The first step was easy.
I’m a spy. Albeit a reluctant one. But I’m fucking great at it. Or I was. Until I met The Widow. She made me think recruiting her was easy. I soon discovered out the truth.
She was way better than I was.
I wasn’t even upset when I found out. She is a genius, after all. Beauty and brains are an insane combination in any given scenario. With her it was lethal. When she wasn’t slaying me with her mind, all I thought of was her killer body and the new and inventive ways I could fuck it.
That day, even while I walked by her side through the introductions to people I would never willingly mingle with again, even before I finished the slice of too-dry chocolate cake I didn’t want, I knew our destinies were already aligned. And it wasn’t because my utter preoccupation with her insulated me against the quiet vitriol spilling from my older brother’s smiling lips. Before I became a spy, I often wondered how he could do that—smile so affably to everyone else while ripping me to shreds with his words. I wondered why he bothered when anyone with a lick of sense could tell we hated each other with a vengeance.
Two things became clear soon enough. Matthew Knight was a born politician, right down to the sleaze running through his veins. And becoming a spy opened my eyes to the existence of smiling assassins.
But I digress.
The Widow. She was the only recruitment I actively campaigned for, gleefully ignoring the shrieking alarm bells that training taught you to heed. I had no problem ignoring them. She was supposed to be my last, my reluctant victory lap before I retreated into the cave the government had dug me out of. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, I was done serving my country or, more accurately, letting it chew me up and spit me out.
Hell, who am I kidding? She was supposed to be the present I gave to myself.
Until it all went wrong. Until we went too far.
Still, we were supposed to pay whatever penance we owed together. Not apart. And not in silent darkness.
My shaking finger drops from the screen. The deep breath I take barely hits my lungs before it ejects itself back up again. Agitation spikes through me, and I finally release my death grip on the laptop long enough to dump it on the sofa beside me. I head for the cockpit and pull the door open.
Father and son glance over their shoulder, a little startled by my presence. I should say something bosslike and reassuring.
Fuck it.
“How long before we land?” I snap.
They exchange glances. “We took off forty-five minutes ago, sir?” William says.
I raise an eyebrow.
He clears his throat. “Not for another four and a half hours, sir.”
Way too long. “Is there any way to shave some time off that estimate?”
Will frowns. “Uhh…”
“Are you sure we can’t get this tin can to go faster?” I look down at the controls, make some quick calculations. “We’re not doing anywhere near our top speed.”
“That’s correct, but we need permission from the aviation authorities for that.”
“Get the permission. Bribe someone if you need to.”
Nelson stares at me for a beat before he shakes his head. “I don’t advise doing that, sir. Not without getting our knuckles severely rapped. And frankly, I’d much rather not rekindle memories of Mrs. Butterworth and her wooden ruler.”
Will sniggers under his breath. The look I send him dries up the sound, and he clears his throat.
“But you are welcome to keep us company,” Nelson offers after an uncomfortable few seconds.
I drop into the jump seat behind the copilot’s, even though every particle in my body is straining to return to my laptop.
“Can I get Stacy to bring you something to eat or drink?” Will asks.
“No, but you know what I’d like?”
“No, sir.”
“For you to nudge that throttle lever up a fraction. Think you can do that?”
Father and son eye each other again and then turn resolutely to face forward without replying.
I close my eyes, slam my head back against the wall, and grit my teeth to keep from unleashing the demons of frustration running rampant through me.
Five hours. New York City.
The Widow needs to be there when I land.
Any other scenario besides her in my arms at the earliest fucking opportunity is more than I can bear right now.
She needs to know that a small part of me never meant to drag her to hell with me. I won’t be insincere and confess a wholehearted regret I don’t feel. But maybe that small admission might achieve…fuck knows. Something. Enough for her to let me in? Enough for me to touch that goodness again, to calm the ravaging nightmares that are eating me alive?
Or just drag her back down because hell wasn’t such a lonely place when she was right there beside me? The truth doesn’t cause me discomfort. There had to be a degree of moral bankruptcy to do what I do, achieve what I have achieved.
And if I need to exploit it for the sake of getting her back. Well…fuck it, I’m already damned.