Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(16)

A picture of a blonde came up. She was smiling but it didn’t reach her eyes. He sat back and looked at her. Smart suit. Perfect makeup. Not a hair out of place. On the surface someone might think she was prettier than her younger sister.

Those people were dimwits.

His laptop dinged and a picture of Faith filled the screen. Fuck. His dick was hard. She was smiling without inhibition. She looked into the camera and radiated outward. Erin stood beside her, smiling with her friend. Damn. Even Erin looked happy next to Faith. The two women were holding glasses of wine. Erin was drinking red and Faith a white. A Pinot Grigio likely. She’d ordered several bottles of Noir and Grigio off the Internet along with a case of beer and a bottle of tequila from a local liquor store. She’d paid with her credit card and had it delivered with instructions to leave the boxes inside the courtyard of the chalet. He’d watched her every move, read her every e-mail for the last several weeks, watched every place she went to on the Internet.

She liked some fairly dirty porn. She was attracted to the fetish movies and she went there directly after their conversations. He could get her hot, give her what she needed. He’d done all the training he needed to be able to fit into his role, but he hadn’t really gotten it until he’d started talking to Faith. It had been something to learn. He needed to dominate this woman. He needed to top her. Only her.

And that disturbed him.

“Hope graduated from Johns Hopkins, did her residency at Massachusetts General. She worked as a surgeon specializing in neurology until she quit seven years ago and joined Kronberg Pharmaceuticals.” Tag clicked the remote in his hand and the picture changed. There was a list of the financials of Kronberg. Two billion a year in income. They were on the leading edge of medical technology. “She works in research, but she’s got a ton of connections, and that’s where Faith comes in.”

Beautiful, sweetheart. Enjoy your evening. Tomorrow, you’re mine. Let Theo take care of you in my absence.

“What do you mean that’s where Faith comes in?” His eyes trailed back to the pictures. He would hoard all the ones she’d sent him, looking at them over and over again. She liked to send him pictures of her relaxing, a glass of wine in her hand, but he’d seen her be serious, too. They’d talked over FaceTime at least once a day and she’d talked to him about her job. She’d told him about the clinic she ran and what it meant to her.

She hadn’t talked about Ghana. Even when he’d asked if there was anything about her job that scared her. She’d simply said losing children. Her mouth had turned down and she’d changed the subject.

Did she still dream about it?

Tag went on. “Kronberg has funded the majority of her vaccination campaign for the last few years. In exchange she gives them data on infection rates and vaccination protocols. She shares data so she can get drugs.”

That didn’t seem so bad to Ten. It seemed to him like she was working her connections to help people who couldn’t help themselves. “Good for her.”

Hutch huffed. “Good for The Collective.”

Ten didn’t want to hear that. The Collective was a group of corporations that seemed to have banded together to practice some of the worst crimes against the public he’d ever seen. The Collective consisted of some of the world’s biggest companies, and they maximized profits at the expense of anyone who got in their way. “Why do you think Kronberg is Collective?”

Hutch’s shoulders moved up and down in a negligent movement that belied the fact that the man never accused without some solid evidence. “You know it’s hard to tell. They don’t publish their rolls or make public their meetings. So we have to look at patterns of behavior and rely on gossip. Damon Knight is the head of McKay-Taggart’s London office.”

“I’m well aware.”

There was a knock on the door and then the man himself was stepping into the room. Damon Knight was a big bull of a man with pitch-black hair starting to gray at the temples. He was a broody son of a bitch. Well, he used to be. Now he was smiling and had a hand out as he stepped into the conference room followed by another man. This man wasn’t smiling. He was leaner than Knight or Tag, built on predatory lines. A hungry wolf with dark hair and a close-cropped beard. He looked over at Ten with icy blue eyes.

“How was your flight?” Tag asked, shaking Damon’s hand.

“It was commercial, you bastard,” Damon shot back with a chuckle.

“Sorry, buddy, I’m not MI6. If you want a company jet, you’re going to have to bring in some more cash,” Tag joked. “How’s Penny?”

Ten was fairly sure Knight was going to break his face if he kept smiling like that. “She’s already found Charlotte. She’s eager to meet your daughters. Especially now that she’s about to become a mum.”

Tag slapped Knight on the back. “Are you serious? You bastard, you didn’t say a thing.”

Knight waved a hand. “We wanted to wait a bit. She’s only a few months along, but it appears everything is going brilliantly. Never thought it would happen. Imagine us. Two old dads.”

They continued on as Hutch leaned in. “I do not get that. In my world, when a chick gets pregnant we all ask the dude how he managed to f*ck up that badly. Wow. Erin looks hot. How is that possible? I finally see what Theo sees in her.”