Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
MaeBe turned and then was lowering herself onto his lap.
The world seemed less shitty than it had two seconds before. He didn’t give a fuck that this was supposed to be a meeting. His uncle and aunt had the right idea. It was better to be connected. He wrapped his arm around her waist and brought her close. If she didn’t want him to do weird things, she should have picked another dude because he liked smelling her hair. Only hers.
He could feel his blood pressure go down.
“Can we talk now? Without looking like you’re going to kill our guest?” MaeBe’s lips curled up in the sweetest smile.
“Probably.” This was why his uncle had many a meeting with his wife sitting on his lap. There were men who could handle the shittiness of the world and men who couldn’t without some help. They were those men. He let his free hand find her knee so she was completely in his arms. Then he could deal with Joseph. “I suspect you think her father’s files would go a long way in helping you take down The Consortium.”
“I think they’re the key to everything.” Joseph suddenly seemed professional again. “They’re certainly her obsession right now. What happened in London hurt her with the organization. They wanted her mother dead so they could replace her seat in the senate with a more friendly senator. Not only did she fail, but her father died during the op.”
“Do they know she’s the one who killed him?” Drake asked.
Joseph’s head shook. “Absolutely not. I was given the story she wanted to tell, and I haven’t deviated from it. You have to understand that if Julia loses her position, they don’t merely move me to another operative. They fire me, and permanently. Julia’s fuckups are my fuckups. So I have to support her on this. According to the reports we filed, Drake killed his father.”
“Of course I did,” Drake said with a bitter twist of his lips.
Taylor leaned against her boyfriend. “Everyone who counts knows the truth.”
“They don’t realize he had records, do they?” Now that Kyle’s inner caveman was satisfied no one was taking his woman away he could think better. “Did Julia?”
“She would have known something about it.” Drake seemed calmer, too. “Our father taught us to keep intelligence on the people around us. Especially the ones with power. What have you figured out about how high up my father’s placement went?”
“I did not spend much time with your father. I was brought in shortly before the incident that led to Julia’s transformation,” Joseph began.
“You mean right before Kyle tried to unalive her?” his uncle asked.
Kyle had always been curious about this. “I was sure I’d hit her heart.”
“No.” Joseph clasped his hands together. “You missed, and the fire I started managed to get you to leave.”
“You got her out.” That shook his calm.
MaeBe smoothed back his hair. “She was his only way into The Consortium. You would have done the same thing in his place.”
“She’s right. I would have been blamed for losing a valuable asset,” Joseph agreed. “If The Consortium didn’t kill me, I suspect her father would have. He would have worried anyone close to Julia might have known his secret. By that time I did know he was involved at the highest levels, despite the fact I did not spend time with him. After I got Julia away, I called my contacts, and it was your father who made the arrangements to move her. First to Mexico and then to Los Angeles. Every operative has what we call a doppelganger. They have to find someone in the world whose identity they can take over in case of emergency.”
“I made up my own.” Taylor brushed back her hair. “I knew I would have to ID someone if I got in. It’s kind of creepy. You have to find someone with your basic height and bone structure. Someone vulnerable, with no real family or friends. It’s surprisingly easy to do in the age of social media. People can isolate and still feel like they have a foot in the world when they really don’t.”
“It was easy for her to take over Jane Adams’s life.” Joseph crossed one leg over the other, sitting back, though he kept that watchful energy around him.
“Did you kill her?” Kyle had to ask the question.
A hint of a smile crossed his lips. “Julia thinks so. Being able to save Jane is one of the good things I’ve done in the last several years. We staged her death so Julia had the proof she needed, and she’s living under the protection of the CSIS. She has a job with them that I’ve been told she enjoys, and she’s got real friends there. I don’t know if she’ll go back to her former life after we’re done with the op.” He glanced up at the clock. “I need to get going because Julia will want a report. I told her we would need a communications blackout until I got back to the safe house, but she’ll be getting anxious.”