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Fortius' Boeing 787 9 Dreamliner VIP
Destination: Moscow, Russia
Thursday, 28 January, 00:28 a.m.
––––––––
Aidan pushed me into the onboard bathroom and helped me undress. He didn't say a word, not until he erased the memory of another man touching what is his.
"You were amazing tonight." Aidan pressed his lips to mine, his mouth not as hungry as before, or desperate to reclaim me.
"Thank you. I did what I had to."
Aidan held me close, and towel dried my hair while I rubbed a towel up and down his chiselled body. "I need to tell you something."
With everything going on, I didn't know what to expect. The last thing I wanted to hear was that the killer struck again. Or that we were wrong about the man behind the lion mask being a killer. I hate being wrong. "Okay, let me hear it."
"As your commanding officer, it's in Fortius' best interest if you continue working in the field." Aidan lowered himself onto the bed and pulled me onto his lap. "As the man who loves you, and Ainsley's father, I can't approve it. You left a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow, and Fin, they'll be coming after you and Rob Granger. Quinn doesn't have any Kelly work lined up and won't take on any jobs for a while, so she'll be safe."
I dropped my forehead to his. "I want to go home, Aidan. The sooner I put a bullet between the killer's eyes, the sooner we can go home. Sometimes it's best to lure your prey and not keep chasing them across the world. I have a gut feeling the man behind the lion mask is the killer, and Piotr is his accomplice. I'm not sure how their dynamic works. I stand by what I said; the fairy tale murders is one man's fantasy. It's too detailed, and personal."
Aidan reached for his laptop and switched it on. We listened to the conversation recorded between Piotr and his boss. The conversation had taken place seconds after Rowan and I drove off into the desert. A translator app translated from Polish to English.
"Have you no honour? The guests are off limits to you. Find yourself a whore, not a woman who claims she turned down money to assassinate me. Who would order a hit on me?"
"If you think about it, the list of people is as long as my leg. They all have very different reasons for wanting to see you dead." I recognised Piotr's voice.
"If I didn't need you, I would order one of the guards to shoot you."
Piotr laughed; the sound made me shiver. Aidan placed his arms around me, and I buried my face in his neck.
"I'm not dumb. If I die, the world will know what you are; and I'm not referring to your perverted parties. You're a disgrace to your family."
"Soon it won't matter. And if you step out of line you'll find yourself out of work, if not in a grave."
Again, Piotr laughed. I considered taking another shower. "You're incapable without me. It will be wise to remember who holds the power. For the first time in your life, it isn't you. Maybe I should leave, see if you can find someone else to help."
"No one is irreplaceable."
"Correct. Neither are you. The thing you want most will be taken from you if people were to learn what you are."
"Keep on making your threats. The day will come when I won't need you anymore. Until then, stop rubbing yourself against the guests. The last thing you want is Granger coming after you. He has a thing for pipe bombs; you won't know when, or where, and then one day – boom."
"Kelly wasn't here tonight as Granger's date. She came as a warning to you. Rumour is she always meets with her marks before she takes them out. She enjoys playing with her victims."
"She enjoyed playing with you."
"Perhaps once she has slit your throat, I will play with her again. For now, I'm going home."
"You're not going anywhere. I'm not done yet."
"After what happened in Zurich, you need to lay low for a while. You're too arrogant to accept it, but the fact is, someone's coming for you. You're not us untouchable as you think."
"No one can touch me, and none of it can be traced back to me."
Piotr laughed. The sound familiar. I laugh the same way when I hold a predator's fate in my hands. "I'm going home. In a couple of months, we can continue your little game."
The conversation ended after that. Interesting thing, the decryption-thingy we hid in my boot cloned data from two mobile phones Piotr had on him. Both burners. One with a Dubai SIM card, the other used to communicate with one other number, also a burner phone. Eli traced its most recent location – Bergia.
A knock on the door made me realise Aidan's bare skin still warmed mine. I asked whoever interrupted us to give us a minute. The discussion about my role in Fortius' operations wasn't over, but a part of me agreed. Life wasn't just about Aidan and me anymore; we have a daughter. The child we had prayed for. The one we had almost lost on the day of her birth.
Rowan grinned when I opened the door. I pulled my hair from my face and tied it in a messy bun. He, too, had tied his hair in a messy bun. As soon as Aidan stepped out of the room, Rowan spoke. "Liam sent the processed DNA to Eli. We got a match."
I threw my hands in the air. "When did you process the cigarette butt?"
"I ran it before we showered." Aidan shrugged and wrapped his arms around me.
"There's a forensic laboratory on this aircraft?"
Aidan pressed his lips to my damp hair. "No, compact versions of what we need while in the field. We verify all findings once we get back to Marcel, at Fortius' lab."
"How do I not know about any of this?"
Rowan rolled his eyes. "Because it will take Aidan a month to tell you everything about our past operations, our current ops, and how we operate. You'll learn on the job. Most of us hit the ground running, just like you."
Reality struck me out of nowhere. I haven't seen Ainsley since Sunday. "How has so much happened in four days?"
"Welcome to Fortius, Sis." Liam joined us. "The days blur into each other. You never know where you'll be within the next hour. And the biggest mystery – whether you'll be standing or breathing at the end of a mission."
"Liam, stop drinking and go to bed." Aidan used his authoritarian voice.
Liam lifted the bottle of vodka to his mouth. "If I sleep in the bed, where are you going to make Fin forget about what happened earlier?" The grin on his face made me want to slap him.
"Your brother has already wiped my memory. Twice. Go to bed, Liam, before I smack you up the side of your head. When we land in Moscow, you need to bring your A-game. It's about time I see the infamous Captain Walker in action."
Liam lifted his right hand to his brow and marched into the bedroom. I made a mental note to ask Rowan and Aidan about the frequency and volume of Liam's alcohol consumption once we returned to Marcel. Perhaps he was preparing himself for the cold weather awaiting us in Moscow.
"What match did you find with Piotr's DNA?" I asked, trying to diffuse the building tension. Liam needed more than just my help.
"His mother is in the Maldives," Rowan said and lowered himself onto a seat.
"Ivana is his mother?" Rowan nodded. Heather. "When your mother spent three days chatting with her, she made Ivana bleed and kept a DNA sample."
"You're even more intelligent than you are sexy. Dammit, Fin. After seeing you dressed like that tonight, the things you said, how am I ever going to find a wife? No one will ever compare to you."
Aidan patted his brother's shoulder. "Thank you for keeping my wife safe. Is your Granger cover still solid? It's taken a couple of hits over the past few days."
Rowan nodded. "Better than ever. I've been looking for a reason to stop going to the parties, and Finley, or rather Kelly, gave me an out. If lion-man is the killer, the parties will be over."
My head spun from all the information, the events of the evening, and fatigue. The worst thing, and I would never say it out loud, I wasn't as young as I used to be. Closer to forty than thirty, but I wanted to feel twenty again. I lay down on a seat as the events of the past few days played in my mind. Aidan covered me with a blanket and took a seat next to my head. He lifted my head and lowered it onto his leg.
"I want that," Rowan said.
"You will, but you'll need to give up Granger for good. You always said you won't marry someone in our line of work, and you can't get involved with a civilian while you're Granger. It's too dangerous, and a liability for all of us." Aidan's fingers glided over my hair.
Piotr is Ivana's son. Did he grow up in Bergia, or did she hide him? Were BSS operatives allowed to have children? From everything I read about King Mikolaj, he didn't strike me as the paternal type. Or employer of the year. Without opening my eyes, I asked, "I need to see everything you have on Piotr. Ivana being his mother explains the tattoo, and his training, if she trained him. Who is his father? Where is his father? How did he meet the man behind the lion mask? Why did he want to get it on with an assassin?"
Aidan brushed his fingers against my cheek. "You're spiralling. Sleep now, and in a few hours, I'll brief you. I'll also update you on a few other things, but first, sleep. You need your strength if you're going to blood eagle someone in a matter of hours."
"No if about it, and not someone. Max Jefferson. If you're just going to stand there, watching over my shoulder and tell me I'm cutting him wrong, you might as well do it."
Aidan pressed a finger to my nose. "I'll do the incision; you can crack his ribs and pull it open. That part is going to be the most fun. We've never done surgery together before."
I smiled, my eyes still closed. "Surgery sounds so clinical. Rather say we've never butchered a monster together before." As I drifted off to sleep, I could already hear Jefferson scream for mercy. Joke's on him, I don't have any for paedophiles.