Affair was the best label I could place on it because except for when I outright kissed her in public and didn’t give a flying fuck, we were supposed to be a secret.
Me the secret agent seeing the mafia king’s daughter.
Me disturbing the hornet’s nest, rocking the foundation, waiting for it to come and get me.
Even so, I knew who I was and who she was.
I knew who she was to me.
Killing her was out of the question.
I didn’t know what in the hell kind of person Ethan thought I was but I wasn’t about to kill the innocent just because they stood in my way. That was why I gave that answer. I’d said I’d do what I had to do.
I would.
My way…
“I’m going back to my place. I can’t stay here. Can we talk tomorrow about your ideas?” I asked.
“You know we can. But Xander… talk to me now bro. Not work stuff. I can see you’re on fire, ready to blow and kill the next thing that moves.”
“I am,” I admitted, trying to steady my thoughts. “You know me. I hate taking orders. I know it’s weird because I worked for Ethan before, but back then I …”
My voice trailed off. I knew what the difference was. I knew it. Back then I had Claire. We worked for the same team. All of us worked in tandem with each other. I wasn’t sleeping with the enemy’s daughter.
“Things were a little different back then?” Wes filled in.
I nodded and glanced over to the open window as a gust of wind blew through, causing the hinges to rattle.
“I don’t know how I’ve allowed this girl to get to me the way she has, Wes.”
“Can’t help who you fall for Xander.”
He knew my story, past and present. Knew everything. Right from the beginning. He was the only guy I’d trusted, as far as trust went to tell my story. I guess my secrets too.
He was like a diary. He knew what had happened to me and knew the stuff I never wanted to talk about. The stuff I didn’t talk about.
It was what fueled me for the last five years to find Balthazar Kane, the man who killed Claire right in front of me.
The same thing kicked me into gear with Jia, but it was different.
It called on that instinct to protect her from people who could get to her.
There was that and now so much more that was out of my control.
She was in danger, but she wasn’t mine to protect the way I wanted to. Tonight made that very clear to me.
I drew in a sharp breath and decided to tell him what happened. I needed to get the shit off my chest. “Her father wants to send her to Europe and marry her off to that prick.”
“Armand?” He raised his brows.
“Yeah. She came to tell me, and warn me that Giovanni will kill me if she doesn’t comply.”
Wes chuckled. “I’d love to see him try to kill you bro. Realistically though, and I don’t mean to be a dick, you know I don’t… but maybe Europe isn’t such a bad idea for her. She’d be safe there. Right?”
“But with Armand?”
“With him… he may be a prick, but maybe getting her out of the way is best. It’s the Ra, Xander. They were in the same fucking room as her. You and I both know that those people who were there on the night of the shootout were just pawns, the guys you send to see if you can accomplish a task. If it works it works. If not then they send in more muscle. That’s the stage we’re at. We just don’t know what’s coming next. She’s the innocent in the mix so maybe it’s best if she’s out of the picture and out of harm’s way.”
All truth, all very reasonable and it all made sense. I just didn’t want to let her go.
I nodded. “Yeah… sure.”
No point telling him the other part of the shit where I promised her I wouldn’t allow Armand to take her.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like something that wouldn’t work.
“I’ll deal.” I sighed.
“Xander, I’m here if you need me. No point bottling things up. We trust each other. That’s the way it’s been for years. Even if your old buddies come back with their need for your skills that doesn’t change shit to me. Talking about work and talking about life goes hand in hand. Because when your mind’s taken up with life you can’t focus on the shit we get up to.” He smirked and nodded, putting out his hand to bump fists with mine.
I obliged in the action we’d shared like it was some act to seal the promise of trust.
“Thanks bro. See you later.”
“Sure. I’m gonna continue working on my ideas. I think I can get a good head start on what we need. I discovered a park we may be able to enter to get into the tunnels. We’ll see though.”
It sounded good. Before I met Jia earlier on, Wes got the building plans for The Grand Marchesi showing the casino and the hotel but also a whole secret area that wasn’t listed on the records City Hall kept. Wes had a friend help him retrieve these new building plans and while I may be all worked up now, I had faith that the blueprints we’d been looking for were there.
It seemed like the perfect place to hide them. Giovanni Marchesi was a real son of a bitch and I would never understand how he could have fathered a sweet woman like Jia, but fuck I had to give the man credit for his ingenious ideas.
He’d gone from arranging an ambush weeks ago on a military envoy carrying the blue prints designed by NASA for a hybrid nuke, to hiding them so well that not even guys like me could find it. He definitely deserved credit for that.
“All being well we can wrap this up this week,” I stated. That was what I needed to focus on. Wrapping everything up. The people Giovanni was working for couldn’t be allowed to further their plans.
I’d seen him talking with The Chameleon and Diego. I saw them myself and knew how real the shit was. The Chameleon was an illegal arms trader nobody could locate for more than five minutes before he disappeared and Diego was of the Cuban Cartel. Just the names of those guys could put the fear of God in anybody. No matter how badass they were. Giovanni, The Chameleon and Diego. Big names but who they were working for had to be bigger.
We didn’t know all the players in this game but we knew they were big. No mere person could want the blueprint designs for a nuke just for a keepsake.
I was here to get the blueprints back before The Chameleon could take them to whoever was supposed to have them next.
That was the part I had to focus on.
All we knew right now was Giovanni was hiding the prints somewhere to keep them safe and The Chameleon had told him he wasn’t ready to take them yet.
It was all being considered a global threat so if I allowed whatever fucked up plan they had to come to fruition it meant disaster for everyone.
And, I didn’t just have them to worry about. There was The Ra too.
Terrorists… terrorists linked to Balthazar.
Balthazar was another reminder of how I’d gotten to this point and that I needed to do my job properly if I was going to get the help I wanted to find him.
He was the leader of The Spades, a faction of the Ra. He was a man I wasn’t likely to find by myself, or even with Wes’ help.
Wes and I had been from one corner of the globe to the next for the last five years in my pursuit to find him. All leads on him had gone to shit. Anytime I thought I was close I came out with nothing.