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“Those books belong to me. You had no right to auction them off.”
“Maybe if you cared more about your family than some musty old books, none of us would be standing here,” Spencer snarled, staring daggers at her father. “But I guess you don’t care about anyone but yourself, do you, Williams?”
“If you all could dial down the testosterone, that would be marvelous.” Shoulders squared, Toni moved to her father’s side, more to protect him than herself. Spencer and the rest of his team glared holes through her, but she stood firm. “I’m sorry about the books, Dad, but I needed to see you, and you never answered any of my calls or messages. I thought this would be the best way to flush you out.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Coran bit out the words, his voice sharp as a razor. “And what the hell are you doing with these criminals? They’re blacklisted, for Christ’s sake, Toni.”
Kyle stepped forward and took her father’s arm. “Much as I’d like to end you right now, I’m taking you into custody instead.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Coran struggled as Kyle slapped a pair of handcuffs on him. “You can’t arrest me. You don’t have that kind of authority.”
“I think you’ll find I do.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from his suit jacket pocket and held them before Coran’s face. “This gives me all the authority I need.”
“Commander Brighton? He authorized you to have me brought in for suspected terrorist activity?” Coran pulled against his restraints as a small crowd formed around their group. Gage and Scotty moved closer, each clapping a hand on her father’s shoulders while Spencer remained by Toni’s side. “I’m not a goddamned terrorist. I will have that cowardly bastard stripped of his command for this!”
Kyle continued to secure her father as if they weren’t causing a massive scene in the middle of the expensive hotel. “As for you being a terrorist, the hidden files we discovered on your donated e-readers say differently. Our cyber expert found all sorts of top-secret codes and coordinates. Not to mention the messages to Arrieta and his rebels.”
Toni took a deep breath and faced her father. “Dad, is what they’re saying true? Areyoureally responsible for all of that?” She couldn’t deny that the files provedsomeonewas guilty, but could they be sure it was her father and not someone working for his publishing house or the manufacturer of the e-readers?
“Believe me, it’s true.” Kyle leaned forward, getting nose to nose with Coran. “What the hell did you think you were going to accomplish? Start another world war, Mr. Williams? Or should I call you SHEEPSKIN?”
Her father blanched, and Toni’s heart sank. It was true. It was all true. Her knees threatened to buckle. Thank God Spencer slipped his arm around her waist to steady her, or she would’ve crumpled to the ground in a heap.
“I want my attorney,” her father yelled.
Scotty jerked Coran’s arm, making the older man wince. “You’re a traitor, aren’t you?”
“No. I’d never betray my country. Never. I was trying to help. We must win the war on terror, no matter the cost.” He looked to Toni, his gaze pleading. “Call my attorney, please, Toni. Tell him what’s happened. He’ll get me out of this—the world will understand that I did what I had to do.”
“Do you really think you can end terrorism by creating more terror?” Toni’s dazed mind was still stuck on the attack on the village school. All those young lives lost, lives she’d wanted to enrich and help with her foundation. “I was trying to do some good in the world, Dad. Why would you twist that? Why?”
“You don’t understand. In the pursuit of the good, sometimes bad things are required.”
“Get him out of here,” Kyle ordered.
Gage and Scotty led Coran away. Kyle murmured his thanks to her, then pulled his phone from his pocket and followed his men and their quarry out of the ballroom.
Toni watched them go, still too stunned to really process what was happening. People milled around her, whispering about what they’d just witnessed.
“Hey, you okay?” Spencer rubbed her chilled arms briskly. The action helped, a little.
She shook her head. “No,” she admitted, too wounded to even try to put on a brave front. “But maybe in a day or two when it all sinks in, I’ll be glad that I finally got some answers.”
“Yeah,” he said, fidgeting as if he didn’t know what to do with himself.
“What happens to you now?” she asked. “To your team, I mean. You’ll bring my dad in and try to get some answers from him…and then?”
He sighed. “And then we figure out what comes next. We can’t stop, not until we know for sure who killed Nick. Stopping SHEEPSKIN is important, but it’s not our main goal.”
“And…that goal’s not here,” she realized, suddenly shaky on her feet. “You need to go, don’t you?”
“Go?” he repeated, frowning. “You mean to check in with the team? That can wait until we’ve gotten back to the suite for the night.”
“No,” she said, her stomach sinking, “I meango. This bodyguard gig was never meant to be a permanent job for you, right? You wanted it so you could find my father. Now you’ve got him—so you need to go. Back to the US, or wherever the investigation takes you next.”
Spencer looked shocked—not to mention offended. “And justleaveyou here, unprotected? Absolutely not.”
Toni shook her head. “If you stay with me, you’re leaving your team without you there to watch their backs. Aren’t they going to be in more danger than me, transporting my dad back to the States? It wouldn’t surprise me if Arrieta tried to get some shots in along the way.”
