Eight

THOMAS

The digital screen on my office telephone lit up, displaying an incoming call. In twenty seconds, Janie would ring in to transfer a call from Carolyn Reed. The governor wanted a second meeting. She’d emailed Janie to give advance notice.

Governor Reed had been tight-lipped during our first meeting, performing as if she might gain something from me in return if she agreed to trade information. I made it clear that wasn’t the game. Before leaving, I had assured her that my ability to circumvent her political power was beyond compare, that I would soon have intel on her entire family.

Another meeting was pointless unless Carolyn Reed was now afraid of someone.

Janie rang in, as expected.

“Put her through,” I snapped.

Christ.

I missed Katie like a motherfucker. The proof was in my spiraling mood.

She’d cut short our day at Fort Tryon.

Because I’d pushed her too goddamn hard.

I’d given Katie a choice, telling her that I would drive her back to Jack’s, as she’d asked, either in my car or on the motorbike. Without any hesitation, she chose the closeness of the bike.

She held me tightly with her arms and squeezed with her thighs while keeping her hands inside my leather jacket for the whole ride. She kept one hand just below the waistband of my jeans and the other on my abdomen.

Our bond was getting stronger.

It was difficult to kiss her good-bye, not only to leave her there alone, but also to leave her at all. She dug her nails into the back of my neck and pressed her body against mine. The need in her eyes nearly broke me.

Madness set in as I rode away from her, every cell in my body commanding me to turn back, to follow her, to see with my own eyes that she’d made it home safely.

I’d forced myself to endure the madness. Only ever for her.

We hadn’t talked since. She’d asked me to give her a few days.

I checked the time and then tapped on the screen to connect the governor’s call. “Mrs. Reed. I’m quite certain our business ended when we met at your office.”

“Hello, Mr. Hastings. Please, I’d like for you to hear me out.” Her tone was less challenging, amenable even.

My watch again. Katie would be hitting the coffeehouse soon.

“Five minutes, Governor.”

“Thank you,” she said with as much calm as she could muster. “I mean it with the best of intentions and certainly with no offense when I say, I’ve learned more about your family. Not just about the financial connections, but political as well. I also now understand what you and your brothers are known for as it relates to matters of security.”

“My family’s history is hardly a secret.”

“I can’t tell you what my husband’s been up to because I don’t know. He often acts without thinking or explaining. What I can tell you is that I’m receiving death threats at my office, linked to his behavior.”

“You’re the governor of New York, and you expect me to believe you have no idea that your own husband is engaged in some form of political maneuvering. I have somewhere to be, Mrs. Reed. You have three minutes.”

“Please, Thomas—Mr. Hastings. My family is in jeopardy. I have the full force of the state police to protect me. But my daughter has nothing. That’s the reason for my call. You’re investigating my husband, yes. But my daughter comes first, and I won’t settle for anything less for her. I want you to protect her.”

Bloody hell.

I’d hoped it wouldn’t get to the point where protecting the Reeds’ child was necessary. There had been no credible threats on my radar at the time.

“I’m not a personal bodyguard. Hire a proper service for your family’s protection. I’ll look into the threats.”

“I appreciate that, but please, consider protecting my daughter. Please. I’ll email the information and set up a meeting with your assistant for later this afternoon.”

After agreeing to review the governor’s files, I launched out of my chair like a fucking madman. I headed to the car, directing Carl to drive me back to my flat.

Firing up my motorbike, I reasoned that going to the coffeehouse to have a look at Katie, to see for myself that she was all right, was quite normal. I planned to keep my distance and watch her only long enough to be certain. Five minutes. Three hundred seconds. More if necessary.

I sped away from the garage, weaving round the traffic, conceding that my behavior was indeed not normal and accepting the fact that I didn’t give a fuck. I needed to see her pretty smile. Those eyes. That goddamn mouth.

Katie exited the coffee shop with a dark-haired girl just after I worked my bike into a tight spot at the curb a small distance away from the coffeehouse. The two of them jumped into the back of a town car.

I couldn’t see Katie’s face. I needed to know if she was happy.

An overwhelming impulse vibrated in my blood, compelling me to follow the car, to see where she was headed. To know who was driving her round the city.

I’d promised not to dig into her background, and I wasn’t.

This isn’t that, I told myself.

If she was moving about within the limited space she lived inside, I wanted to understand how small the area might be.

The car traveled southwest, twenty-two blocks along Fifth Avenue, stopping in Midtown for Katie and her friend to enter a dress boutique. So, Katie was staying within the boundaries of her small footprint, just as I’d thought.

While she shopped inside the boutique, I called my brother John in England and instructed him to access my computer system and run the car’s plates.

“Give me a few minutes to get home. I’ll text you with the info,” John said.

“Be quick about it, John. Everyone there is well? How’s Mum?”

“Everyone is fine. Mum is happy. She’s busy, helping Ellie get ready for the twins. Do you want me to come over there, Thom? You know our brother won’t mind. He’s doing well. I know you worry about him. You’ll see when you come home. It’s like he’s finally found a little peace.”

“I’m quite glad to hear it. He deserves it after everything he’s endured for the family. No need for you to come to New York. I’ll let you know if that changes.”

I called Janie then with instructions to have the staff go ahead with the morning meetings and reschedule any that I needed to attend in person. A pressing business matter outside of the office had come up.

Right or wrong, making me a sick fuck or not, Katie was my business now.

Sooner than expected, she left the dress boutique, pausing in the middle of the pavement among the pedestrian traffic, looking in all directions, as if she’d sensed someone watching her.

My heartbeat accelerated. I pressed a palm against the center of my chest.

What I might have given in the moment for her to catch me lying in wait while she’d been trying on dresses, for her to meet my eyes with hers.

Katie and her friend got into the car, and I followed them to an open-air bistro on the Upper East Side. At one point, Katie turned and looked in my direction, and it was again like she could feel the weight of my stare.

We were connected.

Blood flow rushed to my cock.

Katie was mine, and I protected what was mine.

Enough. You’ve seen her smile, heard her laugh. She’s safe.

I pushed my hair back, put on my helmet, and hightailed it to my flat, where Carl waited with the car to drive me back to my office in the Financial District.

As my client stood to leave my office, I restated the benefit of our partnership. “The expansion capital investment will net us both quite a lot of money. We chose a company for you with well-defined operating investments and solid growth.”

With Leland Jensen gone, I closed the door and popped into my email. A brief message from Carolyn Reed waited—one line, cordial, confident.

I unlocked one of the encrypted files she’d attached. Copies of printed and emailed death threats, transcribed notes from voice mail threats. The next file profiled four men. At the top of the digital file, she’d made a note.

The following four persons were surveilled by my own investigator. He found no connections. Please review.

I nearly didn’t because I was an arsehole that way. I didn’t work for the governor, nor did I give a shit about her family. I had one job to do, and that was to protect mine. But something niggled at me—a slight crisis of conscience.

I began scanning the profiles, examining the photos and the personal and criminal data. The last suspect on the file jumped out at me at once.

Shit.

The entire situation was about to take quite a dreadful turn.

Carolyn Reed’s private investigator had had no means to see beyond the cover of profile number four. I had experience working inside the back channels of the British government, so I knew that four was an assassin.

The prime minister wanted Chris Reed dead.

My instincts had been spot-on. Reed possessed harmful knowledge about the prime minister, and the prime minister was desperate to keep it buried.

The goddamn director general had given my brother his word. No hits had been or would be employed.

Before getting on with the last file, I hit the loo and grabbed a glass of Macallan from the conference room cabinet. Returning, I checked the time, considered whether I would meet with the governor, and then unlocked the encrypted dossier on her daughter.

I pushed back in my chair, my mouth open and suddenly dry, blinking at the screen, my chest tightening. Gasping, I leaned forward to catch my breath while flexing my hands to release the tension in the arm and shoulder muscles that had involuntarily tensed.

I was in shock over the images on the screen before me.

Katherine Reed. She was my Katie.

The word stuck in my throat, strangling me as I tried to say her name.

She was seventeen, according to the file, turning eighteen in two days.

Fucking hell. She lied to me about vital information.

John’s text hit my phone, adding salt to the wound.

The car is registered to Christopher

Reed.

I poured the whisky down my throat, grateful for the burn, and then pushed back in my chair again, staring at her image. My skin heated, anger feeding on my soul, burning me from the inside out. It was an irrational thought, but a voice inside me shouted that she’d taken something away from me, something that was mine. And I was fucking angry about it.

I wondered if there was any truth to her words at all, anything she’d told me.

There was only one way to find out, so I read the file.

Identified early as a child mathematics prodigy, Katherine Reed was indeed a Columbia graduate with multiple fellowship offers. There wasn’t much in the file—or on the web for that matter—about Katherine Reed, math prodigy, as one might imagine. Her parents had used their influence to put a lid on the press, associated with their daughter’s genius.

There were other indicators in the file framing Katherine as an aspiring community activist, though her parents had limited her opportunities to express that part of herself, restricting the number of events she could take part in, thus diminishing her achievements.

Katie’s gilded cage.

Everything I’d seen in Katie’s beautiful eyes—her virtue, the longing, her lovely soul—it was all there before me on the screen.

But even the governor of the great state of New York couldn’t protect her daughter from university news blasts and random social media posts. And Carolyn Reed certainly hadn’t protected her daughter from men like me.

It had been so easy to pick her daughter up in a coffeehouse.

I closed the file and forwarded the email to my brother.

I would have to let her go.

Closing my eyes for a minute, I said her name softly. “Katie.”

No more anger. No darkness. Only loss.

An emotionless state washed over me.

I’d gone numb from the loss of my Katie.

Shit!

The assassin. He was out there, looking for Chris Reed, and no one was covering Katie. Christ, she had been out in one of Reed’s cars earlier that day.

After bolting out of my office and sprinting to the lift, I texted Carl. I wasn’t waiting for the governor to show up for our meeting. I was going to her. From the car, I rang Carolyn Reed’s Manhattan office. She was in a meeting but still in the building. “Tell her I’m on the way with an urgent matter and she’s to wait there for me,” I said to her aide.

The governor was standing near her office door when I arrived.

“Come in, come in, Mr. Hastings.”

I closed us inside. “I gather your office is secure, Mrs. Reed.”

“Yes, of course. You found something in the files?”

“Where is your daughter now?” My gut clenched.

“Katherine is at home, in our penthouse apartment. I just spoke with her. She understands that she is not to leave. Chris owns the building. It’s secure. And before you ask, I don’t know where he is right now.”

I nodded. My concern wasn’t for Reed’s safety. “One of the profiles your investigator turned up is a cover for a British assassin.”

“Oh God,” she cried, reaching for the edge of her desk to steady herself.

She was an attractive woman. Aged well with glossy blonde hair, like her daughter’s. I could imagine Katie growing old gracefully in the same manner, but without the hardness Carolyn carried round on her shoulders. It was as though Carolyn Reed hid behind an invisible coat of armor, which hardened everything about her, including her eyes. Nothing like my Katie’s eyes.

My Katie. Mine. Still.

“I will protect your daughter. My terms. Nothing is negotiable.”

Nothing was enough to make me walk away and leave Katie unprotected.

Carolyn straightened her back. If she was surprised by my tone, she didn’t show it. She only nodded and said, “I need you for Katherine’s sake, so I’ll agree to your terms. I’m listening.”

“Keep her in the penthouse until I’m properly guarding her. No shopping, no walking about, not even to the coffeehouse, and I do mean it.”

“But how do you know—”

“It doesn’t matter how I know. Are you still listening?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

“This assassin will be relentless. I want to be quite clear. It might come down to me taking him out. And you should know that if he comes after your daughter, that’s an absolute. I will kill him. Put a cleanup crew on standby. If you don’t have one, get one. This is your mess, and you’ll clean it up.”

Fear overwhelmed her features, filled her eyes. “Consider it done,” she said.

“I’ll send for two men to assist with security detail. I want complete access to your building’s security. All systems, cameras, alarms, and anyone you employ on-site.”

She nodded. “It’s yours. Whatever you need to take care of Katherine.”

“Good. Send someone to my office tomorrow with records, keys, codes.”

“However,” she added, almost like a soft footnote, “I’d prefer complete discretion in the presence of my daughter. I’d rather not draw attention. Can you and the others blend in? Appear as part of our usual entourage?”

I stared at her for a minute. “I’ll do my level best.”

“Katherine’s eighteenth birthday is in two days. We’re celebrating at the executive mansion with a charitable ball on Friday. It’s black tie. You’ll attend and start then. Yes?”

I swallowed hard. I hated this woman right now. Seeing Katie that way, as Katherine Reed, would kill me. But I needed to rein myself in and concentrate on a plan of action to keep her safe.

“I’ll be there. Remember what I said. She stays inside the penthouse until I assume responsibility for her then.”

Without another word, I turned on my heel to get the hell out of there.

“Oh, and Mr. Hastings?” she said to stop me in my tracks.

I only gave her the side of my face.

“Thank you.”

With a curt nod, I left her to live with her fear.

As I climbed into the back of the Escalade, Carl was waiting with his usual cheerful greeting. “Where to next?” he asked.

I was already tapping in Will’s number before Carl started the engine.

“Park and 61st, thanks.”

Nothing could stop me now, not even the promise I’d made her. Katie’s safety came first, and I was going to get a good look at her home.

Will picked up, though it was getting late in England. “I read the files and contacted Director Martin. He’s gathering some intel on this side.”

“You tell that arsehole to understand the goddamn mission before sending someone into the field. The prime minister wants Reed dead. Period. This has nothing to do with espionage. It’s personal.”

“I let him know he’d better get his shit straight, brother.”

Releasing a deep breath, I said, “Yes, of course. I know.”

“Tell me what you need. How can I help?” Will asked.

“Send Andrew Evans over, if you can spare him from your security team. John as well. I’ll use John to run detail inside the Reed house, and I want him with Katie whenever I need to leave her.”

The chances of my younger brother having to make a hit were low. He’d only be allowed to fight to protect Katie and himself. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“I’ll send them both at once, but let’s back up for a fucking minute. What I’m hearing is, you’re involved with the Reed girl.”

As if he could see me, I pinched the bridge of my nose and nodded.

“Thomas,” he snapped.

I had mentioned Katie the day before, and he intuitively understood the motive behind my needing it to be John who stayed with her in my absence. It was the same reason he’d left Ellie with me. When it came to life-threatening circumstances, we trusted only our blooded brothers to guard our women.

“Yeah, I guess it’s fair to say so.”