puffy little pillows who cooks on the satellite. She’s Italian but she’s also American. The two of yas would make a handsome couple. What’s her name…”
“Dammit, Oliver—”
“Giada!”
“Oliver!”
“I’m just sayin’, you’re a strappin’ lad. Ya need to pull your head out of your arse and check yourself back into the game, as they say. Dive in head first. Put your dry spell out of its ever-loving misery. Dip your willie between some pompoms—I betcha cheerleaders like that.”
I close my eyes and rub my temples, not believing it’s come to this—me relying on him. It doesn’t say a lot about my options when he’s my best bet. “Are you done?”
“Look, my favorite American. I’m gonna tell it to ya as plain as I can make it. I feel comfortable enough in my manhood when I say, I love ya—”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“—and you deserve more than a fine-feelin’ woman.”
“Again with the country songs.”
“You, my American counterpart, deserve a chickadee who isn’t on the run. Ya know what else?”
I give up. “No, Ollie. But I bet you’re going to tell me.”
“That Donnelly woman fed your need for adventure. She might as well have needled herself straight into your veins and pumped ya full of adrenaline. She gave ya a high and now you’re jonesin’ for it. It’s why you won’t settle down for a spicy little cook or a perky cheerleader.”
He is not wrong. “Thank you, Dr. Phil. That was enlightening.”
“Who’s Dr. Phil?”
“Look him up. You’ll become obsessed.”
I hear him pecking away at a keyboard. “Lookin’ now.”
“Call me when you have a line on one of the Donnelly brothers. Either is fine, but I need to talk to one of them and it needs to be discreet and off the record.”
“Everything you do is off the record.”
“Right back at you, Ollie.”
A deep laugh booms over the pond and about blows my eardrum out. “Touché, my beautiful American man. Tou-fuckin’-ché.”
“Make it happen, Oliver. I don’t have time to be dicking around with this.”
“Well, kiss my arse. Now I have a pudgie at the thought of you dicking around.”
“You’ve got forty-eight hours, tops. I’d prefer to hear from you tomorrow,” I demand.
“Don’t make it a full-on woody by goin’ all alpha male on me, Carson. I’m at my desk.”
“Talk to you tomorrow.”
I hear a smile. “I love ya, mate.”
And I hang up.
Oliver Abram might be odd but he’s always come through for me. I know it’ll be the same this time. He might look like he’s continually fucking around, but in a weird way, it makes him stealth in what he does. No one takes him seriously but they should—he’s a sneaky fuck.
I can’t take a chance on contacting Bella’s parents. I know for a fact their lines are tapped and the Brits are watching them like hawks. I’d bet everything I own that Thorne Donnelly knows this too. He was MI6 himself and one of the best who’s ever strode through the doors of Vauxhall. He retired before everything went to hell with Bella. From what I heard, Annie is heartbroken for her daughter, and Thorne, who was once as loyal as a golden retriever to his country and agency, is done with both. He saw what the rest of us saw—shoddy investigating, finger pointing, and a shit show fit for crap TV.
I’m about to press send on an email to my boss with my report on Raji when my burner phone rings. It’s an unknown number.
I pick it up on the second ring. “Carson.”
“Boss. I only have a short time.”
Speak of the asset of the hour. He’s out of breath and on the move, causing me to step back from the send button and brace. “Raji. What’s wrong?”
Raji and I go back seven or eight years. Before Abbott, before Bella, and before I had to give up a career as an operative. There’s a grapevine in that part of the world and he’s so entangled, I’m sure his head spins from having to watch his back from every angle. I’ve kept in touch with him and pad his bank account nicely for information he feeds me.
“Your target’s first-hand man is on the move. And I don’t mean in the back of a shitty SUV. I followed his small caravan to an airstrip.” His words are labored and I hear his boots grinding into the sand at a flat-out run. “He boarded a plane—small, prop engine.”
I reach up and hit the delete key on the email I was about to send because