Ninja Warrior was on and I don’t know how to work the DVR.”

O’Donnell stepped in between the two of them. “Now, Carter, take a deep breath. If we murder our young we’re no better than animals.”

“Also, Charlie had the carpet cleaned in here a few days ago.” Taggart was back on his phone. “Adam, I need you to find an escaped Aussie. Yeah, the one from your place earlier this afternoon. He’s in Carter’s rental. Check the traffic cameras around your place.” Pause. “If I knew where he was going, I wouldn’t need you, would I?”

“Why would he come here?” Steph asked. “Unless he’s planning on selling the thumb drive back to the mercenaries. Would he do that? If he does, what happens to Anya? He’s probably on his way there right now. If they get that thumb drive, they won’t have any use for her anymore. They won’t want to keep her around.”

“Or she’s been involved the whole time,” Taggart said, hanging up his phone.

“She’s not,” Steph shot back. “Anya’s innocent in all this.”

“You can’t know that.” Taggart was looking down at his phone, texting away.

“Of course I can know it. I can use my brain and logic this sucker out.” Steph moved away from him again. “Why would she be involved with a bunch of mercenaries? What does she get out of it? She just happened to get a nursing degree so she could spend a year in Africa waiting to set me up because she knew a journalist would someday get himself shot and stumble into my clinic? And she knew that Alfi would steal the thumb drive and she could be used to get it back. She’s a fucking psychic, Taggart. You should put her on the payroll because she could solve all your cases for you.”

Taggart stopped, staring at Steph for a moment with those arctic eyes of his. Steph didn’t back down at all, but then she’d always had a death wish. Brody got ready to shift, to come between the two of them and let Taggart know that he couldn’t top his sub.

Then Taggart sighed. “All right, put like that it does seem a bit on the farfetched side. Score one for logic. Sorry, Doc. I’m used to being betrayed. It’s happened almost as many times as I’ve been nearly murdered. All right. We’ll assume Anya Shadrova is an innocent and needs to be saved.”

“Thank you,” Steph said with a sigh.

“You want us to save the Aussie, too, Lady SoftHeart?” Taggart asked with a wry smile on his face.

“Nope, you can rough him up all you like, but we need to get that thumb drive from him.” Steph turned and shook her head, walking toward the door. “I need to go check on Nate. The party was over an hour ago. The staff needs to go home.”

“They left thirty minutes ago,” O’Donnell explained. “It’s Avery and Charlotte in there now and they’re perfectly fine. Nate’s in good hands. If he’s not sleeping, then he’s being well taken care of. Now tell me how you’re doing. Do you need anything?”

He hated the rush of jealousy he felt. He watched how Steph squeezed Liam’s hand. He couldn’t help but step up and reply. “I’ll take care of her. You go and help Miles find Alfi so I can rearrange his innards. I’ll figure out where that thumb drive is.”

Steph held a hand up. “Before you guys do anything at all, I need to make one thing clear. Anya comes first. That’s the mission. Saving her comes before everything else.”

Was she high? Was she still in subspace because she had to be if she thought that was going to work.

“We’ll do everything we can,” Brody assured her. But that wasn’t his highest directive. She was, and he knew damn well it would be O’Donnell’s, too.

“She comes before me.” Steph looked between the two of them as if trying to figure out exactly what they were doing. Suspicion was plain on her face. “If we have to give me up to save her, we’re going to do it.”

“Of course,” O’Donnell replied. He reached for Steph’s hand. “You’re the client. We’re going to take your direction.”

Taggart’s eyes had gone wide but his expression shifted the minute Steph looked at him. “Of course. Like Li said. You’re the client. If you want to be dumb enough to martyr yourself, who am I to say nay? Can I get a check from you before your inevitable death?”

“Ian,” O’Donnell said between clenched teeth.

“Well, you said she was the client,” Taggart replied. “Clients usually pay.”

Brody ignored Taggart, but the men were onto something. Arguing with her would lead them absolutely nowhere, but he had to play it right. He couldn’t simply scream out that he would save her no matter what. She needed a softer touch.

And a shit ton of lies because there was zero chance that he was going to trade her for Anya.

“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure we get the outcome you need,” he promised. “I know what you want, Steph. You have to know I’ll try to keep you safe, too.”

She stared at him as though trying to figure out if she should argue or not.

He was saved when the door came open and Adam strode in. “Turn that computer on to the security cameras. I found our lost Aussie.”

Taggart had the screen up on the wall in front of them in a second. “He came here? Why would he come here?”

Steph gasped as the picture became clear. Brody stepped in front of her as though he could protect her from the men on the screen.

“I don’t think it was his choice,” Adam said.

No. It didn’t look like Alfi had a choice at all. He was on his knees in front of the gate, his hands held high. Two men stood behind him, their faces covered in dark tactical balaclavas. He could see rifles in their hands. It looked like a scene straight out of Afghanistan, but it was happening in front of Sanctum.

“All right then.” Taggart pulled out his mobile. “Boys, get ready for war.”

 

* * * *

 

Steph watched the monitor.

“That’s a lot of guns,” Avery said, leaning in. When the men had gone outside to confront the intruders, Avery and Charlotte had joined her so she wouldn’t be alone. Serena had stayed in the nursery, watching over sleeping children while Adam and Jake had taken up positions they claimed would allow them to watch over the situation.

Or in other words, they were in sniper positions. It made her shiver.

Avery was right. It was a lot of guns. Moments after the two men and Alfi had shown up in front of the gates, Shane and Declan had been standing on the other side. Four guns pointing at each other. Four chances for someone to die. Although it was certainly more than four chances since any of the bullets could do damage, and there would be plenty of bullets.

Brody was walking out there right now. Brody was striding out with Taggart and Li, and their guns would join the bodyguards’.

“Don’t worry. They know what they’re doing.” Charlotte’s words didn’t reassure her.

They did know what they were doing, and she knew they were lying to her. Brody had no intentions of giving her up for Anya. Neither did Li. She wasn’t a complete idiot.

“What exactly are they doing?” Tucker had stayed behind. He was sitting at the conference table watching the scene at the street play out.

“They’re talking first,” Charlotte explained. “Ian needs to figure out who he’s dealing with before he murders them all. That’s lesson number one, Tucker. Always figure out who you’re brutally killing and get everything you can out of your victim before you start in on the actual vicious torture and death part.”

A car suddenly pulled up behind the men on the public side of the gate and the door was opened by the man on the left. He hauled Alfi up and shoved his big body into the car. The other man lowered his rifle and seemed to be talking to Taggart.

“Wow, I didn’t expect that,” Charlotte said as the car drove off. She stood up and started toward the door. “I think the war is off. It looks like we’re about to have peace talks. Avery, could you go and tell Serena that we’re about to have guests. I’m going to request a guard outside the nursery door and another guarding the stairs that run up to the third floor.”

Where the royals were staying. Avery strode out the door while Charlotte got on her phone.

“Remy, we have an evolving situation,” Charlotte said, stepping away to talk.

“Are you afraid?” Tucker turned in his chair. “Because I don’t think you should be. Brody’s good at his job. And he told me if I let you get murdered he would do some things to me that shouldn’t be done to a human body. I’m planning on not letting you get killed because I don’t think my large intestine should see the outside of my body.”

She had to talk to Brody about how he dealt with his coworkers. “He won’t hurt you and I plan on not being killed.”

Planned, but she knew how plans could go.

She’d planned to spend the whole evening in Brody’s arms. She’d planned to let him handle everything.

Her plans were completely blown.

Twenty-four hours and then Anya would lose her life. Twenty-four hours and there would be more blood on her hands. She knew logically that this wasn’t her fault, but deep down in her soul she had to ask herself why it kept happening to her. Was there something wrong with her that she kept hurting people?

Would she hurt Brody and Nate simply by letting them close?

“I think he would kill me if I did something that hurt you,” Tucker was saying.

She shook her head. “No. I’ll talk to him about it. He shouldn’t threaten you. I don’t want that.”

“You don’t want someone to stand up for you?”

She couldn’t handle the thought. “No. If Brody thinks that’s how I want to live, then he’s wrong about me.”

And that was a good reason for her to not pursue a relationship with him.

Tucker’s eyes tightened, his mouth turning down. “I thought that would be a nice thing. The group where I live, they stand up for each other. I thought it was a form of love. You treat it like it’s something terrible. Could you explain this to me? I hate feeling confused.”

She wished he’d picked someone else to explain humanity to him. “I don’t want anyone hurt because of something I did or something that was done to me. Do you understand?”

“So you don’t want connections with people? Because if you’re connected in a way that’s loving and affectionate, you can’t expect that person to sit by while you’re being harmed. Or threatened.”

How did she make him understand? She glanced up at the screen and sighed in relief. The guns were pointed down now and the two men who’d held Alfi had taken off the masks that covered their faces. It looked like they were talking in a somewhat reasonable fashion. “I expect them to honor my wishes. Look, I’ve hurt people in the past.”

“You’re talking about the two people who died in the car accident?”

Well, at least he’d done his homework. “Yes.”

“So you think because those two people died, that no one should stand up for you. You think you don’t deserve love from anyone.”

She wished he would stop playing the shrink. “Of course not. It’s simply that I think I should be left to handle things. I know best what I want and that’s not more people to be hurt. I’m a big girl. I should be able to choose how to live my life.”

“And will you teach your son the same? I often wonder what my mother taught me. Of course, when I think about it too hard, I get a terrible headache.”

“It’s different. He’s a child,” she argued.

“But children learn from their parents. I’ve heard this said many times. If someone was hurting your child, how would you handle that? Would you simply ask the person to stop? If that doesn’t work, how would you handle that?”

“I wouldn’t let anyone hurt my child.” The line of questioning was making her anxious. “Are you trying to say I’m a bad mother?”

“No, I’m trying to understand. Brody is my friend and he’s in a bad position. He loves you, but I think you don’t want him to love you. I think you don’t want anyone to love you and that makes me feel sad. Ariel says we should talk about the things that make us sad even if there is no solution.” Tucker looked back at the screen. “I want to be there for Brody if he needs me. I think he’s going to because I think you’re going to break his heart. He’s not a man who can allow those he loves to be hurt. Even if they crave the pain of being hurt.”

“I do not.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes pain is good. I think I miss my pain. I can feel it simmering beneath the surface, but I can’t remember why it’s there. If I knew what I ached about, maybe I could ease it. Maybe I could find a way to turn it into something else. Is that why you went to Africa?”

She stood up. “I’m not having this conversation with you. It’s too personal.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I guess I did, but I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was trying to understand more.” He flashed her a sad smile. “I’ve been told I’m annoying.”

She was about to agree with whoever had said that when the door came open and Taggart entered.

“Charlie?”

Charlotte nodded. “I’ve placed guards on the nursery and to watch over our guests.”

He lowered his head and kissed his wife. “Thank you. Now for the fun stuff. Introductions. Don’t kill the newbies.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Not the mercenaries?”

Brody walked into the room, his eyes finding hers.

What would she do if someone was hurting him? Would she stand back and let him handle it because he was an adult and he should have the choice? Or would she stop whoever was doing it at any cost because she loved him?

Love. She loved him and that scared the shit out of her.

“No mercenaries. We have an interested third party.” Liam stood beside a tall, lanky man with blond hair.

He looked incredibly familiar. A name came to mind because she was almost certain she’d seen that face before in a photo. “Fedor? Are you Anya’s brother?”

He nodded slowly. “I am and you are her employer? The doctor?”

Brody tried to step in front of her. “She’s none of your business.”

“Yes, Anya works at my clinic.” She couldn’t seem to get around him.

“You are the one who left her behind to die?” Fedor asked. His friend stepped in next to him.

“Hey,” Brody began.

Guilt flooded her system. “I thought she would run. She offered to stay behind for a few minutes and then she would run.”

Fedor’s cold blue eyes found hers. “My sister is brave. I can see agreeing to risk her own life to save others. You are coward for allowing her to do this. You and the piece of shit I have taken into custody. You both ran and left my sister to take your punishment.”

“Ukrainians.” Charlotte made the word sound like an admonishment.

“Russian,” Fedor shot back. He said something in a language Steph didn’t understand.

Charlotte did the same.

Taggart put a hand up. “I didn’t even know some of those words and my Russian is pretty good. It’s best that I didn’t since if I thought for a second that you called my wife nasty names, I would say our peace treaty is over and you should get ready to fight.”

Fedor took a deep breath. “I am sorry, Mr. Taggart. And Mrs. Taggart. I am not friendly with your wife’s people, as I pointed out before. This is why I will keep the man and allow you to keep the woman for as long as I believe you intend to work with me to free my sister.”

“Allow?” Taggart asked.

Brody took her hand and pulled her to a corner of the room while Fedor began to talk to Taggart. “Are you all right?”

Not at all, but there was nothing she could do about it now. “He’s right. I should have waited for her.”

Brody’s jaw tightened. “Damn it, you had to protect our son.” He sighed, a long-suffering sound. “That bastard has no idea what it was like and no right at all to blame you. But you won’t listen to me about that, will you?”

She felt his disappointment and couldn’t understand it. Not at all. “I could have done a thousand things differently. Can’t you see that I should have helped her?”

“Can’t you see that you cannot save the whole world? You owe Nate. You have to save him first, last, and always, and part of saving Nate is saving yourself. He needs his mum. I need you.”

But she would screw it up. She would screw it all up and then where would they be? She wanted to lean into him, to hold on and beg him to make things right for her. For them. She wanted to hold on to him, but she was afraid.

“I need you.” Brody stared down at her, his hands on her shoulders, eyes pleading.

The best thing she could do was walk away. Turn and walk out and leave everything and everyone behind. Go back to Africa where she was needed, but not needed. They needed a doctor, not her in particular. She didn’t have to be Stephanie Gibson in Africa. All she had to be was a competent doctor, and that might have been how she spent the rest of her life.

But Nate had come along and now she had to be something more.

“I need you, too.” The words came out on a whisper, new words that seemed vulnerable. Fragile words. “I need you, Brody.”

A shudder went through his body and he dragged her close. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear those words. I’m going to take care of this.”

Because he loved her. Because people in love took care of each other. Somehow Tucker’s words were sinking in and making her ask questions. She’d seen plenty of therapists who had traced the source of her guilt and self-loathing back to the night that changed her life. They’d all tried to ease her through so she could live a happy life. But Tucker had asked her childish questions. Questions her own child would one day ask, and she’d had no real idea how to answer him.

How would she explain to her boy that she wasn’t worth saving? That her life had ended that night she’d made the worst mistake a human could make and she was nothing but a shell already serving time in a self-made Purgatory?

His life should be about joy, and if she didn’t find a way to change, she had none to give him.

How did she explain that his birth hadn’t changed her life? Hadn’t made her more than she’d been before? Had shoved her even deeper into a hole?

She didn’t know what to do, couldn’t trust her own instincts. The surface instincts told her to push everyone away.

What did her deeper instincts tell her? What would the Stephanie who never got in that car and went to that party have done?

She leaned close and wrapped her arms around him. She breathed in his scent. Earthy and masculine and safe.

She felt him kiss her head.

“Don’t worry about anything else. Let me handle this.” He kissed her again. “Let me take care of you for once.”

She found herself nodding against him. “Okay.”

She felt him sigh as though relieved.

“It’s all going to be all right in the end. We’re going to sit down and talk this out with Anya’s family,” he explained. “We’ll exchange all the intel we’ve gathered. This is a good thing.”

Brody was an optimist. “And what about Alfi?”

“Alfi claims he lost the thumb drive. He admitted he took it and thought to sell it back to the mercenaries or the company they were representing or the newspaper the journalist worked for. He wanted to start a bidding war, but somewhere along the way, he lost the damn thing. I swear I’ll kill him myself.”

She shook her head, but she wasn’t going to argue with him over semantics. He wouldn’t really kill Alfi. Even if Alfi might deserve it. “Why? Why would he do that to us? He had to know this would go badly.”

“Alfi doesn’t think. He never has. He sees money in front of him and all his morals go out the window. I’m sure he convinced himself that he deserved the money. Bastard.”

“On this we can agree,” Fedor said. “Alfi Dauterre is a bastard.”

“That doesn’t mean you get to hurt him.” She faced Fedor.

“I’ll leave that to de Vries,” he said with a shrug.

Taggart took over, stepping into the middle of the group. “It’s late. Why don’t you take Steph back home and I’ll deal with our new friends. I’m going to have to bring them up to date on everything, but I’m going to do it at the office. This isn’t the place for a meeting.”

Fedor didn’t know his sister had already lost a piece of herself.

Brody’s hand found hers, squeezing lightly. It was easy to see they didn’t want her around when Fedor lost his shit.

“How are we going to get her back? If we don’t have the thumb drive, what are we going to do?” She needed a plan. They were down to twenty-four hours.

“That’s what we’re going to talk about,” Taggart assured her. “Go and get your son and in the morning, we’ll have another talk. We’ll find de Vries. Don’t think I won’t.”

“It’s going to be fine, Steph,” Charlotte said. “I’ll come by in the morning and fill you in on everything. And I’ll keep an eye on the boys and make sure they don’t do anything too dangerous. By this time tomorrow, we’ll have your friend back and all of this is going to feel like a bad dream.”

She wished she had half of Charlotte’s optimism.

Brody led her out into the hall. The group around them discussed going back to the McKay-Taggart building. Adam joined them, explaining how he was going to narrow down the possible places where de Vries could be hiding.

Steph felt removed from it all.

Brody leaned over and brushed a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll get our boy. You wait for me here, all right?”

She nodded and moved to the front windows, staring out into the night.

“This is not how I wanted to visit the States for the first time,” a deep voice said.

She glanced up and the second man was standing beside her. “I’m sorry you had to come under such terrible circumstances. You know Anya well?”

“She’s my cousin. We have—how would say? Very close family. You must understand this.”

She didn’t. Her family had broken a long time before. “I know Anya talks about her family all the time.”

“She’s a sweet girl, but Fedor was wrong to allow her to go to dangerous place.” His eyes were on the parking lot. “I’m going to tell you what the others will not. This man who has my cousin will not be bought off with the thumb drive. He wants you and the Australian. He believes you have seen what is on the drive, and he will kill anyone who can speak of it.”

“I haven’t seen anything.” She tightened her fingers around her purse, needing something to hold on to.

“That is between you and de Vries. I suggest you make him believe or he will kill you. I intend to give you to de Vries along with Dauterre in exchange for my cousin. I will go along with this farce for now, but I want you to meet me in four hours. I know the address where you are staying.”

“I can’t do that. Even if I was stupid enough to try to meet you, I don’t think my bodyguards would allow it.”

“I’ve slipped you a letter detailing what I want you to do along with the tools to make it happen. If you don’t meet me in four hours, I will use my network to ensure that everyone you care about dies in the next year. I know many of the world’s finest assassins. I won’t hesitate to spend everything I own making sure you lose everyone. Starting with your son and that big bastard you’re obviously sleeping with. Do I make myself clear?”

She turned to him, noting that Tucker was watching from across the lobby. “You’ve made yourself very clear.”

He smiled down at her. “Act like nothing is wrong or we’ll start here and now. If you tell your friends, they’ll be the first to go.”

She forced a smile on her face and Tucker seemed to take that as his cue. He sat back down. “I think you’re outnumbered here. My friends aren’t exactly lightweights.”

“I have no wish to get involved in a fight here and now, and perhaps they would win,” he allowed. “But you should understand that even if Fedor and I die, we have others to take care of things. My people have long memories and we’ll be smart about it. We’ll allow a few months to go by, but sooner or later, you will lose them all. We will save you for the last. By the time we’re done, you’ll beg for death. Do you understand?”

“Yes, you’ve made yourself very clear.”

“Excellent.” He stepped back as Brody strode out of the hallway, carrying Nathan’s car seat. “I wish you a good night, then. Mr. Carter, we’ll see you in the morning and we’ll try to find our way out of this, yes?”

Brody nodded. “We will. This is a smart bunch. We’ll get Anya back in no time.” He put his free hand on her shoulder. “Come along, luv. Let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day, but after things will get better.”

“I hope so.” She would have to wait until she got home to read the note and the instructions the Ukrainians had left for her.

How would she get by the guards?

“Are you all right?” Brody smoothed her hair back.

She moved into his arms. “Just tired.”

He held her and she wondered if it was for the last time.