Not wanting anyone else to overhear this conversation, I shut the door and turn back to him. “You mean ending anyone who dares to fuck with her? Yes.”
“I mean cleaning up her messes for her. That’s what you’re here to do, right? Clean up the absolute fucking disaster she created.”
“Tell me you’re fucking with me, Stone. Jesus fucking Christ, tell me this is a joke.” I slam the files I brought with me down on his desk. “I expected you to relay the disappointment of her client, to inform her she might be neutralized. As a commander. But as her father, I assumed you were fighting for her behindthe scenes. All this time, I believed you were this respectable man who risked everything for your children. Something I could understand. And I would’ve taken this shit to the grave.”
He arches a brow in question, strolling over to his desk to peruse my good-faith payment, but I don’t wait for him to respond.
“Your daughter is brilliant and fierce. I’ve seen her in action. She is … astounding. You trained her well. And she’s so fucking smart … but she’s more than her skill. She’s everything. So, yeah, I’d clean up her messes. She’s allowed to make mistakes because she’s human and mine and deserves the goddamn world.”
He lifts his chin, and something like pity coasts across his face. “And she left you.”
I don’t let a single cell in my body betray how deeply that slices, how much insecurity swims in my veins that he might be claiming that from a vantage point of knowing what the hell is going on. Instead, I feign confidence. “Because she was forced to. She had something she needed to do.”
Thesomethingshe had to do could only apply to a mission he’d sanctioned so he should be aware of wherever the hell she is. My world in his hands is haunting. But I resist the urge to spin my watch and keep my focus planted on him, awaiting his response.
“What makes you so sure?”
“I know my wife.”
He slants his head, studying me. “And if she stays hidden?”
“Then I become a treasure hunter.”
He laughs at that—disbelieving more than malicious, but annoying all the same. “And leave your fortune behind?” He waves his hand in front of me. “Who are you without the suit?”
“I’m hers. La Lune Noire is already at a deficit. That is Zara’s empire now. I won’t stop until I bring her home. She is my future and my fortune.”
He frowns in thought for another beat. I hope he’s fucking testing me for Zara’s sake. Because if he doubts she could mean that much to me, to anyone, then I will destroy him before he can cause her another drop of pain.
Eventually, he taps the files that detail all the shit my father had on him—the very reason he’s perched in this covert tower instead of on acreage in Tennessee.
I know what he’s wondering, so I supply the answer. “That’s the only copy.”
He rounds his desk and takes his seat, indignation written in every feature. “And you think if I owe my client a life as restitution for Zara botching a job and fleeing, this file will suffice?”
“You being her father should be enough for that,” I snipe before I pull myself together, stuff my hands in my pockets, and swallow my fury. “But the file—the fact that I had it all these years and never wielded it—should be enough to win me something. So, if a life is what you need, take mine and spare hers. Tell your client I fucked up the mission for her. Since they wanted to infiltrate La Lune Noire, I’m guessing they’d be thrilled to have my head. You handing me over for them to do the honors would go a long way.”
He’s clearly at a loss for words, so I go on.
“But we’ll need to get it documented so I know she’s safe. We need a story concocted to keep her protected from some other organizations as well. Once that’s settled—”
“What do you want from me?” he blurts out with all the fervor of a broken father.
Thank fuck.
“Answers.”
He rubs his hand over his jaw, his eyes glossy. “I don’t know where she is.”
That’s not the news I wanted, but maybe we’re getting somewhere.
I take a seat across from him, beginning with something simple. “Is she carrying out orders you sent her?”
“No.” The weight of her missing deflates his chest. “She agreed to terms, accepted the extraction out of Greece, and disappeared on us. We had no knowledge of the ambush.”
My pulse thunders to the beat of a thousand questions.When did she decide to accept the extraction? Was the marriage a ploy? Had she always planned to leave me?And so many more, but I settle on, “You don’t know why she disappeared?”
“I do not. I was concerned that you’d gotten to her.” He hurls his hand toward me as if presenting evidence. “And if you pulled this shit, maybe you are the root of her spiraling because Zara is usually steady and unaffected, but this devotion would win her over. Still, she left you too.”
