Page 49 of Ruthless

It was what it was, and he refused to regret making the decision to spare a life. Especially the one he’d spared.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Amelie

Ile de la Lune

Gideon threw his duffel bag on the sofa. Going to the kitchen, he grabbed a beer from the fridge, took a long swallow, and allowed his muscles to relax. He’d been tense since he’d left San Juan. Wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if Eve was in danger. She was as well protected as any princess in any castle would be. Especially since only a handful of people knew she was even there. So why had his brain been telling him to get back ASAP?

Shaking his head at his obvious obsession with his beautiful partner, he strode over to his floor-to-ceiling window and looked out at the town square. Should he call to let her know he was back?

Their three-week separation had been difficult. He had figured she needed time to process all that had happened but hadn’t anticipated it would take this long. Just because he had agreed to give her space didn’t mean he had to like it.

Was her silence in some part because of that kiss? He hadn’t planned it. He rarely did anything on impulse, but just the knowledge that she now knew everything had made him realize that nothing was holding him back from showing her exactly how he felt. So when she’d turned her beautiful face up to him, he couldn’t have resisted if a pack of mules had been pulling him away. The temptation had been too great.

Her reaction had been interesting. She could have easily stopped him…even slugged him. His Eve wasn’t shy about protecting herself. Instead, she’d allowed him a taste of heaven.

How could she taste better now than she had years ago when they’d first kissed? He’d often told himself that no one could taste that good, and he had misremembered how delicious she was. But then, at the first touch of his mouth to hers, those memories and feelings had all come flooding back.

That night in Prague had been one of the best and worst of his life. The best because they’d finally given in to the insane attraction that had been sizzling between them for so long. The worst because he had known that it could never happen again. It shouldn’t have happened at all, but damn if he would ever regret the best night of his life.

Telling her that nothing could happen between them again had been the hardest words he’d ever said. Every word he’d uttered, he had wanted to do the exact opposite. And seeing her hurt? Oh hell, he’d almost spilled his guts then and there. But he had known what that would cost him. If he’d told her how he felt, he wouldn’t have been able to keep his agreement with her father a secret. Because, yeah, he was an ass, but he wasn’t that big of an ass.

It had taken a while, but they had eventually returned to their original relationship. And since then, he’d squelched, strangled, and slaughtered all those needs and desires he had for her. Until that kiss.

Frustrated at his mangled thoughts, he shoved his fingers through his hair and gazed out at the city that he both hated and loved. It had changed little since he’d lived here. Though small in population and seeming to embrace old-world traditions, Amelie boasted a variety of cultural and civic events that larger cities might envy.

Being back home had brought its own troubles. It was one of the reasons he didn’t visit. With no family here, all he had left were the memories. Some were the best of his life. Up until he was fifteen years old, life had been as perfect as humanly possible. He’d had two parents who’d loved him, his brothers, and his sister unconditionally. Money had been tight, but he had never felt deprived. His father had been a master carpenter and on weekends had worked as a security guard at a manufacturing plant. His mother had been a schoolteacher and had supplemented the family income by giving piano lessons. They’d both had demanding and hectic lives, but neither of them had ever been too busy for their children. Family had been priority number one.

And then one day, it had all changed. If Gideon had ever wondered who the heart and soul of his family was, he’d received his answer on that awful, fateful day. Charlotte Wright had been driving home from work and had swerved to avoid a deer in the road. The deer had made it across the road safely. His mother had not. She’d lost control of her car and hit a tree. Two drivers behind her, who’d witnessed what had happened, had stopped to help, but there had been nothing they could do. Her neck had broken on impact. She was gone in an instant.

Seeing his father fall apart had been scary. At fifteen, Gideon had always thought of himself as a mature young man who could handle anything life threw at him. He’d been proven wrong. Losing his mother to death and his father to grief had almost brought him to his knees. The only thing that had kept him going was the knowledge that his brothers and sister needed him.

Elliott Wright had never recovered from his wife’s death. Actually, the entire family had never recovered. They had simply kept going. In many ways, Gideon had become a father at fifteen because his siblings had depended on him just as they once had depended on their parents.

The dreams he’d had of becoming a royal guard had disappeared beneath the burden of simply surviving. After his father’s death, his only focus had been on caring for his siblings. Those were some of the worst years of his life, but looking back, they’d been some of the most rewarding, too. His brothers, Theo and Reed, and his sister, Rory, were some of the finest people he’d ever known. Any sacrifices he’d made had been worthwhile.

With a clearer hindsight view, he could understand his father better. Elliott had been so in love with his wife that when she’d ceased to exist, a large part of him had died with her. He might’ve kept breathing for three years, but the essence of the man had been gone. Gideon and his siblings had lost both his mother and father that day.

He’d made a vow early on that something like that would never happen to him. Never would he be so immersed in another person that his life depended upon her existence. The thought of that kind of all-consuming love turned his blood ice cold. That didn’t mean he didn’t love, though.

And, oh, how he loved one particular woman.

The sound of a text message drew his attention back to the here and now. Refusing to be optimistic that Eve had reached out to him, he glanced at his phone. The text was from Ash with the intel he’d requested.

Ash was back home in Montana with his family. Jazz and Xavier were still in Puerto Rico to run down intel on what exactly had gone down with Lopez. The man was a tough old bird and was expected to make a complete recovery. They still had no idea who he’d been planning to meet or why the bomber hadn’t done the job as planned. Seven different charges had been found in the restaurant, but only one had been activated. Whoever had planned the explosions had obviously not executed them in the way they were originally intended. No one knew why. Xavier and Jazz would hopefully come up with an answer.

Even though the op hadn’t turned out quite as they’d planned, Gideon and Ash had been able to reconnect both personally and professionally. He still couldn’t reveal Eve’s secrets, but he’d been happy to reestablish his commitment to OZ and his team. He didn’t want any of them to doubt his loyalty and allegiance to their cause.

If there was one good thing about this time alone, away from the regular ops he and Eve would normally be running, it was the amount of data he’d been able to uncover regarding the Wren Project. He’d started his research on three separate organizations from the list Iris Gates had provided. The one that was sending up the most red flags was simply called Bass. Founded by Franco Bass, the company manufactured and exported an eclectic variety of products, including electronics, clothing, organic foods, and farming equipment. What caught Gideon’s attention was the company’s meteoric rise to success in a relatively short time frame. In three years, Bass had gone from a fifty-employee company with a net worth of just over a million dollars, to having over five thousand employees and a net worth of fifty million. Maybe it wasn’t impossible to do so without nefarious means, but the speed of that rise was still questionable. Especially when several other companies they’d already identified as being associated with the Wren Project had had similar rapid success.

Another red flag was the difficulty in digging up information on the owner of Bass. Even as well known as his company was, Franco Bass lived in relative obscurity. Gideon had found only two news media interviews, both in print. Both had been uninformative and based on obviously preplanned questions. There were no photos online of Franco Bass, no television interviews. Nothing that showed Bass’s face. Gideon was, in fact, beginning to wonder if the man actually existed.

A squeaky-clean company with almost no negative press, it seemed improbable that Bass, the corporation, would be mixed up with the Wren Project, and that was exactly why Gideon was suspicious. He’d asked Ash to check on any political donations the company had made. The information Ash had just sent confirmed Gideon’s suspicions. Bass had been a major contributor to Senator Nora Turner’s campaign. And before Turner’s death, OZ had proven beyond a shadow of doubt that she had been funded and deeply influenced by the Wren Project.

Guilt by association was not irrefutable proof by any means, but with all the other signs, he was going with his gut that said this company and its owner were involved up to their eyeballs.

Now to dig even deeper.