Dani
A spy?
Lord help me, I’d never thought of Marcus as delusional, but what he’d just uttered made no sense.
“What do you mean?” I asked hesitantly.
He answered calmly. “I mean that I work with the US government to gather intel from all of the countries I visit. I have a network of contacts, and I get whatever information I can to protect our national security.”
“Intel is CIA stuff,” I answered, still wondering where he was going with this conversation.
“Technically, I’m not on the CIA payroll. I’m a special agent because I chose to be.”
My mind flashed back to every location where I’d seen Marcus in the past. It had occurred to me so many times that he didn’t need to put himself in harm’s way, but he was in every hot spot in the world.
Sweet Jesus! Could what he was saying really be true? “H-how?” I stammered, still unable to reconcile Marcus the businessman with Marcus as some kind of James Bond. Not that the CIA really worked like the movie portrayals, but still…
He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I mostly just gather intelligence, and I’ve never really been suspect because I travel the world for business.”
“Marcus, you do it in foreign countries where you could be killed by anybody who finds out you’re sharing their information,” I said, astonished that a man as rich as Marcus would put his butt on the line like that.
“I don’t generally broadcast what I’m doing,” he answered drily.
“It’s dangerous,” I protested. “Who do you have for backup?”
“No one. I answer only to the top government officials. Nobody else knows.”
“What does your family think about these extracurricular activities? Have you told them that you’re going all James Bond while you’re traveling overseas?”
He released a masculine sigh. “First of all, special agents don’t go James Bond. Sometimes it’s actually rather boring.”
“Do you carry a gun?” I challenged.
“Of course. But a lot of people do.”
“Marcus, don’t bullshit me. Poking around in some third world countries could get you murdered.”
“Being a foreign correspondent can be just as bad. If I remember correctly, I did pull your gorgeous ass out of a rather ugly situation.”
He had me there. My job had put me too close to the front lines at times. “I was doing it for a cause. People need to know what’s happening in the world.”
“And I do what I do for my country. I hate politics, and I don’t like being involved in DC bullshit. That’s why my help is kept low profile. I wouldn’t last ten minutes doing Blake’s job as a senator. Right now, country doesn’t come before party for most of the DC crowd. It’s all about money. I’d put my fist in somebody’s face if I had to spend very long in Washington.”
I tried not to smile because we were talking about something dead serious, but I could see Marcus losing his patience in one hell of a hurry on the hill. He didn’t have the personality for that scene.
“You never answered my question about your family. Have they always known? How long have you been an agent?” I questioned, wanting to know everything at once. Honestly, I was still dumbstruck from his revelations. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Marcus had the balls for that kind of work, but it was a part of him I’d never seen before, and I was fascinated.
“They didn’t know until recently. I had to tell them when one of my investigations got a little too close to home.”
I listened closely as he told me about how his brother, Tate, and a female FBI agent had gotten inadvertently involved in an arms smuggling deal.
“So Tate ended up married to the FBI agent?” I queried when he was done with his story. I hadn’t been back to Colorado in years, so I had no idea what the Colters were doing. Jett occasionally talked about Marcus, but other than a brief mention of the family by my brother, I was in the dark.
“Yeah. I was glad he met Lara. She’s good for him, but I’ve never forgiven myself for nearly getting both of them killed. From that moment on, I never did anything that could even remotely endanger anyone in my family. If I can’t deal with the situation completely out of the country, I don’t get involved. I felt like I owed it to my family to let them know what I was doing.”
“Don’t they worry?”
“All the fucking time,” he answered in a disgruntled voice. “My mother is terrified somebody will kill me every time I leave.”
“Can you blame her? She loves you.”
“Tate was Special Forces. That was a hell of a lot more dangerous than what I do.”
“Had I known what you and Jett were doing with PRO, I would have been anxious every time you left,” I told him honestly.
My brother had kept his involvement with PRO a secret until the mission where he was injured and the group shut down. Had I known they were sneaking into dangerous territory to rescue political prisoners, I know both Harper and I would have been worried sick.
Now, Marcus’s forming of PRO in the first place made sense. He’d obviously learned his covert operation skills from years of spying on other countries.
“We saved lives,” he stated. “But I doubt I’ll ever stop feeling guilty about Jett’s injuries. He’s the only one who will probably never fully recover. He’ll always carry the scars.”
I saw the tension in his expression and reached out to smooth out the lines on his face. “Don’t. You can’t change what’s already done. It was an accident. He’s alive. It was nobody’s fault, Marcus. You did save lives, and Jett told me he’d do it all over again.”
He caught my hand in his and lowered our conjoined hands to his thigh. “He told me the same thing several times. But he lost everything that meant something to him.”
“He lost Lisette, and it was the best thing that could happen. She didn’t love him. He would have ended up miserable.”
“Yeah. And I hear she’s in trouble anyway. Something about some kind of tax fraud,” he mentioned casually.
I shot him a curious look. “Tax fraud? How would you know that? Do you know her?”
“Nope. Never met her. But I do have a friend at the IRS. Seems she’s been a little less than honest about paying her taxes.”
“You got her in trouble?” I asked incredulously.
“Absolutely not. She’s the one who didn’t pay her taxes. It must be tough now that she’s cut off from Jett’s money.”
It struck me as funny that Marcus could share that information without ever tipping his hand. If I didn’t know he’d instigated the investigation on Lisette, I’d swear he was completely innocent. “You’re bad,” I told him, secretly happy that the woman who had dumped my brother so heartlessly was now in a mess of trouble. “Honestly, I’m glad she’s paying in some way for what she did to Jett.”
“Oh, she’s going to be paying,” Marcus remarked casually.
Just the fact that he’d tried to avenge Jett was pretty damn awesome. I’d never seen that side of Marcus. Really, I hadn’t ever known him at all. His arrogance annoyed me at times, but if he was spying on foreign countries, he had to have balls of steel. “Thank you,” I said softly.
“Jett is my friend,” he stated simply. “And now we need to stop talking about me and get back to this issue with Becker.”
“I can’t give up, Marcus. And it isn’t all about a scoop. Becker has to be stopped for many reasons.” People like Ruby and everyone Greg was putting in danger needed somebody to fight for them. If I could help put him away, I was going to do it.
“He’s been on our radar for a long time. But without solid evidence, there isn’t much we can do. He’s a slippery bastard,” Marcus grumbled.
“He’s paranoid,” I agreed. “He’s anal about covering all his bases.”
“What’s your plan?” he asked unhappily.
“I’m going to have access to his house next Friday. He wants me to meet him there in the evening. Somehow I have to get into his home office. I think that’s where he keeps his records of his nonbusiness transactions. If I can get those, they can be tracked and confirmed pretty quickly.”
Marcus took the ice pack I’d let slide away from my face and held it gently back on my cheek. “This is all crazy. You know that, right? Becker is an international criminal and has never hesitated to eliminate anybody who gets in his way.”
I nodded. “I learned that the hard way.”
“Christ! I hate this, Dani. I hate you getting involved with him. I hate the fact that you put yourself in danger. I hate that the fucker actually hit you, and I can’t kill him for that. Just the fact that he’s touched you in any way makes me insane,” he finished with a growl.
My heart was pounding against my chest wall, the intense look on Marcus’s face reminding me of our earlier encounter. “Then help me,” I pleaded, knowing I could use his expertise. I was in over my head, and I was smart enough to know it. I didn’t want to get him involved, but I knew it was the only way he wouldn’t sabotage my efforts.
“I’m going to do more than help you. I’m going to be your partner. And if you do a single thing that I don’t agree with, you’re out of there,” he demanded.
“Okay,” I murmured, willing to agree to his terms. I had no doubt he could execute a plan better than I could.
“You should still be recovering, not putting yourself into another bad situation,” he muttered irritably.
I gave him a weak smile. “I guess I’ve never been good at being idle.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t get hurt, and then I’ll insist on you taking some downtime. It hasn’t been that long since you nearly died, Danica. You need to take some time off, whether you want to or not. You can find something a hell of a lot less dangerous to do.”
Not staying busy did nothing but remind me how much I’d isolated myself. Before, I’d spent so much time chasing stories that I never really thought about how alone I felt. Sure, I had great siblings, but they were all busy with their own lives. “Time off gets lonely,” I admitted before I could stop myself.
Marcus’s arm snaked around my waist, and he pulled me against his very solid, warm body. “You’re not alone anymore, Dani,” he stated in a husky voice.
I absorbed his warmth, soaking it up like a sponge. Honestly, maybe the reason Marcus and I had fought so much in the past was because we were both so much alike in some ways. We were both independent, and we’d spent our whole adult lives traveling by ourselves. Neither of us had ever had somebody to lean on or talk to about how we felt. Both of us had put emotion aside like it wasn’t important.
The problem was, I couldn’t ignore how I was feeling anymore.
I laid my head against his shoulder and breathed in his masculine scent, feeling like I wasn’t really alone. At least for a little while.