Jovana was caught up in her thoughts as what to do now or where to go from here so she hadn’t realized that the man they had tied to a chair had finally regained consciousness. Her eyes connected with his brown ones. They narrowed and he cast a glance at Scott, who had leveled the borrowed pistol at their captive.

She tried to struggle with an idea as to what to do with him and where to go from here now that he was awake. The look on Scott’s face said death. But, that wouldn’t get them anywhere. It wouldn’t end this. Where this man died, another would be there to take his place. She bit her lip and looked away, trying to think of a good way to broach the subject. Perhaps the best route would be a line of questions. “Were you here for just me?”

Brown eyes connected with hers again before turning to look at the weapon that was pointed at his face. He didn’t speak, but he seemed to wait patiently for Scott to decide what to do. It was like he was ready to accept death.

“You are not going to give me answers?” she asked politely. “I can imagine that I am the true purpose for your being here.” She looked at him, assuming his name was Andrew Carroll as Scott had said. “Are you here to eliminate Scott as well?”

“He’s not going to answer your questions.” Scott made an angry noise, seeming to lose patience. “He knows better. Giving us information won’t save him and he knows it.”

The other man nodded, remaining silent.

“I do not want information. I do not want his detailed knowledge. I know the answer to the first question. I want to know the answer to the second,” she said stubbornly. “Realistically, Scott, how long do you think we can do this? He is here because you abandoned killing me. After you kill him, how many more are there to take his place?” She dug her fingers through her hair, then set his pistol on the tabletop. “We are just delaying the inevitable.”

“Stop,” he said sharply, glaring at her. “We’ll have enough time to get to another place before they realize that this guy is dead,” he started evenly. “You’re not the only target now.”

She digested that for a moment, realizing its meaning. The fake photo wasn’t bought. That much was obvious when he insisted they keep running. “You are a target now, too?” He nodded, glaring hard at their captive. It made her feel queasy. She had decided she would willingly give herself up for him. But it was obvious he had realized that. “So the plan is just to continue running?”

“We’ll have a head start by at least a week.” He shrugged as if the idea didn’t bother him. “I doubt he has that many he’s willing to risk just for your head. What do you think, Carroll?”

The other man actually shrugged. “This is the first I’ve heard of you, man. Really, I don’t know how many of us exist.”

“It’ll be one fewer after today,” he said lightly to the other man, looking as if he were ready to pull the trigger. “No hard feelings.”

“Wait,” she said sharply, coming between Scott and Carroll. “Killing him will achieve nothing.”

“Killing him will give us more time to run,” he argued, looking at her like she had gone mad. “Letting him live will only end up with us both being killed.” He shook his head. “What do you expect? For him to not listen as we plan our escape?” He tried to pull her out of the way, “This is not how things work. If we leave him alive, we have ticking expiration dates. They’ve been there since we tried to fake your death in Denver.”

“And it will be there even after you kill him and we leave.” Her voice rose as she tried to point out the direness of the situation. “More death doesn’t fix our problem.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“There has to be a better alternative than this,” she said at last. “There has to be a better way than running. How long do you think we can survive on the road?” Her voice lowered and she cupped his cheek. “A year? Five, if we are vigilant? We will not be able to have a family this way. We will not last for years side by side.”

“I am not giving up,” he said harshly. “I have dreamed of you since I first saw you. Letting you go isn’t the answer either.”

“Then we need to think of a way out of this,” she told him firmly. “Killing him cannot be the only answer.” She sighed and stepped to him. “You came to kill me twice in my lifetime. Do you not think that there has been enough death surrounding me?” He nodded, closing his eyes as he seemed to struggle with a plan. All the while, Carroll’s eyes burned into her back. “Is there a way to end the contract on me?”

Scott started to shake his head no then paused, looking at her without really seeing her. An idea had come to him. She could see it in his eyes. “Austin,” he murmured. He pressed the gun in her hand. “Keep it on him, keep an eye on him, and don’t hesitate to shoot him if he looks like he’s getting loose.” With that, he hurried out of the room, leaving her alone with the tied up man.

She turned to him and put distance between them as she tried to figure what Scott was thinking. “Solid plan,” Carroll said lightly. “Sleep with the man who’s sent to kill you until you have his dick wrapped around your little finger. If I survive this, I’ll be sure not to sleep with a female target.”

“You assume a lot,” she said lightly as she sat down at the table. “He and I have a history. There was more here than just sex.”

“I gathered that.” He shrugged a shoulder.

“It was my best effort to persuade him not to kill you.” She stood and went to ensure the sheet that secured him to the chair was still tight. “Please do not make me have to shoot you.”

“It doesn’t matter what he does.” He looked at her over a shoulder. “This is only going to end one way.”

“This is our lives,” she said to him. “You cannot blame us for trying to stop the bloodshed.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said lightly. “I just doubt it’ll work. You’re not really an idealist, are you? You don’t really think he’ll be able to keep you both safe without killing me, do you?”

“Probably not,” Scott said as he walked back into the room, phone in hand. “But desperate times do call for desperate measures. There’s really only one way to end this, and that’s by going after the guy with the power.”

“What?” she asked, going to sit back down at the table. “Who are you calling?”

“The guy who started it all,” he said as he dialed a number. He put the phone on speaker so that they could all hear the ringing.

After the third ring, a male voice answered. “Charlie Austin,” he stated in place of a greeting.

“Austin,” Scott greeted, looking at Carroll with a mix of interest. “Summers reporting in. How’s it going?”

The man on the phone paused for a beat, seeming to take a moment to digest who was calling. “Summers,” he confirmed. “I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

“Is it because you sent Andrew Carroll to kill me?” Despite the context of his words, he didn’t sound angry—or look it, for that matter. He had an expression on his face that was neutral and his tone sounded friendly. “That it?”

There was a chuckle, and she imagined that at one point, the man named Charlie had been a friend to Scott. “Well, yeah. Though I guess since I’m getting this call, Andy failed. It’s a shame. His success rate was on par with yours, and he’s a bit older, more experienced. I figured if anyone stood the chance at killing you, it’d be him.”

“He made a good effort,” Scott said, leaning against the counter as he considered the man who was tied up. “I’m sure if he had caught me off guard, I wouldn’t be talking to you.” Andy, as he was being called now, gave a nod as if he were accepting a compliment.

“Damn shame,” Charlie sighed into the phone. “Here I’m down two good agents now. All because of what? A woman? Did you break rule number three? Did you sleep with her?”

“Never sleep with a target,” Andy reminded, giving Scott a hard look.

“Fuck me,” Charlie said suddenly, his surprise evident. “You’ve got Andy alive?”

“Yeah, actually.” Scott seemed to ignore their words. “He’s alive, so you haven’t really lost two agents. Just the one.”

“Are you calling to give yourself and Borjan up? I would wholeheartedly accept. However, you didn’t have to make the call. Carroll is good with orders. He wouldn’t send me a piece of shit fake picture and expect me to believe it.” Anger started to come through the phone as the other man spoke. “Really, did you think I would buy that?”

“Had to make an effort. I thought the least it would do would be to buy me time.” He shrugged it off. “Small talk aside, I really didn’t call you to shoot the breeze. I called you with a proposition.”

“This ends one way, Summers. Borjan is a liability. Letting her go is a mistake and you know it. I may be willing to forgive you a lapse in judgement provided you can complete the mission,” Charlie said evenly, as if they weren’t talking about her death.

“You, on the other hand—you’re a good agent. You’re prompt and quick, effective. It’s a shame to have to put your name up as a mission. If you do this, I’ll take your name out of the mission log and you can go back to work like none of this happened. I’ll only have to dock the payment for Borjan since I had to send Andy out there to get you to come to your senses.”

“See,” Scott started with his tone sounding nonchalant and his gaze on her. “I see this going a different way. I have two of your agents here. Agents who work for a department in the CIA that doesn’t really exist as far as the American people know. What do you think they’ll say when they find out their tax dollars are used to kill innocent people? Do you think they’ll condone murder?”

He didn’t give the other man the chance to reply. “I can’t remember the last time we talked about this shit, but I remember you saying something about a news anchor you couldn’t stand. What was her name? You got her number? I bet she’d have a field day with the shit I have to say.”

“That would be a terrible idea,” Charlie said lightly.

“You’re playing with my life here,” Scott retorted. “Well, not even just my life. Carroll’s and Jovana’s.” He rubbed a hand over his face and seemed to be thinking. “And for what? Information she might still have? Or is it just the principle?”

“She leaked information,” was his answer. “She had a lapse in judgement, similar to you now, and she leaked classified information. You don’t get to simply walk away from something like that. You don’t work in this department with the information you know or you find out and get to tell other people about it.”

“I was drugged,” she barked out, feeling the need to defend herself. She had been loyal. She didn’t want to betray her country. “I did not freely give information out.”

“Your lapse of judgement,” Charlie said. “Though it sounds like you’ve gotten smarter if you’ve figured out a way to keep Summers from killing you.”

“This is ending here,” Scott cut through. “One of two ways. I can kill Carroll and leave him here for you to find. I’ll contact all the major news outlets and out myself, you, and your department. An investigation will have to be done. I can imagine that the American people will demand that all the dirty laundry get aired out. Do you think they’ll arrest you? Because you’re the one who issued the kill missions. You’re just as guilty as Carroll and I are for doing them. If they don’t arrest you, I don’t imagine that your career in the CIA will go very far after this. What do you think?”

“You have an alternative,” Charlie said lightly as he seemed to consider what Scott was saying. “Since you have thought this out, how do I keep you from killing Andy and going to the press?”

“Let us go,” he said simply. “Delete the mission to kill Jovana Borjan, delete the mission to kill me, and just let us go.”

“You think it’s that simple?”

“It will have to be,” he said as he pushed off the kitchen counter, picked up a pistol, and pressed it to Carroll’s temple. “It’ll have to be as simple as pulling a trigger or not pulling a trigger.”

“Just to point out the seriousness here,” Andy said as he met Scott’s gaze. “He’s got a gun to my head.”

“I want to retire,” Scott said lightly. “I wanted to stop doing this anyway. Let me do that. Let me take Jovana, and let us go.” He shrugged a shoulder. “If you’re worried about someone getting ahold of her again, don’t worry. I’ve kept her safe this far, and I’ve managed to catch a man in the process. I think I can keep her out of anyone else’s hands.” He tilted his head until a sound crack came from his neck. “On the other hand, I can kill this guy and every man you send my way. How many agents do you have, Austin? How many can you afford to lose?”

“A man does stupid shit when he’s in deep,” Charlie sighed into the phone. A rustle of papers filtered through the phone, and it was apparent he was searching through his desk. “This is what you’ll do for me in return for what I’m going to do for you. You’ll take Andy to the airport and put him on a plane for Washington. I want a full debrief from you on this, Carroll. From there, as far as the CIA is concerned, both you and Borjan are dead. I’ll accept this piece of shit picture you sent me as proof, and Andy will tell me that he succeeded in killing you. From there, you will need to take everything you have left in your payroll account and put it in an overseas bank. I’ll send you the number to a bank in the Virgin Islands. After all of that, neither you nor Borjan will set foot in the States again. Are we all clear on these orders?”

She saw Andy nod and Scott as well, the two echoing, “Yes sir.”

“I’m setting you up with an email account. I’ll send the address and password to this phone. You will have twenty-four hours to get the information off that account before it is deleted. From there . . .” Charlie sighed. “I don’t want to hear from your ass again.”

“If it makes you feel better, the feeling is mutual,” Scott said with a smirk. “You’re acting like I’ve got a gun to your head.”

“There is, asshole,” the other man snapped. “Now get Andy on a plane.”

The call ended and she felt relief flood her. “It is over?”

Andy shot a look at her. “As soon as you get me on a plane, it’s over.”

“If I untie you, are you going to be stupid?” Scott asked.

“I follow orders,” the other man shot back. “I’m not so stupid that I’ll go against my director’s commands.”

The next hour went by in a blur. Both she and Scott got dressed, and they untied the man who was sent to kill them. For being held at gunpoint, the other man didn’t seem to hold any animosity against them, though Scott didn’t return his guns. “I’d rather be safe than have a bullet in my head,” he said as they directed Andy into the rental car.

“I behaved,” he argued. “But I can see where you’re coming from. I’ll just have to write off the loss.”

It surprised her when she saw them shake hands, standing on the tarmac to the little airport they had arrived in. They spoke privately as she opted to stay in the car. There must be a connection between killers, because that was what they both were. Though Scott said he was retiring. When he came back to the car, he seemed to have a relaxed expression. It was closing in on dawn, and the rays of the sun had begun to chase away the darkness of the night.

“Is it over?” she asked because despite everything, it seemed surreal that it would end so easily.

“It’s over—the hard part is. Now we just have to finish up the little details,” he said lightly, picking up her hand. “We need to decide where we go from here. We could go our separate ways if it was something you wanted.”

“That is not what Charlie Austin ordered.” She looked at him. “What happened to ‘in it together’?”

He gave her a smile, and for the first time, it reached his eyes. She had been attracted to Scott before. He was a handsome man. Looking at him now, she saw him letting go of the stress, letting go of the need to be one step ahead and fighting to keep them both alive. He was beautiful.

“I’m still in it. But I wanted to give you the choice now. Because despite what Austin said, you have a choice. You can go wherever the hell you want to go. You don’t have to stick with me if you don’t want to.” His voice sounded thick, and she knew there was emotion behind it. Fear. He was afraid she would choose to leave him.

She unbuckled her seatbelt, and without a care for who might see them, she crawled across the center console to straddle his lap. “I am in this until the end,” she said lightly as she pressed her brow to his. “That has not changed just because the ending has. I will be with you until you are done with me.”

“That means that you’ll be with me until we’re both old and going out on our own terms,” he said with a smile.

“That is what I want,” she assured him as she kissed him gently. “I will grow old and grey with you.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”