The tension in the car was so thick that it almost felt suffocating. Sophie had been quiet since we got in the SUV. I wanted to reach over, grab her hand, and let her know everything would be okay. The need to reassure her was eating at me. In the rearview mirror, I saw that Antonio had been staring at that photo for the past twenty minutes.

I had no alliance with the director. “Antonio, I swear, if I had known she was your wife, I would have told you. You’ve never shown me a picture of her or told me her name.”

“I know you would have told me. I lost it back there. Let's get to the safe house and figure out what the director is after. It seems he’s keeping things from us.” Antonio shifted to stare out the window.

“Can you please explain why a stranger knows you're married and your family doesn’t?” Brock looked annoyed that I had known something neither he nor Antonio’s family knew.

A few years back, Antonio had asked if he could tag along on my op. He was led to believe the man we were going after had killed his wife. He wanted vengeance. The case was to eliminate the target. I gave Antonio the right to take the shot.

“We met on assignment. It was a whirlwind romance. We got married on the last day of our assignment. When we were having breakfast in a local cafe, a gun man started taking shots inside. I was hit. When I woke, the director told me she was dead and had no living rel—”

“Do I look like I’m fucking dead?” Sophie shifted in her seat to turn toward Antonio. “How could she do this? I’ve spent my life trying to find her and go after the men who killed our parents, and she fucking works for them. How can she look at that man every day knowing he killed our parents?”

“Let’s work together and figure out what’s going on. There must be more to the story than what we think. We’re almost to the safe house.”

I was taking Sophie to one of my many houses, one I kept in a shell company. Only one other person knew about it. The house was back in the mountains, and trees helped cover any satellite surveillance. It was hard not to notice the helicopter to the right of the house when we pulled up.

“Fuck.” Things kept going wrong.

“He beat us here?” Antonio didn’t need to look. He knew what my outburst was about.

At the same time, Sophie and Brock both asked, “Who?”

“My brother.” I parked the car in the driveway, not storing it in the garage. “Leave your things in the car. When we are done talking to him, we’ll need to head to another house.”

Sophie opened her mouth, about to ask more questions. I shook my head. She would find out soon enough.

Antonio was halfway to the house before any of us got out of the car, probably going after my brother. I needed to step on it. My brother wouldn’t be upset, but the people with him, would be.

“Fuck. Hurry! We need to stop Antonio,” I yelled at Brock and Sophie.

I didn’t look behind me. Sophie and Brock would come if they understood the urgency in my voice. I heard shouts coming from the kitchen area. I ran toward the noise and heard the clicking of Sophie’s shoes behind me.

Antonio had my brother pressed up against the wall, and three agents had guns pointed at him. Antonio wasn’t paying attention to what the agents were doing. He had his sights on my brother.

I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Um, Zane, the President of the United States is in your house.”

“Older brothers are annoying like that, showing up univited.”

“Oh.”

Needing to get the situation back under control and keep Antonio from getting shot or killed, I said, “Antonio, stop killing my brother. Shouldn’t you get your answers before taking out the person with the information? Also, you know how hard it is to get a clean-up crew out here?”

Antonio slowly removed his hands from my brother. When it looked like he would let go, he suddenly pulled his arm back and punched my brother in the side. Zack dropped to the floor, and the three agents jumped on top of Antonio.

Once Zack got his bearings, he demanded that the agents let Antonio go. Slowly, they released Antonio, waiting for him to attack again. The whole day had been a cluster fuck. I walked past my brother, who was leaning over and holding his side. Antonio was peeling himself off the floor. I reached into the fridge to grab a beer.

“Sophie, want a beer?” When I looked over my shoulder, her mouth was hanging open and she had a look of shock on her face. She nodded. I grabbed two beers and headed toward the living room. The posse of people would follow or kill each other.

“You aren’t going to offer me a beer?” Zack asked.

“If you want one, grab it. I’m not your servant.”

Sophie followed me to the living room. I heard grumbling from the kitchen and, a few seconds later, footsteps coming toward the living room. Sophie and I took a seat on the couch. I liked that she chose to sit next to me.

Zack, Brock, and Antonio showed up in the living room without the secret agents. Zack sat in the recliner next to the couch, sipping on a cold beer. Antonio paced back and forth in front of the big-screen TV. Brock grabbed his laptop and sat in the last chair in the room.

“You want to tell me why you compromised my safe house?” My voice was laced with anger. Zack could have called. Anywhere he went was traceable, and his being here would lead Director Sanchez right to us.

Zack leaned back in the chair, staring down at his beer before answering. “I got a call from Director San—”

“You mean the devil,” Sophie seethed.

Zack let out a chuckle before continuing. “Okay, we have renamed my Director of the CIA, as the devil. This afternoon, I got a call from”—Zack held up his hands and made air quotes—“the devil, and he informed me that he was going after you and Antonio because you kidnapped his agent and threatened him. He also informed me that he has people that can confirm his story.”

Sophie leaped off the couch before I could stop her. “That is not true. You can't take him in. They’re my only hope at figuring out what happened to my sister. The devil has been manipulating me for ages.”

I reached up, grabbed Sophie, and dragged her into my lap. Zack gave me a questioning look. “He’s not here to take me in. Zack knows I wouldn’t do something unless I had a good reason. He’s here because he needs me to do something off the books. He also knows this place has no listening devices.”

“I have a question before he gives us a task that will get us killed. Did you know Kat was alive?” Antonio didn’t leave room for Zack to get out of the question.

The look on Zack’s face was all I needed to see. He had no clue Kat was alive. His jaw tightened, and his knuckles turned white from the grip on the beer bottle. “Antonio, if I had known Kat was alive, I would have told you. I received intel from the devil that the man you and Zane took out was the man who killed her.”

The constant tapping on the keyboard had me looking over at Brock. “You want to inform the room of what you are doing, Brock?”

Brock looked from me to Zack. For a second, he looked like he wouldn’t answer. I was friends with Sam, Brock’s old boss, and had known Sam had a well-trained hacker working for him. I could only imagine what Brock was doing.

Zack spoke up. “You won’t get in any trouble for whatever you’re doing. You want to tell us what all the typing is about?”

Brock blew out a breath of air. “Well, I hacked a reconnaissance satellite and sent the video to the laptop.”

“Wow, that took you long enough. I would have hacked it with a lot fewer keystrokes,” Sophie announced with pride.

Brock’s face flushed red. For an ex-Navy SEAL, he didn’t seem so tough at the moment.

“I might also be talking to my fiancé. I needed to let her know I was okay.”

“Pussy-whipped,” Antonio coughed out.

“Makes me feel good to know the government satellites are so hackable.” Zack looked irritated.

This conversation was heading off track. “Director San—uff!” Sophie elbowed me in the side. “Fine, the devil told me to go pick up Sophie today from her work. He didn’t tell me why, just said all I needed to do was tell her she was being arrested for treason. Ten minutes after getting to her location, I was shocked to see Antonio show up. I took Sophie anyway and left him in Ft. Lauderdale. When we got on the plane, the devil informed me Sophie was my new partner.”

Zack laughed. “That didn’t throw up any red flags? You getting a partner?”

I hated working with partners, and the CIA knew I would do everything possible to get rid of one. A couple of times, I had killed them. They had turned out to be Russian spies. Still, I didn’t like working with others. “Not funny, asshole.”

“You can’t say that,” Sophie whispered.

“Say what?”

“You can’t call the president an asshole.”

“Sophie, Zack’s an asshole.”

“Let's get back on track,” the asshole said. “I need to get back to DC.”

I continued telling him how Sophie’s sister was Kat, and the director had been using them against each other for years. The icing on the cake was that the director had told both Zack and Antonio that Kat was dead.

“This all lines up with what I was thinking and the information I’ve been gathering. Director Sanchez has been using the CIA for his personal gain. I need substantial evidence of his wrong-doing. I want him brought down.”

“Can I kill him?” Sophie asked.

Zack shook his head. “I need him alive. This is off the books. He is still looking for you. I'm not sure who we can trust at the CIA. I need you to figure out what he’s doing and bring him down.”

Antonio had finally stopped pacing the living room. If he had kept pacing, he would have worn a hole in my imported armorial rug. He faced Zack. “We’ll take the case, but I won’t promise the director won’t die at the end of this.”

Sophie pointed at Antonio. “This is not your case. You can’t cut me out.”

“He isn’t cutting us out,” I explained. “I think Antonio and Brock should head back to Ft. Lauderdale and work on gathering intel. For some reason, the director wants Sophie. I think she saw something on one of the cases she worked for him, and now he wants her close. His dilemma is that she saw the picture of Kat. Now he doesn’t have as much leverage. Sophie and I will head to another safe house nobody knows about.” I gave my brother a pointed look. “I have a secure line where we are going and will have Sophie send you a secure message when we get to our location.”

“I think we should come with you.” Antonio didn’t seem pleased with leaving Sophie. It bothered me that he didn’t trust me with her.

“I agree. What happens if you are surprised? Sophie doesn’t have field training.” Brock made a good point.

I looked over at Sophie. Under her confident exterior, I could see the worry in her eyes. “Fine. Antonio, you can come with us when we go to the charity event. Brock, I think you should go back to Ft. Lauderdale and work with the team to see what you can find for us. I don’t want to use any contacts at the CIA. I’m not sure who we can trust.”

Zack stood up. “I think you have everything squared away.”

Even though it was under a bad circumstance, it was nice to see my brother. I stood up and gave him a one-armed hug.

As I was walking him to the door, I heard the distant sound of a helicopter. They found us a lot faster than I had thought they would. I looked over my shoulder to see Antonio pulling the gun from his holster. “How far out?” I demanded.

Brock's fingers were flying across the laptop. “Five minutes at the most. They are coming in fast.”

“Sophie, come here.” I ushered Sophie and my brother down the hall. I needed to get them into the safe room. We weren’t entirely certain who was showing up or what they wanted.

Zack looked like he wanted to protest. He knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t listen. At the end of the hall, I removed a picture frame from the wall to expose a keypad. After punching in the ten-digit code, I heard the click of the panic room door latch. I escorted them into the adjoining bedroom. A door in the back of the bedroom closet stood ajar. I pushed them through the door before either of them had time to protest.

Needing to see what Brock and Antonio had found out, I headed back toward the living room. Antonio gave me a nod, and we got in place to take out the men coming for us.