Oh. That was right. These people were scary rich. And the IPT was in dire need of capital.
Leland grabbed Justice by the forearm. “That’s our cue, Justice. Let’s leave them to the details.”
He guided Justice out of the room. Sandesh watched them go with growing concern. This was the woman who was supposed to do PR for him in the Middle East. Didn’t that job require tact? Seriously. She was going to get him killed.
Chapter 5
Sunlight streamed in from the large wall of windows. The entire conference room gleamed with light and the hum of business. As if everyone who came through those glass doors, sat in these leather swivel chairs, and rested arms on this table shared a drive toward financial success.
Justice twisted her chair back and forth. Leland hadn’t answered any of her questions. Just deposited her here and exited discreetly. Man did everything discreetly. He was probably a stealth pooper.
The door to the conference room swung open. Momma came into the room with a billow of veils, a jingle of jewelry, and a whiff of Une Rose—a heady Turkish-rose-meets-Tennessee-mountain-soil.
“I’m sure you’ve realized that I have provided a cover for your Jordan trip.”
For a woman who hid her face, Momma was incredibly direct. “Yeah. I noticed the hot humanitarian in your office. Kind of big to miss.”
“And I can imagine you are wondering why I’d send your team an email stating there would be a delay when I am providing the cover. A cover that will put you in Jordan within the week.”
The week? “Yeah. Why?”
Momma let out a breath so heavy it seemed expelled from the nethermost regions of her soul. The rose niqab moved with her breath. “I need to tell you something, something painful.”
Justice nodded. Her heart had already begun to fence with her ribs.
“I believe we have a traitor among us.”
“Us? The League, us?” Justice’s blood plummeted below cold, past chilled, down to Arctic. She shivered. “No. You’re jumping at shadows.”
Momma toyed with the ten or so colorful bracelets weighing down her forearm. “Am I, Justice? I’ve managed to keep this organization a secret for forty years. And my instinct tells me the fact that the Brothers Grim changed the location of their meeting, to a place where we have few resources, is not mere coincidence.”
A jagged spike of unease punched through Justice’s stomach. “Someone in internal security? Someone hired. Not family.”
Momma looked through the glass toward Leland. Justice followed her gaze. Leland and Sandesh stood by the front desk, going over some papers.
As head of the League’s tactical security and Momma’s oldest friend, Leland knew more about Momma and her secrets than any person alive. Justice often wondered about their relationship. It was close, but it couldn’t be intimate. Not Momma. Never that.
Momma shook her head. “Internal has been cleared. And besides, the information on your mission was given to a limited few.”
A limited few? Besides Leland and a few in internal, it had been given to…her unit. Justice’s hand shook. She rested it atop her knee. Momma suspected her unit?
In numbers, the Parish family could give the reality TV Duggars a run for their money. Except, all twenty-eight of her siblings had been adopted. She was loyal to them all. But it was her unit, those four she’d trained with, played with, fought with, attended classes with at the Mantua Academy that she was closest to—Tony, Dada, Gracie, and Bridget.
“How can you even think that?” How could Momma? No. She’d escaped people like that. People like her father, who’d let the Brothers Grim, Walid and Aamir, hurt Hope. The League was good. Honest. Real. They knew how much this mission meant to her.
Her mother’s eyes softened. “It was destined to happen, Justice. When dealing with the injured, the group dynamic won’t always supersede the instinct for self-preservation.”
That was bullshit. Not her unit. Not hers. “Why?” Not for money. They had plenty. “Why would someone do it?”
“Perhaps money. Not everyone is comfortable working within the League, being paid by Parish Industries.”
She was talking about Gracie.
Her mother looked beyond her, outside the window to the city. “I can think of many other reasons. To stop the League, to cripple us, to protect you, to make a point known only to them.”
“Protect me?” Her unit knew that this was her chance to make it up to Hope. For letting her die. For letting Hope die in Justice’s place.
“Many of my children have tragic pasts. A broken mind is a mind in turmoil. You can’t excise all those demons.”
“No. No. So you think Tony? Never.”
“He is angry, Justice. He accused the League of reverse sexism.”
What? When? Justice shook her head. That was bullshit. And the others? “You can’t think Bridget would? She’s practically a saint.”
Momma’s patient, brown eyes evaluated her. She could almost see her survey the texture of her words. Momma was careful like that. “Being a Buddhist doesn’t make you a saint. If anything, her recent foray into pacifism might lead her to try and thwart our more aggressive goals.”
“Gracie? She runs the underground rail—”
“She’s still angry about John—”
“And Dada’s—”
“No one from your unit can be ruled out.”
No one? What the hell? “So what, I have to replan this entire mission, in a few days, and keep it secret from my four closest siblings?”
“I have all the information you need. The false identities the Brothers are using. Where they are staying. The layout of their hotel suite. And a tentative plan waiting your approval. Including a PR convention in Houston your siblings will think you’re attending.”
Ice needles prickled under her skin. She wasn’t kidding. “You’re wrong. They wouldn’t betray me. Us. The League. Isn’t it more likely that my fuc—uh, mess-up last week alerted the Brothers? Made them cautious.”
Momma shifted forward, met her eyes. “Maybe. But are you willing to stake your life and the freedom of thousands of women on that?”
No. She wasn’t. This mission was too important to her. She needed to stop anyone else from being hurt. And the Brothers Grim needed to pay for what they’d done to Hope. And for what they’d done to Cee. Justice let out a breath. “And you’re okay using Sandesh?”
“He needs money. We need a cover. It’s win-win.”
Sure except for the part where Momma usurped his peace-loving purpose by secretly bending it to support her covert group of global vigilantes.
“Send me the details.”
Chapter 6
Sandesh stepped inside the elevator and pressed the Lobby button. The doors began to slide closed. A sultry voice called, “Hold the elevator.”
That voice was unmistakable. He tapped the Hold button. Justice entered. Her body electrified the empty space between them. His heart decided he needed more blood flow and kicked into high gear.
God, she smelled good. Something soft and feminine, like a bath filled with milk and lavender.
He so didn’t need this. He still smarted over their conversation in her mother’s office. He tensed, waited for her to continue the jousting. She didn’t. Her eyes brushed over him as if distracted. Was this a game? Or was she worried about something? Their upcoming trip to Jordan?
“Are you okay?” She stared blankly at him. He repeated himself. “Justice, are you okay?”
She startled, came back from wherever she’d been in her thoughts, and winked at him. “Better than okay. Care to find out? The Ritz isn’t too far.”
Her glossy, dark eyes skimmed over him like he was the meal, and damn if it didn’t shoot him full of hormones. But that open invitation to fuck got right under his skin, and not in a good way.
Not all
in a bad way either, but he was ignoring that part—the part of his body swelling with heat.
He wanted her. That was obvious. But what she’d said about the IPT, her derision of the work he’d been organizing for years. Work he found worthwhile, even redeeming, really got on his nerves.
Worse, she’d been so casual about it. She’d first made every nerve in his body light on fire and then put down his work and practically accused him, and all men, of having no more feelings than fight or fuck. And to drive home the point, now she invited him to the nearest hotel.
“Justice, I think we should work on the business aspects of this interaction. There are a lot of details we need to work out first.”
Her eyebrows rose. Smooth, Sandesh. He’d sounded like he was only putting things on hold. That’s what happened with lack of blood flow to the brain.
The elevator dinged again and the doors slid open. A woman in a sleek, dark suit holding a thick, buckled briefcase stepped inside. She pressed the elevator keypad. He stepped past her and out.
Justice’s eyebrows rose. “We’re not on the ground floor.”