“I certainly do believe that Wellington is interested in the benefits your inheritance would bring him, but I think more is involved here. I think…” Jezebel smiled. A wide, calculating grin that made a shiver slide down Delaney’s spine. “I think we’ve found his weakness.”
“No.” Nash surged forward. “This is not happening. You can just forget it.”
“What’s not happening?” Delaney was lost in the conversation. Sitting on the couch was not working for her. Everyone was looking down at her, and she felt small and afraid and just—nope. Delaney jumped to her feet. “Will someone please explain to me exactly what is happening?” She didn’t particularly want to revisit the “Would you die for your country” part of the conversation but some answers would be fabulous.
“Your fiancé is a very dangerous individual,” Jezebel informed her. “If left unchecked, he will continue to kill, to kidnap, to trade weapons, to export drugs, and to just all around make the world a very dangerous place.”
“Ex-fiancé,” she corrected. “Ex. Super ex.”
Nash was at Delaney’s side.
Ryan watched them, his arms over his chest, as he leaned near the bookshelf to the right.
The two men who had accompanied Jezebel to the cabin—both tall, fit, wearing dark clothes and with holsters on their hips—waited near the doorway, bodies alert.
“You don’t want to leave Wellington unchecked, do you?” Jezebel asked.
“No?” That felt like the right answer. “No.” Better. Firmer. Because she one hundred percent did not want anyone else in danger. Kidnapped. Killed.
“Great. Then you’ll allow him to find you, you’ll monitor his business, and we’ll gather evidence needed to prove conclusively that Kurt Wellington is, in fact, the criminal mastermind known as Typhon,” Jez concluded with satisfaction. “It’s an operation that I hope will be able to conclude within a few months.”
What, what, what? “You want me to go back to him?” Back to the man who’d locked her in a closet, who’d stabbed her in the side, and who’d promised a watery grave for her honeymoon? Back to him?
No. She must have misunderstood Jezebel.
“Um.” Jezebel watched her with an unblinking gaze.
Um was not a no answer.
Jezebel nodded.
Fear flashed through Delaney. “He’ll kill me!” This was not the response she’d expected to receive from Nash’s boss. She knew Nash had briefed Jezebel and Ryan on all the information she’d told him about Kurt murdering a man in front of her. She’d thought that giving her testimony would be enough to have Kurt locked away. Never in a million years had Delaney expected this development. “If I go to him, he’ll murder me! There will be no intelligence gathering.” As if she even knew how to gather data on him. “There will just be me dying!” Probably in a super painful fashion.
“I don’t think so.” Jezebel spoke with utter unconcern. “I believe he has developed an emotional attachment to you. If Wellington—Kurt—wanted to kill you, he could have just shot you while you were being carried out of the church or he could’ve had one of his men do the job. He didn’t. You’re alive so…” That calculating grin flashed again. “That makes you extremely useful to me.”
Nash’s hand closed around Delaney’s wrist. “No.” He pulled her toward him. Put her behind him. “We’re not risking Delaney’s life.”
Good. Great. Fabulous response. She did not want her life risked. She wanted Kurt tossed in a cell, and Delaney wanted safety. “Can’t I just file charges against him? Testify about the things he did? What I saw him do?” How could that not be enough?
“Sure, you can file charges.” Jezebel’s mild voice.
Delaney craned to see around Nash. To peer at Jezebel.
“And then he’ll disappear into the wind like…” Jezebel snapped her fingers. “That. The man probably has at least a dozen passports, all with different aliases. He’ll vanish long before law enforcement can get to him, and then he’ll bide his time and he’ll wait and he’ll find a way to either eventually abduct you or to kill you.”
Well, there was certainly no sugarcoating from Jezebel. “I’d prefer not to die.”
“Um.”
She’d also prefer not to go back to the man who wanted to murder her. “Going back to Kurt makes no sense to me.” How did it make sense to anyone in that room? “He knows I ran away—willingly. I ran to Nash in the church. I couldn’t wait to get away. You might believe I’m some weird weakness for Kurt, but that’s just not true. Kurt has no weaknesses.”
“I disagree.” Flat. Then Jezebel cleared her throat. “Nash.”
He was still standing protectively in front of Delaney, and she still was craning around his big body.
“Thank you for retrieving the asset,” Jezebel said to him.
Oh, wait, was she an asset now? That sounded bad. Delaney craned a bit more about Nash so she could better see his boss.
