Jesse couldn’t even look at her. It hurt too much. He knew the minute she walked in the conference room. It was like his body had an active radar where she was concerned. How long would it take before he couldn’t feel her under him? Before he couldn’t taste her on his tongue? He feared he might die remembering what it felt like to make love to Phoebe Grant.

And he remembered what it felt like to hear her crying in the bathroom, a locked door between them.

Despite his promise to Ian, he’d slept in Kai’s room the night before, ceding the guest room to Phoebe so she wouldn’t spend all night in the bathroom.

He hadn’t seen her all morning. She hadn’t come to the kitchen for coffee or breakfast. He’d knocked on her door when Tag texted him to come to the conference room and he’d been told she’d meet him there.

It was like nothing had happened between them at all.

“Tell me you have something.” He was careful not to look her way. If she was crying again, he wouldn’t be able to take it. Listening to her cry the night before and not being able to do anything about it had made him feel like a criminal, like he’d stolen something from her when all he’d wanted to do was give.

She was still in love with her husband. Last night had proven there was no place in her heart for him.

Big Tag sat back, his eyes going between them like he was trying to figure something out. Ten watched him, too. He had the sudden urge to walk out before they both knew just how much he’d fucked up. “We don’t have as much as we wish we did, but I think we’re getting closer.”

“We need to get this thing done. I can’t keep the team here in Dallas for much longer,” Ten admitted. “I don’t want to take this team out into the field unless I’m sure we’re solid. We’re supposed to be in Dubai in a week for some energy conference. We’re gathering intel on some of the new players.”

Tag nodded. “Yeah, we’re running security for one of the smaller countries attending. Jesse’s supposed to go, but I think I’ll have to send Alex instead.”

They were working for the king of a small country named Loa Mali. Big Tag had met Kashmir Kamdar when he’d worked an op in India. The country was putting an enormous amount of their money and workforce into sustainable energy. Though they were small, the king still required a security detail, and he’d offered McKay-Taggart the job fully knowing they would also have their own mission while there.

“You can’t do that,” Jesse argued. “He just had a kid.”

Tag’s eyes flared. “Well, they’ve all just had kids. I swear this team breeds faster than horny rabbits. I promised Kash I would send at least four of us. Erin and Simon and Li are going. I need one more. I can’t send Adam. I need him here solving this problem. So I’m down to Alex or Jake. Jake is a whiny bitch about out of country assignments since Princess Serena gifted the world with his son. Alex just met his little poop machine. How attached could he be?”

“God, I love you, Tag. You make me look sensitive,” Ten shot back.

Tag and Ten started in on each other and Jesse wondered how much more he could seriously fuck up. He was supposed to be on that detail. He’d been prepping for the assignment for a month. He’d been looking over the profiles Adam sent him and memorizing the power players. Though he was mainly there as muscle, Tag wanted the team to investigate some of the CEOs of the energy corporations for possible Collective ties. The shadowy group had been quiet since losing their head bad dude a couple of months back, but Jesse had no doubt they would come back with guns blazing at some point.

“So what exactly have you found out?” Phoebe asked and he finally looked at her. She was clean, neat as a pin. Her hair had been pulled back in a severe bun. She looked nothing like the woman who had screamed in his arms the night before. Contrary to his fears, she didn’t look vulnerable at all. She looked hard, focused. This was the CIA operative.

“Chelsea found that someone used several of the Agency assigned cells to call a number in Turkey. It’s never a long conversation. Not really a conversation at all. It’s more like ten to twenty seconds and then the call is disconnected, but Chelsea assures me there was a connection,” Ten explained.

“Why not use a burner?” Jesse couldn’t understand why this person would risk getting caught when he could easily use a burner phone.

“When we’re on assignment, they’re not allowed to have anything non-Agency assigned with them. No ID, no equipment, and definitely no personal cell phones. Their packs are checked before they get on the plane. These calls occurred while they were on one particular mission.”

“Whose phone was used? That’s simple.” Phoebe set down her coffee mug.

Ten shook his head. “No, it’s not. It’s four different phones. They belonged to Malone, Boomer, Deke, and Ace. None of them have relations in Turkey. The operation in question wasn’t in Turkey and had no ties to Turkey. We were in Southeast Asia.”

Turkey was considered to be the gateway to the Middle East and the jumping off point for radicalized Muslims joining the jihad from the west.

“The calls all happened in a two-day period. Nothing suspicious before or after,” Ten explained.

“Someone’s desperate,” Tag said under his breath.

“Then we’re looking for an inciting incident. This person has been careful up until now. Something spooked him,” Phoebe pointed out.

“Or his employer.” Ten sat back in his chair, his eyes serious.

Li’s words played around in Jesse’s head. He’d said he thought that this was about him.

You’re the answer. You’re the one who leads us to the sleeper. This is about you. We have to figure out why they want you dead.

He had to find the answer. He needed to stop thinking about his nonexistent love life and concentrate on getting them out of this situation. He had to think about what the real question was, and he had two men in front of him who might give him the answer.

“Why me? Like what are logical reasons someone would want to take me out?” Jesse mused out loud.

“It could be personal,” Tag replied. “But it doesn’t feel that way to me. Instinct tells me it’s bigger than that. Besides, why would someone on Ten’s team have something personal against you?”

He could only think of one incident. “I clocked Boomer after he and Malone shoved Si and me in that shed.”

Ten shook his head. “Everyone’s clocked Boomer at one point in time. That boy’s had more concussions than a quarterback. He’s not the type to get pissed about something like that. Now you take his Cheetos and he turns into the Hulk. That boy is all about his gut.”

“I don’t think this is personal,” Phoebe said, sounding deeply professional. “If this guy really is a sleeper, then he wouldn’t risk his position on a personal grudge. This was expertly set up. I was the one who screwed everything up. If I hadn’t been made, no one would have been the wiser.”

“So if this is a professional hit, it’s got to be about stopping you from doing something.” Tag tapped his pen against the desk. “The only op you’re scheduled for right now is the one in Dubai, but you’re one of four agents. So why you?”

“It could have been a message to you, Tag,” Ten offered. “We just never got the message because he didn’t actually die.”

They started arguing, but Jesse tuned them out. This wasn’t about Tag. It wasn’t about the team. It was about him.

“What are you thinking?” Phoebe asked, leaning toward him.

“That this is about me. I just can’t figure out why.”

“Taggart’s right. If this is about you then it’s about stopping you from doing something.” She frowned as Ten and Tag continued to argue. “Or it’s about something you know that you shouldn’t.”

A bitter laugh came from his mouth. “Yeah, well, we all know I don’t know much.”

“Jesse…” She turned again, facing him, and her face had flushed. “You didn’t do anything wrong last night. That was all about me.”

God, he’d heard this speech before and he didn’t want to hear it from her. He nodded when he thought he should, but he didn’t really hear her as she started to explain how she wasn’t ready and it wasn’t a good time. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

It all came back to I don’t want you, Jesse.

He knew that. He knew what it felt like to be rejected. If this was about what he knew, rejection was high on the list. Other things he knew—how to be tortured and nearly turned into a mindless slave. He knew the sound of pure evil. Yeah, that was a good one. He knew what the devil looked like.

In the end, there was really only one thing vitally important that he knew and no one else did. Him. The man in his nightmares.

“I know him.” The truth hit him square in the chest. “I know him.”

Phoebe stopped her obviously prepared speech. “Who?”

Even Ten and Tag were now paying attention.

“The Caliph. That’s what he called himself. I’ve seen him, heard him. I’m about to go back to the Middle East. One of the things you had to do for the conference was send in the names of all security personnel. We’re required to go through checks, too. Kamdar had to submit our names in order to bring us as his security detail. What date would he have done that on?”

“Grace did it.” Tag was suddenly on his laptop, his hands working the keys in a staccato rhythm. After a few seconds he reached for one of Ten’s notes and groaned. “Shit. She did it the day before the phone calls. She submitted those names and that is what led to the phone calls. He couldn’t be careful anymore. It was too important.”

“He has to have taken or borrowed those phones. I can’t believe I’ve got four traitors.” Ten had gone a little pale.

“Why would this man care if you were at a conference?” Phoebe asked. “Obviously I understand that he wouldn’t want to be recognized, but why would he be there in the first place? Shouldn’t he be running his little army somewhere?”

“He was an educated man. Highly educated. In that part of the world, it means he’s wealthy. He spoke English with a British accent.” He wracked his brain for everything he could think of about the Caliph. It was hard because a lot of the time he’d spent with the man had been in a drug-induced haze. “He talked about Oxford.”

“So he’s very wealthy.” Ten sighed and restacked his papers. “And that means oil in the Middle East.”

“Shit. The last thing he wants is to be outed as a jihadist at this thing. This conference is for moderates only,” Tag explained. “One of the things they’re supposed to discuss is how to deal with resources falling into the hands of radicals and how to protect their companies from it happening. Jesse, I think you’re on to something.”

He shrugged. “It was really Li’s idea. He thought it was about something I knew.”

“Dude, take a compliment. You sound like a girl who doesn’t want to be told she’s pretty more than a thousand times. You were smart. Not going to say it again.” Tag’s words came out of his mouth with the efficiency of a machine gun.

“I didn’t know you said it the first time,” Jesse muttered under his breath. Somehow, in telling him he was smart, Jesse still managed to feel dumb. But Tag was right. He was on to something. And he had another theory. “What if I wasn’t the Caliph’s first? Deke told me you have a couple of people on your team who were captives at one time or another. Who was gone the longest?”

Ten opened his laptop. “Ace and Deke were both gone for a couple of months, Ace slightly longer. Boomer was held for a week before he managed to escape. He made a sling shot, if you can believe it. Fucker took down three men with rocks, escaped, and then almost got his ass caught again because he got lost in the center of Kabul. Some friendlies took him in and hid him until his unit managed to pick him up. I don’t think this is Boomer.”

“No,” Jesse agreed. Boomer was too open, but the other two were candidates. “It makes sense if we run with the idea that the Caliph doesn’t want me to potentially identify him, it would be his man who would make a move to take me out. What if I was a failed experiment? That doesn’t mean others didn’t succeed.”

Ten ran a hand through his hair and his jaw tightened. “I can’t believe it.”

Jesse shouldn’t have expected different. He wasn’t intelligence. He was just a dude with a gun and protective instincts. “All right. What do you think?”

Ten glared his way. “I think you’re right and I don’t want to believe it. Are you always so literal?” He slammed the top of his laptop into place. “I’m sorry. I’m struggling with the fact that I have a traitor in my midst and I haven’t seen it. He could have hurt my men. I take them seriously. That team is my responsibility and I fucked up because I’m missing something. I didn’t see something.”

“You see the mask he wants you to see.” A chill went through Jesse’s system. How did he make them understand? “I know what he was trying to do with me. He was trying to break me down. To utterly strip me of everything that made me Jesse Murdoch. He would tell me that what I thought was me was really just a mask. The real me was underneath and must be hidden to everyone but my brothers. He was our father, the one who made us see the truth.”

“Who were your brothers?” Tag asked, his voice deep.

“I don’t know. I didn’t meet them. He promised me a family if I just gave over to him. If I could drop the false persona forced on me by the superficial Western devils, I could find my real family. It all sounded more reasonable when there was heroin in my system. Now it sounds like a load of bullshit, but with the heroin it really does make sense.”

“Don’t joke about it,” Phoebe said, sounding emotional for the first time.

“Why not? When you think about it, it’s kind of funny.” They’d tried to train him like a dog. Called him a dog.

“Gallows humor,” Tag said with a faint smile. “Chicks don’t understand it. I could have told the fucker your skull’s too thick to shove that shit through. He knew how to get to you, though. He knew what buttons to push.”

“Yeah, like you did.”

If Tag was offended, he didn’t show it. “It was obvious you wanted a place to belong. I simply gave it to you.”

And he would be forever grateful. “You gave me a family, Tag.”

“Yeah, which is why no matter what happens, your ass is not going back to Wyoming. So what would we look for? You’re the expert here, Murdoch. We’re going to follow your lead.”

Ten nodded in agreement. “I’ll open my files. See what you think. There are psych assessments in there. I’m using my authority to give you eyes only clearance. Do you understand?”

“Don’t talk about anything I read in those files. Got it.” He was surprised that Ten would offer to let him look at the files. “The last thing I expected to get was top secret clearance.”

Ten stared at him for a moment before speaking. “I was wrong about you. I was angry with you about…”

Phoebe slapped her hand against the desk. “Tennessee!”

“No. I’m telling him because you won’t. Damn it, Phoebe. This is not some secret to hoard. You think you can bring him back if you don’t tell anyone? You think you can make all this less real if we don’t talk about it? I’m your brother and I was his brother, and I am not going to keep quiet anymore. I’m not going to hide and pretend like it didn’t happen.”

“I can’t believe you would do this.” She stood and after a second, stalked out of the room.

What the hell was that about? “Does this have something to do with her husband?”

“It has to do with Jamie and you deserve to know the truth. You deserve to know why I hated you for so long.”

“Do you hate me now?” He hadn’t liked the look on Phoebe’s face as she’d left the room. It had been a punch in the gut. Whatever Ten was going to tell him meant the world to her.

Ten shook his head. “I was irrational. You’re not the man I thought you were.”

He wanted to know. It was an ache in his gut. The truth was right there. He would know why the Agency had it in for him. And knowing would hurt her. She didn’t belong to him. She didn’t want to. It was all right to choose himself over her. It was logical. He couldn’t do it.

“Don’t say another word, please. If me being in the dark brings her peace, then I don’t need to know.”

“You have the right.”

“Does it affect this operation? Will me not knowing potentially hurt someone?”

Ten shook his head. “No.”

“Then let it lie. It’s enough to know this bad blood between us can be over.” He looked at the door where Phoebe had disappeared. “You should go talk to her. Tell her I didn’t want to know. I don’t want her to feel bad.”

“What happened between the two of you?” Ten asked, standing up. “I know it’s none of my business, but it’s obvious something went wrong. She wasn’t comfortable with you and she always is.”

“It just didn’t work out.” God he ached, but he’d learned not to let it show.

“She hurt you,” Ten said.

“How do you know I didn’t hurt her?”

“Because I’ve come to know you and you wouldn’t hurt her to save yourself. Damn it. She might not understand it, but you’re good for her. She needs you.”

Jesse shook his head. “She doesn’t. She needs him. She loves him. There’s no place for me.”

“I’m sorry, Jesse. She’s going to regret it in the end. I’ll go talk to her.” He reached into a briefcase and pulled out the files. “I was going to have you look at them even before you figured it out. You’re a good operative, Murdoch. I would be proud to have you on my team.”

“You would be dead because you’re not poaching anyone else,” Tag swore.

Ten gave him a little salute. “I’ll remember that. Go over those files with Murdoch for me.”

“Does that mean I’ve got my clearance back?” Tag asked.

“You never lost it,” Ten admitted. “I never took you off. I always hoped we could work something out. Now I hope I can make my sister see reason. I always was an optimist.”

Ten closed the door behind him.

“You okay?” Tag asked as he divided up the files

He was hollowed out. He was empty. “I’m good.”

“That’s what I like about you, Murdoch.” Tag handed him half the files and they got to work. “No matter what, you say you’re good. Just know we’re here for you. All of us. If you need to talk, I got Alex on speed dial.”

That was his boss. The good thing was, he wasn’t much of a talker so he and Big Tag could get along. “I’d rather you just got me a beer.”

Tag slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re my favorite. I’ll be right back. We’re getting this solved, Jesse. And if you want my two cents, she’s an idiot. I’ll get us both a beer and we can figure out which one of these boys is a crazy asshole who we’re going to take out a little rage on.”

He stepped out of the room and Jesse stared at the door. He was damn glad that he still had his family. He was glad he’d done his job and he didn’t need to leave.

But the most important door had closed, too, and he was fairly certain Phoebe wouldn’t open it again.

* * * *

Phoebe couldn’t breathe. She tried to but then she would think about the fact that there was no way Jesse didn’t hate her now. He would loathe her. The only man alive she’d made love with and he was going to hate her because Ten had decided he wasn’t the enemy.

She knew he wasn’t the enemy. She’d known it for a long time, but that didn’t mean he had to know everything. God, she couldn’t be with him. She knew that now. She’d wrecked him the night before and she hadn’t meant to. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Jesse more than she had. She’d made every mistake she could with him. She didn’t even deserve a chance to apologize, though she’d hoped to try.

What would she apologize about? She would have to pick from a long list. I’m sorry I lied about my identity. I’m sorry I planted bugs in your apartment and let my brother spy on you. I’m sorry I ruined last night.

I’m sorry I’m the one who came up with the plan that ruined your life, killed my husband, and still tortures you to this day.

He would be right to hate her.

She felt like she was twelve again and being kicked out of yet another home. She could still hear the voices of the bad foster parents telling her there was something wrong with her, that she ruined everything. All these years later and she could still hear them when she couldn’t even remember the names of the ones who had been kind to her. There had been several. Men and women who had helped but for one reason or another, she’d had to leave those homes, too.

“Phoebe!”

She picked up the pace, not wanting to deal with Ten. She flew up the stairs. He didn’t understand. Ten didn’t love anyone. Not really. Oh, she knew he loved her as much as Ten could possibly love someone. Ten was funny and fierce and so guarded. She knew he would kill or die for her, but why couldn’t he keep one damn secret?

She managed to get to her bedroom. To the room where she’d made love with Jesse. She wasn’t about to fool herself. It hadn’t been sex, and that made it so much worse. It had been the best night of her life and just for a moment, she hadn’t been able to remember what Jamie looked like. It had been just a second, but Jesse had clouded her vision, her heart, to the point that Jamie had been lost again, and she couldn’t allow that to happen. If she lost Jamie, he would really be gone forever.

She started to shut the door but a cowboy boot got in the way.

“Hey, I need to talk to you.”

“Go away.” She pushed on the door.

Ten proved he was stronger. He simply pushed back and the door came open. “Are we pretending to be obnoxious teenagers again? What the hell was that scene downstairs?”

Nope. He wouldn’t understand. She loved her brother but he had all the sensitivity of a rhinoceros. He was wrong about Tag making him look good. “I would like you to leave.”

He closed the door behind him. “Phoebe, what the hell is going on with you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I just want a new assignment.” She had to deal with the fact that not only was Ten her brother, he was her boss. He controlled the only part of her life that held any meaning now. “I would really like to go back to Virginia.”

His face went stony. “No.”

“No? What do you mean no?” He couldn’t just say no.

“I mean I’m not sending you back to Virginia. You would be right back where you started. You would sit in that house and you would mourn him and let your life waste away. I will not be a party to that.”

She could concede on that point, but she had another plan ready. “Fine. Send me back to Asia. I’m sure you need someone over there with my skills.”

“Where you can waste your life pretending to be someone else?” Ten stepped into the room, his eyes going straight to the bed. There was no way he could miss the rumpled sheets or the damn condom wrapper on the nightstand. Why hadn’t she gotten rid of that? She’d been running late this morning and she hadn’t cleaned up anything but herself. Ten picked up the wrapper, holding it up. “Goddamn it, Phoebe.”

Shit. She didn’t need his judgment. “That’s none of your business.”

“Everything you do is my business.”

Embarrassment flashed through her system. When had Ten started acting more like her dad than her brother? “Ten, it didn’t mean anything. It was a mistake.”

He shook his head and tossed the wrapper in the trash. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say. And that’s exactly why I won’t put you back into active duty.”

“What do you mean? Are you that angry that I cheated on Jamie.”

“You can’t cheat on Jamie.” Ten’s hands fisted at his sides. “Jamie is dead. Jamie is buried and he ain’t coming back. I’m benching you because you want to join him, because you are actively seeking to kill yourself and I won’t be a part of it. I won’t. I will not bury another sibling.”

She couldn’t blame him for thinking that way, but he had to see that she needed to work. “I’m not being reckless, Ten.”

He started to pace, a sure sign that he was upset. “No? You’re being stupid if you really think sleeping with a man who obviously adores you is a mistake. You should have been purring in his lap this morning, but you barely looked at him. I knew something was wrong with the two of you. I thought you’d had a fight, but that isn’t what happened. You didn’t fight. You fucked and then you felt guilty. What did you do? Throw him out?”

“No. I locked myself in the bathroom. When I came out, he’d moved into the other room.” She could still hear him promising not to bother her, swearing he wouldn’t touch her again if she would just stop crying. He’d said he couldn’t stand to hear her cry.

“You are being a fool. That boy would do anything for you.”

Tears clouded her eyes. “He’s wonderful, but I can’t. I’m not ready.”

“And you’ll never be ready because you refuse to let go.” He took a deep breath and stepped toward her. “You have to know he wouldn’t want this for you. Jamie wouldn’t want you to go through this. He would want you to be happy.”

“Then he shouldn’t have died.” The old bitterness welled up. Sometimes she just ached for him but she also had moments when she hated the universe and everything in it for being alive when he was dead.

She’d forgotten the ache and pain while she’d been in Jesse’s arms. For just a second, she’d been alive again and the world held potential.

“If you had been the one to die, would you want him to go on without you? Would you want him to ache for the rest of his life?”

Why couldn’t he understand? “I loved him. How can you want me to forget him?”

“Because you have a life to live. Because you’ll have more years without him than you ever had with him and you have to move on. You can’t live every one of those years in mourning. I miss him, too. I have to move on or I’ll go crazy. Don’t you remember all the things you wanted out of life? You wanted to be a mom.”

“I wanted to have Jamie’s baby.”

Ten stopped in front of her. “That is no longer an option and it’s such a fucking shame because I think you would have been a great mom. I know this sounds so stupid, but I wanted that family, too. I wanted you and Jamie to breed like rabbits and get out of the service. I wanted you two in that big house Dad left us, raising babies and horses and having a good life. When I used to think about why I do what I do, it was always so you and Jamie could be happy and safe and so that I could go to your place for Thanksgiving and be weird Uncle Ten who likes to hold babies and play catch with the kids.”

The sweetness of the vision pierced her, making her ache all over again. “I wanted that, too. I never meant to be a lifer. Plans change.”

“But they didn’t and that’s what’s killing me now. Yes, Jamie died and we will mourn him forever, but we have to move on. I don’t know what I believe in—God, the universe, whatever—but I do know that you are being given a second chance and you’re too stubborn to take it. You will never find another man like the one you just walked out on.”

She wasn’t about to argue with him about Jesse. “He’s so good. I care about Jesse, but you have to know that you just wrecked everything. Any chance we had of being friends is gone. He can’t forgive me for what I did. I came up with the plan that sent him into hell. I did that. I’ve been lying to him. He didn’t know Jamie was with him.”

“He still doesn’t know.”

“What?”

“He wouldn’t let me tell him. He said if it hurt you for him to know, then he didn’t need to know.” Ten sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, looking wearier than she’d ever seen him. “I’ve gone over every possible scenario in my head. He’s too good to be true. I’ve even thought about the fact that if someone wanted to send in a sleeper, it would be interesting to send in one no one else trusts. Hide him in plain sight. Jesse would be perfect. You could train him to know what to say, how to act, how to look vulnerable enough that someone like Taggart would want to protect him, train him, give him access. Like I just gave him access to top secret files.”

“I can’t believe you gave him clearance.” She knew he was trustworthy. It just wasn’t like Ten to change his mind.

Ten nodded slowly. “There comes a time when you have to put the past aside, put paranoia and experience aside and go with your gut. Sometimes things aren’t what they seem, but every now and then they’re exactly what they look like. I viewed him through the eyes of an operative and a man who lost his brother and was looking for someone, anyone to blame for it. But it changed when I did one thing.”

“What was that?”

“I decided to look at him through your eyes. And I made a decision. I will trust him. I would trust him with you and therefore I’ll trust him with my life, too, and the lives of every person in this country. He won’t let us down.”

“He doesn’t know?” A little hope lit inside her. Why, she wasn’t sure. She just knew she didn’t want him to hate her. Even if he never spoke to her again, she didn’t want him to curse her name and wish he’d never met her.

“He wouldn’t let me tell him.”

“We can’t let him die.” She didn’t want to even think about a world where he wasn’t alive and vibrant and so sweet it hurt to look at him.

Sometimes he wasn’t so sweet. Sometimes he was in control, demanding. Yes, she’d liked that Jesse, too.

She turned and looked out the window. In the distance, she could see the McKay-Taggart building. She probably wouldn’t be going back there. She wouldn’t see all those kids again.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing him away?” Ten asked.

“Because I can still feel Jamie. It’s like he’s still here with me.” She could feel his arms around her, sense him close. It had almost gone away, but if she concentrated hard enough, she just knew she could get it back.

“If he is, it’s because you won’t let him go. I don’t know what happens when we die, but I know Jamie wouldn’t want you to hold him here. And he probably couldn’t leave until he knew you were safe. You’re safe with Murdoch. Let him rest, Phoebe.”

It wasn’t the only reason she couldn’t be with Jesse. “Do you think some people are just cursed? Like nothing can really go right for them.”

She heard him moving and then his arms came around her. For so long the only people she had any kind of affectionate contact with had been Jamie and Ten.

“I think some people are too stubborn to see what’s right in front of them. My mother dumped me in a trash bin. She meant for me to die. I should have died. From what I understand, I was dead when they did find me. It was just luck, you know. Some bum was poking around, looking for food. He found me and I was blue. Most bums would have run to get help or maybe just run. Not this one. No, he was a former Army medic down on his luck. He held me in his arms and did CPR. He brought me back and wrapped me in his coat and walked two miles to the police station. How random is it that a fucking former Army medic just happened to fall on hard times and just happened to pick that trash bin at exactly the right time? You know how Franklin found me?”

When she thought about how close Ten had come to not existing, to being nothing more than a baby no one wanted, her heart clenched. She covered his hands with hers. “I thought you won a sharp-shooting contest.”

“Hell, I didn’t have the money to enter a damn thing. I had a foster dad who taught me how to shoot. He was a good man. I was with him for a long time before he got cancer and had to let me go. I snuck in. I stole one of the entrant’s badges. I don’t even really know why I did except I wanted to remember what it felt like to be with him. They figured out I hadn’t paid after I won and they were calling the cops on me.”

“And that’s when Franklin showed up, right?”

“Nah, that’s when Jamie distracted them long enough for me to run.” Ten laughed. “I ran right into Dad. I remember him looking down at me and saying a boy who could shoot like that didn’t have to run from anything. Two days later, I was living with him, going to a prep school. It seemed random, coincidental. Maybe it was. Maybe it could have gone another way, but it didn’t and that’s how I found my family. I just can’t accept after everything we went through that none of us gets to be happy. You have a shot with Murdoch. Jamie would want you to take it.”

“I was happy. I was happy when it was you and me and Jamie, and accepting anything less seems wrong.” But it wasn’t less, she realized suddenly. What she had with Jesse wasn’t less. It was different. It was special. “I could love him. I just can’t let myself. I would be living a lie. How would Jesse feel if he woke up one day and realized I had lied to him about my part in his capture?”

“You made a command decision. I honestly think he’ll understand. What he won’t understand is why you didn’t trust him enough to tell him.” His arms tightened around her. “I’m leaving you here, sister, and that’s an order. When Murdoch goes to Dubai, you’re going with him.”

“And after the op is over?”

“I’ll tackle that problem when it comes, but you should know I won’t be able to send you back to Virginia alone. If you make that choice, then I’ll go, too.”

“You’re already based in Virginia.”

“No, Phoebe. If you go back, I’ll quit the Agency. I’ll do it because my main job in life will be to watch over you, to protect you—even from yourself.” She felt him lay a brotherly kiss on her cheek before letting go. “Hell, maybe we can open a brother/sister detective agency. That oughta be good for a laugh. You think about what I said. I’m going to help Tag and Murdoch, and by help I mean I’m going to help myself to their Scotch because it’s already been an excruciatingly long day.”

She heard him step away and the door closed. She looked out into the distance. After a long moment she closed her eyes and tried to bring up that picture of Jamie that was always right there.

All she could see was Jesse. She feared she’d traded one ghost for another because Jesse seemed as far from her as Jamie was.