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Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Wednesday, 27 January, 2:30 p.m.
––––––––
Under no circumstance were we allowed to have sex, dry-hump, or let our lips touch. Not even if our lives depended on it. Rowan and I glanced at each other and tried our best not to laugh as Aidan lay down the not-going-to-happen fornication laws.
"Understood?" Aidan stopped pacing and turned to look at us.
I felt like a teenager going on her first date. Not that my father had ever told me not to dry hump anyone. That would've been awkward.
"Yes sir, Commander Walker, sir. May I request permission to dry-hump you when we get back?" I asked. Next to me Rowan burst out laughing.
"I'm glad you find this amusing. We're hunting a serial killer, and his accomplice might be at the party. You'll be in danger the entire time you're there."
I stuck my arm in the air. Aidan placed his hands behind his back and nodded. "Yes sir, I will be. However, you're forgetting one thing – as long as I'm there they'll be in danger too."
Rowan giggled, a strange thing for such a big man to do. "Stop poking the Aidan bomb," he whispered.
I swung my chair to face him. "I enjoy poking the Aidan. Even more so when the Aidan pokes me."
Aidan covered his face with both hands. "You two are acting like children. Tonight, you'll play your parts. But I'm serious, unless it's a matter of life or death I do not want any of your parts to touch."
"Define parts? Are you referring to our cover identities, or sexy parts?" I pursed my lips, desperate not to laugh.
Aidan took a deep breath and mumbled in a language I didn't understand.
Rowan reached for the sky with his left hand. "Commander Walker, sir, may I hold my date's hand? Perhaps place my hand at the hollow of her back, or wrap my arm around her? You need to keep in mind, if we don't create the illusion that she's there as Rob Granger's date, and therefore off limits to anyone and everyone, someone will try to get it on with your wife."
"Fair enough." Aidan crossed his arms over his chest.
"You're regretting the outfit you chose for me, aren't you?" I stood and walked to my boss, standing so close to him, my breasts pressed against his upper abs. "Rowan and I know what we need to do tonight. You're being a little dramatic with all these ridiculous coitus restrictions you're imposing on us. My love, Rowan and I love each other very much, as brother and sister. Believe me, if we tried anything we'll either gag, or laugh, and nothing sexy will happen. Climb off your little husband horsey and focus on the mission."
"Yes ma'am." Aidan grabbed my bum and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and crashed my mouth to his.
"Excuse me, the sex party is tonight, not here. Disgusting much?" Liam's voice forced my lips from my boss'.
Aidan lowered me until my feet touched the cool tiles. I glared at Liam. "You're just jealous because you can't go. Question time, Rowan, how were you able to take Liam with?"
Rowan leaned back in his chair and gripped the armrests. "Unlike other people, I tend not to engage in sexual relations with civilians—"
"Because of your cover as Rob Granger?"
Rowan nodded. "Whenever a party is held in a city where I don't have a contact who can escort me, I take Liam along. He has no trouble finding a woman willing to go with. The parties aren't dangerous. People are there for sex, and the odd chance of making a business connection, like Rob and Theo did. Thanks again for screwing that up, Liam."
Liam pulled out a chair and sat down hard. "Blame me as much as you want. Maria needed my help. As for Anna, she wanted to experience what it is to be satisfied by a Walker."
My nostrils flared as my breathing increased. "Focus! I need to get back to working on the links between the victims and the killer. I don't have time for the two of you going another round. Liam, you screwed up, own up to it and move on. Rowan, what's done is done. I swear if I didn't have use for the two of you, I would send you both packing."
"Sorry, Finley," they both said.
Rowan cleared his throat. "Rob's a tier one guest, which means I can attend any parties I want, and take along as many guests as I like. Rumour is Rob gets off watching his right-hand men with other women. Which I, Rowan, don't. So, whenever Liam, or one of the other operatives, went along, I listened to music in the en suite bathroom while they got it on with the women."
A sadness filled me for Rowan. Underneath all of his strength and teasing, he remained a lost little boy who wanted acceptance and love. Not at the expense of his own moral code. This meant he preferred the company of women who understood his line of work and the danger being associated with him puts them in. I understood why Anna Wagner sleeping with his brother hurt him so much. Rowan had cared for her, but I knew he never loved her.
Liam rested his elbows on the table. "The outfit Aidan chose for you; they'll know something is up if you walk in there looking like a dominatrix who didn't have enough money for the full outfit."
A grin spread across my face. I had been working on something else earlier, with the help of Eli and Quinn. "Boys, meet Kelly. No last name. As you'll see on the screen to your left, that list of names are all unsolved murders linked to an unidentified female assassin. For the fun of it, I chose the Kelly cover. Kelly means war. And that's what I'll bring to the killer, and everyone connected to him."
"Fin, we choose names starting with the same letter as our own." Liam rested his chin on his arms.
"Good for you, Liam. I've gone by many names in the past, including Cerberus. It won't be an issue to be Kelly for one night. Now, as for my outfit, it's perfect. The sooner I can get us visual confirmation of the tattoo on Biggie's hand, the better. Neither of you noticed the alterations Aidan made to it. A lot of rumours are going around in the underworld about Kelly The Assassin. We have Quinn to thank for that. You would be wise to listen when she talks. She's been at this since she was eighteen, much longer than any of us."
I smiled up at Aidan. He touched his fingers to my lips. "I can see the darkness playing in your eyes. Good. One glance at the death and destruction raging in them, and Biggie will keep his hands off of you."
I pouted. "Oh, but Commander Walker, I want him to touch me. How else are we going to get his fingerprints?"
Rowan and Liam cursed at the same time. "You're going to kill him," Rowan said first.
"Not tonight, but yes, I am. Biggie, the serial killer and every other person involved in the murders." I crossed my arms over my chest. The darkness no longer hid in the shadows of my being. She had returned with a vengeance. Unleashing her was the only way to get justice for the victims.
When I held my daughter in my arms again, I might cry, because Ainsley's mother is a warm-blooded killer. I don't take lives because I enjoy it. But if I don't, who will?
Who will stand for the victims when everyone else fails them, including whoever had helped a child rapist escape to Russia? Who will bring closure to the families of twenty-five people who didn't deserve to die to fulfil someone's morbid fantasy?
The deaths of the innocent haunt my sleep; knowing a predator has taken his or her last breath is like a shot of melatonin.
I walked to the whiteboard and flipped the screen over. This was the first time since university I used a mind map; who could've thought something so simple will prove so useful.
"Rowan, you said they check the ID's or passports of everyone who attends, apart from taking away their mobile phones and weapons. When they run a background check on Kelly, they'll see her record is clean – too clean. It will raise enough flags with Biggie if he's black ops trained. He won't deny Rob and his date entry, but if he knows what's good for him, he'll keep an eye on me."
"You're okay with her using herself as bait?" he asked Aidan.
Aidan scratched the back of his head. "No, but I trust Finley. As I trust you to keep her safe."
"What's with the mind map?" Liam lifted his legs onto the table and crossed his ankles.
The circle in the middle reserved for 'Killer and Biggie'. The lines moving out of the main circle ended with the people who placed the victims in the killer's hands. Sanchez. Max/Oleg. Ignas. The fourth the daughter of a member of Australia's parliament. From each of these circles I had made more lines and wrote the victims' names and the countries in which they were murdered.
"Eli found someone else we need to investigate – Luciana Hernandez. She's an agent for musicians. The victims in Mexico and Argentina were both singers. Eli discovered deleted text messages sent between Hernandez and the two victims."
"This leaves us with the victims in Malta, Budapest, Vienna, Zurich, Hong Kong, Singapore and Da Nang." Aidan inspected my mind map. I wondered if this is how his brain processes information; with invisible lines connecting crucial elements and bypassing irrelevant points. "The victims in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Da Nang are all artists. Sculptor, painter and a land artist. We could be looking for a curator or a collector."
I grabbed my phone. "Eli, can you please run a detailed search for anyone who was in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Da Nang up to say, six months, before the victims in those cities were murdered? Narrow it down to someone who might be an artist, a curator or a collector."
Eli laughed. "You love making life difficult for me, don't you?"
"No, I don't, except when we spar. The thing is, you're the master hacker, and I'm your mere student. I can only aspire to your greatness, oh powerful master of the keyboard and hidden world of ones and zeros."
"Hong Kong and Singapore are major cities; their airports are both important hubs with Hong Kong's the world's busiest for cargo. What you're asking is going to take me some time."
"I know, but I've gone through the victims' social media accounts, emails, mobile phone records, text messages, there's nothing there to indicate how the killer got to them. We've established various people are supplying our killer with victims." I stepped back and stared at the mind map. "It's a spider web."
"What are you talking about?" Eli asked.
"The killer is in the middle waiting to devour his prey. People are placing the victims in his web. Why do they help him? And what's Biggie's role in this?"
I turned to Aidan. "Are you sure I can't torture him? We know he isn't a former BSS operative. I bet I can break him."
Aidan shook his head. "He can lead us to the killer. He's our best chance of identifying the killer."
I thanked Eli, ended the call, and answered an incoming call at the same time. "Miss me?"
"Never. I'm on my way back to Marcel, but our Moscow operative has sent a very interesting photo to you and Aidan. You owe me big time for allowing you to be Kelly. Believe me, you don't want to know how many people I had to kill to make that name feared in the underworld."
I rolled my eyes at my new best friend. "As if the people you killed were law-abiding citizens. You're like me, Quinn. We don't lose sleep or blacken our souls when we eliminate a criminal. The reason you're forcing emotion into your voice – you regret not being the one to blood eagle a paedophile. I'll send you a video, okay?"
"I hate you, Finley." If I had a diamond for every time she had said that since we first met, I would've been able to bedazzle my entire G-Class, inside and out. Gross.
"Whatever, Quinn, you love me. Thank you for the Kelly cover, and the photo I'm looking at. You've just added another name to my hit list, and I suspect we've found the person responsible for Max Jefferson's Oleg Petrov identity."
Quinn ended the call after I badgered her into admitting she loves me. Isn't that what best friends do?
I turned to Aidan. Anger etched into his face. "He's a Lieutenant General in the Moscow Police."
I closed the distance between us and placed my hands on his neck. My thumbs brushed over the stubble framing his jaw. "For now. He'll be dead soon."
"You can't just go around killing people," Liam said. "You're a mother now."
I didn't look at him, instead I kept my eyes on my husband's. "Yes, I am. All the more reason to eliminate anyone who touches a child or protects those who do."
"We're protected in Russia. Finley can do whatever she wants, to whoever she wants." Aidan's smile reached his eyes.
I wrapped my arms around Aidan's waist and turned my focus to Liam. "I will find every last one of them and rip them from this world, leaving nothing but carcasses in my wake. If you don't have the stomach for it, leave now. Tomorrow morning, we head to Moscow."