What a tangled fucking web. “So you admit you did this to me. You admit you know damn well I didn’t commit treason.”
“Of course. Sweetheart, this was meant to put you under my control. That’s all. I promise I’ll clear it all up later. I know you would never betray your country. You’re an excellent operative. It’s one of the things I admire about you. You’re brave and strong. Sometimes you’re too queasy to really get things done, but that’s why I’m around. It’s why we make a good team.”
The enormity of what he’d done slammed into her. “You’ve been planning this for years. You meant to do this to me over three years ago.”
“I think I’ve been planning it since I truly understood you were going to marry Beck. I thought he was nothing more than a passing crush. He’s broody and rough and you were rebelling, but I always knew you would come back to me.”
“We never dated,” she said between gritted teeth.
“People like us rarely date.” Levi took another sip. “We form relationships. For that first year we ate most of our meals together, studied together, when you went for a run, I would go along. It came as a shock when I realized you were attracted to that dull moron, but I got it. I knew he would bore the hell out of you and you would come back to me.”
“I never felt that way about you.” She glanced out the back, trying to figure out where they were going. How long did she have before he would put her on a plane and she wouldn’t see freedom again? How long before he took the most precious thing she owned—her memories?
She saw a black Benz driving behind her. There was something familiar about that sedan, but then there were lots of black Benzes on the road. It was pure wishful thinking that someone would come for her.
“I’m sure that’s what you tell yourself,” Levi replied. “But I know the truth.”
There was no talking to him about this. She glanced out the tinted windows. They were leaving the city. She could see far more green than concrete now. How was she going to get away? If she got on that plane with him, she would disappear, and by the time anyone saw her again she would be some Stepford wife for Levi to show off. Of course there were other reasons he could want her. “I suppose you’ll have my accounts transferred to you.”
She was worth roughly sixty million. That was a lot of attraction for some men.
“I have my own money.” It was the first time he’d looked anything but perfectly satisfied.
She’d made a direct hit. “But nothing like mine.”
“No. I had a small trust that my father managed to not lose when he blew every bit of our family money.” Levi sat up a bit straighter. “When I’m married to the heir to the Solomon fortune, with ties that go across the globe, I’ll be back to my proper place. I’ll show my father that I’m better than him when I bring our family back to some sort of honor. Or maybe I’ll crush him like he tried to crush me. I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.”
He was an angry child with far too much power. She needed to find a way out or she would become another toy he broke. “You can’t possibly think you’re going to get away with this.”
“Of course I will,” he said like it was a foregone conclusion, like the game was already over. “I’m back in the director’s good graces. The data we recovered from Paris ensured that. It’s the gift that keeps right on giving. Have you ever heard of a company called Fitzgerald Inc?”
Everyone had heard of them. “They’re a multinational, one of those mega corporations with their fingers in every pie from agricultural to Hollywood.”
“Including a majority share in a small pharmaceutical company that worked with Kronberg, and more specifically funded Hope McDonald in a direct fashion.”
She wasn’t sure where he was going with this. “I suspect a lot of companies did that.”
“Ah, but did the daughter of a presidential candidate sit on the board of one of those companies? Did she sign off on backroom plans to use McDonald’s research?”
Levi Green had always been the luckiest fucker in the history of time. “You’re planning an October surprise?”
“No, though I assure you we thought about it,” he admitted. “Look, the last thing we need is another Zack Hayes. We’ve had eight years where we couldn’t work the way we need to because it would offend the president’s delicate sensibilities.”
She rolled her eyes. “You mean he took human and civil rights seriously. That must have been very tough on you.”
He completely ignored her and continued on. “Since Hayes can’t run again, we’re left with two candidates. One of them is reasonable and the other is all Captain America huggy. Now we have a way to force the Captain America guy to bow out. Or we’ll arrest his daughter and bring down his whole family. He’ll claim he can’t handle the pressure or some shit and our guy will breeze in.”
Then Levi Green would be in power. And she would be completely fucked.
“Sir, I believe we have a tail,” a deep voice said over the intercom.
Levi sat up and turned. “How long have they been on us?”
“That Benz has been behind us for ten minutes. They caught up when we hit the M25,” the man said. “I didn’t think anything of it until they followed us off. There’s nothing but the airfield going this way. It’s why we selected this spot. No one should be following us. We’re the only departure for hours.”
Her heart rate ticked up and she strained to
