“Well, good morning to you, too,” Parker said when Ethan didn’t so much as pause on his trek down to his office. “Brought you a fresh cup of coffee.”
“You want to die before eight in the morning?” Ethan was far too tired to put up with Parker’s antics this morning. He hadn’t slept for shit, tossing and turning for a handful of hours before giving up and stumbling into the shower and determining to head into the office. And was it any wonder why? Somehow, in the hours he’d spent tangled with Natalia Vega, in all the myriad ways he’d considered her a threat—a distraction, a potent desire he was near helpless to resist—he’d never really considered her dangerous.
Or capable of cold-blooded murder.
Turned out, discovering that the woman he’d buried himself in was more well-trained killer than cartel hostage could keep a man up at night. Who knew?
Ethan sure as hell hadn’t. He’d been blindsided—and he had no one to blame but himself.
“Not eight a.m. for me. More like—” Parker tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling tiles, his lips moving as he listed off a string of half-mumbled numbers that, knowing him, could have been anything from train schedules in Tokyo to strings of code to high scores from Jungle Gem. “Three in the afternoon, maybe?” He dropped his gaze to where Ethan sat behind his desk. “Wait, what day is it?” Parker asked.
As usual, Ethan couldn’t be 100 percent sure Parker was joking. It was always so damn hard to tell, but given the way the corner of Parker’s mouth twitched and the fact that he wasn’t restlessly shifting from foot to foot, an addled mess of caffeine and sugar-fueled artificial energy that would put to shame a six-year-old high on birthday cake, ice cream, and laser tag, Ethan figured Parker was probably kidding.
Maybe.
Oh hell, he didn’t know or care; Parker was Georgia’s problem these days, and Ethan made a concerted effort to stay as far away from their nocturnal habits as physically possible.
Besides, Ethan had enough to deal with.
“Brought you the good stuff,” Parker said, placing the tumbler on the desk in front of Ethan and pushing it forward with a single fingertip, the bottom of the mug making a high-pitched grinding sound as he did. “Black, just the way you like it.”
“You’ve got fewer brain cells than a goldfish with Alzheimer’s if you think I’m falling for that a second time.”
“Nah.” Parker dropped into the chair across from Ethan’s desk, lounging against the backrest in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable and had Ethan reconsidering the merits of sending Parker to basic training for his posture alone. “We both know I screwed with the mug again, but how, I wonder?” Parker let out a lengthy sigh, cracked his neck, and made to put his feet up on the edge of Ethan’s desk.
“Do it, and I swear on—”
“Coffee?” Parker asked, dropping his feet with an unrepentant grin. “Your set of James Bond DVDs? Hmmmm, what else would Ethan Somerton swear on?” He snapped his fingers. “Got it. The rigid stick lodged—”
“Sorry I’m late,” Georgia said, shuffling into the office and taking the open chair next to Parker and thereby saving the man’s life.
She sat on a heavy sigh and pushed a hand through her disheveled mass of hair that had Ethan grinding down on an unwanted tactile flashback of what Natalia’s hair had felt like spread across his chest, clutched in his fist . . .
“You started yet?” Georgia asked.
“Just got around to giving Ethan his coffee,” Parker explained. “He’s pretending he doesn’t want it, even though I went all the way down to that shop he likes.”
“I’ve had coffee,” Ethan grunted.
“Well, I haven’t,” Georgia said, reaching for the tumbler. “You mind?”
“Nope,” Ethan said at the same time Parker blurted out, “I’m not sure that’s the best idea . . .” He trailed off as Georgia cut him a look that could have castrated better men.
“You want to talk to me right now about bad ideas? Really?” Georgia asked, her hand curling around the cup and her expression defiant.
Parker shook his head, his eyes wide.
“Didn’t think so,” Georgia said, then twisted off the bottom and slapped the batteries on Ethan’s desk. Ignoring Parker’s muttered “killjoy” she took a sip of coffee, sighed, then said, “Well, you called us in at this ungodly hour; I assume there’s a reason?” even as Parker muttered something that sounded like “killjoy” beneath his breath.
Ethan shook his head, too exhausted to do much more than take note of how to neuter Parker’s endless supply of annoying mugs in the future.
“Stephen Milner’s dead, for one.”
Parker sat up straight in his chair, but Georgia just met Ethan’s gaze over the rim of her coffee cup and took a sip. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it; her expression was just resigned, maybe a little curious.
“When?” she asked simply.
“Last night.”
“You’re sure?” Parker asked. “Isn’t it possible Hernan’s lying to save face?”
“No,” Ethan explained reluctantly. It still surprised him, every now and then, how incredibly kind Parker could be. That even after all the years he’d spent in government, in special ops, in digging through the very worst of humanity’s habits and appetites, he still took each and every death so personally. Though, to be fair, Ethan had seen this one coming. “I was there,” he said, holding Parker’s gaze. “He’s dead.”
“Right.” Parker sighed and sat back in his chair, his gaze going vacant.
“We talked about this,” Ethan said, even as Georgia laid a hand on Parker’s arm.
Parker rallied, sat up straight, brushed off whatever thoughts were plaguing him. “No, I know. We made the right call—Milner wasn’t exactly innocent, but we’re the ones who tipped Vega off to the fact he’d been stealing from him. We needed access to the cartel, and this made sense, but we’re still the reason Milner ran—and the reason he was caught.”
“No,” Georgia corrected him. “Milner ran because he was greedy enough to take a job with a cartel, then stupid enough to rip them off. You said it yourself when you told me everything you’d dug up on him—all his habits, all his weaknesses. He wasn’t a good man, Parker. The embezzling was the least of his crimes.”
“I know,” Parker said, lacing his fingers with Georgia’s. “But we outed him, and he died for it. I knew it was a possibility, knew what Vega would do if he caught up with him. I just don’t like knowing that I had a part in that, however small it was.”
Calm and steady, Parker turned back to Ethan, who nodded once. Parker had been in this role a long time, and for the most part, he weathered it well. His ability to compartmentalize, to be analytical and decisive when it mattered, was one of Parker’s greatest strengths—and something Ethan respected him for beyond measure. He’d been in both roles, after all. The man who gave the orders and the man who carried them out. There was a certain degree of comfort in taking orders. In trusting the chain of command to do its job. It was simpler, for sure. Far easier to carry out the order when you trusted the man giving it.
Too bad Natalia couldn’t say the same. She knew damn well any order her uncle gave was born of spite or cruelty or maliciousness. There was no greater good, no faith that at the end of the day her sins were in the service of something better, something justifiable, something righteous.
It was an unfair comparison, Ethan knew. He just didn’t care. Natalia hadn’t hesitated or objected. Just stepped forward and slipped her knife between Stephen’s ribs like she’d done it a thousand times before.
For all Ethan knew, she had.
Had she gone home to second-guess her actions? To wonder if there had been a better way? Did she feel even a tinge of the remorse that Parker did?
Ethan doubted it.
Parker still struggled with the negative aspects of the decisions he made because he was a good person. It would never be easy for him. Never become second nature. He would never take for granted the power he held—especially not after Charles Brandt had traded on Parker’s program, getting rich on death like it was some common commodity to be traded on the open market. For better or worse, regardless of what it cost him, Parker would never find it easy to weigh one life against another.
But that was something that had become second nature to Natalia. She’d told Ethan as much, too. Stood in his bedroom, naked and vulnerable, and told him, plainly, succinctly, what she was.
He just hadn’t believed her. Hadn’t wanted to, if he were honest with himself.
Not that any of it did a damn thing to change the fact that Ethan still felt betrayed. Not so much by Natalia, but by his own instincts. Because he’d looked at her, wanted her, let himself have her—and then lied to himself about who and what she was. Convinced himself she was just a stronger version of Ana Maria.
A victim.
Someone to save. Someone he could save. Someone who wanted an out.
He’d never felt so foolish.
Or so inadequate.
“Anyway, I didn’t call this meeting,” Ethan said, pushing thoughts of Natalia as far away from his mind as possible. “You did,” he said, nodding at Parker. “Care to tell me why?”
“I have good news,” Parker said, excitement driving him forward to the edge of his chair and propelling his foot up and down. The bottom of his ancient, lucky Chuck Taylor flapped and squeaked, but as much as the noise annoyed Ethan, he also knew it almost always heralded intel he needed to hear.
“You’ve found something on Vega’s computer network?” Georgia asked, leaving the question she really wanted to voice to linger unsaid in the room. Ethan heard it anyway, and he had no doubt Parker did, too.
Parker glanced at her and shook his head. “Too soon for that. We’re monitoring everything that comes and goes via the network, but on our end, mirroring everything he has stored takes time. Then we have to search it.” He shrugged. “It’s like looking for a needle in a thousand haystacks that have been blown to straw and have to be reassembled.”
“The good news, Parker,” Ethan reminded him.
“Right. Got it.” He sat back, but the pleased grin never left his face. “Your girl came through for us. Big-time.”
Ethan bristled. “She’s not my girl.”
Parker stilled, the repetitive squeak, squish, squeak of his shoe coming to a sudden halt. “Oooookay,” he said. “Just going to point out you didn’t ask who I—”
“The vein in his head is starting to throb, Parker,” Georgia warned. “Just get to the point.”
“Fine. Those files Natalia told you about?” Parker said, glancing back to Ethan. “The file names you then sent to me? They’re basically a golden ticket.”
Georgia straightened, turning to Parker with a cautious, guarded expression. Ethan couldn’t blame her. They’d come so far, and that “break” had always eluded them.
“I thought they were just video files,” she whispered.
And fuck, Ethan hoped Parker hadn’t let her watch them. Ethan had seen the original, of course, and Natalia, once he’d allowed her to use her mouth for something so mundane as talking, had explained what she’d found. He’d notified Parker immediately, but still. Ethan had assumed that the videos would provide little more than fuel for future nightmares and proof of life.
“Nothing’s ever just a file, babe,” Parker said with a smile. “Because Natalia noted the folder name and a few of the file names, searching for them was easy. Thank her for that—it might have taken days to retrieve the data otherwise.”
Thank her? Not likely. Even if Ethan hadn’t just watched her kill a man, he had to acknowledge that going anywhere near Natalia’s orbit was a colossally bad idea.
He didn’t have to know if Natalia was good or bad or something caught in between. The bottom line, Ethan couldn’t predict her. Couldn’t be sure which way she’d turn, what path she’d take.
And worse, he couldn’t be 100 percent certain of what he’d do if she betrayed him.
Best just not to find out.
“Anyway, she was right, the files come extremely regularly, like clockwork, even.”
“Can you trace the source?” Georgia asked hopefully.
Parker shook his head. “Not of the files themselves. At least not yet. And anyway, that’s not what’s interesting about them.”
Parker heaved in a breath, and Ethan braced himself for whatever came next. Because if history was any indicator, it was bound to be a double-edged sword. Otherwise, Parker would have blurted it out in an excited rush by now.
“When I was digging through the code underlying each file, I realized that a few of them were different. The files come every week, yes, and judging by the time and date embedded in each file, these guys operate on a strict timetable. Made me wonder why,” he admitted.
“And?” Georgia asked.
“He’s live streaming it,” Parker said, promptly resuming the repetitive leg bouncing. “Not every week, but every other, almost without fail, he watches the interrogation live.” He glanced at Georgia, a satisfied, determined grin pulling up a corner of his mouth. “And that I can trace,” he said.
“You’re sure?” Ethan breathed.
Parker nodded. “Positive. The minute they stream the next file, I’ve got them.”
Ethan sat back in his chair, stunned. This was so much more than he could ever have asked for. He’d hoped that accessing the cartel’s financial transactions would lead Ethan to who Hernan was paying to hold Will. That the paper trail would take him all the way to Colombia and, ultimately, bring his friend home. But this? This was so much better. This wasn’t an area to explore or a person of interest. This was Will.
This was victory.
And Natalia had made it happen.
Fuck, he didn’t have the first clue how to process that.
“How—” Georgia stopped, swallowed hard, then started again. “How close?”
“Inches? Feet?” Parker shrugged. “I’ll have coordinates—I could tell you what room they’re broadcasting from.”
“And you’re sure you can trace it? It’s not encrypted?” Ethan asked, still afraid to believe this whole nightmare could finally, finally, be over. For Will, at least.
“Oh, it’s encrypted. They’re using a platform on the dark net. Normally, it would be a tall order, even for me,” Parker admitted. “I know I make it look easy, but the truth is, hacking is mostly a matter of patience, diligence, and persistence. It takes time, and a lot of it. Which is why I’m so damn grateful that Natalia got bored or restless or just curious as a cat with all nine lives left. Because now we have that time.”
“To get a team in place, ready to deploy the minute we have coordinates,” Ethan said, thinking out loud. “It’s a good bet Will is still in Colombia—when is the next live stream scheduled?”
“Five days from now,” Parker answered.
“I’ll get Ortiz to put a team together—”
“I called him this morning. He’s already on it.”
Ethan nodded, unsurprised in the least that Parker had anticipated him. “In the meantime, I’ll continue to pursue the financials.” No choice, really. Now that Hernan had demanded Ethan find who’d stolen millions more that Milner had either hidden or ignored, he’d want consistent updates. And on the off chance Parker couldn’t trace the live stream or something went wrong, then Ethan needed to cultivate a backup plan.
Either way, it forced Ethan to ask some difficult questions and pursue answers he didn’t really care about. He knew, of course, where the money had ended up—lining Brandt’s pockets—but who had bought the hit on the compound?
Given what Ethan knew of Hernan, there was no shortage of people who wanted him dead.
And one who stood out among the rest.
In more ways than one, everything seemed to come back to Natalia Vega.
“You’ll thank her, won’t you, Ethan?” Georgia asked, studying him carefully from across the desk. He’d seen that look before, not so long ago, as she’d sat before him in the lobby of Parker’s loft, asking questions he either couldn’t or didn’t want to answer.
“Yes,” he said, clipping off the word the way he hoped to snip off the conversation.
“I feel like you guys are having a discussion without me,” Parker said, turning his head from Ethan to Georgia and back again. “I’m missing something,” he said, his forehead scrunching and his glasses slipping down his nose. He pushed them back up with his index finger.
“It’s nothing,” Ethan said, ignoring the knowing glance Georgia sent him. “Do you have the bandwidth to run another outcome through the program?”
“Bandwidth?” Parker choked out. “Do you even know what that means?” he asked on a laugh. “Ethan, if you’re trying to relate to me as a peer, it’s a little late and frankly scary as fuck.”
“Yes, I know what it means,” Ethan grumbled. More or less, anyway. “And you didn’t answer the question.”
“Yeah, sure. System’s already primed for the cartel, so adjusting the query should be simple enough. Why? What’s up?”
“It would seem,” Ethan said slowly, turning things over in his head for the hundredth time since he’d found out the night before, “that someone within the cartel not named Stephen Milner stole millions. Hernan has tasked me with finding the money and naming the thief.”
“Great,” Parker groaned. “Like we don’t have enough to do.”
“What aren’t you saying?” Georgia asked.
“Given the timing, it looks like the money was used to take out a hit on Hernan. A failed hit,” he explained, shooting Georgia a significant look. He wouldn’t need to spell it out; she’d make the connections on her own.
He’d assumed—they all had—that an outside party interested in Hernan’s demise had bought that South American raid from Brandt. And why not? Vega had plenty of enemies, both here and abroad. Given Brandt’s connections, his worldwide contacts, and his willingness to do just about anything to make a buck, the possibilities were so endless that Ethan hadn’t focused on who had purchased the outcome. It had seemed like an invitation to tumble down an endless rabbit hole that, even if he got lucky and found the end of, was unlikely to lead him back to Will.
Of all the things that should have surprised Ethan the night before—the torture, the missing money, the murder—only one thing truly had.
Apparently, there was a fox in the henhouse—Ethan just hadn’t bothered to look.
Ethan pushed away his frustration. Every time he turned around, there was another indictment against his own shortsightedness.
“You need Parker’s program to tell you someone within Vega’s organization would want him dead?” Georgia scoffed.
“Hardly. What I need is to narrow down the suspects, make sure I don’t get caught out.” Again.
“Narrow down?” Georgia asked, arching a brow at him. “Or rule out?”
“What’s the difference?” Ethan asked.
“You narrow down suspects,” Georgia said. “You rule out allies . . .”
“Yes, well, in the cartel, everyone’s an ally until they slip a blade between your ribs.” Ethan winced. He should not have said that out loud. For one thing, he knew Georgia was fishing, but for another, it also wasn’t entirely true. Ethan had no doubt that, whatever else she might be, if Natalia came for him, if the ground shifted beneath their feet and they found themselves enemies instead of allies, she’d have the decency to let him see her coming. There might be a knife to the heart, but he didn’t think she’d bury it in his back.
Another stupidity on his part, to believe that Natalia wasn’t duplicitous, that if she tried to take his life, she’d be honest about it. Hadn’t he already learned this lesson? With Brandt? With his parents? With every poor choice that had led him to this moment?
Betrayal never came from enemies—only those he trusted enough to let close.
“I see,” Georgia said, then turned to Parker, passing over the tumbler of coffee she’d stolen. “You mind?”
“Seriously, you want another?” he asked, staring at her with a bemused expression.
“Yes, Glow Stick, I want another.”
“How long you going to hold that against me?” he asked, planting his feet on the floor with a plop.
“Months,” she said simply. “Possibly decades.”
He sighed and rose from his chair. “Fine, but I’m getting you tea. Too much caffeine makes you grouchy.”
“Bring me watered-down mulch and find out what happens.”
“See what I put up with?” he asked Ethan on his way out.
“Full caf, full fat, extra chocolate, or whatever. And a scone!” Georgia shouted after him.
When Parker had left with a little wave and a muttered “You could have just said you wanted to talk to him alone, you know,” Georgia turned back to Ethan.
“Glow Stick?” Ethan asked.
“Trust me. You don’t want to know,” she muttered with a shake of her head. “I didn’t want to know,” she grumbled.
Georgia cracked her knuckles—one of the many tiny habits and mannerisms she’d picked up from Parker—sat back, and said, “You slept with her.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Ethan said, turning back to his computer and pulling up his e-mail.
“Sure you do,” Georgia said.
“No,” he corrected her slowly, enunciating very clearly, “I don’t.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, lacing her fingers together over the top of one knee. “You know how many times I’ve seen you petty, Ethan?”
“About as many times as I’ve seen you drunk, Georgia.”
She snorted. “I’m a better drunk than you are a butt-hurt princess.”
“Butt-hurt princess?” Ethan asked, shocked at both the phrase and the casual way Georgia had lobbed it at his head.
“Oh, let’s not pretend that’s exactly what’s happening here. You only act like this when you get your pride in a knot,” she explained. “You slept with Natalia Vega, and now you’re taking petty to heights that would impress Taylor Swift.”
“Now I know you’re spending too much time around Parker,” he said with a shake of his head.
“Probably. But that’s not the point.”
“Apparently, my sex life is,” Ethan said, snapping his fingers across the keys of his keyboard in a frustrated flurry. “Remind me, when did my sleeping habits fall under your purview?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Georgia said, leaning back in her chair. “About the time you accused me of thinking with my vagina.”
Ethan choked, and Georgia smiled. “That’s not exactly the way I remember it.”
“No? We were at FedExField, it was cold as balls, and you accused me of . . . do you know? I’m not actually sure what you accused me of. Breaking Parker’s delicate constitution with the power of my Kegels, I think.”
“Oh God, stop. Just . . .” Ethan waved her off. “Just stop. I’m sorry, okay? I never should have questioned your . . . professionalism. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Not really,” Georgia said with an unrepentant grin. “I’m much more interested in what led you to Natalia Vega’s bed—and why you’re acting like a love-scorned schoolgirl over it.”
Ethan shook his head. “What’s it going to take to end this conversation?”
“The truth,” Georgia said on a shrug. “You owe me that much, at least. Will’s my brother, Ethan, and if you’re compromised, someone on the team should know about it.”
“And what makes you think you’re the best candidate for that?” he asked.
“Because I’m the only person in the office who knows that sometimes falling into bed with someone isn’t an accident or a mistake or a miscalculation—it’s necessary. Inevitable. The best, worst decision you’ll ever make . . . ,” she said, her voice trailing off into something a little fond and a little exasperated. She caught herself, pulled away from whatever thought or memory teased her, and looked at him. “I also know how much it screwed with me.”
For a long time, Ethan stared at the woman sitting across from him without saying a damn thing. He didn’t need a polygraph to read the truth on Georgia’s face. He’d had a first-row seat to just how much falling for Parker had screwed with her—and how much it had changed her.
Oh, it hadn’t softened her. Georgia remained the same snarky, short-tempered, suffer-no-sexist-bullshit woman she’d always been. But she smiled more. Interacted with the team in a way that felt seamless and organic rather than stilted and practiced. Parker stared at her as if she’d hung the moon, climbed up there, then peppered the sky with a twelve-gauge full of buckshot until the light bled through the darkness just for him. And in turn, Georgia brought out a confidence in Parker that Ethan had only ever hoped to catch glimmers of.
There’d been every conceivable reason the two of them wouldn’t, couldn’t work. Too similar in all the ways that could break a relationship, and miles apart on the rest, to say nothing of the fact that they’d come together under some of the worst circumstances imaginable.
And yet . . .
They’d survived it all, and not for the first time, Ethan wondered if they would have had they not been together. United, Georgia and Parker were one of the strongest teams Ethan had ever seen. From what should have been a disaster had sprung something rare and inexplicable. Something that, in the privacy of his own mind, Ethan could admit he envied.
The trust. The closeness. The constant awareness that pulsed between them.
Teammates. Partners. Friends. Lovers.
Why was it only now that he realized he wanted that, too?
“I slept with her,” Ethan admitted, surprising himself with the confession, though Georgia just let the corner of her mouth pull up in the barest hint of a grin. “It complicates things.”
She nodded. “Sex usually does. But that’s not the problem, is it?”
“No,” Ethan said on a rough sigh. “It isn’t.”
Georgia rolled her eyes. “Are you really going to make me drag this out of you? Because I can send Parker on an endless number of errands until I do.”
“She murdered Stephen Milner.”
“Okay,” Georgia said simply.
“And probably Garrison Coates, too.” And there it was, the piece that had lodged in his throat, choking him with the truth.
“I see.”
“You see?” Ethan asked, swiveling his chair to stare at Georgia head-on. “I tell you that I think she killed a DEA agent and that’s all you have to say?”
“You’re surprised?” Georgia said slowly, as if she were just puzzling out the crux of the conversation.
“Hell yes, I’m surprised!”
“For fuck’s sake, why?”
Ethan steepled his fingers, then braced his elbows on the desk and took a deep breath. “Seriously? I tell you I take the woman to bed only to watch her kill a man in cold blood, realize she’s probably done far worse, and you act like I’m the weird one for being caught off guard?”
Georgia snorted. “You didn’t take a woman to bed—you took Natalia Vega to bed. Are you really going to sit there and tell me you didn’t at least suspect what she was? That it wasn’t part of what attracted you to her in the first place?”
He suppressed a wince, the honesty inherent in the statement scraping against his skin like sandpaper. Everything about Natalia had screamed competence, precision, danger—and all of it had baited him, stirring up something primal and dark and potent.
Georgia shook her head on a snort. “Christ, Ethan, you are not this dense. We ran full reports on the entire Vega organization—”
“And revealed next to nothing about Natalia.”
“And you never stopped to wonder why that was?” Georgia asked incredulously. “Come on. I might have bought that she was an innocent caught up in her uncle’s schemes if we hadn’t turned up so much information on her younger sister. Ana Maria, we were able to profile. So much so that the program eventually named her the informant.”
“Incorrectly named her the informant, you mean.”
“Do I look like Parker?” Georgia asked with a raised eyebrow. “The program was wrong, it happens. But as Parker is so fond of reminding me, it can only paint a picture with the colors at its disposal. Natalia Vega was never a part of that palette. Are you really going to tell me you never wondered why that was?”
Oh, he’d wondered. But for the most part, he’d dismissed Natalia as nothing more than an idle question mark. Going into the mixer that Whitney, Smith and Brindle had thrown, Ethan had anticipated two people: Ana Maria and Hernan. It wasn’t until he’d actually met Natalia that she’d truly occurred to him as a person of interest. And from the moment she’d turned that acid-laced tongue against him, he’d formed his own impressions of a woman too smart for her own good and too decent to have any real role in the cartel.
“I did,” he admitted with a shake of his head. And he had wondered who she was. What role she had to play. But why had he missed the obvious? He shook his head, sorting through the memories of the first night they’d met. What had he failed to see? Twenty minutes in her company and Ethan had known Natalia was not a woman to be dismissed. That her intellect was matched only by her devotion to Ana Maria. And later, when she’d broken into his house, taken him to the ground, lobbed a yearbook at his head, he’d seen her drive. Her determination to go to any and all lengths to satisfy her questions.
And finally, as she’d let him hold her against the door, as she’d sucked his fingers and begged for his touch, he’d seen her honesty, the raw, unguarded edge she hid from everyone—including herself. She’d pleaded with him. For release. For pleasure. For a heady afternoon that common sense should have forbidden but desire had demanded.
He’d seen so many shades of Natalia Vega. Fierce, determined, sexy, resigned. But even now, even as Milner’s face swam to the forefront of Ethan’s mind, he still struggled to acknowledge Natalia as the assassin she was. Because even as she’d delivered the killing stroke, even as she’d looked at him, steady and sure and so utterly certain he’d turn his back on her, she’d still worn an air of vulnerability that defied logic.
“I thought she was trapped,” he said quietly.
“You thought she needed a rescue,” Georgia corrected. “Where do you keep that huge white horse of yours, Ethan? The boat shed? A parking spot downtown?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, please,” Georgia said, reclining in her seat and flicking her fingers at him dismissively. “The contradictions in your personality start and stop at Ivy League accountant and Navy SEAL. The rest of you, I’m afraid, is all too predictable.”
“Is that so?” he asked, revisiting the merits of just firing the infuriating woman. How had she even goaded him into this conversation in the first place?
“The big, bad Navy SEAL has a rescuing-people fetish. Who’s shocked?” She cut him a quick grin. “Admit it. You took one look at Natalia Vega and decided she needed a savior.”
And if he had? She did need help. Even if she was reluctant to admit it.
“She’s trapped in that cartel, Georgia. As long as her uncle controls Ana Maria, Natalia’s at his mercy, and he knows it. But I’m supposed to just look the other way? Just use her for our own ends and screw the costs she’ll pay?”
“Wow. Defensive much?” Georgia asked. She crossed an ankle over a knee and laced her fingers atop it. With a grin, she said, “You know what your problem is, Ethan?”
“I’ve got mouthy employees who forget who signs their checks?”
“Don’t take that tone with me—you’ve had this coming for months.”
He shooed her on with a hand. She was right, and they both knew it. Just a few short months ago he’d sat in the lobby of Parker’s loft and so condescendingly told Georgia he knew what her problem was. Ethan could only imagine how much she was enjoying this.
“Your problem, Ethan Somerton, is that you are one hundred percent white knight. Hell, even that ginormous tank you refer to as an SUV is white.” She sighed like he was the dumbest person on the planet. “My point is, everything is good or bad with you. Right or wrong. Villain or victim. People are either worth saving or deserve destroying. There’s never any middle ground, Ethan.”
God, she made him sound like an uncompromising hard-ass, which was probably true when it came to running operations or training new employees. But it was hardly a fair observation when applied to the entirety of his life. Hell, the very nature of his job ensured he was constantly operating in shades of gray, but before he could say anything, Georgia continued.
“Don’t bother. You’ll make some half-hearted attempt at denial, but why? It’s not always a bad thing, being so self-assured. It makes you decisive. Gives you the ability to act where others would debate. Your conviction does you credit, Ethan. I mean that,” Georgia said, her tone warm and kind even as her expression told him she was about to deliver a vicious combination. “But it also leaves you with a rigid way of viewing things. It’s why you had such a hard time reconciling what happened between Parker and me. It’s why Brandt’s betrayal caught you so off guard. It’s why you wouldn’t tell me that you suspected Will was still alive . . . and it’s why Natalia Vega has turned you inside out and upside down.”
“She’s killed people . . . innocent people—”
“I’m not excusing it. God knows, if it had been Will, I could never forgive it.”
“But?” he asked, praying it was something that would help him make sense of the mess of emotions running in tangled lines through his head.
“But why did she kill him, Ethan? And more importantly, what would you have done in her shoes?”
He sucked in a breath. If it had been him? If it had come down to a choice between Garrison and Connor? The answer, pushed up on a churning wave of anger and helpless rage, came far easier than he was comfortable with.
“Now imagine being forced to make that choice at seventeen. At eighteen. At twenty. Then again and again and again until it’s just the frigid reality of your life.” Georgia stood and brushed imaginary lint off her slacks, then stretched as if she’d just ended the conversation rather than started one. “Truth is, Natalia doesn’t fit into your black-and-white world, Ethan. I don’t know her, and I really can’t imagine what just the simple act of surviving the last ten years has cost her, but I simply don’t have it in me to condemn her.”
What hadn’t it cost her? Ethan wondered. What price hadn’t she paid? What price would be too much? He knew the answer already, felt it like a blow to the chest. Natalia was prepared to give up anything—everything—to save Ana Maria.
But not to save herself.
Only now did Ethan understand why. That Natalia wasn’t a saint or a martyr. She didn’t worry about her future because she didn’t believe she deserved one.
If Ethan knew nothing else about her, if the sum total of his interactions with her had been watching her kill Milner, he might have believed it, too.
But he’d seen too much. She’d shown him too much, whether she realized it or not.
The gentle way she touched her sister. The string of anonymous tips that she’d have him believe were trivial but had spared others the scars and hurts Natalia wore daily.
The way she’d come to Ethan, demanded answers, and, in the end, spared his life. It had been a stupid, foolish, risky thing to do.
But she’d done it anyway.
There was so much there to like, to respect, to find worthy.
But she couldn’t or wouldn’t see it.
“She tried to tell me,” Ethan said as Georgia stood on the other side of his desk, “that I couldn’t save her. That I shouldn’t even try.”
“Natalia Vega doesn’t strike me as the sort of woman who needs to be saved in the first place.”
“She’s not.” Short of the woman standing in front of him, Ethan struggled to come up with someone stronger, more resilient, more capable of taking care of herself than Natalia.
“Then what the fuck are you doing?” Georgia asked with a grin.
“I wish I knew.” Because as enlightening as this conversation had been, it still left him with an unsolvable riddle. “She doesn’t need me to save her, I get that. But she won’t save herself, either. She doesn’t believe she deserves it, not after everything she’s done.”
“Does she?” Georgia asked quietly.
Ethan let himself view the night before from Natalia’s perspective. Watched as her face shuttered. As she pulled her knife. Stared at the gentle slope of her heart-shaped face as she’d done the one thing she’d believed could convince Ethan she wasn’t worth it.
And for the first time, he saw her for everything she was—determined, lonely, strong, and so goddamned scared to let him help her. So fucking afraid to believe there might be more. That she might deserve better.
“Without question.”
“Natalia doesn’t need a white horse or a knight in combat boots and tactical gear. She doesn’t need to be rescued or saved, Ethan. Any woman who does—she’s not for you.” Georgia smiled and pulled open the door as easily as she’d just pulled apart the tangled mess of his thoughts. “Natalia just needs to know that someone wants all those things for her.”
“I don’t know how to convince her she deserves them,” he admitted.
Georgia cut him a condescending glare. “You’re going to let something so trivial stop you?” She shook her head. “I took you for a man who likes a challenge.”
“You know I do.”
“It’s not going to be easy, and it’s bound to get messy. You can’t afford to be half in on this, Ethan. It’s not fair to her.”
“It’s like you said—with me, it’s black or white. Right or wrong. All in or all out.”
“She worth it, then?” Georgia asked.
He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think it over. Just said the first thing that came to mind. “Fuck yes.”
He didn’t need data or history or a lengthy backstory—he just needed his gut. And it had told him, loud and clear, over and over, that Natalia was special.
Now he just had to make her believe it.
And he knew just where to start.