25. Wifey
Chapter 25
Wifey
Griff
“Listen, you’re about to meet someone important to me, but I also want you to know that she’s…” I was lost for words. “She’s a lot to deal with.”
“What does that mean?” Taz put her phone away as a second car came up the driveway. “Are you introducing me to your mother?”
“No!” Christ that would be a totally different conversation. “At least not yet. Sierra is actually… worse.”
An ostentatious, fire engine red Corvette drove up the narrow path, and I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose before Hurricane Sierra stomped all over the newly tranquil existence. I had a few minutes of peace, and now, it would be blown to hell again.
“She’s a walking disaster, but amazing at her job, which is the only reason I interact with her,” I said, bracing myself for impact as I tried to step between Agent Sierra and Taz.
I wasn’t going to discuss the strange intimacy between me and Sierra.
She wasn’t a lover, and we would never, ever hook up. But at moments when I needed Veder, or someone like him back in my life, she was there. She was… my best man. But how would I explain that? How could I possibly say that in a way that didn’t look bad for me?
Taz and I were in a good fucking place.
What we didn’t need was this feral monstrosity of a woman to come barreling in with her big mouth and…
“Wifey!” The \ Sierra, traipsed in with skin-tight leggings tucked into black knee-high boots. A scarlet red jacket showed off her thin frame. Her thin, platinum hair was pinned behind her ears as she sauntered over to Trinity with absolutely no regard for decorum. “So good to meet you! I’ve already seen your whole biography. Don’t worry, we’ll make sure this Heath Carlin pays–”
“Sierra!” I said, ready to punch her in the face.
Christ, I already regretted this.
“Was that supposed to be a secret, Kilo?” Sierra’s eyes went wide, as she placed a dainty hand over her heart. “Oh no!” Her sarcasm was as thick as pond water, and full of as much shit. “What happened to the handsome Riley? I liked him for Wifey. He was hot! Put that man on a calendar!”
She batted her eyelashes at me, her full face of makeup a stark contrast to my Trinity’s natural appearance. In many ways, Sierra tried to act like she was a “type” like Kristin. Material. Superficial. A caricature of a real person.
If I hadn’t seen her efficiently kill a squad-sized element with nothing but a hair pin, I would almost be fooled. There’s just something about seeing a person covered in that much blood, her eyes full of sadistic glee, that sticks in your head.
Taz was a killer too. I knew that. But she didn’t derive a damn near erotic pleasure from taking life. Not like Sierra.
“Kai?” Taz said, leaning into my side.
“I’m Daria Savchenko.” Agent Sierra introduced herself by her real name. I was surprised she wasn’t going to give a fake name, but I guess it wasn’t necessary. “I’m so glad to finally meet you, Wifey!”
“Sierra, I swear to God…”
“Wifey? Sierra?” Taz asked me, completely ignoring the walking red-clad tornado on her lawn.
“Agent Sierra,” I explained. “Of Cerberus. We all got assigned letters.” I wouldn’t need to explain the phonetic alphabet to Taz. “And the Wifey thing is because–”
“Agent Kilo and I are partners. What’s his is mine, and you are his wife. Therefore…”
“Wife?” Taz asked again, her eyes growing as wide as saucers as her fingers curled into my shirt as if she needed to stay grounded in that moment.
“You’re scaring her, Sierra! Quit the wife talk.”
“What?” Daria twirled her painted fingers in the air. “Listen, you are leaving all of your worldly goods to her if you–” She ran her fingertips over her neck, to mime her throat slit. Then, because if it’s worth killing, it’s worth overkilling, she placed her finger to the side of her head to mimic a gunshot to the temple, making the appropriate cartoonish sounds with her mouth. “She better be a wife, at least. I mean… you’re worth some serious money there, Kilo. If she hasn’t married you, I will, and then I’ll kill you myself.”
“Kilo?” Taz asked.
“I’m Agent Kilo,” I quickly explained.
“Okay.” Taz nodded as if it all made sense.
It did not. Not even to me.
“I clocked five men near the road, one of them followed me up here. In fact, he’s right there,” she pointed her red nail towards the darkness. “Prone position, behind the cedar with the branch that looks like it’s flipping me the bird. See him?” She went into her Louis Vuitton purse, pulled out a flashlight, and its powerful bright white beam slashed through the darkness, to the cedar, and a man cussed under his breath.
“The fuck!” Taz’s hand went to her back, where the pistol was back its rightful place.
“Don’t worry, they’re not here to harm you. They obviously cared more about keeping people out. As I understand, they’re Paradigm, trying to protect you!” She finger-waved to the man in the tree, then blew him a kiss.
“How the fuck did they get through her cameras unseen?” I was fucking livid. What was the point of security cameras if they didn’t even alert her when these Paradigm pricks were in the wood line.
“I’m guessing they have them on a loop, except for on the main road,” Sierra said. “It’s not your fault, Wifey.” She came over and stroked Taz’s cheek. I grabbed Sierra’s wrist and flung it away, her threat to sleep with my wife still fresh in my mind. “One woman against the resources of Paradigm? I don’t think you stood a chance. But let’s go ahead and talk inside the trailer anyway, yes?”
I was more nervous than a worm in a hallway full of hooks.
But Sierra - err… Daria - went into the trailer, impressively not stumbling on the dirt in her stilettos. Taz and I followed. Those damn things were so tall, if they pierced the ground, she’d strike oil.
Huddled in Taz’s modest living quarters, and growing wearier by the second, I watched as the two most important women in my life looked at each other, complete opposites in almost every way, and I wondered how this would go.
“You’re prettier than I thought you’d be,” Sierra started. “Kristin was all fake tits and frizzy hair. You’re naturally pretty.”
It sounded like an accusation.
“It’s good to finally meet you” Sierra’s eyes suddenly hardened. “So, tell me, do you really love him or is he wasting his time pining for you? Is he going to eventually wake up heartbroken, and become a huge drag on our operations?”
I was ready to jump up, but Taz raised her hand to stop me.
“I’ve had that already. My last partner was a complete dud.” Sierra’s eyes flicked to me. “Not like this guy. He's good to work with, but if he ends up all mopey and becomes a liability, I’d like to mentally prepare for that now, please, so I can find some other bitch for him to whine about.”
“Hey!” I said, stepping between them, my back to Taz. “No one gets to–”
“Talk shit about her except for you. Yes, I heard that.” Sierra rolled her eyes. “You’re irrelevant to this conversation. Let the women talk.”
I was ready to step between them, but Taz held me back with a claw-like grip on my bicep.
Sierra turned back to Taz, and with a deadly serious face said, “I have to keep this fucker alive. I need him to keep me breathing as well. This affects me. So, tell me. Do you truly love him, or are you just messing with his mind the way Kristin was?”
“Sierra…”
“Daria,” Taz began, pulling on my arm.
Just the slightest touch from her made me ready to melt. It was like all the fight drained right out of me, and when Taz reached out to cup my cheek, I was as docile as a kitten.
“Yes, I love him,” Taz was speaking to Sierra, but she was looking right at me.
“And?” Sierra asked, crossing her arms.
Taz tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, then turned to my partner.
“I don’t know if I’ll break his heart. That’s not something I can swear to. I will do what I have to so that he’s okay.” I didn’t like her answer at all. The warm fuzzies from a second ago turned to ice. She continued, “I’ll do what’s best for him, no matter what it costs me. Or what it costs him.”
Sierra tilted her head, her blond hair falling over her shoulder as her eyes narrowed, examining Taz like she was trying to polygraph her with her mind.
“I’ll accept your answer, and I can’t wait to be his best man at the wedding,” Sierra finally concluded. “Now down to the important shit.”
Without invitation, Sierra sat down on the little kitchen table, her eyes devoid of that mischievous light that was almost always there.
“There’s no leak in the CIA,” Sierra finally said. “They concluded their investigation, and I combed through it. I have hacked every single document that I could find and been up the ass of every person even remotely attached to this. It’s not a leak, like we had initially thought.”
“That’s worse.” A leak gave us a mole to hunt. Without something to hunt and kill, then we might have a bigger problem on our hands.
“Now, now, I just said there isn’t a leak in the CIA. There is a leak somewhere, but not specifically from them. I think that maybe another agency is adjacent, or somehow, they have put the pieces together some other way.”
“What pieces? What the hell do they want?” I felt the blood rushing to my extremities - an old evolutionary development that made us ready to run, and fight.
“Matthews and his little group of people call themselves the Frontline,” Sierra said, shedding off her jokes and suddenly becoming serious. “They have members across cartels, Mafia, and Motorcycle Clubs.
“Like the Prodigal Sons?” It was a question, but I already knew the answer. “Frontline.” I said the name out loud, then scoffed, “Like the dog tick medication?”
“You have a dog?” Sierra asked, tilting her head to the side. “Since when?”
“No, but I see the commercials.” I had wanted a dog, but Kristin thought it would be too much work.
“Huh,” Sierra said, then she looked at Taz. “Next time you have a fight, get him a puppy.”
She crossed her slender legs and leaned back into the fake leather seat.
I vaguely wondered what Taz would look like in a cute red dress, but dismissed it quickly, because it was too strange to imagine.
“I’ll consider it,” Taz said, not bothered in the least as she went to her fridge and pulled out a Belgian white beer, offering one to me, then Sierra.
“Got anything stronger?” Sierra asked.
Taz went to the freezer and pulled out a bottle of vodka, pouring out a shot for Sierra who sipped it with her pinky up.
“It seems that the Frontline have been trying to attack your dear Papa, and President Lau ever since the prisoner exchange,” Sierra said. “I decrypted their communication, and while they kept using nicknames, it was obvious what they were talking about. They have absolutely no idea that we killed the defector two days later.”
“Great, so we what? We tell them the guy got his throat slit as you looked deep into his eyes and gave him a message from President Lau?”
Sierra laughed, and it sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
“Yes and no. It seems that Frontline have expanded their vendetta against Cerberus and have acquired a new target. The Ghost.”
The Ghost. Her father.
My future father-in-law?
“He’s been able to stop the Frontline at every turn, and he’s even a little arrogant about it. He leaves his fingerprints on it.” Sierra leaned forward on the table, and I knew she was about to nerd out. A trait that she and Taz shared. But it was cuter on Taz. “Every hacker, and spy has a small signature, right? There is a process, or fingerprint to the hacking. We all get a little bit personal, and set in our ways, so we can tell… well, the Ghost has one too, and I won’t bore you with the specifics—”
“No, please tell me more!” Taz said, at the same time I moaned.
Taz and I looked at each other, and she laughed, before looking back at Sierra.
Thankfully, Sierra didn’t go into further detail.
“The Ghost, they have discovered, is Joaquin Guerro,” Sierra said.
I wasn’t shocked. Not anymore, at least. Brett had told us so much already.
We had surmised that Ghost wasn’t from Cerberus. We thought that maybe he was an FBI Agent, or even DEA. But Paradigm? Well, that made the most sense. As a private, contracting company, Paradigm had far more leeway when it came to their operations. They didn’t answer to the Senate Intelligence Committee and had minimal oversight.
“Every time they plan anything, it’s thwarted by the Ghost. So now it’s become personal.” Sierra bit her lip. “Even us finding Matthews might have been set up by him.”
“How do you know that Taz’s father is him?” I asked.
Sure, Brett confirmed it already, but I wanted to know how the link was made.
“Apparently a leaked document on you, dear boy, let them know your connection to the CIA Director and Wifey. There’s a document about a baby girl, born October 13 th , named Trinity Blaze Guerro – Nice middle name, by the way – to Teresa Guerro and Joaquin Guerro in Bakersfield, California. Her daddy’s been off the books, and out of sight for almost 30 years…” Sierra sighed. “It didn’t take a lot to connect him to Ghost who’s been operating for...”
“Thirty years.” I finished her sentence.
Sierra’s blue eyes turned to Taz’s dark ones, and in a move that surprised me, she reached out her hand, to hold hers.
“They think that if they take you, your father will come out of hiding.”
It was hard to think of Taz with a father. I barely thought about her having a mother, since that relationship was so… contested. But a father? I wondered what kind of schema change was occurring in her head.
“Why would they think he’d come out for me?” Taz asked, quietly, taking a sip of her beer. “He didn’t come out any other time. So why now?”
“Maybe he didn’t know about you?” Sierra supplied. “Did he and your mother talk? Maybe she ran away without telling him she was pregnant?”
“No,” Taz said. “He knew. He signed the birth certificate. But he didn’t stay after that. Never cared at all, in fact.”
“Baby, I understand how you feel, but that wasn’t the impression I got today, when they interrogated Trout,” I said, pulling her onto my lap. “Seems like he’s been having people look in on you.”
I did it as much to comfort her, as to comfort myself. I took her hand in mine, and kissed her wrist, right below her bracelet.
She shivered, and I held her closer.
“He’s a career spy,” I tried to explain. “He might have thought staying away was safer.”
Taz shook her head. “If I was blessed with a child, I would never leave them alone. Not for a second.”
“Yes, you would,” Sierra said. “You said so yourself. You’ll do what you need to, so that they stay safe. Even if you must leave for it to happen.”
The threat loomed in the air between us. The one where Taz would take any excuse to bail. If she had a kid… if we got pregnant… would she run to keep our child safe? And would I let her, for love of the baby?
No. I’d still chase her. As long as the bracelet was there, I would pursue.
I wasn’t made to be that selfless.
“Now Paradigm wants me in a safe house,” Taz shook her head. “I’m going to go crazy. It’ll feel like a prison.”
“What? This sounds fun! We can play house!” Sierra said. “I’ll get my bags.”
“You don’t have to come with us!” I called as Sierra went to grab the bags from the trunk of the Corvette.
Was it my destiny to always despise my closest friends? Was it going to be their “thing” to annoy the ever living fuck out of me?
It wasn’t so much a statement, as a plea that she not come with us. Sierra was a walking cock block.
“Are you kidding? I was trying to get hired by those guys long before I joined Cerberus!” Daria hauled her Louis Vuitton bags up the ragged steps, her designer gear - which I knew were all authentic - were far too precious for the space we were sitting in. “It was easier to get into the government secret service than it was to find a contact for Paradigm!”
I let out a sigh. “What? You want to ditch Cerberus and join this Brett Bradley guy?”
“I’d dump your ass in a heartbeat, Griff. Especially now that I know you and Wifey are good.”
When Taz looked away, Sierra clandestinely reached into her pocket, and pulled out a dark gray metallic band.
“You left it in your locker at work,” she said under her breath, as she quickly and quietly placed the heavy ring in my hand.
It was a woven Celtic braid of two different kinds of brass, from two separate shell casings. Two bullets. From the one they pulled out of my thigh, and the one they pulled from my heart. A bit of sentimentality I had created as a sort of gift… a gift for Taz, because I thought that if I died, it would be funny to hand her the bullets that almost killed me.
I felt the weight of it in my hand, and the symbolism of it hit me like a sabot round to the chest.
Two separate bits of metal, like people, intertwined into a band. A circle without end.
It wasn’t just a gag gift for when she got my death notification.
It was an engagement ring.
I slipped it into my breast pocket.
Wifey. Wife.
Taz was mine.
That fact became more solidified at every turn.
So why did it feel like everything was about to blow up in my face?