I spend the next fifteen minutes in my seat, the pain slowly easing from my arm, while I watch Amanda sleep and mentally weed through all I have learned since finding her again. Chasing theories that keep leading me back to her dead parents, who she doesn’t think are dead. The reality here that I haven’t discussed with her yet is that I looked for them in order to find her, and everything about them was wiped away. As if they never existed. To me, this meant they were as dead as the agency claimed, but now I know about the ghost protocol. And Amanda hid so damn well that I couldn’t find her, using skills they taught her. Maybe they are alive, and they have answers that clear Amanda’s name. Or not, in which case, Amanda loses the parents she has claimed as all she has in the world.

Except for me and that cat curled up next to her.

The engine shifts speeds, and we begin our descent into Texas, and still, Amanda has not moved. I stand up and take the few steps between my seat and hers directly in front of me, kneeling beside her. Julie lifts her head and gives me a curious, green-eyed look, and then goes back to sleep. My hand comes down on Amanda’s leg. “Amanda. We’re going to land soon.”

She makes a soft, sleepy sound that I swear I feel in my heart and my groin, and shifts slightly to blink up at me. “Seth?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” I say. “Seth.”

“Seth,” she breathes out, and damn, her eyes warm the way they use to when I’d wake her in the morning and make love to her.

“We’re about to land in Texas.”

Her eyes go wide and understanding flashes across her face. “Oh. Yes.” She hits the button to raise the seat and Julie sinks back into the cushion and snuggles next to her hip. She straightens, scooting to the edge of the seat, her gaze shifting to my hand that I can’t seem to make myself move from her leg. She draws in a tiny breath and lets it out before looking at me. “You know I always sleep well on a plane.”

“I do,” I say, and I don’t even think about getting up. “Because there’s no one to attack you while you sleep.”

Understanding once again seeps into her face. “Except this time my would-be assassin was on the plane,” she supplies for me. “We made a truce. I felt safe.”

“No truce with an enemy would allow you to sleep that soundly and we both know it.”

Instead of withdrawing as I expect, her hand closes down on mine, her gaze steady. “I did trust you,” she says. “Too much. You don’t trust anyone that much in the world we live inside.”

“You trusted me but you stayed away for three years?” I don’t give her time to reply. “No. I reject that answer completely. I was—”

“—the man enlisted to kill me. And the man who—”

“—loved you.”

Her lashes lower and lift, and when she looks at me again there is torment in her stare that she doesn’t try to hide. “Loved me,” she repeats, emphasizing the past tense. “And yet you believed that I would betray my country and you?”

Those words are etched in the accusation and pain she fails to conceal, if she tries. And there is something in her face that reminds me of the barren apartment she’s lived in, of the three years alone that should have been with me. And I know that if I want this woman in my life, and I know now that I do, it’s time to shift the narrative. It’s time to be honest with her and myself.

“No,” I say. “I do not believe you betrayed your country. I never believed that you were guilty, but your disappearance made me doubt my trust in you.”

“You don’t do doubt.”

“Apparently, I do, and as I’ve always known, it’s a dirty, dangerous emotion.”

“So, to be clear, are we trying to kill each other or not? Because I’d hate to be on the wrong page of that topic.”

“We are not trying to kill each other.”

“No?”

“No.”

“What changed while I napped?”

“I realized that I can’t ask you to trust your feelings for me if I don’t do the same myself. Do I think that you’re guilty of any crime? No. Do I think you would cover for your parents? Yes.”

“My parents—”

“Are not what concerns me right now. You are. We are. Because I told you. We need to firmly decide if I’m that friend, to put it mildly, or an enemy, before we get off this plane. And while I believe we’ve made that choice, I don’t believe that you left without me because you were afraid of trusting me too much.”

“Trusting your assassin—”

I twine fingers into her hair and drag her to me. “I’m Seth. Just Seth.” I lower my head, my lips a breath from hers. “You know him. You know me like no one else does.”

Her fingers curl around my shirt. “Do I?”

“Yes,” I say, and as much as I want to kiss her, wanting her, her wanting me, is a distraction from the decisions being made here right now. And so, I release her again, my hands settling back on the arms of the chair, my eyes meeting hers as I allow her to see the simple truth I’m speaking. “Yes,” I repeat. “You do.”

The intercom buzzes with what will be our orders when we land, but I don’t immediately move. “Don’t make us the enemies neither of us want to be,” I say before I stand and turn for the phone, only to hear her say, “Ditto, Seth Cage.”

I pause a moment, my lips curving with the use of my name, not “Assassin.” Crossing the aisle, I pick up the phone in the hallway to hear, “Ten minutes until landing and the ground is clear.” The connection ends, and my brow furrows, alarm bells going off at the absence of any other directive, one that was promised when I arranged the flight options for our escape.

Hanging up, I turn to find Amanda standing at the edge of the lounge area, a question on her face. “The ground is clear,” I say, knowing what she wants to know. Because I know her, like she knows me, and I’m going to remind her of that fact, every chance I get, some of which should definitely be naked.

“Do we know anything about our cover when we land?” she asks.

“Nothing yet,” I say, offering nothing more.

“As a contractor, did you expect more?”

I could lie to protect her, but I’ve never lied to her and we both need to be prepared should things go south when we hit the runway. “When I’m given an assignment, I am treated as an active agent.”

“And they lined up our travel?”

“Yes.”

She inhales sharply, a tell I know she wouldn’t show anyone else, and I wonder if she even realizes she is still comfortable enough with me to show me. She’s worried there’s a CIA ambush waiting for her when we land. She turns away. I take a step, fully intending to pull her to me, but the plane does a hard shimmy, stalling my progress. My guns, still in the seat to my right, where I’d put them while getting naked earlier, start to fall. I catch them and go ahead and pull the holsters onto my chest and shoulders, watching as Amanda rushes to secure Julie, and she has no sooner zipped her up, packed a blanket around her, and checked the straps around the carrier, when the plane suddenly jolts and drops.

Amanda and I both lift off the ground, but as light as she is, she rockets upward, but catches herself on the roof with her hands. I catch her on her way down, pulling her to me, both of us immediately checking Julie, who gives us a curious look through the mesh of her bag, which is still snug in her blanket. Still holding onto Amanda, one hand on her hip, the other flat on her lower back, I turn back to her, and her to me.

“You say you trust me, then trust me now. The agency doesn’t need an ambush. They think they have me.”

“Think?”

“I didn’t come after you for them. You know that I came after you for me, and to be clear, I’m not leaving without you.” The wheels hit the runway and I grab the ceiling again, holding us steady, and only once we stop do I cup the back of her head and kiss her before saying, “Trust me.”

“I told you. I do.”

“Good,” I say, releasing her. “Then get your cat and let’s get out of here.”

“The cat is Julie,” she corrects.

“Julie,” I concede, grabbing my blood-soaked coat, and out of the necessity to conceal my weapons, I pull it on, then remove the medication bottles from my pockets. “We’re going to have to do a fast clothing change. I’m putting these back in your medical bag, where they won’t end up dumped.”

“Did you take another antibiotic?” she asks, packing Julie’s bag.

“And a pain pill.”

She gives me a smile. “I’ll bet you did. Too bad we didn’t have this trust talk before you took a needle without that shot first.”

“At least I’m prepared for interrogation by needlepoint.”

She laughs, sobering quickly as the plane stops, her mind instantly back on what might come next, as is mine. Amanda and I both move to the windows, looking for trouble, the extent of what that tells me being that we’re in a private hangar. Straightening as Amanda does the same, I say, “Let’s just get the hell off this metal box that could turn into a trap.”

“Agreed,” she says, pulling back on her hoodie, then placing Julie’s carrier strap over one shoulder, her purse on the other, her hand inside it, and close to her weapon. I load up the other bags on my shoulders, my hands free to reach for one of the two guns I’ve holstered to my chest.

Amanda and I exchange a look and I start for the door first, leading us toward potential trouble I’ll find before her in the front position. The captain steps into the front of the plane and gives me a wave as the sound of the door opening fills the air. I don’t stop to drill him. He’s told me what he was instructed to tell me, and he won’t have more to offer. I continue on and step to the top of the stairs now pushed to the door, scanning to find the hangar I’d expected encasing us, and by obvious appearances, it’s free of that trouble I’m trying to avoid. Amanda joins me and does her own scan. “What’s the plan?” she asks.

“We’re going to find a car, and a cheap hotel where you can have lab time and we can plan.”

I’ve no sooner said the words, when one of the black sedans the agency loves so damn much pulls into the hangar, and stops. The driver’s door opens and a familiar agent appears.

Bear, now sporting a University of Texas burnt-orange shirt, rounds the vehicle, nothing about his posture screaming trouble, but then he’s too skilled and experienced to have a tell sign.

“Do you know him?” Amanda asks.

“I know him,” I say.

“And?”

“He’s my handler on this job. I respect his skills.”

“Then he’s dangerous.”

“Very,” I say, as Bear leans on the vehicle, legs and arms crossed. Waiting on us.

“And you didn’t expect him to be here?” Amanda asks.

“No. I did not.”

“Is there any chance the Franklin story was simply to get me to him?”

“Doubtful,” I say, “but if it was, Bear is going to have a reality check on who’s the better man. Stay here.” I start to move.

She catches my arm. “The last thing I plan to do is appear weak to the agency, or anyone else. I’m going with you.”

I want to reject this idea. She’s been in hiding. Her skills are rusty, mine are not, but I do not wholly disagree with her thinking. “Leave the cat.”

“No.”

“Just until—”

“No,” she says again.

I grit my teeth, but don’t push. Every second we stand here, we look weak. “Well then, let’s go meet Bear.” We start down the stairs, with Bear in our sights and Amanda in his, and the agency’s, for the first time since her kill order was issued.