Page 4 of Filthy Liar

I’ve narrowed my target to three vectors of interest. The French Ambassador, the principal secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada, and the newly exiled Belarusian opposition leader. Tracking their movements over the next week will show me the path that the world’s power brokers are setting us upon.

Which brings me back to the socialite.

A week after our drink at the Kennedy Center, I make sure she bumps into me at her favorite coffee shop, and now tonight—just like that, because pretty young socialites love danger and a warning is better than an endorsement—I’m a fill-in at her Friday night dinner party because someone else got food poisoning at the last second.

On the one hand, it’s not ethical to deliberately make someone sick. On the other, the loser I bumped off her guest list is a fucking asshole and I won’t lose sleep if he spends the night turning himself inside out into his toilet bowl while I listen to the tipsy ramblings of the French Ambassador’s very young wife—who just happens to be the socialite’s best friend.

That’s the plan, anyway.

But plans tend to go out the window when the rubber hits the road.

Also, I’m getting too fucking old for this.

Seven years ago, I lived for this shit, good or bad. It was all the same to me, a jaded ex-special forces operator who had lost his moral compass somewhere on a mountaintop in Afghanistan. I found it again a few years later. Well, it wasn’t mine, exactly. I’ve had to borrow one from Cole, who managed to re-grow his personal ethics when he fell in love in the most unlikely of places: right in the middle of the snake den.

Hailey Dashford Reid was the thorn in our side, the problem child who refused to play along as we—The Horus Group, Washington’s highest paid fixers—tried to rehabilitate her parents’ reputation. Cole fell head-over-heels for her, and now Hailey is also Mrs. Parker.

She remains a bit of a thorn in my side to this day, but it turns out she was right to refuse, and us cutting ties with a certain set meant we weren’t overly exposed when Amelia—her snake of a mother—was toppled.

Few people know that’s what happened, but then few people know anything about the truth of Amelia Dashford Reid’s life, her bizarre family relationships, her attachment to Gerome Lively, and the strings she was pulling in the most exclusive halls of power.

I don’t even know if I have the complete picture myself.

What I do know is that change is upon us. Seismic shifts on a geo-political level, and when the rumbling finally stops, everything will be radically different.

I intend to be standing on the rubble when it’s over. Everything that happened in the past is done, over. All that matters is what comes next, and who benefits from it.

But first, I have a dinner party to infiltrate. The French Ambassador is in my sights. Or rather, to start, his pretty young wife.

“Jason was a Navy SEAL, you know.”The hostess drops her hand to my forearm and squeeze. I flex against her touch and she giggles.

If I wanted to fuck her bareback tonight, I could. Jesus Christ, this was like taking candy from a baby.

And her friend, the ambassador’s wife, is no different. As soon as our hostess moves on to the next cluster of people, Camille leans in. “The special forces? The ones who catch all the bad guys?” Her smile widens. “We have such men in France as well, but we don’t make movies about them.”

From behind me, I hear a small snort of laughter, but when I turn my head to the side, I can’t see where it came from.

“That’s what I like the most about the French,” I murmur. “Your discretion.”

“I’m very discreet.” Her tongue slides daintily across the inner edge of the corner of her mouth. A subtle, non-verbal invitation. “You know, I have free time every so often. When my husband travels for work.”

Candy. From. A. Baby. “Any chance you might be free next weekend?”

“I’ll be all alone from Thursday evening until Monday.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” I wink at her and give her my card. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Camille.”

“And you.” She glances over her shoulder. “I should mingle, yes?”

“We both should.” I make it clear that I would rather be alone with her, but social duty calls.

As I move around the pool, I wonder who overheard that conversation. It doesn’t matter, really. If someone interferes, more the better. I have no intention of actually having an affair with Camille. She’s not my type. Too young, too absolutely unaware of op-sec.

My goal here tonight was threefold.

First, for my own reasons, I wanted confirmation that her husband would be out of Washington for those precise dates.

Pulling my out my phone, I text Wilson the update.

---