Eric shook Damon’s hand, then gestured to Arthur. “This is Arthur Billings.”

Damon’s gaze flicked over Arthur. “An old member and a potential new member. Welcome.”

“Damon, this one was carrying weapons.” One of the guards nodded toward Eric.

“I’d be surprised if you found all of them. Eric, if you’d be so kind?”

Eric narrowed his eyes. “I don’t have anything else.”

“This is my club, my place. If you want to get any further inside than you are now, you’ll hand over all your weapons.”

Eric knew better than to think he could sway Damon, not when the Brit had that hard look in his eye. Eric jerked up his sleeve and undid the thin straps that held his emergency blade in place. Damon held out his hand, and Penelope came to his side, pressing against him for a moment. “Come, love. You’ll want in on this meeting.”

She looked curiously up at her husband, then her eyes widened. She and Damon led the way through the first floor of The Garden, past a few BDSM play spots, to the lift. They took it up to Damon’s private office. This wasn’t the official London office of McKay, Taggart and Knight, and that was what Eric had wanted. Secrecy was vital.

Damon held the door for Penelope, and then motioned Eric and Arthur to precede him.

“Tea?” Penelope asked in that very British way Eric always found slightly amusing.

“Please,” Arthur replied.

“Take a seat.” Damon motioned to the pair of chairs facing the large desk.

“I’ll be right back with tea. Here you are, Damon.” Penelope placed the plate of cookies she still held on the corner of the desk. “Gluten free.”

Damon’s lips twitched. “Thank you, love.”

She left the office, and as soon as she was gone, Eric leaned forward. “Thank you for seeing me, Damon.”

He nodded, but looked wary. “It’s been a long time.”

“Seven years,” Eric confirmed. “We need your help. Not a favor. A job.”

“I don’t do that kind of work anymore,” Damon said quietly.

Eric smiled. “If I needed that kind of work, I’d do it myself.”

Damon looked at him and Eric wondered if the other man was remembering a blood-soaked night in Istanbul that they’d barely survived. “I, we, need to hire McKay, Taggart and Knight.”

“In that case, we wait until Penny is back. I don’t keep secrets from her. She’s as much a part of the firm as I am.”

Eric was surprised. Damon hadn’t been the trusting type, but Eric knew from experience that the love of a good woman or two could change everything. “Very well, but we’re going to need Big Tag in on this.”

Damon sighed and looked at the clock. “It’s early in Dallas. He’s going to be even more of an ass than usual.” Despite his words, Damon picked up his phone.

They sat in silence until Penelope returned with two mugs of tea, one for her and a second for Arthur. Arthur started to reach for it with his right arm, stopping with a wince before switching and holding out his left hand.

Damon grimaced at his phone, then turned to his computer. A moment later the large TV mounted to the wall lit up, a small rectangle in the bottom corner showing a picture of Damon’s office, the image captured by the camera mounted to the top of the TV.

The main image showed a dark room and the top of a chair. They could hear cursing, then a massive, half-naked man dropped into the chair. Ian Taggart was a big, blond, son-of-a-bitch. Eric was the same height as the other man and blond. Once long ago, Ian had even helped him out by creating an alibi for Eric by appearing in public at the same time Eric was slashing his way through a drug dealer’s crew. The resemblance was superficial—size and coloring—and no one would mistake them for being long lost brothers. Especially since it turned out Ian had long lost brothers, who were both dead ringers for him.

Ian peered at the screen. “I’ll be damned. The Viking. You’re still alive? I thought for sure someone would have killed you by now.”

“As are you, you bastard,” Eric replied, putting his best American-accent inflection on the word “bastard.”

Penelope perched on Damon’s lap, which probably had more to do with their D/s relationship than the lack of additional chairs in the room. “He knows Ian?”

“They’re not really here about joining the club, though Eric did have Master rights in the past,” Damon told her. “He wants to hire us.”

“Awesome. Explain what regular business hours are and then let them know we have a form on our website. Fill it out,” Ian growled. “I’m going back to bed.”

“This job needs to be kept quiet,” Eric said.

Ian folded his arms. “Why do they all say that?”

“Who are you, really?” Penelope asked, eyeing Eric and Arthur. Arthur calmly sipped tea.

“He was in Ian’s line of work,” Damon told her before Eric could answer. Penelope nodded, though her gaze was now watchful rather than friendly. That knowing look meant Penelope was aware that Ian Taggart had been a CIA wet work specialist. Damon wasn’t lying when he said she knew everything.

Ian snorted. “If you needed something dead and you wanted it messy, the Viking was your guy. He specialized in berserker rages. Made the rest of us look like neat freaks.”

Eric shrugged. He had control over when he lost control. At least most of the time. It had been years since he’d let the burning, black rage inside of him take over.

The momentary lull in the conversation was apparently too much for Taggart. “It’s fucking early, Eric. Charlie and I are leaving for California in a few hours and we were up all night with a sick kid. Talk or fuck off.”

“Oh no, one of the girls is sick?” Penelope asked.

Ian Taggart as a father. Damn. He never would have imagined it. Again a pang of jealousy stabbed Eric.

“Later,” Damon murmured to his wife.

She nodded, shifting her attention back to Eric.

It was time to get down to business. “We need information.”

“There are other people who can get you information,” Ian said.

“Does Adam Miles still work for you?” Eric asked.

Ian grunted. “Not exactly. But I have another computer geek. What do you need, and more importantly why did you need to wake me up at five fucking a.m.?”

“I’ve…got a new job.” Eric had thought long and hard about how to approach this and decided this fact was a good place to start.

“Male stripper?” Ian guessed.

“What job?” Damon asked.

“That’s not important. I’m only telling you so you understand that I’m in a new line of work.”

“Eric, you’re bloody well making me regret letting you in here,” Damon said. “You asked for this meeting. If you want to hire us, you have to be honest.”

Honest? No. He couldn’t do that. But he needed their help, so he’d tell them what he could.

“I’ve taken over an…organization. I can’t tell you anything else about it. It’s not a criminal enterprise, not a company. It’s a…group of like minded individuals who share similar lifestyles.”

Penelope and Damon exchanged glances. Ian’s narrow-eyed gaze was steady.

“It’s not a job I wanted, but it’s one I have to do. The organization is facing some…challenges. Some of those challenges involve Americans. My organization doesn’t have an intelligence network in the U.S. That’s why I need you.”

“There are other people you could go to.” It was Penelope who said it this time.

“There’s no one else I’d trust with this.” Eric pulled off his cap, stuffing it into his pocket in a bid to buy time to choose his next words. “The information I need may be actionable. I need to work with someone who can accept that.”

Translation: depending on what you find out, we may go to war, and people will die.

Ian and Damon were no strangers to blood on their hands. They wouldn’t care.

“No,” Ian declared. “We work jobs we believe in. I’m not going to locate someone so you can stab them in the back. If you want to kill people, stab them in the front.”

Damn it. The Ian he remembered had never had a problem slitting a man’s throat from behind.

Arthur sat forward, setting his cup down on Damon’s desk. The movement drew all eyes. “Mr. Taggart, Mr. Knight, Mrs. Knight, if I may speak plainly?”

Penelope nodded, and Arthur didn’t wait for either of the men to object.

“Our organization is made up from the descendants of a group of European families who were underground Nazi resisters during World War II. The Third Reich found out about the group and started targeting them. In order to keep their children safe, our great grandparents secretly placed their children and any disposable wealth they had on a ship headed for Canada. A corrupt U.S. naval captain knew the ship contained wealth and targeted it, sinking it despite the fact that it was flying a neutral flag, and covering up what he’d done. All the children aboard were killed, but the corrupt captain salvaged the valuables, keeping them for himself.”

Penelope pressed a hand to her mouth.

“That sucks, but there’s not a shit load we can do about that now.” Ian’s voice had softened a bit, but not enough.

“No, there’s not,” Arthur said reasonably. “But people are dying, still dying, because of this secret. The people who profited from this crime stand to lose everything if they’re exposed. They’re killing to keep their secret. That’s why we need your help.”

Eric’s respect for Arthur had gone up several notches. The admiral had managed to tell the truth while concealing the most dangerous parts of the story.

“Why not just go to the media?” Damon asked. “An investigative reporter would love a story like this.”

“It’s imperative that our group remain a secret,” Eric said. “And we don’t have the resources in the U.S. to investigate ourselves. Plus they may be monitoring us in order to help dodge any investigation we did launch. We don’t want to tip them off.” He was rather pleased with himself for remembering that English idiom.

“It sounds easy enough,” Penelope mused. “I’m sure Chelsea could do it.”

Ian growled. “I hope you’re planning to pay for this.”

“Yes. We’ll need to pay in Euro.”

“Charge him the full daily rate, Damon. No discounts. Fucker needs to pay for waking me up.”

Damon ignored his partner. “We’ll need the names.”

Eric grinned, showing all his teeth. McKay, Taggart and Knight was going to take the case. “Harrison Adams. Juliette Adams. Devon Asher. All live in Boston. Those should be easy. They’re not the main targets. Rose Hancock. Weston Anderson. I need everything you can find on them.”

“Wait.” Damon held up a hand. “You said people had died?”

“Yes. That’s the reason I wouldn’t trust this to anyone but you.” Eric looked from Penelope to Damon to Ian. “I need you to find out who blew up a boat named Eileen. I need to know who killed Elroy Cloud, Barton Anderson and Victoria Prosser.”