Page 148 of What Remains

“My mother-in-law doesn’t know Julian’s alive, and she doesn’t know anything about the CCTV nuke,” Carter adds tersely, ruling her out once and for all from the sounds of it. He turns to face us directly. “And like hell is your grandfather behind this.”

I’m with him on that.

“All I know is Julian went to London for me. He faked his death for me. And now he could actually die because of me. I just can’t handle⁠—”

“Not letting that happen,” Easton cuts me off, voice tight and authoritative.

I bury my face at the base of his neck. I want to clutch hold of his back, but the memory of the lashes Jezebel inflicted on him surfaces, strong and ugly, and I hold on to his arms instead. The sounds around us become background noise as we stand like this, connected by so much more than physical touch. I’m fairly certain Carter has left our sides to give us time alone.

I look up into his eyes. “E?”

He brushes his knuckles along the contour of my cheek. “Yeah?”

The words, I love you, climb up my throat and stall behind my teeth. I can’t say them like this, can I? He may think they’re only coming from a place of fear, when in reality, I nearly spilled them back at Sebastian’s before we were interrupted.

“What is it?” he asks when I continue to sit in silence.

“You’re just amazing, you know that, right? Going back for my dad and pulling him out from the rubble.” I lean into him, drawing my hands to his chest. The feel of his heartbeat helps steady my own. “I’m just so lucky to have you as my protector. As my best friend.”

He drags his thumb along the seam of my lips, and in a husky voice, his next words burn hot. “Now you know damn well I’m a lot more than those two things.”

CHAPTER 53

Easton

IN THE AIR

Standing here while someone else flies, especially during a storm, is a special kind of torture. Every instinct says I need to be in the cockpit, hands on the yoke, doing something instead of waiting.

Carter’s with this plane’s captain, insisting he keeps circling until we know for damn sure London is our final destination. Sebastian’s on his own jet with Nash as a copilot if need be, and they’re trailing behind us. Since I’m not currently at the controls, I’ve stationed myself outside the cockpit door.

When Carter opens it a minute later, he barks out, “I need good news.” I take it he’s talking to me. A quick look around confirms I’m the only one close enough to catch the blast radius of his mood.

I turn to the side, and glance at Gwen and Natasha shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing Gwen’s laptop. Gwen hasn’t blinked in a minute, which means she’s close. “Should be any second now.” I hope.

Carter walks over and drops down next to Gray.

The team is scattered about the cabin, but the only ones busy are the two genius women.

I steal a quick look at Wyatt, sandwiched between Griffin and Jack on the couch opposite Gwen. They’re propping him up like he might fall over, even though he’s sitting ramrod straight.

I’m still not sure how we convinced Wyatt to agree to this new plan—fake deaths, covert landing, a blind run into London—but he’s on board. Figuratively and literally. Of course he refused pain meds, along with Carter’s best Scotch. Just raw willpower and fury are holding him upright after the beating he took from that explosion.

“My father’s patience is running out,” Gray mumbles as Carter scrubs a hand down his face. “While the Swiss are doing what my dad and POTUS asked and hiding what happened as ‘neutralizing a terrorist cell with zero survivors,’” he says with air quotes, “they won’t lie and say that included any Americans, especially not Secretary Chandler’s granddaughter.”

We already know this. We learned it twenty minutes after takeoff. Guess the man feels the need to fill in the awkward, empty silence. “Makes sense,” I repeat what I said earlier, but I voiced those thoughts to Jesse and Constantine upon first hearing the news, not my team leaders. “But it still buys us time if Molly or whoever’s in charge gets wind of fatalities inside the safe house. With any luck, they’ll assume that means we’re down for the count and not en route now.”

“Unless someone on our team has a knife in our . . .” Carter can’t finish that thought, same as I can’t stomach hearing it.

There has to be another way we were betrayed, but I’ve run out of ideas.

“Anything from Gideon?” Some new intel to mull over while we wait for a miracle from Gwen and Natasha would be nice. If I don’t keep my mind busy, I’ll worst-case my ass into some pretty horrific scenarios—like Julian dying for real and how that’ll impact Gwen going forward. Plus, he is a decent guy and should live to see another day. Ideally, find a woman to love who isn’t Gwen.

“Julian’s laptop still hasn’t been powered on, so they’re more than likely planning to clone it like we thought they would do with Gwen’s.” Carter sits taller and hooks a hand around the base of his skull. “Other than Gideon blowing up my phone with a status check-in every other minute—nothing.”

“At least their family has both the prime minister and royal family on speed dial so they can handle the Brits for us while my dad and POTUS deal with the Swiss,” Gray grumbles. “We’ve got so many countries on our asses at this point, it’s starting to feel like we’re international fugitives with targets on our backs.”

“So much for not ruining my father’s run for presidency. This has gone from a trap to a hurricane of epic fucking proportions real damn fast.”