Chapter Two

 

“Hello.” A tall blond man stood beside a Mercedes van with a friendly smile. He’d been waiting inside the hangar they would leave the jet in while they were here in Germany. Owen had barely turned the plane off and opened the doors before he was introducing himself. “My name is Peter Bergman and I’ll be your host while you’re here in Munich. Welcome. We should get in the van as quickly as possible.”

He gestured for them to hurry along. Peter Bergman wore a black suit and well-worn loafers. The blue of his tie stood out against the snowy white dress shirt he had on. He looked every inch the gracious chauffeur and tour guide.

Robert wished he was here with Ariel on vacation.

Tucker ignored their guide and walked to the edge of the hangar, looking out at the glorious Bavarian day. The colors here were vibrant, the sky bluer than blue and grass a vivid green. Tucker stood there for a moment, his body still, and it made Robert wonder what was going through his head.

He didn’t get out much. Tucker was almost always in hiding. The first time he’d had some real freedom had been in Toronto. His part in the mission had been to work at the company their target also worked at. He’d been cooped up in a medical research building most of the time and then he’d found out that nasty piece of his past.

He wanted to tell Tucker to run free for a while, to go and explore the city.

But he couldn’t. “Time to get to the hotel, buddy.”

Tucker nodded and shoved his duffel in the back of the van. “Yeah, we should get going. I bet Dante and Sasha already trashed the place.”

“It would have been helpful if someone had warned me how much those two can drink,” Peter said, rearranging the luggage. “I’ve had to send out twice already. They claim they work better drunk. And don’t worry. There’s plenty of space. I checked myself that we would have enough rooms.”

He didn’t like the thought of Ariel in a room by herself, but he couldn’t assume he would be staying with her. He would make sure they had adjoining rooms because he wasn’t about to leave her unprotected.

Dante and Sasha had been sent earlier in the week to do preliminary recon on the building. He really hoped they’d been behaving themselves.

He turned back and helped Ariel down the last few steps as Peter finished packing in their luggage.

Rebecca stepped off the plane with Owen following after. He wouldn’t be putting the plane into storage himself, it seemed, since Peter was intent on getting them moving.

“I’ve got a team coming in to ensure the jet is ready for you to fly out when you’re done,” Peter said, hurrying them along. “It will be waiting for you.”

“Is there a problem?” Ariel asked.

“I think I might have been followed, but I’m not sure.” Peter opened the door to the back seat. Tucker had climbed into the front. “I’m out of practice and perhaps a bit paranoid. I’ll feel better when we get back into the city.”

Owen stopped Rebecca from getting into the van. “Maybe we should think about turning right around and heading back to London then. I only agreed to let Rebecca come because we thought it would be safe.”

Robert’s gut tightened. They’d barely made it to the ground and someone was already watching them? “He didn’t say he was sure he was followed.”

“Owen, I need to do this,” Rebecca argued. “Someone is always going to be watching us.”

Owen’s jaw had tightened, but he let go of his girlfriend’s hand and then followed her to the third row of seating. It was obvious he wished she was back in her comfy lab at The Garden.

Rebecca was right. Someone would always follow them, and that’s how it always would be until they figured a way out of the trap. He settled into the seat beside Ariel and Peter closed the doors. “Let’s get going then. Is there a back way out of this airport?”

“I’ve got a good route,” Peter promised, hopping in the driver’s seat. “But I’d like to leave quickly just in case. Like I said, it’s probably nothing. I quit intelligence a few years back after my partner was killed by a rogue MI6 agent. I left Berlin and moved down here. The pace is much slower. There’s bottled waters by your seats and snacks if you care to partake. If we do get attacked, you’ll find Rugers and extra ammunition under the seat. There’s also some wonderful pamphlets on the history of Bavaria if you are interested. Buckle up.”

Okay, the dude was a little weird and dedicated to his new job, but the guns were more than welcome. They could be hard to come by in Europe. In the States he could pick up a dozen like he was ordering donuts. Here, not so much. Peter would help them with that if it came to it.

He reached over and took Ariel’s hand in his. “Don’t worry. I promise we won’t need those guns. It won’t be like Toronto. Have I thanked you lately for saving me?”

“It was my pleasure,” she responded in that seductive tone that got his motor revving hard. “And it would be nice to keep this whole mission violence free. I actually wouldn’t mind doing some sight-seeing if we get the chance.”

“I can show you all around the city,” Rebecca promised. “Well, I can show you the parts around the medical district. I have to admit I didn’t do a lot of touristy things while I was here.”

“Workaholic,” Owen said under his breath.

“It’s true,” Rebecca admitted. “But I do know some cafés in that part of town. There are tons of museums, and I’ve heard there’s even a palace.”

“Yes,” Peter replied. “The Residenz is the largest palace in Germany. It was once home to the Bavarian royal family, the Wittelsbachs. Fascinating history. I can arrange a tour if it’s safe.”

Tucker turned in his seat. “Seriously? I don’t ever get to see sites. I get to see conference rooms and computer screens, and the only parts of Bliss I got to see were parts where people almost murdered us and a bar where Jax got laid and I did not get laid.”

“You should be happy about that since the woman you were potentially getting laid with turned out to be the boss’s ex-wife,” he pointed out as Peter started driving through the small airport. He seemed to be taking a circuitous route. “Somehow I don’t think Ezra would forgive you for that.”

“I don’t know why. He’s not sleeping with her anymore. They’re divorced.” Tucker made it sound like a simple thing.

“I think it’s all for the best that you and Solo didn’t work out,” Ariel said. “I believe you would have found her hard to handle.”

“What’s your take on her?” He hadn’t asked Ariel her professional opinion. He’d been too busy trying to get his hands on her when she’d shown up in Toronto. After he’d gotten over being pissed she was there putting herself in danger, that is. “Ezra thinks she’s the devil. River thinks she’s misunderstood and only trying to get back her one true love. I can’t really trust either of them when it comes to Solo. Too many personal feelings.”

Her eyes briefly looked away and she was right back in professional mode. “I think Kimberly Solomon is a long-term operative, but one who has the best interests of her country and the people around her in mind. She could be quite ruthless when she needs to be, but I think she would have a difficult time hurting someone she liked or believed innocent, even if it meant giving up her mission.”

“Levi Green thinks he’s doing what’s best for his country, too.” Tucker sat back. “Every report I read talks about how he spouts patriotic bullshit right before he shoots one of my friends. I wonder if he writes that crap down.”

“Oh, I got the same shite when he was trying to convince my Rebecca to go with him.” Owen’s Scottish accent had gone deeper, a sure sign he was emotional. “He should have been an actor.”

“Or,” Peter said, taking a right on the highway, “he’s a true believer. That’s the worst, I’ve found. I worked with a couple of them. They genuinely believed anything they did was for the betterment of Germany. They’re ideologues. You can’t argue with them and you can’t bribe them because in their head, they’re right. My country was led by one once. Did not turn out well. Did you know Bavaria was actually the birthplace of Nazism? It’s not something we like to talk about, but it all began here.”

“Ideologue. That’s a good way to describe Levi,” Ariel said. “He’s also quite slippery. I wish I’d been able to take him out in Toronto. I worry the next time he’ll have us in a position where we can’t take the shot.”

“You shouldn’t have been shooting then.” He got sick to his stomach when he thought about the situation she’d been left in. His gentle Ariel had been forced to take a rifle and save Becca and Owen. “You should have gotten the gun to Owen or called in Ezra. I hate that you had to do that.”

“I was a bit tied up at the time,” Owen pointed out.

“He was. To a chair.” Rebecca managed to sound sunny despite how bad the memories must be. “He heroically took down that chair. It will never be used for evil again. So proud of you, babe.”

Owen chuckled. “Well, I was proud of how Ari came in like an avenging angel and saved us. If she hadn’t, it would have been me and whatever piece of that bloody chair I could have bashed Levi’s skull with.”

A single brow arched over her eyes, the one that told him he’d said something dumb. “Before you tell me I should have handed the gun over to anyone else, I doubt Rebecca would know which end of the gun to point.”

“I’m really more of an intellectual,” Rebecca admitted.

“I know that one.” Tucker held his hand up.

“I wasn’t trying to say you’re not competent. I know you are.” No McKay-Taggart and Knight employee would be allowed to stay incompetent. They were all trained in self-defense, but the non-ex-military or law enforcement employees were also trained to duck if they had the choice. “I’m saying we need better protocols in place. You should never have been left alone like that. He could have done anything to you.”

Her expression softened. “But he didn’t and we survived. You couldn’t help the fact that he shot you, Rob. I was terrified when I woke up and I thought you were dying, but it didn’t stop me from acting. I would do it all again tomorrow, though I would take the shot at Green if I had it.”

“The good news is you won’t have to do it again. Not while I’m here,” he promised.

“And the bad news is, I’ve seen that car before,” Peter announced.

Robert didn’t glance back. He didn’t want to give anything away and he was pleased Ariel seemed to have the same idea. “Can you lose him? When did he start following you?”

“Sometime after I left the city. I stopped by my office to pick up a few things and when I returned to the road here, I noticed that SUV behind me. I made note of the plate,” Peter explained. “It’s the same.”

“We can’t let him follow us back into town.” He was already trying to come up with ways out of this mess. They couldn’t go back to London without some information on Tucker.

“Or we could maneuver him into a position where he’s trapped and then I can kill him.” Owen sounded bloodthirsty.

“Babe, you can’t do that.” Rebecca was definitely the reasonable one in that relationship. “We need information from him. Torture him first, find out who he’s working for and what he’s supposed to do, and then you can kill him.”

Or not so reasonable.

“Didn’t you take a Hippocratic oath?” Ariel asked, managing to be amused despite the fact that they were being followed.

Were any of them going to take this seriously? Had they forgotten what had happened the last time they’d been in a car together and someone had come after them?

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” Ariel said. “Are you honestly surprised someone’s watching us? I wish I could get a look at the driver.”

He wasn’t going to risk it. Not with Ariel in the car. This time she could be the one getting shot.

Up ahead he saw a sign for fresh vegetables and a small roadside stand. “Pull in there. He won’t be able to stop without giving himself away. He’ll have to drive on and turn around. We can make a crazy dangerous U-turn and drive into town from a different direction.”

“When did asparagus go white?” Tucker was staring at the sign for the stand. It was a cute hand-painted sign announcing the stand’s offerings. “Is it an albino asparagus?”

“It’s called Spargel,” Robert replied without thinking about it. “It’s delicious. It tastes like sweet corn. It’s the only asparagus I can handle. We used to eat it with ham.”

He stopped as the car did. He’d never seen Spargel before. Not once. The Garden’s cooks had never offered anything like it with a meal and yet he could taste it on his tongue. How did he know he ate it with ham, and what had he meant by “we”? It was there, that hint of what lay behind the veil separating his brain from the now and then, the one he could never quite push back except in his dreams when he…

When he wrapped his hands around her throat and knew he wouldn’t stop until she was gone.

“Robert? The car’s gone past.” Ariel had a hand on his arm, concern clear in her eyes. “Are you all right?”

A sharp pain bit through his brain, a clear warning. But it was right there. He could see his hands reaching for a fork, felt the anticipation. It was close, everything he’d worked so hard for.

“Peter, you should get us out of here as soon as you can without killing us.”

He could hear Ariel talking, but she wasn’t what he saw. He was somewhere else, getting flashes of clear blue sky and the smell of motor oil. Laughter was all around him, and so was a mixture of excitement and dread. It was actually happening. His first…

Pain screamed through him and the world was suddenly far too bright, like the earth had been encompassed in the whitest light.

Someone touched him, a cooling hand on his head.

“Robert, it’s all right. Let it go. We’ll write it all down and figure this out another way. You have what you need from the memory. Let it go,” Ariel said, soothing him. “Let it go and come back to me.”

But he was trapped in the moment and the memory was right there. His first what? It was important. He wasn’t alone. He was surrounded and he could hear their laughter, feel the camaraderie. He had people who cared about him. Who were they?

“Robert, listen to my voice.” Through the haze of pain, he could hear Rebecca talking to him. “I need you to do what we’ve been practicing. When you get caught like this, you think about something else. Something real.”

Rebecca had begun working with all of them to try to better process whatever memories they did get. The first thing they should do was let it go, ride the wave gently and not lock onto it. He’d gone past that now.

“You need to remember something that’s happened since you were rescued. Something easily accessible.” Rebecca’s voice soothed. “Let go of this one and find someplace where her training can’t touch you.”

Or he would be horrifically ill for days.

Something real. He had to get back.

 

London, England

2 years before

 

The drama was a lot to take, and now he’d pissed Erin off. It wasn’t his fault he was interested in her sex stories. He envied Theo Taggart for having sex stories to remember. Oh sure remembering this one had sent Theo into a night of puking up his guts and holding his head, but at least it proved he’d had sex.

“I think we should give those two some time,” a feminine voice said.

Dr. Ariel Adisa came to stand beside him at the small buffet that had been laid out for this morning’s conference. He liked the British team. Not that McKay-Taggart in Dallas didn’t occasionally cater in, but it was always something easy like donuts or bagels. Someone had cooked all this goodness and presented them with care. It was elegant and graceful.

A bit like the woman standing beside him.

“Yes, that was a bit uncomfortable, and believe me I’ve gotten used to the two of them fighting,” he replied. Since they’d been rescued in Africa, Theo had been having a hard time fitting in. He didn’t remember his previous life, and that included the woman he’d been in love with, Erin. Finding out he had a kid hadn’t helped, though Robert didn’t see the problem. TJ Taggart was cute as a button and Erin was…he was going to say strong, but that didn’t really describe Erin. She was a Valkyrie bitch goddess who could cut a man down to size with her mere stare. What she could do with actual weapons was far worse. He was a little grateful for Erin and Theo’s argument now because it gave him a chance to stare at the gorgeous woman beside him.

“He’s having trouble reintegrating?”

Robert was having trouble thinking. Words. He was supposed to say words. It was hard when mostly what he wanted to do was get his hands on her. She had the most beautiful eyes. They were big and kind, and he could get a little lost in those. “I think we’re both having some trouble. It’s weird, you know. I recognize that Danish. I know what to call it, but I can’t remember if I ever had one before today.”

“Your situation is unique. I’ve been reading up on it. The closest I can come is complete retrograde amnesia, and even then most of the time someone remembers the victim. They’re not left completely alone. They almost always have a family member who can come forward and fill in the blanks.”

Like Erin was trying to do for Theo when he wasn’t being a stubborn ass. Robert didn’t have that. No one had come for him. No one was looking for him. “That’s not going to happen for me. According to the Taggarts, they can’t tell I existed at all before Moth…Dr. McDonald caught me. I’m trying to view the whole situation as the ultimate do-over. Much of my life now revolves around trying to figure out what foods I like.”

“That has to be hard, Robert. I hope you’ll let me help.”

Robert was hard. So freaking hard, and he would love to let Ariel help him with that. When had he turned into this horny as hell asshole who couldn’t look at a woman without thinking about getting her in bed? He talked about being horny all the time, but she was the first woman he’d responded to this way. Visceral. Primal. A voice in the back of his head whispering that she could be his if he pursued her, if he didn’t give up.

So he was an obsessive stalker. He learned something new about himself every day.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but I’ve promised my therapist back in Dallas I would keep up with regular sessions,” he explained. He didn’t want to talk about therapy. He wanted to pretend for ten seconds that he wasn’t some damaged reject who needed daily sessions in order to function. He wanted to be a man who’d met a lovely woman at work and he could spend the day flirting with her and coaxing her into going out with him. He wanted to pretend he could take her out to lunch to one of the cafés that he’d seen from the car, where people sat in the sun and talked and ate and drank a beer and had a life.

He wasn’t that guy.

“Excellent,” she said. “We can start tomorrow. I think you’ll like it here. Are you going to apply for Master rights?”

He hadn’t thought about the fact that like the Dallas office, the London team was attached to a BDSM club. He’d seen The Garden the night before but there had been a ton of Erin and Theo drama and it hadn’t really hit him that he might be able to play while he was here.

Before he could answer, Ariel was shaking her head. “Or just rights to the club. We can always welcome another submissive.”

He felt his shoulders straighten and he was suddenly a bit taller than he’d been before. “I’m not a sub, sub.”

Sure enough her eyes shifted away from his. “I’m sorry, Sir. You never know these days.”

“No, I’m sorry. We’re not in the club. I pulled some Dom bullshit on you and I promised I wouldn’t do that. I’ve met some Doms who need to be in charge all the time and I’m not that type of top.” He was still figuring out the BDSM stuff, but he liked it. It had done exactly what Kai had promised. It had helped him find his center in one place in his out of control life.

God, what would this woman look like in fet wear?

Her lips curled up in the most delicious smile. “Then I’ll expect to see you on the dungeon floor, Sir. But remember I’m in charge in my office. We’ll have to find you the right play partner. I’ll think about it. I know all the subs. Lovely women. I’m going to get some coffee. See you later, Robert.”

She walked away and he couldn’t help but watch her. She was the only sub he would want.

And naturally she was the one he couldn’t have. Because she was going to be his therapist. She was going to listen to all his sad stories and tell him his life would turn out fine in the end if he was simply honest with himself. She would come up with ways to help him cope, and they wouldn’t involve shoving his cock deep inside her and riding her until he couldn’t any more and he filled her up.

“Uhm, Mr. McClellan, perhaps some ice water for you?” Damon Knight shook his head. “You don’t seem to need our coffee or tea to get warm.”

Damn it. He turned toward the wall to hide the fact that his slacks were tenting.

Knight chuckled and said something about wouldn’t this be interesting.

He reached for the water and took a deep drink. He definitely needed to cool off.

 

 

Robert took a deep breath and reality seemed to come back to him. He wasn’t where he’d been before. He’d been in the seat beside Ariel. Now he sat on the floor of the van, his head in her lap. She’d used one of the water bottles on him. His hair was wet, but the cool water had likely kept him from throwing up all over the van.

“Hey, are you all right, love?” Ariel stared down at him with worried eyes.

He managed to nod.

“It worked?” Rebecca asked.

“Yes. I’m better. Sorry.” He hated feeling vulnerable. He got back to his seat and glanced out the window. They were going super fast down what looked like an ultra-modern highway.

“It was the asparagus,” Tucker said. “It makes me sick, too.”

“Don’t mention it so soon,” Ariel admonished.

“Did we lose the tail?” He couldn’t think about what had happened or he would be right back in trouble again. He hated Hope McDonald.

“Absolutely.” Tucker gave him a thumbs-up. “Peter here is a race car driver and I learned that exits ramps are ass farts.”

“Ausfahrt, Mr. Tucker,” Peter corrected. “And it’s good to have you back with us, Mr. McClellan. I’ll have us in Munich in no time at all.”

Tucker laughed and he noticed Owen was grinning. Morons. But it made him smile.

“Did you find a good memory to hold on to?” Ariel asked.

He reached for her hand. He didn’t have to be a macho asshole about this. He’d gotten sick. She’d been there for him. “The best.”

He sat back and relaxed. It wasn’t how he’d hoped to start the mission, but as long as she was here with him, what could possibly go wrong?