Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(85)

She wouldn’t see him again. Wouldn’t hold him. Wouldn’t touch him.

He’d made promises. He’d lied.

“I want to go to bed.” She didn’t want to listen to her dad. She didn’t want to hear how she’d f*cked up and brought more trouble into his life.

How was he gone?

An urge to go after him overtook her. She needed to get dressed and go find his ass and have it out. That hadn’t been a good-bye. That had been an excuse, a f*cking apology. She didn’t want an apology. She wanted his balls. She could keep them in a jar of formaldehyde and always know she’d had her revenge on him because the very thought of that man moving on and finding some sweet sub to f*ck made her completely crazy. When she was done with him, he wouldn’t be able to f*ck anyone. Ever. Again.

She could do it. She could take his balls.

God, she wanted to see him. There was more to this. There had to be.

He couldn’t walk away.

She started toward the door. She didn’t need to get dressed. He liked her naked. At least his dick did. He couldn’t lie about that. Sure, maybe he got hard any time a woman walked into the room, but she could use that.

“Faith, you can’t go after him.” Her father stood in the way. It was easy to see he’d prepared for this meeting. It was after two o’clock in the morning, but her dad was pressed and shiny in his two thousand dollar suit that could feed all the families who visited the clinic for a year.

“I need to talk to him.”

Her dad didn’t move. “I can’t allow that to happen, Faith. He hates me. I know what he said to you and I know it sounded very believable, but that man will do anything to bring me down. I found out he was working with the enemy last year. My aides gathered information and when I presented it to the CIA, they immediately disavowed the man.”

“They disavowed him?” She knew her father. She knew his tells. There was something he wasn’t saying. “One would think if he was the traitor you say he is, they would arrest him.”

Her father stood over her, looming in a way that made her feel about five years old and in need of protection. “I’ve got a file on him. I’ll let you read it. Faith, I know you won’t believe me, but I didn’t know until earlier today. He showed up on the security feeds and I might have missed it, but he turned just the right way, so I recognized him. He hates me. He admitted it himself. You were a job to him. I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.”

He’d also told her he loved her. Why would he do that? Maybe she could understand it if he’d stood his ground and asked her to choose, but it seemed cruel to tell her he loved her when all he was planning on doing was walking away.

He didn’t seem like a cruel man. Oh, she could believe he would hurt someone if he thought they deserved it.

Could he hurt her if he was out for revenge? Was telling her he loved her his final act of vengeance?

“I need to talk to him. If only to plant my foot in his balls.” She was going to have this out. He didn’t get to walk away scot-free.

Her dad blocked her once again. “No, Faith. He’s dangerous. This is a man who sold his own brother out for cash.”

Phoebe’s husband? Phoebe’s words flitted through her brain.

At some point my brother is going to f*ck up and I’m going to beg and plead with you in advance to give him a chance that you don’t think he deserves.

Had Phoebe been trying to tell her something?

“I still want to talk to him.”

“Do you know some of the things he’s done? I wouldn’t let my dog be alone with that man, much less my daughter. Do you remember Dale Albertson?”

She nodded. He’d been her father’s aide for a couple of years. She remembered him as a lanky man. He hadn’t made much of an impression. He was only interested in politics. The few times she’d met him, he’d wandered off the minute she started talking about her job. Still, she remembered her father had told her he was trustworthy and useful. That was practically a declaration of love from her dad. “Yes.”

“Tennessee Smith tortured him. He brutally beat him for information about me. Dale killed himself because he couldn’t get over what Ten Smith had done to him. I wanted to take the bastard to court, but the CIA covered it up. It would have been embarrassing for the Agency. So in my mind, he’s gotten away with murder.”

“I don’t believe it.” Not her Ten.

Her father reached into his pocket and pulled out a thumb drive. “Then believe this. This is a file on Tennessee Smith and everything he did to hurt me and mine. It includes irrefutable proof that he was with Dale shortly before he was abducted in Dubai. Since then he’s been after every single member of this family. I suspect he’s the one behind the trouble with your vaccines.”

“That’s ludicrous. How would he even do that?” She couldn’t even fathom a world where he did that to her.

“He’s a resourceful man and he’s determined to bring down my entire family, including my girls. He’s found it hard to get to me so he switched to targeting you and Hope.”

“But the vaccine was clean.”

Her father was quiet for a moment. “No. It wasn’t. Baby girl, Hope called me in a panic. I bribed the lab to say it was clean because I didn’t understand what was going on. The vaccine was a trial drug. I don’t even know how the bastard got it, but he did. It’s a memory drug your sister’s been working on. Smith intended for you to find it and go to the press. He was going to claim that your sister and Kronberg were testing their drugs in a manner the FDA would utterly disapprove of. That would have decimated your sister’s career and taken down your clinic and all your good works. He knew how to really get to me. Through you and your sister.”