Love and Let Die Read Free

bluntly. “I kept up my end of the deal. MI6 will likely find his body in a couple of days and they’ll believe that everything is over. Eventually they’ll figure out that your dear papa wasn’t the one trying to buy uranium, but for now they’ll believe what I want them to believe. Thank you, dear. That little bit of chaos wouldn’t have been possible without you.”
    With shaking hands, she clutched her sister, pulling her behind her body in case everything went to hell. “I don’t understand.”
    Nelson shrugged a little. “You aren’t supposed to. You did a halfway decent job leading Taggart around by his dick, and I appreciate that. You’re looking at me like I’m going to kill you. If I had wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have faked your death. I would have made it real. Do you understand how complex this was? No, dear, I want you alive. You’ve proven to be very resourceful when it comes to information retrieval. I could use you in the future. In fact, I want you to start tracking a few key players, including your beloved.”
    Ian. Ian wasn’t dead. She breathed a deep sigh of relief. If Ian had been dead, she might have crawled back into that coffin-like box and let the madness take her. “I thought this was a play to kill him.”
    Nelson chuckled. “Oh, no. I never sacrifice a pawn until I need to. Right now our mutual employers are working so hard to deal with Mr. Taggart’s issues that they’re not looking at me, and that’s how I want it for a while. I have some plans for Mr. Taggart’s operatives that require that his attention be aimed elsewhere. Not that you need to know what my plans are.”
    No. She was just another of his pawns, exactly like she’d been for her father.
    Nelson handed her a set of keys. “There’s a BMW in the parking lot with new passports, plane tickets, and a briefcase with fifty thousand dollars inside. Contact me when you settle in the States. I expect great things of you, Charlotte Dennis.”
    She almost said it, almost corrected him. Her name was Taggart. She’d been Charlotte Marie Taggart for thirty-two days, and she would never have another name because she would never take another man. She belonged to her Master and always would.
    Nelson turned and started out the door. “You should hurry, dear. Your corpse will be missed soon. It’s not every day one just goes missing. I’m leaving enough evidence behind to point to your husband or the family who so dearly loved you. I wouldn’t want Taggart asking too many questions after all. Scotland Yard will suspect Taggart, and Taggart will suspect your recently deceased father and his men. My guess is I went easy on dear old dad. I just slit his throat. I bet Taggart would have done something worse.”
    He whistled a little as he let himself out of the morgue, his cronies following along behind. The door shut with a little swish and they were alone.
    “Charlotte, are you okay?” She asked the question in the language of their childhood, the language of their mother—English. Their mother had baptized them with American names. She’d managed to run, to get away for years, before their father had found them again. For years all they had spoken was Russian. Except in their secret places. When they were alone, they had kept up their English. Their true language. When she’d heard it, she’d known she was safe.
    Chelsea. She had to think of Chelsea. Chelsea was completely helpless, and her husband could take care of himself. “We have to go. He’s right. I can’t be found here.”
    “They drugged the night guard and apparently Nelson has some of the employees on his payroll. We have a few minutes. Is your arm okay?”
    “I think it still works.” They would be a pair. Chelsea with her limping walk and she with a bullet wound in her arm. Yes, they were real physical threats.
    “Charlotte, do you think he’s really dead?” Chelsea asked, the question ringing in the near-silent room.
    Vladimir