The Spy

  Gentlemen Rogues 5

  Nana Malone

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Gabe

  Chapter 2

  Gabe

  Chapter 3

  Tabatha

  Chapter 4

  Tabatha

  Chapter 5

  Gabe

  Chapter 6

  Gabe

  Chapter 7

  Tabatha

  Chapter 8

  Gabe

  Chapter 9

  Gabe

  Chapter 10

  Gabe

  Chapter 11

  Tabatha

  Chapter 12

  Tabatha

  Chapter 13

  Tabatha

  Chapter 14

  Tabatha

  Chapter 15

  Tabatha

  Chapter 16

  Tabatha

  Chapter 17

  Tabatha

  Chapter 18

  Tabatha

  Chapter 19

  Gabe

  Chapter 20

  Gabe

  Chapter 21

  Gabe

  Chapter 22

  Tabatha

  Chapter 23

  Tabatha

  Chapter 24

  Tabatha

  Chapter 25

  Tabatha

  Chapter 26

  Tabatha

  Chapter 27

  Tabatha

  Chapter 28

  Tabatha

  Chapter 29

  Tabatha

  Chapter 30

  Tabatha

  Chapter 31

  Gabe

  Chapter 32

  Tabatha

  Chapter 33

  Tabatha

  Chapter 34

  Gabe

  Chapter 35

  Gabe

  Chapter 36

  Tabatha

  Chapter 37

  Tabatha

  Chapter 38

  Gabe

  Chapter 39

  Tabatha

  Chapter 40

  Tabatha

  Chapter 41

  Tabatha

  Chapter 42

  Tabatha

  Chapter 43

  Gabe

  Chapter 44

  Tabatha

  Chapter 45

  Gabe

  Chapter 46

  Tabatha

  Chapter 47

  Gabe

  Epilogue

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  About Nana Malone

  1

  Gabe

  It had been years since I’d been tortured.

  And make no mistake, torture was what this was.

  She was doing it on purpose. With her gaze on me, eye fucking me as she bloody danced with someone else, she made sure I felt every movement, every tick of her hips, every roll, every thrust.

  Combined with her laugh, her coy glance was designed for pain… mine specifically.

  The club was dim and crowded. It was the last place I would have ever voluntarily gone. But it was my sister's and Lachlan’s combined hen-and-stag do, so I was obligated to be there.

  I nursed a pint, glowering at the dance floor while the rest of my family, if you could call them that, were enjoying themselves.

  Lately the Rogues Division had been going hard mission after mission, but we had nothing on our plates for three solid days, which meant Saff and Lachlan could get married in peace.

  And God knew my sister deserved a little peace.

  The music changed to something familiar, a thrumming bass beat that had me bobbing my head a little bit as I took another sip of my beer, the bitter bite of alcohol attempting to shave off the burn of possession I felt every time I looked over at Tabatha.

  My sister was laughing, taking Lachlan's hand and dragging him onto the dance floor. The two of them were in love. Whatever the hell that meant. All I knew was that he looked at her like she hung the stars and the moon.

  But even as a reluctant smile sought purchase at the corner of my lips, my gaze kept going back to Tabatha.

  For six years I had done a good job of ignoring the pull. From the moment I had recruited her, there was something about her that made my chest tight and my skin itch. She just had this ability to worm her way under my skin.

  Maybe it was that constant sunny smile. Maybe it was her enduring enthusiasm for mischief. Maybe it was the way everyone effortlessly loved her. Not to say she was sweet, she wasn't. But she had a tough-love, motherly aura about her. She worked our recruits and trained like every day was going to be some kind of Bond or Bourne flick.

  But she had this way of knowing what every single one of them needed, whether they needed to be pushed or she needed to pull back. She paid attention and knew how to get the best out of them.

  Despite my best efforts, my eyes went right back to her.

  She was moving her hips in time to some Rihanna song, and then she turned around, gyrating her arse in my direct line of sight.

  Fuck. Me.

  I gulped down the rest of my beer and tried closing my eyes, squeezing them together, trying to erase the image, but it was no use. Now it was burned into my retinas. Tabatha's peach of an arse, gyrating, twerking, teasing me, and I couldn't bloody look away.

  Every roll and tick of her hips had me salivating. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  My cock, as usual when Tabatha was around, was happy to stand at attention, to greet and salute her as it were.

  "Down boy," I muttered under my breath.

  Of all the women in the world that I could have, she was not on that list.

  I watched as Tabatha's dance partner leaned in to whisper something in her ear. She nodded in response, and he briefly left her side to fetch a new drink for her.

  Oh, excellent. He was bringing her more to drink, the twat.

  Not your business.

  I should look away. I should let it go. But I wasn't going to.

  When he came back to the table, he was trying to hand her the drink, but she was too busy talking and laughing with Saff. He placed it on the table and then his hand hovered over it.

  I narrowed my gaze on his hand. What the hell was that?

  I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees only to watch the wanker stick his finger in her drink and swirl it around.

  Motherfucker. He’d put something in her drink. Casually, he stepped back, took his drink, and sipped it as he hovered around the girls.

  I was up and out of my seat in seconds. Rook and Saint were so busy with their women in their laps that they barely noticed me.

  I was down the stairs in seconds, taking them two at a time. When I reached the dance floor, the crowd was thick, and I scanned the moving bodies for Tabatha. When I found her again, she wasn't with Saffron and Lachlan, who were busy grinding on the dance floor. She was with loverboy, and they were heading toward the edge of the dance floor like they intended to leave. Had she ingested the drink?

  Fuck.

  I moved so fast that the crowd parted for me, and I reached them right before he moved her completely off the dance floor. The crush of people here was densely packed, but at least it gave me cover.

  Tabatha held her glass in her hand, and just as she brought it to her lips I deliberately bumped her from behind, causing her to spill it on the girl in front of her. I wedged one foot between lover boy’s feet, turning it ever so slightly and causing him to trip. Then I lowered my center of gravity and brought the side of my foot down on his knee. He howled, but the sound couldn't be heard over the music. The girl in front of Tabatha was screaming as Tabs held a hand up, apologizing. That gave me some room and time to deal with the fucktwat on the ground.

  I grabbed the back of his skull, brought his face to my knee easily, and kept moving forward. As he went down, his grip on Tabatha’s wrist loosened and I replaced it with mine. Once we reached the edge of the dance floor, I scooped her up, easily tossing her over my back.

  From the ground, her dance partner's expression turned furious, and I smirked at him. “Stay down.”

  "Gabe!" Tabatha screamed, pounding her fists against my back. "Put me down!"

  “Over my dead body. Like it or not, you’re leaving. It’ll be easier if you don’t fight me.”

  Tabatha

  I woke to a mouthful of sandpaper and an alarm blaring. I slapped it with enthusiasm, but nothing happened. Hell, I’d missed the alarm entirely. My aim was so off it forced me to peel open my eyelids to try and suss out where I'd put my stupid alarm clock.

  Except what greeted me was not the photo I kept next to my bed of me and my siblings, Kira and Riley, but a stark white lamp, Scandinavian in design. Also on the nightstand was a full glass of water and something in a brown bottle labeled drink me first. And oh, a bottle of paracetamol.

  I tried to lift my head, but the rampaging elephants inside it warned against that action. What the hell had happened last night? I squeezed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose as I tried to remember. I hadn't had that much to drink. I never did. I was a master at making two drinks look like four or five. You just sip all night, tell people you're headed to the bar, ask for a top up of soda water, and you can look like you're partying all night while completely keeping your wits about you.

  So why did I feel like dirt? I racked my brain, but all I could recall was Gabe’s angry look as he watched me from the balcony, his moss-green eyes piercing me with disapproval and annoyance.

  The alarm went off again, and I reached in the general direction of the sound. Whe
n I came in contact with my phone, I groaned and picked it up.

  “Hello,” I mumbled.

  “You mangy bitch! How dare you cancel my credit card?”

  The screaming sent a piercing pain through my left eyeball, and I lowered the volume.

  “Good morning to you too, Kira.” I rolled over and winced at the rare English sunlight streaming through the windows.

  Fuck me. This wasn't my bed. This bed was enormous. A king? California king? I hadn't gone home with anyone, had I? I tried to sit up again and my head spun. I wasn't at home at my flat in Mayfair. I wasn't in Saff and Lachlan's guest room. I wasn't even in my bungalow on the Rogues campus.

  My heart started to race, and panic threatened to flood my body. But I immediately dragged in a breath and tried to calm my mind. With a quick glance down at my clothes, I could see I was in a T-shirt and very baggy gray sweatpants, so at least I was clothed. But this was not what I had worn last night, so what the fuck happened to my clothing?

  As my brain tried to parse out the end events of Saff’s hen do, my sister continued on her tirade. “Why would you cancel my bloody card? I needed to book my flights to Ibiza today.”

  Okay, one problem at a time. I needed to get Kira off the phone so she would stop screaming and aggravating my headache. Then I could figure out where the fuck I was.

  I sighed and pushed up out of bed. “I didn't cancel your card.”

  “That's bullshit. It was declined just now when I tried to book my flights.”

  I sighed. I had a feeling I knew what the problem was. Unfortunately for me, it meant more yelling. “Kira, if you're trying to use the joint account for your tickets, there isn't any money in there. I just paid for Riley’s classes for next semester.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Why does Riley always get everything? All I wanted to do was go on holiday with my friends.”

  Dear God, Buddha, any one up there that might be listening, I'm begging you for strength. “Kira, the arrangement is that I help you pay rent, and I pay for Riley’s school. If you had chosen to go to school, I would foot that bill in full. But any trips and extras, you need to work for. With a job, you know?”

  “I do have a job, and I was going to pay it back. I was just going to borrow it until I get paid on Friday.”

  “In that case, you can wait until Friday to buy your tickets.”

  She was not going to let this go. She knew she was wrong, and I knew she knew she was wrong. But the way Kira’s brain worked meant if she could fight her way through it, she was going to. “Why do you always take Riley’s side?”

  This was my fault. I had bailed her out too many times. When she was short on rent, when she needed help with a car payment, when she was stranded in America and didn't have enough money to come home, I always bailed her out.

  Kira and Riley were my foster siblings from the last home I was in before I left for the UK. That house was my longest placement, and I'd always felt like Riley and Kira were my own brother and sister. I had done my best to look after them when I left. Maybe some of that was guilt because I'd escaped. I had left them behind, and I couldn't forgive myself for it.

  What was I supposed to do? They were my siblings.

  “I love you, Kira. But no. You'll have to sort out your ticket when you get paid.”

  I could almost hear her brain working, trying to find an angle. Trying to find some way around my refusal. “Okay, just lend me the money. I'll pay you on Friday. The tickets will be more expensive on Friday.”

  My head throbbed. “I'm sorry, love, but no.”

  Kira had this never-say-die attitude that I’d always admired and wished to God she would apply to something productive. “Well, if you don't give me the money, I'll use my rent money.”

  “Okay, you probably forgot that I pay your rent directly to your landlord now.”

  She shrieked into the line. “I hate you.”

  The line went dead, and too exhausted to cry, I just lay there. None of this was new. For the last three years, this had been the nature of our relationship. Family therapy had taught me that maybe I needed some separation from her, then after she learned some responsibility, she might thank me for being firm. But I had never been able to go no-contact. Kira and Riley were my only family, such as it was. All I wanted was to have a good relationship with them.

  Riley and I were close, but I knew he felt put in the middle with Kira. So as usual, I tried to mitigate that. I didn't want to make anything harder for him. I just wished to God that Kira would make my job easier and not harder.

  With Kira off the phone, I sat up and took in my surroundings. It wasn't until I glanced at a photo on the dresser across the room that I knew where I was.

  The photo in the room was of a smiling, light-brown-skinned couple, a ten-year-old Saff with a giant afro puff ponytail on her head, and a broad-shouldered but skinny Gabe. He was young in that photo. Fifteen, maybe sixteen? But he was already starting to grow into his looks. His barely-there smile already held a hint of mystery.

  I flopped back in bed and tried to take deep breaths. What the fuck was I doing here?

  Before I could ponder on what level of stupidity had brought me here, the door opened softly and in walked Gabe, shirtless and wearing workout shorts.

  He didn't even look toward the bed, but I drank all of him in. His skin was tanned from running shirtless in the woods at the edge of the property. I knew exactly the path he took every single day without fail at 5:00 a.m.

  He’d certainly filled out since that photo. He was well muscled but still lean, with every single muscle defined and on display, right down to the deep V that hinted more was just under his workout shorts.

  He marched back out of the closet toward the loo but then stopped short, his gaze snapping to mine. “Good, you're awake. I left a glass of water for you and a vitamin blend that will help with the hangover and dissipating some of the drugs in your system.”

  I blinked at him, unable to compute the words he muttered. “Drugs? I don't do drugs. You know that.”

  “I know. But your dance partner from last night apparently thought you might like some GHB. And he dosed you.”

  What the fuck? My brain tried desperately to grab onto anything tangible from last night, but I just couldn't. All I had were snippets of Saffron laughing, all of us having fun, me, Nissa, and Kaya shaking it on the dance floor, and Gabe staring at me.

  “I don't remember much. I can't really piece it together.”

  He nodded. “I figured as much. I saw him dose you and I carried you out.”

  “You carried me out?” What was he saying?

  He turned to face me then, giving me full view of that damn sculpted V. My gaze kept flickering to the waistband of his shorts. And maybe just a little bit lower as my mind tried to visualize some kind of imprint. My stupid luck, he probably had on a pair of boxer briefs underneath.

  “Yes, I carried you out. As soon as I saw it happen, I got you out of there. I texted Saff from your phone that you were exhausted and not feeling well and you'd see her today. I suggest you drink the B12 formula so that you can handle the wedding preparations. I saw the planner drive onto the property, so she'll be looking for you.”

  “I don't understand. You kidnapped me and brought me here to your room? Where did you sleep?” I'd stayed in the mansion lots of times. Saff and I would often crash out in her room watching movies and just hanging out, but I had never been in Gabe’s quarters.

  “I needed to keep an eye on you. As for where I slept.” He pointed at the too small couch and a sliver of guilt wormed its way into my heart. “And before you worry about lover boy being out in the wild, I made a call to the authorities. He was picked up and dealt with.”