Kim Baldwin - The Gemini Deception

“Oh, please. I bet you’re just as demanding for quality in your women as you are for your wines.” Thomas got up. “A simple house brand can be pretty damn good, too.”

Shield stood as well. “That’s very true.”

“Then maybe you should get off that high horse of yours and try it.”

“You don’t know me well enough to assume you know anything about me.” Shield was getting irritated with Thomas’s accusations.

“Then why don’t you tell me what it is about powerful women that does it for you?”

“That depends on your definition.” Shield struggled to keep her voice low. “If by power you mean I need a president or whoever with a title to get turned on, then you’re very mistaken.”

“What’s your definition?” Thomas asked.

“I like women who know what they want and fight for it. I like survivors—someone who’s not afraid of falling because they know they can get back up.”

The president stood a foot away, her head tilted to the side, staring at her. “What else?”

“Someone I can count on to stick with me when I fail, show me they love me, want me, and not just wait by the sidelines for me to comfort them for my failures because for some obscene reason their pain is way more important than mine.” Shield exhaled a long breath. “In other words, I don’t want powerful women. I want one strong one.” She raised her hands. “Okay? Satisfied?”

Without warning, Thomas closed the distance between them and placed her hands on Shield’s shoulders. On her tiptoes, she gave Shield a soft, almost shy kiss on the lips, then turned around and walked to the adjoining door.

Shield, in disbelief, remained rooted where she was.

“I’m not powerful,” Thomas said without turning around. “But you have no idea just how strong I am or how much I have to fight to survive.” Then she was gone.

Shield didn’t realize she’d licked her lips until the aftertaste hit her senses—wine, with a hint of Thomas’s own sweet flavor.

The situation between them was getting more absurd by the day.

How could Thomas feel such distress concerning Shield’s opinion of her and show absolutely zero sentiment about her husband’s death or the attack?

Shield had witnessed plenty of people in post-death and danger shock and denial, but no matter how strong they acted, she could always see the truth in their eyes. That was where grief could not be hidden or denied. Thomas, however, was so far removed from any emotion she hadn’t even asked why Shield had gone to her husband’s golf club. Come to think of it, Thomas had never shown any distress in regard to anyone, other than Moore.

Then again, she also didn’t seem emotionally inept. On the contrary, the president was a passionate woman, capable of deep sadness. Shield couldn’t remember a moment when Thomas hadn’t had to force a smile, except for the times they were alone.

A dirty political game was going on, but one of the players didn’t fit the profile.

Chapter Twenty-three

Houston, Texas

Jack sat in a comfortable leather armchair that faced away from the massive windows dominating one wall of the spacious apartment. It wasn’t like she could have admired the view, anyway. Retractable, locking window screens blocked any possibility she might be able to recognize where she was, but the amenities of her surroundings were a world away from those of her last captive environment.

The owner had an impressive bankroll and an appreciation for unparalleled excellence in all things. The floor looked like it was Italian marble, the rugs priceless Arabian antiquities, the furniture handcrafted of leather and expensive woods.

The most impressive features were the art and artifacts all around, which looked like originals as far as she could tell. Oil paintings in elaborate frames adorned the walls, and custom glass display cases held a variety of masks, tapestries, coins, and other ancient relics. More glass cases, custom designed with their own ornate stands, had been built to display the heavier and larger objects, which included sculptures, a full suit of armor, and what looked like pieces of an ancient Greek column and Egyptian obelisk.

The opulent apartment was tomb quiet and obsessively immaculate, like no one lived there, as though it had been hermetically sealed away from the likely urban landscape outside.

When they’d come to get her from the white room, they’d finally let Jack use the bathroom and had given her water and a couple of ibuprofen. They’d also returned her clothes and watch, but not her Glock and cell phone. Then they’d blindfolded her and placed her in an elevator that immediately started to ascend when the door shut. After she’d been transferred into a vehicle, they’d injected her with something to knock her out, and she’d awakened here, in the chair, without restraints.

She leaned her head back and shut her eyes, grateful for the dim lighting. Her headache hadn’t completely disappeared, but the painkillers they’d given her were the biggest gift she’d ever received.

Though Jack heard the door open and shut again, she kept her eyes closed. “Evening.” No one answered, but she still didn’t move. “What, no greeting?”

“Proper manners command you look at someone when you greet them.” The now-familiar icy voice rebuked her.

“They also dictate you don’t kill.”

“I have never personally killed anyone.”

“‘Personally’ being the key word.” Jack rubbed her eyes. “Anyway, I was talking about me. Funny how you didn’t seem to have a problem with my savoir-vivre when you asked me to off that guy.”

“And how instinctively and easily you did it.”

Jack lifted her head and opened her eyes. Her captor, dressed in an elegant cerulean-blue business suit, faced her from ten feet away. “I’m flattered you think so.”

TQ was and was not what Jack had anticipated. She hadn’t expected the cold bitch to be a very attractive middle-aged woman. What she had expected were the cold, almost dead eyes and demonic smile. Jack smiled back. “So, who did I kill?” she asked as though she didn’t know.

“Someone who owed me.”

“Money?”

“Don’t be silly. Why guarantee any kind of financial loss, or otherwise, by killing someone who owes me? It’s wiser to keep them alive and suffering one way or another, until they pay or deliver.”

“He disappointed you.”

“And that, Jack, is inexcusable.”

“How?”

“He molested a donor.”

“Involuntary donor.”

“I don’t believe in discrimination.”

“Why would you care if the donor was molested? I mean, an organ is an organ.”

“An organ is a profitable organ when the donor isn’t dead longer than two hours.”

“What took him so long?”

“The donor died during the molestation.”

“You mean because of it.” Jack regretted not having shot that piece of shit a third time. She’d recognized the tattoo on his thigh—BJC: a club of pedophiles that kidnapped or bought young kids for sex and then disposed of them. She’d first seen the insignia years earlier, when some Czech hired her to go after the guy who’d killed his brother in a private nightclub. The killer bore a BJC tattoo, and her search for him put her into the filthiest, most disgusting possible company of men. If she thought she’d have had even one chance in a million to survive, she would have killed them all.

TQ waved her comment away. “Either way, my employee didn’t have the dignity to stop and prioritize, so he continued with whatever he was doing until it was too late.” In other words, he continued to rape the victim after they were dead.

“I see,” Jack said.