Love and Let Die (Masters and Mercenaries #5)(5)

“We have to stay away.” She’d been trying to get out for years, but she’d become known for everything her father had trained her to do. He’d found her again at the age of thirteen and hadn’t waited long to start teaching her what it meant to be his daughter. He hadn’t had any sons, so he’d treated Charlotte like one. She’d run her first long con at fourteen. She’d made her first kill at the age of fifteen. Robbed her first bank on her seventeenth birthday. She’d done it all because her father would have killed her if she didn’t, but the stains were on her soul all the same.

And when she was twenty-six, she’d finally figured out what love was when a man who looked like a Viking had taken her in his arms and shown her an entirely different world. A world where she could trust someone enough to submit to him.

“He won’t let us. You heard what he said. He expects you to call him.”

Charlie nodded. “Yes. Me. Not you. When we get back to the States, you’re going to college, and I’ll handle this.”

Her sister held on to the table and looked her straight in the eyes. “I am done with letting you ruin your life. Hear me and hear me now. I know you think I’m just a cripple.”

“Chelsea, no.” Her sister was fragile, but she never meant to make her feel bad about it. Since their mother had been killed, Chelsea was her whole life.

She shook her head. “Yes, it’s how you see me and until now, it’s how I’ve acted. I’ve been a scared little mouse. I’ve let you give up everything for me. But not anymore. When we go home, I’m going to help you. I’ve learned a lot in the last few years. Papa made me learn how to hack into systems. I’m really good. I can write code, too. I can be helpful.”

“I don’t want that for you.” She’d been trying to get out of this world for her sister’s sake.

“And I don’t want you to lose the man you love, but I have to deal with it now, don’t I? No, if we can’t run from this world, then there’s one thing to do.”

Her heart hardened slightly as she realized the truth of her sister’s words. “We have to rule it.”

Chelsea nodded. “This world runs on information. So we become the center of it all. We use them the way they used us.”

She found her feet, her sister steady against her. They were just two girls against a world of black operations and money-fueled crime.

Suddenly she knew that she would win. She would have her husband back and she would bring down everyone who tried to stop her. Optimism. She had to have it. She had to believe that she could do everything she needed to.

If there was one thing she’d learned in her lifetime, it was that the world was a game.

She would win or she would die.





Chapter One

Dallas, TX

Five Years Later



Ian Taggart looked across the table at his previously dead wife and took in the changes the last five years had brought.

She was older. There were fine lines around her eyes that had been previously absent. Her hair was a reddish blonde, but it looked oddly good on her. It went with her stark blue eyes.

Death had been damn good to her. She was still the most stunning woman he’d ever seen. Her return from the dead had stirred more than his curiosity.

His cock was rock hard, but he wasn’t going to give in. Nope. Not this time.

“Tetraodontidae?” Ian asked after a very long, very tense few moments. He was curious about what she’d used to fake her death. Tetraodontidae was a good bet.

She’d shown up on his doorstep, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and calling him Master. She’d gotten past his incredibly rigorous security system. His brother liked to call him paranoid, but Ian knew the truth. The world really was out to get him. That was what happened to spies. They rarely made it to old age, even the ones who got out.

He’d watched many of his colleagues die, some painfully and under torture. This was the first time one had come back from the other side. Of course, when he’d married her, he hadn’t exactly realized she was a spy. He’d known something was wrong with her, but he’d thought she’d been in trouble. He’d been a fool.

He’d invited her in because it was only polite. And because he was going to figure out what the f*ck she wanted from him.

And because he couldn’t help himself. Fuck, he couldn’t help himself at all. He didn’t like the feeling any more now than he had back then. From the moment he’d seen her, he’d known he would have her no matter what it took, and that feeling was taking root in his gut again.

“The puffer fish neurotoxin?” She shook her head. “No. I mean I think it might be based on that, but it was a pill. I had to take a pill, and then it was mostly like going to sleep.”

He nodded briefly. When he’d realized it was really Charlotte standing on his doorstep, he’d put it together. Too bad he’d been too stupid to back then. “I heard rumors that the Agency has been working on a zombie drug. I guess I got out before I really needed to use it. Lucky me.”

A zombie drug was used to fake an agent’s death. The puffer fish had a neurotoxin in its body that would render a human lifeless, seemingly breathless. The victim would appear dead. The victim would almost always end up dead, but apparently someone out there had perfected the mix.