The next day as he sat in The Reef’s small conference room, Josh had to admit the big guy had presence. The smaller guy in the suit had style. The other guy was half asleep.
These were Kayla’s coworkers and it was exactly like he’d thought. Her delicate beauty didn’t fit with these hulking, massive men.
“I’m Ian Taggart,” the biggest of the men said as he settled into a chair opposite Josh. “Yolo McSwaggins here is named Adam Miles, and Sleeping Beauty is my business partner, Alex McKay. Don’t mind Alex. He recently adopted a second child and then his sperm totally went on a hyper salmon run and his wife turns up pregnant. They went from no kids to looking at having three under the age of five. Welcome to my world, buddy. I’m pretty sure he’s here because he thought he could get some sleep.”
Alex McKay’s middle finger made an appearance and he sat up and stretched. “I’m here because I don’t trust you to not piss off the dude who could sue us. This is going to require some subtlety.”
The third man smiled, a smooth expression. “And I’m here because I’m the brains. Adam Miles, head of Miles-Dean, Weston and Murdoch Investigative Services.” He turned to Taggart. “Yolo McSwaggins? Where the fuck do you get this shit? Do you troll Urban Dictionary?” He obviously didn’t need an answer as he immediately turned back to Josh. “Mr. Hunt, I’m happy to meet you. I’m a big fan.”
Wow. It was weird. He knew these dudes even though he hadn’t met these dudes. It was like watching a movie but the faces had changed from the actors playing the roles to the real live people. He couldn’t help it, but he had to look to Kayla. He’d meant to ignore her completely. After the shower incident the previous night, he’d ignored her the rest of the evening. Well, until it had been time to go to bed. Then he’d shown up at her door and practically fallen on top of her when she opened her arms. While they’d been fucking—he wasn’t going to call it by the other term—he’d been content. The minute he’d rolled off her, he’d wanted to go to sleep, her small body wrapped up in his like some super-sexy teddy bear he clung to to keep the bad dreams away. He’d forced himself to get up and walk back to his own bed where he’d sat and watched the ceiling most of the night.
But he couldn’t ignore her now because she had answers. He caught her eye. “Pierce Craig?”
He’d totally seen this movie. The big Viking who was made of sarcasm was obviously Pierce Craig from the movie Love After Death. Jared had almost played that role. Josh had been the one to sit by as Jared had dissected everything the actor who’d gotten the role after him had done wrong. Funny, it was hard to see his soft-hearted friend playing the massive ex-Special Forces soldier.
Kayla’s lips curled up, though he noted the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes, and Axel and Zan. I think they’re shooting Zan and Ava’s movie in a couple of months.”
“I am not Zan.” McKay yawned discreetly behind his hand and frowned Miles’s way. “Couldn’t Serena come up with a more manly name? I sound like I should be in a sci-fi movie. You know if I’d known she was going to turn around and write a freaking book about my life, I would never have told her that story.”
Miles shrugged. “Yeah, she was there. How quickly they forget. She kind of saved your ass, so you owed her.”
The big guy frowned. “Wait. Are you trying to tell me I’m actually Pierce Craig?” His face went still. “Holy shit. She did. That’s my story. Huh. At least they got a handsome bastard to play me. Adam, I’m going to need a cut of that.”
Now Miles’s middle finger showed up. “Not happening. You’re lucky I’m even willing to help you out at all. You’re the asshole brother I never, ever wanted and would like to give back.”
Taggart’s smile proved the man could have been on the big screen if he’d wanted to be. “Ah, you say the sweetest things. What’s this hellhole? I like it. Reminds me of real clubs. My wife needed Sanctum to look like a combination high-tech torture palace/five-star hotel. This place is real. I bet you don’t even have much of an electricity bill.”
Alex moaned. “I will pay the fucking bill if you will stop complaining about it. Dear god, you’re a multimillionaire and you complain about one high utility bill.”
“How do you think I stay a multimillionaire? It sure ain’t by giving TXU my paycheck. I grew up poor, Moneybags. I can’t pay out because a couple of Doms wanted to see if they could keep the hamster wheel going for a solid week.”
“It was for charity,” McKay shot back. “And I grew up next to you. Literally in the house next to yours. Could we get on with this? There’s a hotel room with my name on it.”
“No, there’s not,” Miles said with a sigh. “We’re scheduled to go back as soon as this meeting’s over. We can’t afford for the Agency boys to figure out we’re here. But Big Tag didn’t tell you that.”
McKay stood up. “You suck, Ian. I’m going to find some coffee. It’s going to be a long day.”
He sort of stumbled back toward the kitchen where the bodyguards, along with Riley, were waiting.
Big Tag pulled out a bunch of paperwork. “Don’t look at me like that, Kay. We came in on the small 4L jet. It’s got a bedroom because Drew Lawless is freaky that way. Even now the flight attendant is making sure Alex has lavender-scented sheets and a white-noise player that will only switch to baby screams twenty minutes before we land. See, I’m not a complete asshole. Now how about we get down to business. I hear a little birdy’s been giving out classified intel.”
Kay stiffened beside him. “Yes, sir. I laid out the plan to Mr. Hunt after it became obvious there was no other way to keep the op going.”
“None? You can’t think of a single other option opened to you? Because I can,” Taggart asked, one brow climbing up. That was one judgmental brow. The rest of the man’s face hadn’t changed at all, but there was such power in his expression.
It would look good on film. He could try it later in the mirror. He filed the expression away and tried not reach for Kayla’s hand.
“I should have called in and gotten advice.” Kay’s voice was tight, her usual happiness dimmed to the point that she seemed lethargic. It was hard to see her that way because she was always bright and full of life. “I should have put the choice in Damon’s and your hands. I didn’t call in until I’d already screwed up. I’m sorry.”
“I am, too,” Taggart replied without a hint of sympathy in his arctic tone. “You put this company in a tricky position. We’re contractors here. If the Agency finds out how you’ve jeopardized this op and its position, not only will our government contracts get shut down, we’ll likely be brought up on criminal charges. And Hunt here can sue the shit out of us.”
Criminal charges? He shook his head, trying to process what that meant. “I don’t understand. What do you mean they could arrest her? For telling me the truth?”
Yolo…what was his name again…Miles leaned in. “In this case, telling you the truth could be considered anything from leaking classified intelligence to straight up espionage.”
“Or otherwise known as treason when it’s an American citizen committing the crime against an American intelligence agency,” Taggart pointed out. “She’s looking at anything from ten years to life, though the more realistic outcome would be to quietly move her to a federal facility where she wouldn’t be heard from again.”
His heart threatened to stop in his chest. “Just for telling me something I should have known? I had the right to know.”
“Not according to the United States government, you didn’t,” Miles said, not without sympathy. “They take security seriously, especially when it comes to embedded agents. Do you think the Mexican government knows we have an operative working in Jalisco? I assure you they do not.”
Alex McKay walked back into the room, a coffee mug in his hand. “We’ve got a lawyer on it back in Dallas in case it comes out. We’re here to make sure it doesn’t. None of us wants this information out in the public. We’re here to offer Mr. Hunt a few…gifts in exchange for the greatest gift of all. Silence.”
“I thought you said your wife was the greatest gift,” Taggart said with a shit-eating grin.
“That was before we had kids,” McKay replied. “Now it’s definitely silence.”
How could they joke when Kayla could go to jail? “I’m not going to talk. I’ll do the job and then we’ll go our separate ways.”
“Really? Well, that was easy.” Taggart started to get up.
“Ian, please,” Kay said quietly.
Taggart frowned and sat his ass back down. He flipped the file folder around. “First, we’re willing to offer you bodyguard services for half the going rate.”
“Ian,” Kay said, fire in her eyes.
“Fuck me hard. A year’s worth of bodyguard service for…for…for fucking free. In that time we’ll train two people of your choice and at the end you’ll keep them on.” It was obvious the offer had taken a lot out of him. Taggart sank back as though utterly exhausted. “In addition, Riley has already discovered that the tape from two nights ago has a terrible defect. Something went wrong for approximately twenty-three minutes. It was late and that was why he didn’t catch it.”
McKay slid across a thumb drive. “This is the original and the only copy. No one here has listened to it with the exception of Riley Blade, and he’s signed a nondisclosure agreement. It’s going to be forwarded to your attorney, but understand we’re very vague about the hows and whys that tape came into existence.”
Josh shook his head. “Send it to me. I don’t trust anyone with it. I’ll keep the NDA in case I need it.” Could he trust these men? Kayla did, but then he didn’t trust her at all. Except that maybe she’d been willing to go to jail…whoa, hold your horses there, dumbass. That wasn’t about you. That was about the mission. Still, it was obvious these men had something to lose if it all came out. “Thank you for the tape. I appreciate it not getting out.”
Taggart moved on briskly. “In addition, Adam has the file you wanted, Kayla. He found her.”
“Her?” Josh asked. “Her who?”
Miles passed him a folder. “Kayla asked me to locate a woman named Hannah Lovell. I didn’t have much to go on. She couldn’t give me more than name, approximate age, and the fact that she’d been in the foster care system in the Wichita area. She went missing as a young child from a foster home that was later found to be committing fraud.”
His heart damn near seized. He’d been sure she was dead. “You found Hannah?”
“I asked Adam to find her. I got her records last night. Adam is pretty brilliant at finding missing persons,” she replied. “Consider it a peace offering. Although you might not like where she is.”
“I located her in a prison in Cleveland. She’s doing time for possession and multiple counts of solicitation. I don’t know who this woman is to you, but she’s had a hard life,” Adam was saying. “She’s scheduled to come up for parole in six months, but she’s also got a public defender.”
One thing he could do. One good fucking thing. “I’ll pay for her lawyer. Could you find me someone, the best someone? She was a good friend. We were in…” Hell… “Foster care together. I always wondered what happened to her. I…thank you for finding her.”
It might be too late. She might be too far gone, but he could help out. He’d thought he was too far gone, but Tina had offered him something different. What if he could do the same?
What if he could do the same for a lot of people who’d spent time in Hell? Nothing could fix the hole inside him.
Had he tried? Had he attempted in any way to fill that hole or had he determined he was broken beyond repair and given up and given in to hopelessness, to believing the only way to live was to pretend to be someone else, always denying what had happened to him.
“We’ll keep it quiet about who’s paying the legal fees,” McKay was saying.
He found himself nodding, but he wanted to see Hannah. He couldn’t, of course. That would bring up too many questions. It would put him too close to the truth.
“I want to visit her.”
That brow of Taggart’s rose again, though this time it seemed more curious than judgmental. “You know someone is going to want to know why you would visit a drug addict and a prostitute in jail. It will get out.”
“Fuck ’em,” Josh said. He wanted to see her. It probably wouldn’t go well, but he had to try. Even if only to apologize to her. For not saving them both. For not being able to protect her.
“That’s the first smart thing you’ve said,” Taggart replied. “We’ll make that happen too. Now can you promise me you’re going to be a good boy and do your job? Wait, let me be clear about what your job is. You will go to the party at Morales’s place. You will get Kayla in. You will get her out. You will keep your mouth closed and maybe we can save this operative’s life. If not, at least we can figure out what happened and how he became compromised.”
“I can do that,” Josh said, holding on to the folder Miles had given him. Hannah was in that file. Her picture showed a hardened woman, aged before her time.
Did she have to stay that way? Was the damage permanent or could her pain be eased with a friendly hand reaching out, a compatriot in the horror who wanted to help her find some kind of light? Did her life have to be over?
Did his? Did his heart have to harden because one woman had lied to him? The problem was he was fairly certain it had only softened because of her in the first place.
The only way to beat the darkness is to drag it all into the light, Josh.
Sometimes he wondered if he’d exchanged one prison for another. One had been dark, the other gilded, but in neither could he be himself, could he have true control over who he was. One had been a fight to exist, the other a constant battle to hide his history. He’d found a career where he didn’t have to be himself, where it was of the utmost importance that he almost never be himself.
Who was he? The scared child? The unrepentant and violent teen? The man who shut everything down so he didn’t self-destruct?
“Do we have a deal?”
From the tone of Taggart’s question, Josh figured it might have been asked more than once. “Yes, we have a deal.”
“Excellent.” Taggart closed the folder in front of him and turned Kay’s way. “Could you go and have Riley call the pilot and tell him we’ll be ready to leave early?”
“Wait,” Adam said, a frown on his face. “Doesn’t anyone want to know about how I found her so fast? You see I wrote this software that searches all known databases for…”
Taggart groaned. “No one cares, nerd. We all know you’re a genius. You have my investment. Don’t ask for my damn attention unless you’re a bottle of Scotch or a lemon pie. Are you either of those things?”
“I’ll text Riley,” Kayla said, pulling out her phone.
“I didn’t ask you to text him,” Taggart said, his voice going low. “Please, go and ask him in person. And maybe get yourself a cup of coffee.”
Kayla frowned, looking from man to man to man as though trying to figure out exactly what they were going to do. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s an excellent idea.” McKay sat up, looking a little more awake. “Go on. I’ll make sure the beast stays on the leash.”
Kay got to her feet. “I don’t know why the beast needs to be here at all. This is my problem, Alex. I need to handle it. I don’t need the brotherhood rushing in to save me like I’m some delicate princess.”
McKay shrugged. “Did you not see the delicate princess clause in your contract? The brotherhood doesn’t care that you’re competent and capable of handling things yourself. The brotherhood cares that you’re a woman we care about. Now go. You’re on thin ice. Let us do what we need to.”
She sighed. “Fine. But I’ll be right back.”
And he was left alone with them. Was he about to get some kind of warning?
“Mr. Hunt, would you care to tell me why the sunniest woman of my acquaintance looks like death warmed over?” McKay asked. “I’ve seen that girl with the flu and she still smiles like she’s at Disney World.”
That was interesting. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”
“Oh, but we’re asking you.” Miles was suddenly side by side with Taggart, their bickering tossed aside in favor of putting forth a united front.
Against him.
“Yes, and the answer to that question will let me know a whole lot about you,” Taggart said.
Jeez, when the guy wanted to look psychotic, he could turn that shit on. “I suspect she’s upset that I didn’t take her deception well.”
“You didn’t take it well as in you got angry and hurt and wouldn’t talk to her, or you tried to hurt her?” Miles asked.
“I beat the shit out of your bodyguard.” He sort of lied. He’d hit the guy. It wasn’t his fault Declan Burke seemed to be made out of granite. “But I sure as hell didn’t physically hurt Kayla. You can’t expect me to be happy that she lied to me. She used me on every level. I have to say she’s excellent at her job. She knows exactly how to make a man give it all up. I wouldn’t fire her if I were you. A good one is hard to find.”
“A good what?” McKay asked. “Choose the next word you say with some caution. I told Kay I would keep the beast on a leash, but one wrong word out of your mouth and I won’t be able to hold him. You see, Big Tag and Kay understand each other. They know what it means to sacrifice for their country. They know how to make the hard calls, the ones that haunt a person for the rest of his or her life, and they know what it means to care about the very person they’re supposed to be targeting. It can be hard.”
Miles took over. “Someone like Kay doesn’t make mistakes. Never. She’s the solid one, the one we send in when everyone else has fucked up. She knows protocol and that it’s there for a reason. There’s only one possible conclusion I can draw as to why she fucked up here. Of all the intricate and complex cases she’s handled, she’s only let her emotions lead her in one and that’s yours. So please, clarify your last statement because I need to know if I should call in a cleanup crew. A good what is hard to find?”
Shit. He was sitting in a room with three men who’d killed, and likely multiple times. They’d done it in service of their country, but it looked like they would also do it in service of a friend. “Operative. Agent. Whatever terminology you would use.”
“Sure. That’s what was going on in your head. The last time a woman I loved fucked me over hard, I didn’t think of her as an ‘operative.’ You’re smarter than me. Keep it up, kid.” Taggart looked at the other two men. “Why don’t you give me a minute alone with our new friend?”
McKay sighed. “Just remember that you hate paying for stuff and cleaners are expensive.”
Miles shrugged. “I’ll go halfsies for this one. Good luck, Hunt.”
They filed out of the room.
Taggart stared at him for a moment.
Hunt stared back. What was the guy going to do? Murder him right here? “If you’re going to beat the shit out of me, get going, asshole. You won’t be doing a damn thing that hasn’t already been done and by people who were bigger and meaner than you.”
Another lie, but he’d been so much smaller then that proportionally he was probably correct. It was good that he could use math to compare beatings. A gift from playing a numbers savant once. He needed to play a boxer next.
“I can only imagine what you’ve been through.”
He stiffened. “I thought you didn’t listen to the tape.”
“I don’t have to listen to a tape to know that you disappeared from the time you were twelve until adulthood. And that woman you had us search for, she had a history of…well, her records are what nightmares are made of. I have three children, Mr. Hunt. I would never want them to experience a tenth of what you must have. But that’s neither here nor there. Your secrets are your own, though I’ve found keeping secrets is a good way to be miserable. There’s something shitty about the human psyche that punishes us for burying the bad stuff. There’s something freeing about the truth. I’m going to impart some truth on you, Joshua Hunt.”
“Hit me.” It wouldn’t change anything. This stranger knew nothing about him.
“That woman who hurt you could only hurt you because you cared about her.”
He shrugged. “I’ll admit I fell under her spell. She’s excellent at sizing a man up and figuring out what he needs. I didn’t even know I was attracted to weird chicks.”
Taggart’s lips curled in a way that let Josh know the man genuinely liked Kay. “What did she do? Talk to plants? She likes to do that. Says they grow even faster if you sing to them. She does a mean Pink.”
“Dolphins. She talked to dolphins,” he corrected. “And a seal.”
Taggart chuckled and then got serious again. “I’m going to tell you a story. Well, maybe you’ve heard it. It’s the one about this bright-eyed college kid who found out she had a twin sister trapped in a terrible life as a spy for a foreign country.”
He knew she’d gone in young, but she hadn’t mentioned a sibling. “Kayla had a sister?”
“Oh, yes. One of the nastiest female operatives I ever went up against. I mean that on a couple of levels. Nasty in a good way that would get me in trouble with my wife if she knew I talked about it, and nasty in a way that would likely make my wife high-five her because my Charlie is a chick who doesn’t mind a bit of castration, if you know what I mean. Not that Kun managed it with me, but she did try. When I met Kay, I couldn’t quite believe they were twins because Kayla was like sunshine and her sister was dark. I don’t mind dark, but Jiang Kun was a bottomless pit of it.”
“How did Kayla end up in the States?” He didn’t want to be fascinated by that woman. He wanted the cold he’d felt yesterday, to be able to easily wave this guy off because he didn’t care to know anything more about her.
“She was born when China had the one child rule. Her mother discovered she was having twins and found an underground that helped out women in her condition. She delivered the twins in a small rural hospital where they doctored the records, and then she kept Kun and sent Kay to an orphanage. Again, not something you can truly understand until you’ve held your own kid in your hand. The sacrifice her mother made was incredible.”
“And then Kay was adopted by Fred and Jim and came to California,” he finished. What a miracle for her. Not a miracle. Her mother had made that happen.
“Yes, and then years later, her sister reached out. Kun had been recruited by Chinese intelligence. At a young age, she showed a propensity for moral flexibility, physical prowess, and high intelligence combined with a lack of compassion.”
“She was a sociopath.” All that psych came in handy from time to time.
“Yes, but we don’t tell Kay that,” Taggart said, his voice deep. “She thinks her sister was a victim of circumstance, and for the most part she was. But she was twisted. Whether that happened as a circumstance of birth or what MSS did to her, she became quite good at torture and killing. But Kun was excellent at pretending to be an actual human being. She would have made a fine actress. She took what she knew from her mother and managed to find her sister. She reached out to the Agency, saying she wanted to connect to the sister she’d never met. Naturally, the Agency got right on that. Kun wrote to her, started a conversation, and then went in for the kill.”
There had been two Kaylas. It was hard to imagine. Did she miss her sister? Even though she hadn’t known her, sometimes twins felt the loss as something missing deep inside them. Did Kayla feel incomplete without her twin? “She wanted to come to the US?”
“Oh, yes. And that’s when the Agency came up with the plan,” Taggart explained. “I wasn’t a part of this, but I knew the two men who handled Kayla. I was recruited into the CIA by a man named Ten Smith, but for the majority of my time there both Ten and I worked under John Bishop. Bishop decided to use Kayla to bring Kun in. It was a good plan because Jiang Kun was one of China’s best agents and she had the highest security clearance. She was a gold mine of information and all she wanted was what her sister had—freedom. We got the clearance to bring her in, but we had to do it all quietly. Naturally everything went sideways and Kun was killed. Bishop had a choice. He could lose it all or he could plant his own spy.”
“Kayla.” One minute she’d been ready to meet her sister and the next, she’d been her sister, taking over her life as a spy for the enemy. What kind of courage had that required?
“She went from crying over the body of the sister she barely knew to walking into the mouth of the beast. And she was magnificent. I owe her my life more than once. So understand when I tell you a woman like that doesn’t fuck up for any reason other than the one none of us can avoid. She’s in love with you. You can take that love or you can leave it, but at least acknowledge the fact that she was attempting to do a service for her country, that she never meant to hurt you, that in the face of losing the only thing she really knows now, she chose you.”
“You’re wrong. Don’t romanticize this. She chose the mission,” he argued. “Like I said, she’s a good operative.”
But what had Taggart ragged her about? Protocol? The op’s parameters had changed after his talk with Tyler and she was supposed to have called back to her boss and figured out another plan. Instead, she’d panicked and blown the whole thing wide open.
Why? Because she was desperate to save that operative who was likely already dead? Or because she didn’t want her lover walking into something he couldn’t understand?
Taggart sat back. “Well, I can’t fix stupid. All right, then. That’s all. Don’t get my agent killed by doing something dumb. You know your role. Escort her in. Let her do her job. Escort her back out. And then what happens is up to you. We’ll send a plane for her. You’re dismissed.”
Like he was a soldier. “I’m not your employee.”
Taggart was on his phone, texting someone. He didn’t bother to look up. “No, you are not. I wouldn’t hire you.”
“And this is not your club.” Being dismissed rankled.
Arctic blue eyes came up. “I heard it wasn’t yours either. Aren’t you quitting?”
Someone had been talking, but then he couldn’t simply blame Kayla for this one. He’d talked about it with Declan as they’d traded punches. Shane had heard him, too. He’d gone over everything Kay had cost him. God, even thinking about the things he’d called her made him wince. And why? He had every right to call her all the nasty names he wanted to. She’d done this to him, not the other way around. Everyone kept forgetting that he was the victim here. “Yeah, I’m going to leave the club. I can’t stay here. From what I understand you have your own club, so you should understand. These people depend on everyone here to keep things private, and I’ve proven I can’t do that.”
“What’s gotten out? Did Riley finally give up the game and sell photos to the tabloids? I thought I saw him eyeing a pair of sneakers he can’t afford the other day. I always suspected that was why he took the job,” Taggart said with a sad shake of his head. “Fucker.”
Some woman somewhere put up with this guy’s shit? “No, obviously, but it could have happened. That’s the point. I’m not staying around and waiting until something bad happens because I made a poor judgment call.”
“And no one in this club ever brought in someone who could have done something bad? Dear god, Jared Johns is a member of this club. He brought a serial killer in and no one kicked him out. Did you have a trial and put him on suspension or something? Make him work his way back in, because I think serial killer trumps bringing in bodyguards who behaved poorly.”
Wow. He hadn’t thought of it that way. No one had been pissed at Jared. There certainly hadn’t been a meeting where they discussed getting rid of him. He was one of them. The club had closed ranks around him and supported him. “This is different.”
“Yes, because it’s about you and you’re very hard on yourself, aren’t you, Joshua? You know my wife tells me holding myself to a far higher standard than anyone else is a sign of egomania. I think I’m just better than everyone else, right?”
“No. I don’t fucking think that, asshole.”
“Yet, you don’t deserve a do-over, huh?” Taggart shook his head ruefully. “Dude, sorry. It’s none of my business if you want to leave a place where you could relax. Hell, you probably have a million of them. You probably belong to a bunch of clubs.”
“No, I don’t. I had two places in the whole world where I felt safe enough to relax and I have to give them both up now. They’re both tainted because I was too stupid to protect them. I have to give up my house because I’ll never be able to trust it again.” He would always be able to see her in that house. Years of memories and peace wiped out because anytime he opened the door, he looked for her now. His eyes would immediately go to the balcony to see if she was standing there, or to the kitchen where she often made snacks for the guys and he would say no and then sneak one anyway.
“What did the house do to you? Is it haunted?”
Why was he even talking to this asshole? And yes, it was haunted. She would be the ghost he could never get rid of, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Taggart. “It’s bugged. It was invaded by a bunch of people I don’t know. I was safe there and now I’m not.”
“Yeah, you know we can get rid of the bugs after the Agency is gone,” Taggart said as though he was talking to a four-year-old. “Easy peasy. We can even teach you how to check for bugs so you can chill on the paranoia. And in case you weren’t aware, other places can get bugged, too. When you think about it you’re not safe anywhere.”
He was preaching to the choir. Josh was getting antsy, ready for another fight. Or another session with the woman he shouldn’t ever touch again. “Yeah, I fucking get that. Believe me I know that nowhere is safe.”
“Then you should know that none of what went down in the last couple of days was your fault, man, and go easier on yourself.” Taggart stood up and stuffed his phone in the laptop bag he’d brought with him. “And it’s cool that you can’t forgive Kayla. I get that now. It’s hard to forgive anyone when you can’t ever forgive yourself.”
“Myself? What the fuck do I have to forgive myself for?”
Taggart nodded as he started for the door. “That’s a damn good question, kid. Answer that one and maybe the rest of your life can fall in line.” He paused at the door. “She won’t stop after the op. She’ll keep going until you’re safe. She’ll handle all of it so you’ll be safer here than you were in the first place. I think some lucky blackmailer is going to be getting a visit from our Kayla soon. I hope she videotapes that. Fun times. Good to meet you.”
She was going to what? He found himself staring at the spot where Taggart had sat. It was obvious the man lived to fuck with people. Kayla wouldn’t go after his blackmailer alone. That would be ridiculous. She’d said that in order to get closer to him, but after the op was over, she would be done with him. He’d made himself plain.
Only a woman who really loved a man would still want to put herself at risk.
He didn’t understand her, didn’t understand any of this.
He sat and thought about everything they’d said, but that guy was wrong about him. He didn’t have anything to forgive.
And he would never forget.
Still, when the time came to leave, he kept the letter he’d written to the club members in his pocket along with his keys. Maybe he should think about that.
Maybe.
* * * *
Kayla looked up as Big Tag walked out. She’d tried going back in to protect Josh from him, but Adam and Alex had blatantly waylaid her with a bunch of bullshit questions about the op.
“What did you do to him?” With Big Tag it could be anything from a simple but obnoxious talking to right up to brutal murder she would likely be left to clean up after.
Taggart gave her a smooth smile that was probably meant to put her at ease, but the man always reminded her of a satisfied predator when his lips curved up like that. Like he’d eaten someone he shouldn’t and his belly was happily full. “Not a thing. Just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. We are. So I can get back to my regularly scheduled programming of riding around in a billionaire’s jet, drinking his Scotch, and changing all his playlists to classic rock. Can you believe Drew Lawless has a playlist titled Team TayTay for Taylor Swift’s greatest hits? I’m taking his man card and ripping it up right in front of his wife’s face. Hair metal. It’s the only manly thing to listen to.”
Somehow she doubted that was really Lawless’s playlist. She looked up at the man who’d hired her when she’d needed a job. He could joke all he liked, but she was the reason his whole week had been upended. He’d been far closer and that was why he’d come out to California in Damon’s stead. She was the reason he’d had to hustle to ensure his business didn’t get ripped apart by lawsuits and potential criminal inquiries. “I’m sorry, Ian.”
He frowned and shoved sunglasses over his eyes. “Come on. We should talk before I go. Adam, Alex seems to have fallen asleep on that spanking bench over there. You know what to do.”
Adam grinned and held up his phone. “I’m documenting this for humanity and so I can photoshop in some crazy shit later. I’m going to miss this when I’m the boss.”
Big Tag walked to the outer portion of the club. Sun streamed in from the overhead skylight but they were still out of the way of prying eyes. Riley had gone to pull the car around and they would be behind tinted windows in seconds, their identities protected from reporters and the Agency alike. “The idea of Adam being in charge scares me. He’ll spend all his profits on fancy shoes. At least he’s got a good team around him. Too bad it’s my damn team. I hate hiring people. You know, your boy is a hardass.”
“He’s been hurt. A lot.” She couldn’t even imagine what Josh had gone through.
“That kind of hurt doesn’t go away on its own. Oh, you can try to self-medicate with Scotch and good music, but in the end you have to reopen that wound and let the toxins out or they’ll kill you.”
“I think I’m the first person he’s ever told his story to.” And then she’d betrayed him. She was starting to understand that he couldn’t come back from that. She’d slipped into something that for most people would be the exact thing couples’ therapy was made for, but in Josh’s case it was quicksand, and the more she struggled to make him understand, the deeper she went with him. He wasn’t going to up and get it. He wasn’t going to forgive her. Ever.
When the op was over, he would shut the door on their relationship and move on. If there was one thing she’d learned about him, he was good at compartmentalizing. He would put their relationship in a room in his brain and lock the door and never think about her again.
And it didn’t matter. She still loved him. She would still do what she needed to do. It was so odd to finally fall truly, deeply in love only to understand how painful it could be and that it was also the thing that could make her stronger than she’d ever been.
Loving Josh made her happy. The fact that he couldn’t love her back might end up being the tragedy of her life, but at least she’d known what it meant to love.
“Well, you shouldn’t be the last one. That kid needs some therapy. He’s obviously got the weight of the world on his shoulders. The good news is I don’t think he’s going to sue us,” Tag said. “There’s bad news, of course.”
Yep. This was the part where she got fired. “I’ll resign.”
Taggart’s brows came together. “That’s between you and Damon. I’m not going to mess with his personnel policies. He runs the London office and it’s up to him whether or not you remain employed. I’m talking about the fact that this op of yours has a million moving pieces and I’m worried that Levi Green and Ezra are about to have a knock-down, drag-out, and only one of them will come out of this with his job. I think Green is making a play to get rid of Fain and I don’t know why. I’m trying to figure it out. Normally I would get Chelsea on it, but she’s buried under the startup. Given that I recommended the startup to my investor group, I’m caught between curiosity and making money. Charlie wants another kid and they eat cash, so I’m stuck with Hutch. I love that idiot, but he hasn’t got Chelsea’s ability to put a puzzle together. He can hack into anything, but I need someone who can see shit coming from a mile away. I would get Li working on it, but he’s on freaking paternity leave. Charlie did this to me. She’s got weird ideas on how to run a business.”
Avery had recently had a baby girl. Daisy O’Donnell. She’d seen the baby over Facetime when Liam had called into the London office to let them know mother and daughter were doing fine.
God, she would miss them all. Miss all the babies and the way they were a family. She probably wouldn’t get that at her next job.
“Ezra said he was called back to Langley,” she told him, trying to stay professional. “I thought that was odd. Why have two handlers and then ditch one?”
“I don’t know about that either, but I would have been more comfortable with Fain taking the lead. Which could be the point.” Tag paced, his long legs eating up the space before turning and striding again, a lion in a cage. “If they thought you were the only operative who could do this op, they would need to make me and Damon comfortable, and having Fain in the mix would do the trick. I don’t think I’d let you do this if Green had come to me himself. Now we’re down to the nitty gritty and they dump Fain.”
“They might have dumped him, but he claims he’s not going anywhere.”
Tag nodded. “Yeah, we’ve talked. Hutch is going to cover for him. He’s got everything set up so it looks like he’s being a good boy, but that plane we’re on is going to pick him up and quietly take him down to Mexico City. It’s the only reason I haven’t pulled you off this op.”
“I would go anyway.” She couldn’t leave Josh on his own.
He stopped, his lips curling up faintly. “Yeah, I suspect you would. Josh Hunt, huh? Don’t tell him, but he’s pretty badass in those car movies. That’s what the world needs more of. Fast cars and very little plot line. I can follow that shit even though I fall asleep two or three times per film. I like to call them dad movies.”
“I won’t tell him that at all.” But she smiled at the thought. Not that he would care what she said. “Is this ache going to be with me forever?”
He was quiet for a moment and she’d forgotten that men didn’t like to talk about the relationship stuff.
“If it’s real love, yeah,” Tag said quietly. “If it’s real then there will be this hollow place inside you that won’t go away. The good news? I have never met anyone with as much love to give as you, Kayla. If he won’t accept it, move on. It’ll take you a little time, but you’ll be able to try this again eventually. Hey, I got a son who’ll be ready for you in about twenty years if you like ’em young.”
It was about the biggest compliment he could give her, and it took everything she had not to cry.
“Would it help if I told you I think he’ll come around?” Tag asked.
She took a deep breath, banishing the tears. “I don’t see how.”
“I’ve done this a time or two and he’s already questioning himself. Push him over the next couple of days. Not to forgive you. Just remind him how nice it is to have you around. I think it’ll work. And if it doesn’t, well, I’ve got a couple of projects we need to work on.”
“If Damon doesn’t accept my resignation,” she replied grimly. “I blew up an entire operation because I fell in love with a guy.”
“If Damon does fire you, well, I didn’t fire that crazy-ass Irishman when he did the same thing. Hell, if I fired everyone for doing stupid shit, I wouldn’t have a team.” He got serious again. “When this is done, I want to go find Bishop. Holy shit. I’m still trying to process the fact that he’s alive. I don’t care what Ezra thinks. Ezra doesn’t know Bishop. He would never turn.”
That was one thing she could get on board with. “Yes, I think we should. I think we should head to that little town and figure out what the hell’s going on.”
“I’ve heard they have a nudist resort,” Tag said. “And a shit ton of ex-law enforcement. Ezra makes it sound like it could be some secret base for bad guys, but I can’t see it. Bishop was the single best operative I’ve ever worked with. Ten agrees with me, so when you get back, we’re hunting his ass down and getting some answers.”
“Agreed.” But she did have something else to do. “I might need a few days before we head to Colorado.”
“In order to assassinate Hector Morales, who probably ran a ring that trafficked children throughout the US? Yeah, I thought you would say that. I suspect you’ll be hunting down a blackmailer, too.”
Her stomach tightened because he might be the only person in the world who could stop her. “I need this, Tag.”
“I’m not going to stop you,” he replied, his voice sure. “Just won’t let you go alone. Take Boomer and do it from afar. I know you would rather gut the fucker, but he’s surrounded by killers. His death will have to be justice enough. Boomer can handle it from a mile away and we can pay him in hot dogs. Forgive me. You’ll be in Mexico. Tacos. Lots of tacos.”
She should have known he would understand. “You’re pretty cool, Ian Taggart.”
“Yeah, that’s what all the girls say.” He glanced down as his phone buzzed. “Adam, carry our sleeping princess out. We gotta go. Car’s here.”
Alex yawned as he stepped out. “That bench you got is pretty comfy. Eve always complains about ours.”
“Well, Eve is usually in another position on it,” Adam argued. “I don’t think you would find it so comfy if you had a large plug up your butt and someone was spanking you.”
“Let’s find out,” Ian said as the door opened. “Five hundred says Alex gives up before the plug even comes out of the package.”
“I’ll take that,” Adam replied. “I think he’s tougher than he looks.”
“Fuck you both,” Alex said, striding out to the car.
And they were off. She loved Josh, but she also missed the easy camaraderie of her coworkers.
“Can we go home now?” Josh walked through the doors that led to the main part of the club.
Remind him how nice it is to have you around.
“Sure,” she said. “Unless you want to play for a while. I only got to come here once.”
He stopped, his whole body stilling. “You won’t win me back.”
She had to keep this casual. Push him physically but not emotionally. That would come because he wouldn’t be able to stop it. “Then there’s no problem with enjoying each other until we can’t anymore.”
His face had flushed and there was no way to miss how his jeans tented. “It won’t mean anything.”
“Will it mean an orgasm? Because I’ve had a shitty morning and I could use one. I’ll just take care of myself when we get home.” She shrugged it off like it didn’t matter even though her heart ached. “When is our plane tomorrow?”
He was suddenly behind her, his hand on her shoulder. “You are not allowed to masturbate unless I say so. How quickly you forget. You’re under contract until the job is over. Take off your clothes and find your place in the main dungeon. We’ll see if I can spank the rules into you.”
She was smiling as she began to strip.