Chapter 17

Chapter

Seventeen

R eid sat on the end of a very comfortable medical examining table in Morón’s on-base hospital, dressed in a fresh, clean military uniform he had absolutely no business wearing. The electrical marks Fariq had burned into his chest and thigh had been treated and rebandaged. He’d been given two injections, which was two IV drips and one injection less than what Aliya had received after being whisked off for treatment. He had no idea where she was, but he knew it wasn’t far. There were two officers stationed outside his door—not so much to prevent anyone from talking to him, he suspected, but to keep him from ‘wandering’ off. A third man, a young soldier with glasses who introduced himself as General Markoff’s aid, Tannehill, kept him appraised of her progress.

“Sepsis isn’t fun, but they think she’ll make a full recovery. If someone hadn’t treated her, she’d be doing a lot worse than she is.”

“Is she going to be released after this?” he’d asked.

Tannehill blinked at him twice. “I assume so. At least, I haven’t heard any differently. General Markoff should be here momentarily. I’m sure he’ll have more information for you.”

“Am I under arrest?” he persisted, pretty sure he already knew the answer but not quite able to let himself trust it. He knew the wrong he’d done over the years, and yes, he’d done it under the guise of being an undercover agent, but that only protected a man from so much. Yet when the Pentagon called and ordered handcuffs to be removed, they were.

So, here he sat, awaiting the General’s leisure, wondering who Aliya had called and what she’d said, knowing this absolutely flew in the face of the ‘do nothing’ edict he’d given her, although he also knew she’d done it before he’d passed that edict down. Unless, of course, one counted the time on Fariq’s yacht when he’d told her to stop playing spy games before she got them both killed.

He wasn’t sure it was fair, but if by some miracle they both got out of here, he was absolutely going to count it. Then he was going to spank the hell out of her. He didn’t care how long or how hard, he would forever emblaze the print of his palm across her ass if that’s what it took to finally drum into her head that she couldn’t afford to remind anyone she had once shared her brother’s last name. He meant to take care of that personally with a ring… and a collar. No one—be they good guys or bad—would believe she was innocent if she dabbled so much as her tiniest toe in politics, expressed an opinion in foreign affairs, was seen with a gun in her hand, or so much as talked to the wrong man in a coffee shop.

She was tainted. She might not understand that, but he did. Her brother had a lot of enemies. She would never, ever be completely free of the consequences Fariq’s actions had wrought.

Neither would he, for that matter, but at least he’d had the choice.

The door opened, and he looked up to find the Tannehill smiling as he leaned in.

“The General is ready for you now.”

God knows, he’d waited long enough, but right then, Reid wouldn’t have minded a moment or two more to brace himself for whatever was going to come of this. He followed the aid down the hospital corridors. For all that he might not be under arrest, the two guards fell seamlessly into line behind him and were never more than two steps away as he was taken to a nearby consultation room.

There were six men already seated at the table when Tannehill opened the door and motioned him in. Christian recognized them in an instant.

“Cobb,” he said, surprised.

The older man looked up with a wry smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah, fancy.” Feeling even more as if he was walking into a trap, Reid sat down as Tannehill disappeared out the door, and his escort took up their guard positions in the hall. Lowering his voice, he asked, “Anyone know what’s going on?”

“I was about to ask you. Especially since I was told, I was being shipped to Guantanamo tomorrow morning.”

“They told me the same,” another man stated, winning a chorus of nods or grunts from the others.

A few minutes later, the door opened again, and Aliya was wheeled into the room. Clothed like a hospital patient, she sat in a wheelchair with a mostly empty saline bag hanging just behind her, connected to her arm.

“Who’s General Markoff?” she whispered the minute Tannehill retreated, and the door closed again.

“Never mind that,” Reid whispered back. “Who the hell did you call?”

The door opened before she could answer, and General Markoff walked into the room. Briefcase in hand, he walked to the head of the table, leaving his aide to close the door and ensure their privacy. Clearing his throat, the older man glanced up long enough to give everyone a smile that did anything but disarm, then he sat down.

“Can I get anyone anything? Coffee, something to eat? No?” When no one said anything, he folded his hands on the table and smiled again. Turning to Aliya, he asked, “How are you feeling? Better now?”

“Yes.” Shooting Reid an uncertain look, she cleared her throat. “Yes, thank you.”

“Good. I’m glad, very glad. I honestly thought once I achieved my current star level, I’d be far and above getting my ass chewed quite the way it happened today. I understand, young lady, I have you to thank for that.”

Reid grabbed her knee under the table, but either she was unfamiliar with that subtle form of requesting her to button up, or the general had just pricked enough of her temper, she ignored it.

“Maybe if you hadn’t hung your own agent out to dry after all he’s done… Ow, ow ! Why are you squeezing my leg so hard?”

Markoff’s dark eyebrows shot up to where his graying hairline would have been had it not receded more than a decade before.

“It’s fine,” Christian cut in, more to her than to his old boss. “I knew the risks when I signed on for the job.”

She scoffed, and as much as it annoyed him that she was goading him into having this argument here, in front of everyone, he also knew she was right. He’d thought he’d known back when he was recruited, fresh out of college, with an axe to grind and a wrong to right. But no one, regardless of their level of experience, could ever have known what living with a man like Fariq would entail. He’d made his choices, did what he had to, first to blend in, then to advance in Fariq’s mercenary ranks, until at last, he’d reached a position capable of gaining real and useful information. But positions like that didn’t leave a man with clean hands. So, he created his own tightrope of what was right and wrong, what he would or wouldn’t do, but even then, when it all boiled down and Fariq gave the order, he’d wrapped himself in the marginal comfort of knowing the men he had to kidnap, ruin, hurt, or even kill to maintain his cover weren’t any more innocent of their consequences than Fariq… or himself.

Shifting in his chair, Reid faced her. “Hey.”

She folded her arms across her chest, only reluctantly shifting her glare from Markoff to him. He knew she didn’t want to, but she was listening, which made him smile. For the first time in a long time, he made a decision that actually filled him with relief.

“I made my choices, Princess. I’m ready to take the consequences. Let me do that, okay?”

“They could hang you,” she said, her voice growing hoarse as her throat—indeed, her whole-body—tightened.

“Young lady,” Markoff broke in, “that would involve a trial. Now, I don’t for a second think you had either the audacity or the clout to call the President of the United States, but whoever you did call must have called in one hell of a favor. There will be no trial. Rather than risk revealing that we had an agent in your brother’s empire during the worst crimes he’s committed over the years, and apparently, we never had the balls to simply shoot him, I have been ordered to make this go away. So… you are free to go—with the stipulation I never have to hear about any of you ever again. No mentions in any local newspaper. No police arrests.” He pinned Aliya with another stern look. “No phone calls.”

Reid sat in stunned silence with everyone else at the table.

“We’re free to go?”

“All of us?” Cobb broke in, incredulous.

Picking up his briefcase off the floor, the general laid it on the table, popped the locks, and withdrew a short stack of envelopes. The ones he gave Cobb and his men were standard white mailing envelopes. The two he laid in front of Reid and Aliya were bigger, thicker, and document-sized manila. “Your severance packages. Courtesy of the phone call.”

“We didn’t work for you,” Cobb said, opening his to peek at what was inside. “Holy sh—never mind.”

Curious, Reid slipped his finger under the sealed lip and pulled out the Non-Disclosure Agreement, which didn’t surprise him, and a sizeable check, which did. It was every penny of his salary that had been direct deposited into his personal bank account since he’d joined Fariq.

“Your account has been closed and classified,” Markoff told him when he glanced up. “We’ve added five years severance pay on top of it and free medical care for the rest of your life. You will, of course, not be able to keep a penny of what Fariq has paid you over the years.”

“That’s fine,” Christian said, knowing there was no way they knew about the bulk of that money that he had squirreled away in a dozen hidden accounts. “Not a problem. I don’t want it.”

“Wait a minute,” Aliya said from beside him. She made no move to open the envelope he’d given her. “I don’t know that I actually ever worked for you, either. I was given the impression what I did was more of a volunteer kind of thing… for the greater good, as they say.”

“Your envelope,” Markoff stated, “contains the details concerning the inheritance your brother ensured we wouldn’t be able to touch should something happen to him. Most of it seems to have been passed down from your father if that makes a difference.”

“I don’t want it.” She immediately dropped it on the table, but just as quickly, Reid picked it up. “I don’t want it,” she repeated as he opened the envelope and poured out the contents.

There were two bank forms, legal contacts in Rome as well as Switzerland, and another NDA from the government, although under an independent contracting company name to prevent anything from leading back to NATO should she go back on her word somewhere later down the road. Her check had four more zeros than his did. She’d been given houses in Morocco, Scotland, and Finland. She owned an 8-acre island in Fiji, a 169-acre island off the coast of Greece, and was the reigning stockholding in eleven major worldwide companies, including JP Morgan Chase. She was also a founding member in the world’s leading investment company, BlackRock, a position she wasn’t able to inherit and was even now being cashed out.

The man had been a crook, a thief, a terrorist, and nothing short of a wizard when it came to money.

He didn’t need to worry about Aliya. Financially, she was going to be just fine.

The look she gave him said she realized it, too.

Grabbing the wheels of her chair, she jerked back away from the table and would have pushed herself out the door if he hadn’t grabbed her wrist.

“She’s going to need a permanent visa,” he told the general.

Closing his briefcase, the general shook his head. “I am under orders to strongly encourage you to find somewhere else to live. I am also under orders to tell you this is a package deal. You all accept, or you all get put away, and I promise my half-chewed ass and I will find the worst prisons on the planet to put you in. I’ll give you a few minutes to decide.”

He left, closing the door behind him, although not for a second did Reid believe no one could hear them.

“We all either accept the deal or we all ‘get put away’?” Brody asked, the first to speak up. “What’s to stop them from doing that after we accept the deal?”

“We stick together,” Cobb said.

“What, for the rest of our lives?” another asked, then groaned. “Because I’ll tell you, I’ve been stuck in a cell with Alex for only two days now, and I’m already plotting how best to kill him. The man snores like a chainsaw.”

“You think it’ll be any quieter in prison?” someone—possibly Alex—shot back.

“If we separate, we won’t notice if some of us start disappearing until it’s too late,” Cobb interrupted. “Plus, I hate to say it, but the U.S. government is the least of our worries. I don’t know what the rest of you have done, but one of my last jobs was the bombing of an African warlord at the request of another, who Fariq then betrayed to the U.N. So, whoever throws the dart, just stay clear of Africa.”

“Mexico, too,” another said.

“And pretty much the entire Middle East,” a third added.

“Suits me fine. I’m tired of heat and sand. I want to go skiing. Hey, we should do that!” Brody said with enthusiasm.

“Go skiing?” Cobb asked, arching his eyebrow.

“No, well… yes, but I mean, we could pool our money, open up a ski lodge in the middle of nowhere in Switzerland, maybe the Matterhorn. Somewhere we haven’t pissed off the ruling entities,” Brody continued. “Hell, we could even gear it toward people in the lifestyle.”

“Yeah. Half the year, we could run a nice, quiet, relaxing, off-season resort that caters to those so inclined. We could build a helluva dungeon with this kind of money. And on top of that, people could spend their time fishing, camping, and hiking,” Alex continued, warming to the idea.

“God knows, we’d be able to keep people safe, maybe even become the local experts in search and rescue for lost hikers,” one of the others said.

“And the other half,” Alex said, “we can make our money work for us by operating a first-class ski resort, catering to those with our mutual bent. We can have the best subs and pretty little ski bunnies bouncing on our balls.”

“We could vet Doms and subs and make it a safe place for folks to play.”

The men exchanged glances and included Reid in their non-verbal agreement to band together.

“You had me at quiet and relaxing,” Cobb finally said.

“You had me at fishing,” the second laughed.

“What part of bouncing ski bunnies and subs did you guys not understand?” Alex asked.

Reid grinned as the others rolled their eyes and gave their companion a look. He turned to Aliya, sitting quietly in her chair.

“What do you think, Princess? Want to wear my ring and my collar, play dress up in the snow, and do some bouncing?” He waggled his eyebrows, hoping to get her to smile, but she barely looked at him.

“You’re inviting me along?” she asked, averting her eyes. She was still a horrible liar. He saw right through her uncertain frown to the insecurities she was trying to hide.

Turning to face her again, he caught her chin, forcing her to look at him.

“What part of ring and collar do you not get, Princess? If you don’t want to throw in with the guys, that’s fine. We can go anywhere in the world you want, so long as you understand I’m going to be right there with you. I told you, you belong to me… in the same way, I belong to you. I’m willing to give being a part-owner of a resort a try, but I’d be just as happy tending bar with you in Scotland, farming tulips with you in Holland, or counting koalas with you or whatever they do in Australia. The point is, unless you safeword out of this relationship and tell me you’ve lost interest in being with me, then the keyword in this entire discussion is ‘with you.’ You need to get it through that beautiful, stubborn, temperamental head of yours that unless you opt-out in no uncertain terms, I intend to be with you.”

“What if I prefer to be alone?” she asked, her fear of his answer evident in the tightness of her body.

Reid took a deep breath and shook his head slowly.

“Then I’ll very gently take you out of that wheelchair, put you over my knee, and blister your backside.”

The reaction of the men in the room was split between stifled laughter and quiet groaning.

“Granted,” Reid continued, “it won’t have as much impact as if your bottom was bare, but I’m fairly sure I can put enough sting in your tail to make you settle down and behave.”

“And if not,” Cobb offered, “we can give you the room to do what you need.”

Aliya looked into the faces of each of the other men and knew she would have absolutely no support from any of them.

“Why?” she whispered. “He tortured you because of me.”

Reid pulled her gently from the wheelchair into his lap.

“He tortured me because he was a monster. And sick with sepsis, beaten to within an inch of your life, dehydrated and starved, you picked up a weapon you’d never used, and ended his miserable, misbegotten life, and saved me. Do you get that, Princess? You. Saved. Me. If you’re still able to see me as your knight in shining armor, you need to know, I see you as my warrior princess. Xena’s got nothing on you,” he said quietly.

“I don’t think Ares ever spanked Xena’s ass.” Aliya giggled as she relaxed into his body, tucking her head under his chin and snuggling against him.

“Thus, the reason she was forever riding around doing stupid things. You should know, Princess… I’m smarter than Ares and know how to handle a brat.”

“I thought I was a princess.”

“Yes, a princess brat. So, Switzerland or…”

Once again, she looked at the faces of the men gathered around the table.

“We can have a four-poster bed?” she asked, blushing profusely.

“Oh, Princess, we’ll have a four-poster bed, and as Alex said, we’ll create one of the best dungeons in Europe. After all, every princess has to have a dungeon…”

Aliya smiled up at him, her face telling him everything.

“More,” she stated simply and definitively.

Reid nodded, knowing somehow, inexplicably, he had found his way to an improbable home with the woman cuddled in his lap.