London, England

3 weeks later

 

“You look very much the gentleman,” Nick Markovic said as he strode into the groom’s room.

It was actually the locker room at The Garden, but it served its purpose for today. “Thanks. I was worried I looked a bit like an overstuffed penguin. And might I add, you’re looking spiffy yourself.”

Nick grinned and pulled the cork out of the god-only-knew-how-old bottle of Scotch that Damon had presented them with when they’d started dressing for the wedding.

The double wedding.

Nick was marrying the girl of his dreams, Hayley Dalton, and they’d been excited to share the day with close friends. Brody hadn’t even brought it up. He’d been ready to elope since waiting even the three weeks they had seemed like too long. Nick and Hayley had convinced them that the more family and friends, the better.

“I was talking to Nathan,” Nick said with a wink. “He’s looking resplendent in his tux. You are only so-so, my friend.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. He did that a lot these days. He looked down at Nate, who did indeed look gentlemanly in the tiny tux they’d found for him. He was busy batting at the toys on his bouncy seat, completely ignoring all the male bonding going on around him. “That he does.”

The Taggart brothers were sitting in the front of the locker room, jackets off until the moment they would be forced to put them on. Most of the crew had come over for the wedding and The Garden was filled with visitors. It had been a fun week to hang out with his friends and family. His mum had made the long trip along with his stepdad, and they’d even brought Alfi along.

He hadn’t killed Alfi. Something about being happy made him more forgiving.

He just wished he could do something about Tucker.

Walt and Damon stepped into the circle. Damon brought over four crystal glasses.

“I’ll take some of that,” Walt said. “Now that I’m off pain meds from the gunshot wound, I can get back to my experiments with grain alcohol.”

Walt had a very sheltered childhood.

Damon slapped him on the back. “It’s a single malt, mate, and this is the best.”

“Yes, well, where I came from it was merely something that destroyed brain cells,” Walt shot back. “My parents believed in studying, not partying, which is precisely why I like it way better here.”

They were an odd group. Damon Knight, practically a member of the gentry. He’d been born into English wealth and privilege. Nick Markovic, a former Russian spy. Walt, the genius who always seemed to find trouble.

And him. A rough-and-tumble bloke from the Outback who was about to marry the most brilliant woman he’d ever met.

Sometimes life took twists and turns that led a man to his future.

“Hey, the Americans are going to want a taste of that.” Taggart led his brothers into the room.

“Don’t leave the Irishman out.” Li O’Donnell straightened his tie. “Never let it be said any Irishman walked down an aisle without a little fortification.”

Taggart put a hand out, stopping Damon from passing the Scotch to Li. “Are we sure no bees were involved in the making of this Scotch?”

Li shot Big Tag the finger. “I’m never living it down. Give me that.” He drained the glass in one shot before turning to Brody. “Heard Steph and Faith decided to team up.”

It had turned out to be a match made in heaven. Steph had a stable clinic and Faith had a ton of contacts. Anya was running the place now and taking charge of the different doctors who came through, each doing their part to help. He and Steph would be back there in a few months, taking her turn as doctor.

The best of both worlds.

“The clinic is open for business,” he said with a smile. “If by business you mean making absolutely no money at all.”

“That’s how charity works,” Li said with a smile before he stepped back. “Now, I’ve got a girl to walk down the aisle. You better be there, Carter, or I’ll find ya.”

He wouldn’t be anywhere else. “Hey, O’Donnell, since you’re the one giving the bride away, does that mean I should call you Pops now?”

“Not on yer life.” O’Donnell shuddered. “Though the wee one can certainly call me Uncle Li. You be good to her, Carter.”

“I will.” He shook Li’s hand and the Irishman walked out to prepare for his part of the wedding.

“We will see you outside, brother.” Taggart slapped him on the shoulder and then extended a hand to Nick. “I’m happy for both of you, and more than happy to have more lovely women in our family. Now I’m going to go help Charlie wrangle the girls because I overheard them planning to climb a couple of the trees in the garden.”

The American crew left to find their places and he was alone with the men who had become his closest family. All except one.

“Owen didn’t want to come back here?” He asked the question of Nick. Owen had been Nick’s partner for years before he’d become the last of Hope McDonald’s experiments.

Nick gave him a tight smile. “He told me he wasn’t feeling well. It’s hard for him, these big gatherings. He doesn’t know what to say and often finds himself in a conversation he doesn’t understand because he’s talking to someone who knew him from before. The others are all coming, but they don’t have the same problems as Owen.”

Owen knew his name, knew all the facts of his life before the drug had taken his memories. Sometimes not knowing seemed to be better.

It sure as hell had been for Tucker.

“Has Ezra found anything at all yet?” Brody asked. “I saw you talking to him earlier.”

Ezra Fain had missed the poker game that served as both his and Nick’s bachelor party, but he’d flown in for the wedding. He’d shown up and immediately gone into a private meeting with Damon and Big Tag.

“Two of the Belgians he talked to insist that Tucker is this Dr. Razor person.” Damon poured himself another drink. “They said they’d worked for him on two occasions, though the person they were actually in contact with was none other than Dr. Hope McDonald. Ezra’s been working on another case but he’s going to try to figure out Tucker’s real name. I seriously doubt it’s Razor.”

Nick shook his head. “It’s hard to believe that kid was some kind of monster. He’s the kindest of the bunch. Are you sure we’re doing the right thing keeping this from the rest of them? If he was Hope McDonald’s right-hand man, then he was likely the one who tortured them.”

“But the drug seems to have destroyed that part of his personality,” Walt explained. “So much of who we are is wrapped up in our memories, our past traumas, but there’s also a chemical and biological component. Think of it like this—Tucker got an evilectomy. I know that sounds stupid, but that part of him, the part with evil impulses, seems to be completely gone. He’s not the same man and I, for one, think that poisoning the others against him would be cruel. Those men are the only family he has.”

That was Walt in a nutshell. If Hope McDonald had been an evil genius, then Walt had taken all the good genes for himself. Brody put a hand on his shoulder. “So we keep telling him that we can’t corroborate de Vries’s story. Maybe after a while we can convince him it was all complete rubbish.”

“But I have to look into it.” Damon set the glass down. “I have to find out the truth. If we can find Tucker’s identity, it might lead to the others. But for now, we stay silent. Walt is right. The man we know as Tucker isn’t the same man de Vries described. And on that front, did you see that the stock was down for a certain firm out of Antwerp once Johann’s piece ran in the papers? Remind me to thank Mia for that.”

Mia Taggart was a journalist. She’d taken the thumb drive and found all of Johann’s notes and pieced together the story the man would have written had he lived. She’d also written a piece on the journalist himself that was making Johann famous for his bravery and compassion.

And it was also making the world a bit safer since the terrorist group wouldn’t be selling their diamonds so easily again.

Damon looked down at his watch. “Time’s up, mates. You ready to do this?”

Brody looked at Nick. “I think we’re both game.”

“I’ve been waiting for this all my life,” Nick agreed.

Brody picked up Nate. “You ready to get our girl, son?”

He followed Nick out, eager to be with his family.

 

* * * *

 

Later that night

 

Kayla Summers sighed and looked out at the dancing couples. The whole garden had been decked out with twinkle lights and flowers and candles. At the end of the wedding, confetti had been dropped from above making it look like it was raining flower petals.

It was so romantic it made her want to find a man and do what bridesmaids were supposed to do.

Damn it. She was all dressed up and ready to go. She was wearing heels and a push-up bra and she got nothing because everyone was either married or loony from mind-altering drugs.

Or Ezra Fain, who’d said he needed to talk to her earlier. It wasn’t that the CIA agent wasn’t superhot, it was just that he was someone she worked with and she was done sleeping with people she would have to see over and over again. Men were touchy things. When you slept with them for a while they got all needy and clingy.

Like the one who had his head in her lap, except she certainly hadn’t slept with Tucker. And the truth was she didn’t blame him for needing affection.

She was sitting on a bench near the tables where dinner had been served. It was odd to see The Garden used for such a normal function. Normally the beautiful indoor garden hosted play spaces where kink couples could get their freak on.

Except it really was normal since the truth was this ceremony had been about love and commitment and family, and the kink part was just something they did, too.

There’s no such thing as normal, my darling girl. And if there was, wouldn’t it be a boring thing to be?

Her dads. She’d been adopted by two men from California. They’d been the best parents she could have asked for. They’d always told her she was destined for great things. How would they feel if he knew her great things had been all about proving how much pain she could take? Her dads had a vision of her saving the country. They knew she’d worked for the Agency. They had no idea all the things she’d done, the terrible things that had been done to her.

“I think I should tell them.” Tucker was curled up on the bench, his head in her lap. “Robert knows, but he said it was up to me whether or not I say anything. I should tell them.”

“Tell them what? That some douchebag who had ties to terrorists figured out you were the weak link in the chain and tried to use you to get out of a rough situation?” She was toeing the line on this one. There was no way Tucker was the same man. Even if he was.

Kay knew that a person could change. She knew it better than anyone.

He turned so his face was staring up at her. “Do you really think so?”

So open and innocent. He was like a gorgeous manchild, and she felt a desperate need to protect him. “I know it.”

He sighed, seeming to settle. “I hope so.”

“What did Theo Taggart have to say about it? Or Robert?” After all, if anyone would know, it would be Theo or Robert. They had been held by Dr. McDonald, though she’d never heard either mention a second doctor.

“Theo said he’s never seen me before,” Tucker said. “Robert either, but who knows. There was a second site, one Big Tag doesn’t think Theo and Robert ever saw. What if I ran that site? What if I’m the one who did this to Jax and Sasha and Dante and Owen?”

“I don’t believe it for a second.” He was too sweet. It was his nature. She couldn’t see how simply erasing a person’s memory would change something so fundamental. No one as sweet as Tucker could do those things to another human being.

He sighed. “I pray you’re right. I don’t want to have been some crazy monster doctor. I like being me. I know that sounds stupid since I don’t know who me is, but I like it here. I like my brothers, and you’re the best sister anyone could want.”

Yep, that was what she got here. She was everyone’s sister or aunt. Not that she was truly attracted to any of the Lost Boys, but damn, couldn’t Damon hire a hottie who wasn’t certifiable?

“I’m glad, buddy.” She glanced up and saw Fain coming her way. He wasn’t alone. Damon was with him, and that gorgeous hunk of American snark Ian Taggart. She totally understood why her twin sister had been all over that while she’d been in the field.

Of course, now he was married to a woman Kay respected. Mostly because Charlotte Taggart was a woman who truly got what the “sisterhood” meant, but also for her assassin skills. Kay appreciated any woman who could murder a man with a pair of Louboutins.

“I think I’m about to get pulled into an impromptu meeting, buddy,” she said. “Why don’t you go and find Teresa? She was looking for someone to dance with.”

Tucker sat up quickly, straightening his shirt. “Really? Maybe they’ll play a slow song and I’ll be able to show her how good I am at rubbing myself on her. That’s what Big Tag says dancing is all about.”

Big Tag gave him a thumbs-up. “That’s exactly what it’s about. You go for it.”

Tucker scurried off, seeming to forget his ennui at possibly being an evil motherfucker in a past life. Kayla stood, putting a hand on her hips. “You are going to get that poor boy slapped.”

Tag shrugged. “It’s all one big learning process for him. You got a minute?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Fain would like to borrow you for a job,” Damon explained.

She hoped she managed to keep her face perfectly bland because inside she was dying a little. If the Agency was asking, then it had to be something down and dirty. If the Agency was asking her, it probably had something to do with her prior MSS contacts. She’d worked for years as a double agent, trained to take her twin sister’s place as a spy.

She’d lost her sister and sometimes she worried she’d almost lost her soul.

But still, if Damon wanted her to do something, she had to consider it. If her country needed her, she would have to go back into hell.

“What’s the gig?” That was good. Very normal, as if she wasn’t screaming on the inside.

Ezra looked down at her. “Do you know who Joshua Hunt is?”

She snorted a little. “Uhm, he’s only the hottest actor in the world right now. He’s starring in that new action movie—The Quick and The Enraged. I love that series.”

What she wasn’t about to admit was that she kind of had a supercrush on the man. He was tall, dark, and handsome. Right up her alley.

“I need you to go undercover as his bodyguard. I’ve already got the job lined up, but he doesn’t know the name of the new guard yet. This job would require you to stay close to him and go to many of the functions he would attend.” Ezra frowned as though thinking through how to say what he needed to.

He was hesitating and she didn’t understand it. He wanted her to go undercover as the hottest man in Hollywood’s bodyguard? The only thing that would have been better would have been to be asked to be his freaking fake fiancée, or anything that would get her in the man’s bed.

Although bodyguard was pretty hot. She could likely still seduce him.

So she would have to go to a bunch of hoity-toity parties in one of the most glamorous places in the world. “What’s the catch?”

Damon’s jaw tightened. “Well, there is one small item of concern.”

Taggart shook his head. “They’re worried you’re about to be offended. I think you’re going to jump at the chance.”

Now they really had her attention. “Like I said before, what’s the catch?”

Ezra’s shoulders squared as though he was readying himself for rejection. “He wants a bodyguard who will also serve as his sexual submissive and his in-public girlfriend.”

Holy shit. She was getting the whole Fifty Shades. So, so many slutty thoughts went through her head. Beautiful, slutty thoughts.

It would be a montage of shopping and partying and sex with a movie star god.

Who might not be as good in bed as he looked, but she could work with that. She could whip him into shape.

Quietly, since she was the sub. But she’d found she could do amazing things from the bottom.

“Kayla, he’s not trying to insult you,” Damon began.

“She’s not insulted. She’s already planning on how she’s going to top him from the bottom.” Taggart did know her better than the rest.

“I absolutely am doing that. I already have ideas.” She was also planning her wardrobe. She would need a bunch of designer wear.

Ezra seemed to relax. “Then you’ll take the job?”

She smiled at the thought. “There’s no business like show business, right? Hollywood, here I come.”

 

Kayla, Joshua, and the entire McKay-Taggart gang will return in Nobody Does It Better coming February 20, 2018. Click to pre-order.