We stayed the night in Camilla’s mansion. I slept peacefully knowing that just that fact was probably driving her fucking crazy. It’s funny how I’ve always been so non-confrontational, but pissing that bitch off has brought such joy into my life.

I hate how she’d treated Kace, the things she’d told him, how the only reason she had him was to create her own army of perfect soldiers. It was bullshit! There must have been a part at some time that Camilla felt some kind of motherly feelings. I knew there was because if that part of Kace’s life had been absent, there was no way she could have hurt him this deeply.

We’re all gathered in the living room when Noah walks through the doors. “They’re here,” he says quietly before stepping to the side. I can feel the moment that the reality sinks in and everybody hardens. Masks are pulled into place and Kace releases my hand and he and Jack both stand.

I nervously rub my hands together, twisting and untwisting my fingers. The seconds seem to drag and as a line of five men and women enter the room, it seems as if the air is sucked out.

This is it, this is where shit could turn on its head. Kace has made it clear that this situation was not all cut and dry. For all we knew, Camilla had them in her web and if that was the case, we were about to be eaten alive. This moment could mean the difference between me seeing my family again, or the whole lot of us being done for treason against the Director of the Agency.

I know the reality, I know I could have run, hidden away, let Kace and his team deal with it. But I won’t. I had a part in this too, and these people—I’ve come to care about them. So if they went down, I’ll own my actions and fall beside them.

There are two women and three men. If I had to guess I would say between the ages of fifty and seventy, give or take. They have a range of different expressions on their faces—curiosity, anger, annoyance, even one of the ladies looks bored. The urge to get up and yell at her about how this has affected my life is strong, but I bite my tongue.

The moment attention is drawn to me, Kace will have me out of there in two seconds flat. I want to stay, be by his side and support him. I want them to know that this is not a game and that they’re playing with very real lives.

One man takes a step forward, separating himself from the group. “We don’t usually conduct our meetings with so many people present,” he sneers as he surveys the room. It’s obvious he’s upset. I get it, their safety is on the line here too. Usually, only the Director of The Agency is permitted to meet with the Board, their identities kept completely secret.

Kace steps up, his shoulders square. “I understand the number of people here is intimidating, but this affects all of us. What Camilla has done has attacked my team and the people I care for. So they will be here to have their say if need be.”

The older man jerks his chin up, a few strands of his gray hair falling across his forehead. “You realize that we appointed Camilla as Director of The Agency. What you have done is punishable under the treason act.”

Kace nods. “Yes, sir. But with all due respect, your decision to put her in that position is questionable and to put it simply, stupid.”

The man’s head rears back, the other Board members mouths falling open in shock.

“Please, just hear us out,” Kace says, his tone softening.

The old man bristles but nods. “Before you say anything, just know that the only reason I’m willing to listen to what you have to say is because more than one of you…” his eyes drift to Jack and then over to me, “…has been noted as deceased. Therefore I’m hoping for an explanation as to why you are standing in front of me… alive.”

The others behind him nod, their shock now transforming into pure curiosity.

Jack clears his throat and moves to stand beside Kace. “Guess I’ll go first. I was sent on a mission with a handful of my team. The tip off we’d received was bullshit. We searched this abandoned house for fucking hours, found nothing. My team got back in the car, but I realized I’d dropped my knife. It was one Kace had given me so I couldn’t leave it there.” Father and son look to each other and Kace’s eyes widen in surprise. I guess none of us expected that it was actually Kace who had saved his father’s life that day.

The entire room listens intently as Jack continues, “One of my boys had already started the engine, and was yelling at me to hurry up ‘cause he wanted to get home to his wife.” Jack stops for a second, lowering his head with a sad shake. “I pulled open the driver’s side and as I went to climb in, one foot still out of the door, it exploded.”

“From what we’d been told, you’d been attacked, and the attackers had blown up the car,” one of the ladies of the Board comments, her brows pulled in as if she was struggling to piece a puzzle together and the parts didn’t quite match.

“False. The bomb was linked to the engine. After the explosion, I’m not sure what happened, but I woke up in the hospital. They were calling me John Doe, and I made out like I couldn’t speak or understand their questions.”

My head is spinning with all this information, and I can tell Kace is getting more furious by the second, knowing exactly who was responsible.

“You’re team went out as three. There were three bodies found in the car,” the older man cuts in.

Jack nods. “We picked up a trainee on the way out. Was gonna help him learn the ropes. Guess because he wasn’t a full-fledged member at that stage, that no one missed him when he suddenly disappeared.” Jack takes in a deep breath. I can tell that even a man as strong as him, he’s struggling to dig through memories that cause him so much pain. He’d lost his life that day, I could sympathize, I’d lost mine too under different circumstances. But I had Kace to pull me through. He was on his own, unable to tell people the truth, unable to rely on anyone or trust anyone with his secret.

“One of the nurses at the hospital recognized me,” he continues. “Mitchell Coal’s wife.”

A few of the Board members widen their eyes in surprise. I don’t know who he’s speaking of, but I gather that it’s significant information.

“She knew how important it was that I get out of there before they figured out who I was. So she helped me escape, took me home and nursed me back to health. Helped me with my physical rehabilitation and mental.” He lifts the leg of his pants, exposing his prosthetic. “Her daughter, Everly, is quite the talented hacker. She helped me keep informed on what was going on with The Agency. She was my in, and she’s the reason I know as much as I do.”

The air in the room is filled with unspoken questions and confusion, you can feel it expanding like it’s about to burst.

But Kace settles most of them with just a few words. “It was Camilla, she tried to kill him.”

The older man’s eyes flick to Kace, they’re filled with mirth and disgust, as if even the mere suggestion was reason enough to have him shot where he stood. Of course, none of them wanted to believe that the woman they’d just appointed could be capable of such things. It makes them look dumb, incompetent, and like fools.

“That’s a very serious allegation. You’re already walking on thin ice considering an Agency Operative… Luthendale is already dead, and now you’re holding the next in line captive here somewhere. You better have something to back this up.” There is fire in the old man’s eyes as if he’s already ready to throw them in a jail cell and toss the key away.

“We have proof,” Blair says, pushing to his feet and joining Kace. “Of that and more.”

Blair pulls out the tape recorder and presses start to play back the recording. The Board listens to Camilla, their faces contorting as they hear her describe how she needed to get Jack out of the way, and how she was using The Agency in a way that they never wanted it to be used. You can see the anger contorting on their faces. It’s palpable.

I start to wring my hands together again, nerves settling over me, anger building in my stomach as I hear Camilla’s voice once again explain what a monster she truly is. My chest hurts, and I want to stand up and go to Kace, hold him, squash the emotions of shame that pass over his face as her words reinforce just what kind of person she is inside, and how he couldn’t see past her exterior.

“You get it now, Edward?” Jack comments, his eyes glaring intensely at the older man who I can now place a name to.

Edward ignores his comment and turns his attention to Kace. “You have her in a holding cell?”

“Affirmative. She needed medical attention after Lily shot her in the kneecap, she literally capped the bitch,” Luca quips and I try to hold in my smirk as the Board doesn't even budge with a smile.

Edward huffs and shakes his head slightly. “You think this is a joking matter, Mister Deveraux?”

“I use laughter in all things, Ed.”

Edward doesn’t hold his punches. “I’ve heard that about you, it’s what makes you weak.”

Luca stiffens and sits a little taller. He opens his mouth to say something, but Kace clears his throat and buts in. “I can take you to see Camilla if you need to?”

“I think that is best. We need to talk to her, discuss our findings. Talk through what she’s been doing to The Agency behind the scenes and see what our options are.”

“I’ll take you to her.” Kace looks to me and I offer him a supportive smile. “I’ll be right back.”

I nod and watch as he and the Board head off to the basement.

This is it.

Now we wait.

I look over to Luca who’s looking a little worse for wear. “How you doing, Robin?”

He shrugs. “I’ve dealt with worse. There was this one time—”

“At band camp,” Axel interrupts.

“Shut your whore mouth, Axel,” Luca quips and everyone chuckles.

I shake my head with a smile and continue, “No. Really, how are you? You look sore,” I say, reaching out and touching his swollen eyelid.

He winces and nods. “I’m okay, I’ll live that’s for damn sure. Gotta keep this team going, especially now.” His solemn tone does nothing to reassure me. “But you! You’re this kickass killer sniper chick, who knew!”

I snort and sit back. “Don’t know about that.”

“Hey, you shot her in the knee, that’s pretty hardcore.”

“She deserved it,” I sneer, unable to keep the tone of my voice even.

Luca chuckles. “She deserved it in the head. But baby steps, I get it… How are you doing?”

I push my shoulders back. “I’m kinda feeling good. I stood my ground, it made me feel… alive, strong, more independent.”

He nods with an encouraging smile. “Yeah, I get it. You know we’d all stand up and do whatever we can to protect you, but it feels good to know you can protect yourself, too. Otherwise, you just get this victim feeling. I’m proud of you, Lily.”

It makes me feel good to know that people can see how far I’ve come in such a short space and time. I knew at one point Luca wondered whether I was worth all this crap that Kace, and all of them, had gone through, but it seems like now they can finally see just what our relationship means.

And maybe I can too.

Kace and I, we’re different, but also so similar in many ways. We were both skating through life, thinking that we knew what our purpose was. Kace felt like his was to protect people and live mission to mission on a constant adrenaline high. While I was content to stay huddled inside my apartment, tending to sick animals. They’ve become my friends, and now I wonder how I’d let myself just feel so… so much of nothing.

Now we are both feeling. We’re feeling something more.

I guess at one point I felt like I was the one who needed Kace to protect me, to make me feel alive. And now, it seems as though I was wrong.

We need each other.

 

 

Dad and I wait nervously at the top of the basement staircase while the board members question Camilla. Both our heads flick toward the stairs, as we hear the door squeak open and the board members begin to file out, talking in hushed whispers. I can’t make out their words and agitation starts to set in.

Dad touches my arm, drawing my attention. His eyes stare into mine, a silent warning to keep my head on straight. Whatever happens, we’re in this together and I know he’ll stand by my side, no matter fucking what.

It’s in that moment I realize just how much I’ve missed out on not having him in my life. That companion, that person who you know you can go to with anything and they wouldn’t give you some bullshit about how everything will be fine, but instead sit with you and help you figure out what the hell to do.

Luca was my go-to man for all that kind of stuff, but Luca is also his own kind of broken. While he’s there for me when I need him, there are some things he just can’t deal with—his humor overtaking his sensibility. It’s his defense mechanism when he’s uncomfortable or has to face something far too serious, he shuts down and it’s done. I understand why. We all have our reasons for not wanting to deal with certain problems, but there were times when I needed him that I just knew he couldn’t be there for me.

Now Dad’s back. I have the both of them, and Lily.

It’s like Christmas.

We re-join the room with my team and Lily immediately stands to her feet and walks toward me. I open my arms and she slips inside them, two pieces fitting together fucking perfectly.

“How’d it go?” she asks in a hushed tone.

“We’ll find out in a minute.”

The Board files in and gathers on one side of the room.

My hands are clenched and my body on alert. I can tell the other members of my team are just as spooked, all of them standing to their feet. If the Board takes Camilla’s side, I have no doubt that we’ll have a fight on our hands, because there’s no way in hell I’m letting the people I love be captured and locked up for the rest of their damn lives.

Hell no.

If this isn’t the decision I want, all hell’s going to rain down.

“Please sit,” Edward says, waving his hand.

“We’d rather not,” Tanner answers through clenched teeth.

Edward sighs, turning to his fellow members who each give him a single nod before he continues, “With all the evidence on hand, we have decided the best course of action is to shut down The Agency, effective immediately.”

A collective gasp fills the room and I quickly pass Lily off to Axel who’s on my left side. Lily looks around in confusion as Axel places his hands on her shoulders, holding her in place as I approach the members. “No, that’s not the right decision with all due respect, sir. You need to show everyone that we can put the right people in charge to clean up The Agency. To bring everything back into working order and that we can continue to run smoothly.”

Edward shakes his head and holds up his hands. “We’re out of options here, we have no one qualified to take Camilla’s place.”

The words are out of my mouth before I can consider what I’m even saying. “I’ll do it.”

I hear Lily inhale sharply and I quickly look over to her. I see fear settle in on her face. My gut sinks, knowing that I’ve just offered myself up for one of the most difficult, dangerous jobs in the country.

I open my mouth to speak to her but she holds up her hand. “It’s okay, Kace,” she tells me. “I’m with you.” I can tell she’s apprehensive, and the rest of my team is looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind.

Maybe I fucking have.

I’ve made promises to Lily that things would settle down, that we could be happy together. And I knew that she understood my need to go back to work and try to right all the wrongs Camilla has caused, but could I put her through this kind of pain.

Again.

“While that’s very noble of you, Kace. You don’t have the clearance or position to make a jump that large in ranking.” Edward tells me, disappointment evident through his voice.

I huff and my nostrils flair. While it isn’t exactly what I wanted anyway, I’m still frustrated that they feel as though I’m not capable. The Agency is my life, I was born there, I grew up there. As Camilla said herself, I was fucking trained for one purpose… to be a soldier for them.

A hand comes down on my shoulder as my father steps forward to my side. We are a strong wall, a force standing together as one. His breathing is labored but he looks over at me and nods once before lifting the corner of his mouth in a smirk. “I’ll do it. I have the clearance, the knowledge, the know-how and of course the balls.”

Edward stares at him for a second while the other Board members look between themselves, eyebrows raised. “This is a big responsibility, Jack. I’m not sure you’re ready to take that kind of thing on, right now.” His eyes drift down to my dad’s leg.

Dad scoffs and stands a little taller, puffing out his chest. “I can handle it. This thing...” he points to his leg, “… is like having an extra weapon on standby. I can prove it by taking it off and beating the shit out of you with it if you’d like.”

I hear my team behind me stifle laughter.

Edward glares at him and the offending limb. “This is something we will need to discuss first, and before that happens we will need to do a clean and sweep through The Agency to pull out all the bad weeds.”

I feel a hand tuck into mine and Lily’s sweet smell fills my senses.

“You’d also do good to remember that civilians are to be kept out of Agency affairs, or do we need to question your loyalty and the ability to keep your mouth closed, Kace?”

I don’t appreciate the cheap shot. “Lily is a part of this. If it weren’t for her, right now, who knows where we’d be. Camilla running shit. You lot all blind, deaf, and completely clueless as to what’s going on. Give Lily the fucking credit she deserves.”

Edward raises his lip in distaste for my words, but he quickly nods.

“When is the sweep going to happen, and how long will it take? There are things of importance we need to deal with,” I ask, changing the subject and taking the heat off my girl. She instantly relaxes in against my body. I can tell she’s just about had enough. We’ve been literally running on some kind of high for the past month or more, and it’s coming to the time where we’ve run out of gas.

“Trust the process,” one of the Board women says, speaking up for the first time.

Luca cuts in, his tone snarky and clearly unimpressed with her answer. “Like you guys putting Camilla in charge and starting the process toward destroying the world as we know it?”

Lily lets a giggle loose but quickly buries her face in my shirt, smothering the sound.

The lady glares at Luca. “We’ve identified the problem, we will fix it. Don’t question us.”

Luca throws her an overdramatic salute, and she steps forward threateningly. I guess these people don’t like being made to look stupid, now they have to defend their choices, and that is enough to get anyone’s bristles up with my best friend tormenting them for it.

“Careful Deveraux,” she warns, her voice low. “Maybe the Board will decide that with Kace back, the SO7 doesn’t need two all-rounders.”

Luca stiffens and his face drops and he shuts himself off. I take a deep breath as I wait for his fight or flight instincts to kick in and soon a smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Come on now,” he jokes, but his voice is laced with venom. “You don’t want to kick Kace out just when he got back, do you?”

I know how deeply the words have cut him, he doesn’t ever like being made to feel like he isn’t worthy. I know, because that’s the reason we had hit heads so often when he first joined my team. He was some punk who thought his shit didn’t stink, and I was the seasoned vet.

Then he saved my ass.

“You should really watch how you speak to my team,” I warn the older lady. “We are the ones who are going to pull you out of the shit that you’ve let fester over the past few years.”

Her eyes move to me, but she doesn’t seem annoyed or offended by my words. “I like you, Kace, you’ve got balls. Give it a few years and you might be where we are one day if you use them right.”

I huff but don’t answer her.

Edward claps his hands. “Okay. We’re going to take Camilla with us. Stay away from headquarters, and we will let you know in a few days what the next steps will be. For now, lay low.” He looks over directly at me. “It’s good to see you alive, Kace, Jack, and you too, Lily…” It’s the most emotion we’ve seen from him since the Board arrived. Maybe he wasn’t just a fucking hard ass after all.

“We’ll send our team in to grab the prisoner,” Edward says with a nod and all five Board members head for the door.

“Thank you for listening to what we had to say,” Lily mutters, surprising everyone. When I look down at her and raise my brow she just rolls her eyes. “It’s called being polite. You should try it sometime,” she says toward Edward.

Edward stops in the doorway. “When the evidence is overwhelming, and lives are at risk, we listen.”

Lily nods and a smirk pulls at Edward’s mouth. “By the way, nice shot.”

I can’t help but laugh as Edward disappears out the door, closing it behind him.

“He wasn’t kidding, it was actually a good shot,” Tanner praises, wiggling her eyebrows. “We could do with another sniper.”

Lily stands a little taller but I pull her back into my body. “Not on your fucking life.”

“Party pooper,” she mumbles into my shirt.

Luca leaps to his feet, his body wobbling slightly. “Speaking of a party, I feel this calls for a celebration.”

Everyone looks at me with curious eyes, Lily’s brightening as she stares up at me, trying to hide the excitement from her face.

“Fuck it, why not.”