Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
The problem was she suspected Julia wouldn’t allow her to pull out now that she knew what it was.
“Yes, I’m counting on those headlines,” Julia admitted.
“What is the play here?” She needed to buy some time. The boys would figure out something had gone wrong, and they would give the distraction she needed to get the jump on Julia.
“You don’t need to know.” Julia’s lips turned down as she seemed to get serious. “You have a job to do, and I expect you to do it.”
“Is this why you killed Cleo?”
One shoulder shrugged. “Maybe. I do tend to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. I can’t do it myself, and I can’t trust a full operative. When I realized Cleo was running an audition in London, I simply took over. I’ll get you what you want after you give me what I need.”
“To kill your mother?”
“She wasn’t a particularly good one.” Julia looked down at her sleeping mother with cold eyes. “Oh, she did and said all the right things, but in the end she was only truly devoted to her job. And my brother. She loved my brother. I think it’s because my biological father was such a piece of shit she couldn’t stand to look at me.”
She couldn’t exactly argue with the woman. She wasn’t supposed to know who she was. “So this is a personal vendetta?”
“I told you it’s not your business. I have a gun for you. I printed it this afternoon so it’s completely unregistered, and it will be easy to dispose of,” Julia said, getting down to business. “If you do this, I’ll make sure you get one of the new 3D printers. One of the companies we work for has perfected printing small arms. They’re single use, but that’s rather the point. You use it and then easily destroy it. A couple of minutes in the microwave and it no longer looks like a gun. I would wear gloves though. The plastic heats up like a motherfucker when you fire it. They’re still working some bugs out.”
It was good to know the corporate world was busy looking to make a buck off industrious criminals. She filed that away in the back of her head. She would be looking through the lists of possible Consortium connections to try to figure out who was working on perfecting guns that could get through metal detectors and were easy to dispose of. If they were working on guns, they were likely working on explosive devices, too.
Terrorism was big business.
But for now she needed to deal with Julia. “I’m not here to be your errand boy. I’m here to work for The Consortium, so if this is a personal job, I’m going to pass. Look I know what Cleo was planning and it wasn’t killing a United States senator.”
Julia froze. “How do you know who she is?”
Fuck. But no. There was a simple answer to this. “Lady, I work for the Agency. Do you honestly believe I don’t know who our government officials are and where they are traveling, especially when I’m in the same country? That is Senator Samantha Radcliffe, and if she’s your mother then…”
She let the sentence dangle because this way she didn’t have to pretend.
Julia’s face flushed, and for a moment Taylor was worried the other woman would shoot her then and there for embarrassing her. Then she seemed to calm. “All right. Those are excellent powers of deduction, and I should have known you would be up to date on your information.”
“I wouldn’t be of much use to the group if I wasn’t.”
“Fine,” Julia replied. “And it’s not personal. The truth is I wouldn’t have chosen to do this, but my boss thinks it’s time, and I don’t argue with the boss. The Consortium wants to put its own person in my mother’s place. Rigging an election is way harder than you would think. So eliminating the problem and allowing the governor to name her replacement is the way we’re going.”
“The governor will choose someone the group likes?” She wanted to know how deep this went. Did The Consortium own governors too?
“The governor will do what we tell him to. So let’s get this done and get you out of here. I have things to do tonight, and I want the actual work done before there are people on this floor again.”
Drake was right. His sister was a damn monster. Unfortunately, she was a monster with a big-ass gun, and she was still paying attention to Taylor. She was going to have to make a choice and take a chance, because there was zero way she shot a sleeping woman.
Especially Drake’s mother.
The door came open and John walked through, a frown on his face. “We got problems. Your other project is here, and she brought along a friend.”