She could feel her jaw dropping open, relief flooding through her. Her knees wobbled, but she managed to stay upright.
“I thought you’d managed to slip away yet again when you pinned all the evidence to Aaron Merrett,” Robb said coolly, fixing James with a cold, hard stare. “After all the work I’d put in to set this up, I’d failed to nail anything to you yet again. But thanks to Agent Richardson – and his mate – you seem to have given yourself away. Even if I don’t really understandwhy.”
Maisie blinked, feeling her jaw unhinge.Robb… set all this up? He deliberately put our lives at risk to try to snare this… this James bush pig?!
She shook her head. It all seemed like too much.
“Robb? What are you talking about?” Rhys sounded just as flummoxed as she felt. She turned toward him, just in time tosee a couple of the agents who’d arrived with Robb rush over to him, hauling James back from the brink and holding him firmly between them.
Maisie didn’t waste a moment – she ran to Rhys’s side, throwing her arms protectively around his neck. She didn’t care about the blood that covered him – she only wanted him to besafe.
“What the hell do you mean, youset all this up?” she cried as she forced herself to pull back from Rhys and instead stare at Robb, fury giving her the strength to yell into a near-total stranger’s face. “Do you know that Rhys almostdied?”
Robb shook his head, holding his hands up placatingly. “I didn’t meanthis –James bringing you up onto the rooftop and trying to kill you. In fact, I have no idea why any of that is happening at all. I meant the rest of the operation. Having agents following you. Tracking your phone. Getting you suspended in the first place. I know it wasn’tpleasant, but I needed to do it to try to drive James out into the open. I knew he’d make his move if he felt you were alienated enough from the Agency to make you an offer. But it seems he was tricky enough to think a few moves ahead, and everything I planned almost didn’t come off.”
Robb paused, looking between them. Maisie wasn’t sure if he was expecting them to thank him orwhat– because she was still furious right now.
He set Rhys up, and for what? A plan that almost didn’t work?
“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that,” Robb said after a moment. “I truly am. But the only explanation I can offer is that James was the one who was responsible for your brother Hector almost being caught and tortured by Hargreaves a few years back. He was the one who sent the bogus chopper to pick him up and take him to their offices, instead of evaccing him, hismate, and the alicorn foal they were protecting to the Agency. I thought if you knew that, you’d go along with what I had planned.”
“Maybe I would have,if I’d known about it,” Rhys growled out, and Maisie could see the anger blazing in his eyes.
Robb seemed unperturbed. “Yes. And I’m sorry I had to keep it from you. But I couldn’t risk it – you’ve seen how cunning James is, and how well he covers his tracks. How many people within the Agency he already managed to turn, or to use as pawns to discard and pin the blame on to exonerate himself.” He frowned. “In fact, I’m a little curious as to what led to this little showdown. It’s not James’s usual style at all.”
Beside her, Maisie could still feel how tense Rhys was – but then he let out a long, slow sigh.
“He fucked up,” Rhys said after a moment. “Maybe he was relieved he’d managed to pin everything on Aaron, and had seemed to have gotten away with it. He told me he knew my source for the info on Aaron – but I never told him that, and my source would never be so careless as to leave any trace of himself on those files. So when James said his name, I knew he had to be the one behind it all. I guess he realized what he’d done a few moments later, and he shifted and attacked me in the lift. I guess he knew I’d figured it out too, and that I was on my way to let someone else know. It was his only choice – hehadto attack before I could leave.”
“And everyone would have thought you were on leave with your mate when they couldn’t contact you for a while,” Robb mused. His eyes turned to Maisie. “I suppose you know by now the orderly who took you to the medbay was also one of his operatives.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Maisie said, shaking her head. “I figured it out when she pumped me full of sedative and almost stuck me with a syringe full of wyvern venom.”
“Yes, well, she’s also been taken into custody now,” Robb said. “She swears she reallywasonly going to give you a checkup, until James gave her the order via headset that she was to kill you instead. I suppose that must have comeafterhe realized he’d given himself away to Rhys.”
Maisie licked her lips. She was still basically incandescent with rage, but she could think clearly enough to see that all of this made sense.
And, she had to admit, shedidkind of believe Robb when he’d said he hadn’t planned for James to bring them up onto the roof and almost kill them. That, it seemed, had been very much spur of the moment.
“So… how did you know we were up here, then?” she asked.
Robb raised an eyebrow. “The half-destroyed lift, unconscious orderly, and all the blood was, I admit, a very difficult trail of clues to follow, but we managed.”
Oh that isit, Maisie thought furiously.You donotget to be sarcastic at me under these circumstances!
“Now listen here, you sanctimonious piece of shi—”
She felt Rhys’s hand on her arm, pulling her back as she began to surge forward.
“No, I get it,” Rhys said, cutting her off mid-swear. “But you’re going to have to give me some time to process this, boss.”
Despite the fact he’d prevented her from cussing out his boss, Maisie could hear the steel in Rhys’s voice. He clearly expected to be paid back for all the trouble Robb had put him to.
And, perhaps to his credit, Robb didn’t hesitate.
“Of course,” he said. “You can take all the leave you need – I’ll gladly sign off on it not only for you, but your whole team. Trent and Euan especially played their part in this. Hector being out of the country and Callan on assignment was just a coincidence, but it worked out well. But believe me – the whole team will berewarded for this. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to nail James’s hide to the wall.”
Rhys nodded, still clearly unhappy, but looking at least a little more satisfied. Maisie supposed that being instrumental in bringing down a traitor would at least add a little something positive to his day… but she knew that the sting of betrayal would take a long time to fade.
