Wildfire (Fire 3)

“On the island?” Mal asked. “How could someone get here without you knowing?”

“Oh, he was someone I knew. One of my bodyguards, if you must know; a man I trusted with my life and my wife. Fortunately he was a piss-poor shot when rattled, and his bullet hit Sophie. Or unfortunately,” he added quickly.

Archer’s honesty would go only so far. The devoted husband act was just that, an act, and Mal wondered if Sophie realized it. She’d seemed so taken with Archer, as most women were, dazzled by his good looks and easy charm. Though there was that brief look in her dark brown eyes while Archer was chewing on her neck that suggested something more than tacit acceptance, and Malcolm was a man who never accepted anything on face value.

“What happened to the shooter?” Mal said.

“What do you think?”

Mal didn’t bother to consider it. Given what he knew of Archer, he decided there was a good chance the bullet had always been meant for the bride, probably to kill her. Archer would have gotten rid of the shooter because he bungled the job.

But if he wanted her dead, why was she still here, albeit in a wheelchair? Maybe Archer liked having her under his thumb.

“Is she going to recover?” Mal kept his voice casual. In truth, he didn’t care, he just needed to have as much information as possible. She’d looked healthy enough as she snuggled on the sofa with her husband, but looks could be deceiving. He needed to identify and catalog everyone on the island if he was going to do his job and get away safely.

As for Sophie, he had three choices. He could kill her, leave her on the island to fend for herself, or take her with him when he left. She’d lost any claim to the protection of the Committee when she’d betrayed them all by falling in love with Archer MacDonald, and his bosses were agreed that the choice was up to him. There were mitigating circumstances, of course. She’d been too green to be entrusted with a mission like that, but the Committee had a history of harsh retribution. The fact that he hadn’t been ordered to kill her was as close as they came to mercy.

He didn’t give a damn one way or the other. He could wait to see how things unfolded. If she was still in love with MacDonald then he’d leave her if he could, kill her if he had to. If he found she could help him, if she was willing, then he’d consider getting her off the island. She had a certain skill set—or she had at one point—and those didn’t come easily. She’d hardly be welcomed back into the fold of the Committee, but there was always the possibility that the American branch might be willing to give her a chance.

“Recover?” Archer echoed absently, and then he quickly plastered a sorrowful expression on his too-handsome face. “Tragically, she won’t. She’ll never walk again. I brought in the best specialists, but they all said it was hopeless.”

Mal didn’t bother trying to look mournful. “It must be difficult,” he said in a bored voice. “Why don’t you just get rid of her?”

Archer didn’t pretend to look shocked. They both knew who they were, what they were capable of. “Oh, I couldn’t do that. In sickness and in health and all that.”

Mal had no trouble hiding the disgust he felt for the lying hypocrite. He was a professional. “Very noble.”

“Oh, she can be quite entertaining. She does everything I tell her to. She’s quite desperate to please me.” Archer leaned forward. “As a matter of fact, you and she share something in common.”

“Do we?”

“My wife was once a member of the same organization you used to belong to,” Archer said casually, his blue eyes guileless as he dropped his bombshell.

It took all Mal’s skill not to react. “Really? It’s not very many people who leave the Committee and survive. I never heard of her while I was there.”

“No, you probably didn’t. They sent her to kill me and instead we fell in love.”

“Are you sure she was Committee? How did you find out?” Mal asked, wary. Everything Archer said to him was probably some sort of test.

Archer shrugged. “I have my methods.”

“And how did she get past those methods?” he said casually.

“We were in love,” Archer said simply, a bright smile on his face. “It makes even a genius stupid. You can’t imagine what it was like to have those gorgeous brown eyes shining up at you, full of love.”

For a moment Mal pictured it, and he felt an uncomfortable hitch inside. He didn’t want anyone staring up at him with love—he didn’t believe in it. But Sophie’s brown eyes could test even the most stalwart resolution.

“We were in love.” Mal didn’t miss the past tense. Clearly Archer included himself in the category of genius, and Mal wasn’t about to dispute it. Archer was shallow, venal, obsessed with himself, but it took a fair amount of brains to commit atrocities on an international scale and never get caught.

He said nothing. Archer was telling him all this for a reason, but he couldn’t be certain why. Maybe he didn’t swallow the story that Malcolm was former Committee. “Interesting,” he said mildly enough. “How long ago did she work for my previous employers?”

“Three years, give or take.”

“After my time. I got out long ago,” he said. “So why is she still here?”

“I told you. I enjoy keeping her around.”

He wasn’t going to say anything more, so Mal changed the subject. “In the meantime, I’m here to talk about . . .”