No Strings Attached

Chapter Twenty Five

“You can reign in this bullshit right now,” Nate pulled out the back of Clarke’s chair until he was facing him, “If you know something, you spit it right out on this table. If not, you shut the fuck up and listen to what we’re saying.”

With a smirk, and calm as a cucumber, Clarke turned his head to spit on the dining table, and Nate grunted in disgust just seconds before Clarke opened his mouth.

“She’s Russian descent,” Clarke said quietly, “I’ve seen her picture so many times it’s ingrained in my head – except she’s younger in all of them, by about ten years, and her hair is copper, not blonde. I don’t know who she is exactly, or why they want to find her so fucking badly that they’re offering up to eight mill for a contact. Her name’s not Sophie, and your checks don’t mean shit. She’s connected.”

“It’s not a random take,” Jay said grimly, “Clara was a decoy.”

How many more layers of shit was going to fall into this? Sophie was a kind, sweet girl with an incredibly sick mother, and five children still living at home. If she was connected, his guess was that she was fleeing. That was probably the connection between Sebastienne and the Russians – he’d clicked onto the first name he could think of to report his new bounty, and waited for Dobrev to come to him.  

Fuck.

“Nate,” a small, shaking disembodied voice came from the hallway, and he quickly snapped to attention, “Give him the MO,” he barked quickly at Jayden, before growling round at Clarke, “And just. Fucking. Listen.”

Sprinting from the room, he found her on the corner of the bed wearing nothing but a fluffy white towel – her hair hanging damp and tousled around her desolate, beautiful face.

“Babe?” he asked softly, stepping closer to her slowly, his hand moving to take her iPhone out of her clenched hands, “What is it?”

His own hands froze when he saw a picture of the two of them coming into his apartment in Manchester. He swiped across the screen; more followed – the two of them eating dinner, watching movies – there was even one of the two of them kissing in his car on the side of the road on their way back just two nights ago.

“Safe to say he probably knows where I am now,” she said grimly, “It’s just a matter of time, isn’t it?”

“Fuck that!” he spat angrily, chills racing over him as he felt the walls closing in around them. Pulling her body against his, he leant to her ear, “He’s not getting anywhere near you, I promise.”

“What if you can’t follow through on that?” she whispered shakily, tears brimming on her long lashes.

“I will. Get dressed.”

He silenced her protests with a long kiss, drawing the sadness out of her – if only for a moment – with the tender touch of his lips on hers. “Go on babe, and we’ll work something out ...” he whispered against her.

“Like what?”

“Something,” he muttered, rising to his feet.