I’m on a private jet to San Francisco two hours after that meeting with Bear, which puts me in the air for nearly six hours, half of which I devote to sleep to be alert once I land. The other half I spend studying the encrypted material delivered to me right as I stepped onto the plane. I devour it, reading up on recent developments related to both Dr. Franklin and Amanda, as well as the death of her parents the night she disappeared three years ago. The conclusion is that she may or may not have had something to do with their demise, which essentially is no conclusion at all.

By dawn, I’m dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt meant to help me blend in with any crowd. The black leather jacket I’m wearing conceals the shoulder holsters, where my best friends, Glock and SIG, are hanging out, along with a small, efficient blade that I consider a pal as well. I park my rental down the road from Amanda’s house and exit, scouting the area, and the exterior of her building, before returning to my car, where I sit and watch. And while I’d like to charge right in and grab her, taking another trained agent on their own turf is like walking into a trap waiting for a taker. And I’m not a taker. I’m also certain that I’m not the only one watching her. The agency will be here, and where there is the agency, there are good and bad players. And where there is information that leads us to a target, there is information that leads others there too, such as Franklin. I’m here to kill her, but not until she does her job, which means I protect her first.

By seven in the morning, she exits her front door, dressed primly in a black suit dress that hits just above her knees, those long legs I’ve had at my shoulders and around my waist, demurely on display. She’s blonde now, of course, which I already knew, and I liked her a hell of a lot better as a brunette. I don’t like blondes, but that works for me, just like killing her will later.

If she senses she’s being watched, she doesn’t react. No hesitation in her actions. No glancing around the area, but then she’s a skilled agent, taught how to live this life by her CIA parents from the time she was in diapers. I have no plan to underestimate her or assume she doesn’t sense I’m here, because I’d know I was being watched. It’s a sixth sense you develop over time, but then, she’s let her guard down or she wouldn’t have taken the job at the university.

She climbs into her car and it’s not long before she’s on the road, and I’m in my rental, following her. I might not have had time for surveillance of her apartment, but I used my resources, of which I have many, to access the campus cameras. I’ve pre-planned how this plays out. I know where she will park. Where she will enter the building, and unfortunately, we will both be required to leave our weapons behind, thanks to the metal detectors at the doors. I remove my weapons, place them under the seat, and I’m out of the car by the time she’s walking across the campus to the white stone building where she teaches, shadowing her.

Once she’s in her classroom, a massive auditorium-style setup, I dare to step inside, flattening on the wall of the alcove leading to the seating areas. Watching for anyone who might have the idea of taking her before I take her. Watching her. How she moves. How she teaches. How she is . For two classes and three hours, I stand at that wall, out of her view, and I look for what I missed in her three years before. I look for the woman that she really is, not the one I’d seen then. But I don’t find her. She’s still the woman I knew. Proper when speaking formally. Knowledgeable when speaking about science, her eyes lighting on every formula or complex compound she discusses. And it’s still sexy as hell to me, which only makes me want to kill her more.

Finally, just past eleven, her last morning class adjourns, and the students begin to disperse, exiting the three doors at various places around the auditorium. Amanda walks into a doorway I know to be her office. Several minutes pass, but I do not go to her. Not when she could be waiting on me. Planning an attack. And so, I instead wait on her. Finally, she emerges, purse on her shoulder, and then heads toward a doorway to her right, which will lead her to a faculty-only area. I exit the room as well by way of the door right beside me, circling around to a hallway and private entrance for the staff.

I open the door and enter anyway, and do so like I have every right and privilege. Amanda is nowhere in sight, but then the hallway is slim, long, and the optional doorways only a few: several bathrooms and a break area. I bet on the bathroom and that she’s waiting on me. She knows. I don’t know why I know. I just do. I reach the women’s restroom, but I don’t go inside. I walk to the men’s, open the door, and check out the setup. A sink. One stall. A urinal. I now have a general bathroom layout and I turn, and with the hallway still clear, I walk back to the women’s restroom where I expect a fight. And while I have fought by her side and I know she’s good, I’m bigger, stronger, and she’s been dormant for three years.

Inhaling on the high of having this woman within my reach again, I shove open the door, and damn it, if I don’t have a handgun pointed at me. She’s good. She’s planned for this, and obviously found a way past the metal detectors I didn’t expect.

“Lock the door,” she orders, those piercing green eyes of hers hard, flat, but her voice isn’t. It quivers ever so slightly, telling me she’s affected by my being here, but I won’t underestimate her as a doctor and scientist first, and an agent second, as I had before.

“And don’t assume because I haven’t shot you,” she says, as if driving home that thought, “that I won’t. Not only is my gun equipped with a silencer, it’s been a long time since I had the pleasure of using it.”

But she’s already told me what I need to know. She doesn’t want to shoot me. At least, not here. Careful never to take my eyes off of her, I lock the door, but I’m already moving the minute the task is done, charging at her, forcing her to shoot me or fight me. She doesn’t shoot me. She hits me in the fucking head with the gun, which stings like the bitch she is. I knock it from her hand and my hand goes to her throat, her back slamming to the wall at the same time that her knee slams into my groin. I push through the pain, my legs clamp around hers, her sweet little curves too damn familiar, the intimacy welcome and hated at the same time, but I’m not about to let her knee me again.

“Bitch,” I hiss.

“Bastard,” she blasts back. “I hope your balls hurt for a week.”

“This is nothing,” I say. “Not after I’ve had a hard-on to kill you for three years. Put your hands on your head or I’ll end you right now.”

“We both know you like my hands in places other than my own head,” she rasps out, as the grip I’m holding at her throat is not gentle. “And if you came here to kill me, I’d be dead already.”

“Oh, I came here to kill you, Amanda, and I’m going to enjoy it when I do.”

“Because I left you?” she challenges. “That’s the definition of a crazy ex.”

“Danny died because of you. You worked with him for a month. Smiled at him. Fucked me. And you killed him.”

She visibly pales. “Danny . . . he’s dead?”

“Don’t play dumb. Dumb pisses me off and makes me want to kill you sooner than later.”

“I didn’t know. I liked him. He saved my life in Rome.”

My fingers flex at her throat. “And two nights later, you and Danny were supposed to trade information with a high-ranking Mafia leader in exchange for terrorist names and locations while I searched his home. But you no-showed and an hour later, that leader and Danny dropped dead, poisoned. You set us up and I want to know who you were working for.”

“I set you up?” she whispers incredulously. “I know, Seth. I know what you did. I know what you planned.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I know what you did. I know they call you the Assassin.”

I don’t know which of my many sins as the Assassin she references, and I don’t ask or care. “Don’t pretend to have some moral high ground that drove your actions. We both don’t believe that.”

“I should have killed you.”

“Yes. You should have. Maybe you tried in Rome.”

“I tried? Are you kidding me? What game are you playing?”

“And it was a mistake you won’t get to undo,” I continue as if she hasn’t spoken. “Because I am the Assassin, sweetheart, and I am going to kill you.” I squeeze that slender throat of hers a little tighter, looking for panic, for a reaction, but she doesn’t so much as reach for my hand. She stares at me, bravely facing whatever might come her way, and as much as I hate this bitch, I admire her fearlessness. “But unfortunately, not fucking yet,” I say, releasing her, my hands coming down on the wall on either side of her, my legs still holding her legs. “Dr. Franklin resurfaced.”

“As in the Dr. Franklin that set off poison gas in a China subway?” she asks, still not touching her throat that I know has to burn.

“Yes,” I say. “That one.”

“Franklin’s dead.”

“Intel says he’s alive and well in Texas with a plan to contaminate the water supply with a nerve agent that only you and three other people know well. The other three are dead.”

“My parents and the Russian scientist, Misha Orlov.”

“Yes. And Misha was working for Franklin when he ended up dead.”

“And my parents are dead.” Her voice cracks on the words, as if she doesn’t know or didn’t until this moment.

And damn it, her emotions cut me. Deeply. “Yes,” I say. “They’re dead. You didn’t know?”

“I thought . . . I hoped . . . I wanted you to tell me otherwise.”

“Thus why you didn’t pull the trigger.”

She breathes out. “Did you do it?”

“What?”

“Did you kill them?”

“I was in another state when they died.”

“Were you a part of it?”

“You think—”

“Were you a part of it?”

“No. I was not.”

She cuts her stare for the first time since I entered the bathroom, seconds ticking by before she looks at me again, focused on business. “You think Misha is dead because he did his job and Franklin no longer needs him.”

“An obvious conclusion since you just made it, too. You need to make an antidote.”

“I can’t promise I can do that and I can’t even try without a sample.”

“Which is why we’re going to Texas to get one.”

“I’ll go. I’ll help.”

“That easily? No battle?”

“I don’t know if you’ll kill me or I’ll kill you, but we might as well save some lives before we find out.”

I cup her face, my lips close to hers. “I didn’t kill your parents.”

“I didn’t kill Danny.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“I hate you , Seth Cage,” she proclaims in what I know to be an out-of-character emotional outburst that tells me I’ve rattled her.

And earns her my cool reply. “There’s a fine line between love and hate, sweetheart,” I say, but I don’t want her to hate me and it pisses me off. What is it about this woman that makes her my weakness? “I wonder if I missed the taste of poison on your lips, or did I just choose to ignore it?” And I need to know that answer. I close my mouth down on hers, my tongue sliding into her mouth, rough, angry, but she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even touch me, and I won’t allow her that win. I fold her against me, cupping the back of her head, my tongue licking against hers until she finally fucking moans, and responds.

And damn it, she still tastes just as good as she did, just as right when she’s wrong, but at least I know now. Everything right about this woman will always be wrong, including the moment she bites my lips, drawing blood. “I still hate you,” she hisses.

Wiping my lip, I’m wildly aroused by what just happened, which proves how fucked in the head this woman makes me. And while I’m certain we’d both be more than comfortable with the idea of me pulling her skirt up and fucking her right now, and letting her think she’s manipulating me again, that has to wait until I have her someplace to myself. I release her, snatching up her gun and shoving it under my jacket, inside my holster. “Meet me at the south exit. If you aren’t there, I’ll kill you and then move on to Plan B and kill Franklin. And yes. This is a test. Pass it or you’ll be in my bed, in handcuffs for the rest of your life.”

“You said you’d kill me.”

“After I cuff you to my bed.”

I move to the door and exit into the staff hallway, and then the main school hallway, the scent of her, sweet jasmine, clinging to my skin. Damn it, I used to love that smell.

I’m halfway to the exit when suddenly she’s beside me. “As I know you know from whatever file they gave you on me,” she says without looking at me, “I watched people die because of that man in China seven years ago when he set off poison gas in the subway. I’m not sitting back while he does it again.”

I don’t reply. I just keep walking, but now she’s by my side again, as she was for three solid months, three years ago. Her words and actions are reminding me of what I’d found so damn appealing about this woman: her conviction and her moral compass that were greater than mine, that made her too good for me, and yet, made me want her all the more. Only, it was an act, a façade maintained even now and well. She’s an enemy in an uncomfortable alliance. I don’t believe a word she has said.

We reach the exit and I pause with her directly to my right, my eyes capturing hers. “You’re with me now and no one gets to take you from me. And I’m the only one who gets to kill you.”

“You’re so damn romantic,” she says. “No wonder I missed you.”

“You missed me, sweetheart?”

“That wasn’t literal.”

My lips curve. “And yet you kissed me like you missed me.” I don’t give her time to reply. I grab her purse, and unzip it, searching it and removing her phone, which I drop on the ground. “Black Mustang,” I say. “Stay by my side.” I open the door and together we exit the building, and any thought of what I want, or should not want, from her, is out of my mind. I walk. I focus.

“We’re being watched,” she says, at the same moment I become aware of eyes following us.

“Yes, we are,” I say, her pace even with mine as we approach the car, and I click the locks.

“Passenger door together,” I order, and that’s exactly where we head, rounding the car where I hold the door for her and she slides into the seat.

I shut her inside, and quickly walk to the opposite side of the car, where I join her, and the instant I lock the doors, she says, “For the record. You already tied me to the bed, and at the time, I liked it. That’s how much I stupidly trusted you.” She turns those piercing green eyes on me. “That time isn’t now. Don’t kiss me. Don’t touch me. And you aren’t going to fuck me. Not in the literal sense. Ever. Again. And as for who kills who? If I find out that you killed my parents, you will die at my hand. If I find out that you knew they were being killed, the same applies. You might be the Assassin, but I’m the Scientist. And if you think I’m not your match, think again.”

And therein lies the problem. She was always my match. And I fucking loved it.