Alex

“Have you been here before?” Evie asked curiously, obviously noticing I’d driven straight from the ferry to a parking garage in the city, without any direction.

“I was here for work a couple of years ago.”

Her forehead wrinkled in concentration as she thought hard about something. “Wait”—her jaw dropped for a second before she continued—“two summers ago when we had to put off our anniversary trip because we both had to go out of town for work?”

I nodded distractedly as I took a ticket and pulled into a parking spot.

“Alex.” The odd tone of Evie’s voice had me turning in her direction. “You told me you were going to Barcelona.”

I suddenly realized what had her confused, and I laughed. “I was here for my other job, if you can believe it. International Contracts Attorney, Alex Shaw.”

Evie started giggling and soon we were both bent over with laughter. It felt wonderful. For a moment, we were simply Alex and Evie Shaw, a young couple in love who had so much fun together, their life was filled with laughter.

I couldn’t help staring at her, awed by how free and open she looked, so beautiful. My Evie.

She looked at me quizzically as her chuckles subsided. “What?”

I told her the absolute truth. “I love you, baby.”

Her face lit up and she smiled wide. “I love you too, stud.”

I picked up one of her hands and brought it to my lips, kissing it softly before giving it a little squeeze. “Let’s get going, baby.”

We gathered our bags and weapon cases, leaving the car with the keys in a compartment under the wheel well. It was time to ditch that one. Barcelona was a pretty pedestrian city anyway, mostly people used public transit. Another agent would take care of this car, and should we need to drive somewhere, we’d get another.

“We have a flat by the Parc de la Ciutadella,” I mentioned as we exited the structure.

“Do you think it’s wise for us to stay somewhere together?”

My jaw hardened at her question. I’d taken her hand and my grip tightened, as though I was afraid she would run away. “No. I want you with me.”

“Alex—” she began, her tone admonishing.

“No!” I barked. “I don’t give a fuck about protocol or being seen together. You stay with me.” I spared her a glance to see if she would continue to argue with me. But, she smiled and her grip on my hand squeezed.

“Okay, stud. We stay together. Lead the way.”

I dared anyone to find a woman as perfect as my Evie. It would be a pointless challenge because they would always fail. When we arrived at the building housing the safe house, I punched in a code and the front door unlocked. Then I rapped my knuckles on the door with a gold letter A and the number 1.

When the door swung open, a rough looking, middle-aged man stepped out. Despite his salt and pepper hair, he was fit and didn’t look like someone who would be easily handled. His eyes landed on Evie and lit with appreciation. I quickly pushed her behind me and leveled him with a deadly look in my stare. He smirked at me, but kept his attention on me after that. We conversed in Spanish for a minute, then he handed me a key.

I led Evie to an elevator and we rode up to the second floor, stopping at the first apartment. I unlocked the door and held it open for her to enter. She walked to the living room and set down her backpack while I took our other bags into the bedroom.

Returning to the front, I walked over to a black, cheap-looking desk with a small laptop on it. The piece of furniture was probably made of particle board and would collapse if I put any extra weight on it. I grabbed the computer with a sigh, cursing budget cuts, and went to the couch. Setting the laptop on the low, wood-like coffee table, I hunched over and booted it up.

Evie came to stand next to me and tapped my shoulder, chuckling at my uncomfortable position. “Scoot, stud.” I immediately moved over and she plopped down on the ground in front of the computer. I slid back over and swung a leg around her so she was caged between my legs. She started tapping away, and I watched, idly playing with her hair.

“You don’t speak with a Latin accent,” she commented. I leaned closer, both of us reading through the information her tech had forwarded.

I almost missed the question, absorbed in the files we were sifting through. “What? Oh, no, I learned French, Russian, German, and Italian first. I spent a month on assignment in Madrid early in my career and picked up the language. Then I learned Farsi, Arabic, and a few others”—I pointed at the computer screen—“does that file say Pájaro Negro?”

When Evie didn’t answer right away, I tore my eyes from the computer screen and saw her staring up at me with a bit of wonder. “What?”

“How many languages do you speak?”

I thought about it for a minute. “Eleven, I think. I can passably speak Japanese, but most people there look pretty insulted when I do,” I finished with a grin.

“I had no idea,” she murmured.

“Hey, hey, Baby,” I said softly, lifting her chin so I could look directly in her beautiful, chocolate brown eyes. “We’ll learn all of these things about each other. No more secrets remember?”

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. I tried to lighten the mood a little. “How many languages do you speak, smarty pants?” I’m rewarded with a slightly brighter smile and a snicker.

“Twelve,” she informed me smugly.

I laughed, “Too fucking adorable.” Shaking my head, I nudged her to turn back to the computer screen. “Look, I’m pretty sure that says Black Bird. Last I heard that was the code name for a major arms dealer based in Marseille.”

She looked through the next couple of paragraphs. “Maybe he’s expanded his operation down the coast,” she hypothesized.

I shook my head. “I think he’s moved his epicenter to Port de Barcelona.”

“Check this out.” Evie highlighted the text of a cable sent to Pájaro Negro, but there was no indication who it’s from.

“Print out the whole communiqué, baby,” I requested as I went back to the desk and rummaged around the drawers until I found a little silver cell phone.

Opening the phone, I dialed a number and entered an extension as I waited for the printer on the table next to the desk to finish printing.

“Dude,” Martin said in greeting.

“Can you look into Black Bird and find out if we have any locations for his warehouses? Possibly one in Port de Barcelona?”

“No problem. His operation has been mobile lately, I don’t think I’ll have anything for you until tomorrow.”

I grunted in frustration, I wanted this shit over and done with. After hanging up, I filled Evie in and despite our lack of location, we spent most of the night working through possible scenarios.

My phone rang again at six in the morning.

“Are you aware of the awesome that is me?” Martin said by way of greeting.

“Yeah, Martin, you certainly tell me enough,” I replied drolly.

I could practically hear his eye roll through the phone. I heard a litany of taps, Martin’s fingers probably flying across his keyboard. “Justice, I’ve been picking up chatter. Please tell me I’m out of my fucking gourd and you are not working with Scarlett?”

I stiffened. “What makes you think that?” I asked cagily. Grabbing the papers off the printer, I took them back over to Evie.

“Like I said, chatter.” The clattering stopped abruptly. “I’m emailing you four addresses, try one of those. But, back to what I was saying, man.” He was silent for a moment, and then I heard the click of a door closing. “There’s random talk of a two person team after Heron. The thing is…” Martin trailed off, clearly not happy with the information he was about to impart. “They only talk about taking out the female. The male is supposed to remain alive and his mission uncompromised.”

I sucked in a breath, as pain tore through my chest. I tried calming myself by remembering what Scarlett and I are both capable of. Nothing would happen to her. I almost believed it.

“This is coming from Heron’s network?” I clarified.

Martin was silent for too long, which meant he was about to drop a fucking bomb on me.

“I’m not supposed to be monitoring these people, but I got bored.”

“Who?” I growled.

“I have a contact who roams in the CI network.”

“Okay.” I didn’t understand what was so unusual about that. “So, they brought the information to us, what about it?”

“No, Justice. They were spreading the information the other way. As though… as though they were getting it from someone here.”

“Find them!” I roared and threw the phone at the wall, shattering it.

“Alex!” Evie exclaimed, jumping to her feet, her eyes bouncing back and forth between the broken cell and me.

“Someone doesn’t want you completing your mission.”

She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head in question. I quickly filled her in on the details Martin discovered.

“Not Heron’s network. Someone inside the fucking agency.” I was shaking with rage and betrayal.

“Okay,” Evie said as she began to pace, her fingers running through her hair in agitation. ”Okay, um…” She stopped suddenly. “They want the noc list.”

“Special operations doesn’t even know about the noc list,” I argued.

“Seriously, think about it Alex. Somebody has to.”

More than likely, she was right, but if I spent too much time focusing on this new turn of events, we’d both fail to succeed in our assignments.

“We’ll keep our heads down, do our best to stay off all radars. We need to wrap things up with Heron. ASAP.” I grabbed the computer and located the addresses from Martin. “Bring the papers, baby. We’ll start cross-referencing the addresses with those times and dates against shipping manifests.”

We got to work and were able to eliminate one address, but no matter how much we scoured the information, it looked like we would have to make a visit to three of the warehouses.

It was only just after three in the afternoon and we wanted to wait for dark. So, I ran out for lunch and after, I coaxed Evie into the bedroom and made love to her, sinking inside her as I reminded myself that she was there, safe, protected, and strong.

“Alex?”

I looked down at Evie, where her head lay on my chest. “What, baby?”

“Why did you become a spy?”

I realized she’d given me her history, but I hadn’t ever shared mine. I ran my fingers through her hair and kissed her forehead before speaking. “My reasons weren’t nearly as compelling as yours,” I said ruefully. “I scored exceptionally high in classes where the CIA monitors students. However, the army got to me first. You know I was in the military, but what is kept on the DL is that I was Special Forces. I loved it, but, eventually the agency came knocking and they painted a pretty picture. One of duty and patriotism, making a difference in the world. They presented it in such a way as to make it look as though you would be in so much greater service to your country than any other government work. So, I signed on the dotted line.”

“What about your family?” she asked.

“I didn’t lie to you about my family, Evie.” I tried and failed to keep the hurt out of my tone. “I wasn’t keeping you or them, hidden from each other. I really did grow up in foster homes. I was one of those rare kids who got extremely lucky and I had teachers who did their best to help me succeed. I went to a local state college, then earned a scholarship to Harvard.”

I sat up, brought her with me, and stared into her beautiful face. “Fast forward to four years ago. I met the love of my life and she made everything that had ever happened to me before her worth it. Because it brought me her.”

Evie threw her arms around my neck and kissed me with unbelievable passion which led to hot, rough fucking. When we were spent and sated, mostly, we ate leftovers for dinner and as night fell, we prepared to get to work.

The night yielded nothing, the warehouse abandoned with no signs of life, frustrating us to no end. The following night resulted in the same. However, the third night, when we checked the last address, we witnessed a shipment being offloaded. We had to wait until the following night when the activity had died down to sneak in and take inventory.

The crates were loaded with drugs and weapons, so we dropped a bug and got the hell out of there. It took two more days, but finally, we heard plans for a meeting. One where they were apparently supposed to pay a great deal of money for a list. It was set for three days from then, at eight pm, giving us ample time to come up with a solid plan.

We avoided the elephant in the room as we made plans, never discussing our conflicting missions. But one thing was certain, that night would be Evie’s last fucking day as a spy. I would make sure of it.