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Taggart and get to
her brother.
    “Give me one reason I don’t kill you right now,” a dark
voice said.
    Taggart was right behind her. From the sound of his voice he
was still in the suite, but the door was open so it wouldn’t take more than two
or three steps for him to get to her. Once he put hands on her, it would all be
over. Shit. She put her hands in the air because she had zero doubt he would
take any reason she gave him. So she needed to come up with something really
fucking fast.
    “It’s not what you think,” she said evenly. Calm. She needed
to stay calm.
    “I think you’re a liar, Phoebe, and I’m going to figure out
what you’re doing here. Si, do you have that fucking maniac under control?” Tag
asked.
    “He’s not a maniac.” Sometimes she didn’t like the way
Taggart talked to Jesse. Oh, she understood it on an intellectual level. It was
a guy thing, but it bugged her because Jesse wasn’t crazy and he wasn’t stupid.
    “Your opinion is not needed,” Taggart said.
    She could see Simon touch his ear. He was likely telling
Taggart that he would take care of things.
    “You have to get them off the streets. There could be a
backup.” She wasn’t going to prevaricate or play coy. Now that she was staring
this thing in the face, she knew she’d been lying to herself for a long time.
She didn’t know what had happened in Iraq, but she couldn’t be Jesse’s
executioner and she couldn’t stand here and watch it happen either. “They’re in
danger until you get them out of here.”
    She knew her career was over with that one little piece of
advice, but there was nothing else she could do.
    “If you think I believe a word you say, you haven’t studied
me hard enough. Turn around very slowly. I would deeply enjoy putting a couple
of holes in you. I don’t like being played.”
    Oh, but she’d enjoyed playing him. At least at first she
had. He’d been a challenge and she’d needed it at the time. She’d enjoyed
knowing things Taggart hadn’t known. She’d waited and watched for the moment
his supposedly dead wife would return and get her revenge on him.
    And she’d watched as they’d fallen in love again, her heart
aching because she’d finally figured out that he hadn’t been the one to push
Charlotte Taggart away. He’d been mourning her for years.
    The way she mourned Jamie.
    She stared out as Simon rolled off Jesse and started hauling
him up. Jesse looked up, his eyes meeting hers.
    She wanted to reach out to him, to talk to him, to beg his
forgiveness.
    He turned away as Simon hauled him into the restaurant. It
didn’t escape her attention that they’d sat in that Mexican place for hours not
weeks before, and for a little while she’d forgotten why she was there. She’d
been Phoebe Graham, not Phoebe Grant, and she remembered the moment she’d
leaned over and brushed her lips against his and it had been on the tip of her
tongue to invite him to stay the night. She’d been ready to sleep with him.
God, she’d been ready to cheat on her husband.
    Tears filled her eyes. She’d gotten soft here. She’d gotten
soft around their damn kids and their lives and how they took care of each
other.
    “I said turn the fuck around,” Taggart barked.
    It was all over now. Her life at McKay-Taggart was done . She wouldn’t be Phoebe Graham again. They wouldn’t
ask her how she was or invite her to lunch. They wouldn’t joke around her. She
would have to leave her little apartment.
    She would have to start over and all alone this time because
she wouldn’t have Ten with her anymore. She’d been so compromised he couldn’t
trust her again.
    When she managed to turn, she saw Taggart hadn’t come alone.
Her big probably-was-a-Viking-warrior-in-a-different-life boss had a SIG
trained on her, but Alex McKay had a Beretta and Jake Dean was standing behind
them. She couldn’t see what he was holding, but she was sure he was armed to the teeth.
    Not that he needed it. Any one of