Chapter Six
“I never realized how bad Zach’s childhood was.”
Four days later her sister sat across from her in The Hideout’s locker room. Kenzie wasn’t dressed for play this evening. She’d chucked the slacks and blouse she’d worn to work in favor of leggings and a sweatshirt that hung off her left shoulder, exposing a scar she hadn’t earned. It was the mirror to the one on Kala’s shoulder. She’d come by it in a knife fight she’d almost lost a year ago in Beijing.
Kenzie had carefully studied the wound and then had Tris push the knife through when Lou and Tasha had balked. It had been Aidan who stitched her up, but he thought it had been an accident. That’s what Kenzie had told him.
That scar bothered her. Not because Kenzie hadn’t come by it honestly, but that she’d felt the need to come by it at all. Kala had argued that they could cover her shoulder. They’d been born perfect twins. Despite the fact that her parents would tell everyone there was no way they could be fooled, they had and still could be. But time and life had changed them in the slightest ways. Kenzie sometimes had way more of a tan, and Kala had to drag her ass to the tanning salon. Kala had more scars, and Kenzie kept taking those on, too.
What had felt like sisterhood at first was starting to feel like a cage.
A couple of days of intense therapy with Dr. Gallagher had her thinking.
“I don’t think he told us a lot of truth.”
Kala turned back to the mirror where she could see her own scar because she was already in a corset and boy shorts, with five-inch heel boots that came over her knees. She was currently curling her hair. It was a 180 from how they spent most of their nights in the locker room. Kala tended to get ready simply and quickly, slicking back her hair since she wasn’t there to have sex or attract a man.
She stared at the mirror. She looked a lot like her sister except Kenz didn’t wear black on the dungeon floor.
Would Cooper like her in lighter colors?
“Do you truly believe he was sent in to hurt us?”
Kenzie asked.
Kala rolled her hair around the large barrel iron, giving it a spritz to hold the curl better. “I know he was sent in to report back to some people who don’t like Dad. I’m not sure if he was specifically there to cause trouble so they could dissolve the team, but if he was, then he kind of sucked at his job.”
Because he’d saved them way more than once. Because he’d become one of them.
“I think he got in and he liked us,”
Kenzie said with a wistful sigh. Sometimes she thought her sister had been born in the wrong time. And place. She should be dressed in some frilly gown, staring out over the moors of England, waiting for her lover to return from war or something. “I know he admired Dad. I think he wanted to be one of us.”
“Yes, that would have given him far more access.”
Devi Taggart settled into the chair beside Kala, putting her makeup kit down. She was in an emerald corset and shorts that made her legs look a mile long. “If he became a Taggart, he would have had access to everyone in our family. Have you thought about how convenient that could be for a man like Huisman?”
Damn. She hadn’t actually seen her cousin since she’d gotten back. She’d been too busy recovering from what that asshole had done to her. Including starting PT since she’d seriously strained a couple of muscles and joints. The paralytic had worn off before the drugs that tortured her veins had, and she’d been left to spasm and jerk, her body trying desperately to expel the drug.
And her heart stopped, and stupid Ben Parker had to bring her back. Now she couldn’t hate him the way she properly should since he was constantly perving on her sister and that meant her, too, since he didn’t know there were two of them.
“I don’t think it was like that,”
Kenzie said with a deep sympathy.
Devi had hooked up with Zach a couple of weeks before. It had been fast and intense. She’d even shown up with him when they’d left for the Montreal trip—something that wasn’t supposed to happen. Girlfriends and boyfriends weren’t supposed to know they were Agency, much less drop them off for a super-secret op with a kiss and a couple of snacks. So that had told her Zach had been serious.
Though Devi had a point. “She’s right about the Taggart thing. If they’d gotten super serious, Dad would have considered him more family than teammate.”
“That doesn’t mean he targeted Devi,”
Kenzie argued.
“I’ve tried to tell her this. We’ve all tried.”
Daisy O’Donnell was already prepped for the night. She was stunning and oh-so feminine in her white corset and thong, long dark hair caressing her shoulders. She was with Brianna Dean-Miles. The three had grown up close, their ages ensuring they were always thrown together. They’d formed a deep and abiding friendship. Like hers with Lou.
“I saw them that night,”
Brianna explained. “He was into her.”
“Or he’s an excellent actor.”
Devi took a deep breath and stared at herself in the mirror before pulling out her eye palate. “I was a complete idiot around him.”
Kala shrugged. She felt for her cousin, though she didn’t understand the situation. She often worried she wasn’t hetero or gay or anything in between. She’d only ever wanted one man. She was Cooper-sexual, and it was a problem. “He’s attractive and nice. It’s okay to be attracted to someone. It wasn’t your fault, Devi.”
She wanted to say he didn’t seem like a massive asshole, but she was trying to be sensitive to Devi’s obviously tender feelings. She was growing.
Daisy looked between Kala and Kenzie before leaning over to Bri, her voice a mere whisper. “This is one of those times. She said the word nice. I kind of thought she was Kala because of all the black, but she sounds like Kenz.”
She didn’t sound like Kenz just because she was being nice. She was nice. Fuck, she was not nice. Kind. She could be kind from time to time, but nice wasn’t in her repertoire.
“Are they doing an op or something?”
Bri asked. “The kind where one of them hides and they pretend they’re one person. Because Kala always gets testy when she’s the one hiding.”
It was good to know all she had to do to trick people into believing she was her twin was to be a little nice. “No op. We’re all sitting around trying to figure out where the fuck Huisman and Zach are. I apparently get to have a shit ton of therapy and then either go to Sweden and escort a family into hiding or hit the road looking for a nomadic auntie. All in all, not how I planned to spend the next couple of weeks. I planned to spend them wrapping Huisman in his own entrails.”
“Nope, definitely Kala,”
Daisy announced. “Kenzie never mentions entrails.”
Her twin sat back, one brow rising. “Oh, I might not mention them, but if I get the chance, I’d play in his. I’m not joking. I hate that fucker and what he did to my sister.”
“We don’t have to go into it.”
She didn’t want to think about what happened in Canada because it forced her to think about what happened here in Dallas all those years ago. Or up in the air. It could have happened in the plane. It might not have happened at all. The doctor who examined her told her she didn’t think so, but she also didn’t have a hymen. That had been a great anatomy lesson for a fifteen-year-old. Dr. Gates had explained it didn’t mean she’d been raped. It could have torn from athletic pursuits or using tampons. It didn’t matter because it played out in her head over and over again. And then when she slept, sometimes Julia showed up trying to pass her crown on. “But we do have to talk about the fact that Huisman wanted Tasha because he thought hurting her would get Zach to talk.”
He hadn’t gotten Tasha. He’d gotten Kala and Carys, and apparently he’d shot a dude in the head over the mistake. Not that Huisman hadn’t made the most of it.
Devi didn’t even stop doing her eyeliner. “I’ve already gotten the talk, and I have my very own bodyguard following me around when I’m not with Dais and Nate. I’m excited about it since I’ve heard all our bodyguards end up marrying their clients.”
Kenzie sat up, losing her I-want-to-murder-someone face and putting on her this-is-good-gossip one. “Who? Who did you get?”
“Landon Vail.”
Devi’s lips curled up, but it was easy to see the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “He’s adorable and my type. I think he’s exactly what I need to forget my troubles.”
Her cousin was deflecting. And not taking the risk seriously. “Well, you can forget the whole Zach thing but try to remember the last person he had a thing for was the one Huisman wanted to torture instead of me. So you could be next if he decides he wants to see if he can bring Zach in.”
“All Kala is trying to say is you need to do what Landon tells you to and stay close to home when you can,”
Kenzie said.
Devi sighed. “Sure. I got it. Ignore my career needs because some asshole wanted to get close to my family since he’s a counteragent. Thanks, spy kids.”
“Hey.”
Kala could only be pushed so far. “I get it. You’re sad and hurt and I look like I can take some damage. Cool. I can. You want to blame me, go for it, cousin. But he’s not a counteragent. Don’t try to simplify this and make him the baddest of all bad guys. That man saved my life more than once, and honestly, if he shows up again, I’m going to beat on him a while and then sit his ass down and figure this out. Because something is wrong. He’s not a good actor. He kind of sucks. He’s also a shitty bad guy since the last thing he did was save Lou and Aidan and then text me that I should take care of our team. And I know he told Lou to tell you he was sorry. Such a bad-guy move.”
Devi turned her way, eyes narrowing. “He was in love with Tasha. No one bothered to tell me. I had to overhear you guys talking about it. He loved Tasha and then she was unavailable, and so he started to look around for the next best thing.”
Bri winced. “We’ve tried to talk to her about that, too.”
“I don’t think Zach was in love with Tash. He was in love with the idea of being part of a family.”
Kenzie put a hand on the folder she’d been reading. “He was alone most of his life, with a mother in prison and an aunt who was barely able to hold it together. He was a lonely boy who found himself when he joined the military. Tash is… She’s Tash. She’s gorgeous and easy to be around, and the daughter of the couple he wished had been his mom and dad.”
“You are proving my point,”
Devi replied.
“She’s fucking not.”
Kala knew she wasn’t going to get through to her cousin. Not about Zach, but she had to make her point about safety. “What she’s saying is Tasha is sweet and easy to love, and you turn into a raging bitch a lot. Don’t think I’m insulting you. It’s my favorite part of your personality. The point is you’re not Tasha, and if Zach wanted someone sweet and with connections to my father, he could have done way better than you. You are difficult, and everyone shrugs and says it’s because you’re an artist, but it’s because you’re Erin Taggart’s daughter and that shit is hardwired into your DNA. As you proved when you blamed me for all your problems.”
“I didn’t say your name,”
Devi replied.
She loved her cousin, but her cousin didn’t understand her world. Oh, she thought she did on an intellectual level. They all did. They had no idea how bloody it could be. They did not understand she was a fucking wall between them and the bad shit. She finished off her last curl and put the iron down, turning to her cousin and looking her straight in the eyes. “I don’t care. I don’t care if you hate me. You won’t be the only one. It’s surprising because we’re so alike, but I get it. If there’s one thing I think I’ve figured out, it’s that I can’t fix other people’s perceptions of me. So in essence only how I feel about a person matters. I love you so I’m going to explain a bit of the world to you.”
Devi huffed. “See, this is the part I don’t like. I love you, too, but you think you know better than all of us.”
“No. I don’t. Like I have no idea how to make clothes look beautiful like you do. I don’t know how to write a book like Bri does. The list of things I’m expert at is small, but I know how to protect someone, and I definitely know when a person is being stubborn and putting themselves in danger they know nothing about. You think Huisman won’t hurt you because you’re a woman? You think the worst that could happen is he locks you up somewhere and you get to be the damsel in distress?”
“Kala.”
Her sister managed to make her name a warning.
“I think Zach doesn’t give a shit about me, so I’m not in danger at all,”
Devi admitted. “I think this is all BS to make my mom and dad and brother feel better.”
Kenzie sighed and sat back, gesturing Kala’s way, permission to do her worst given.
“Even if Zach doesn’t give a shit about you, there’s the big old chance Huisman thinks he does,”
Kala explained. “If he does and he decides you’re a way to get to Zach, then let me offer you some of my thoughts on him as a kidnapper. I’m a connoisseur, you see. I could write a Zagat rating system for kidnapping. Huisman is chef’s kiss. I’m not joking. The man knows what he’s doing. He hates women and doesn’t rely merely on words to hurt us. I still feel it. I don’t know which hurt more—not being able to move and being forced to watch the fucker haul Carys out or the liquid fire he poured through my veins. I like to consider myself fairly stoic when it comes to pain. I’ve been stabbed, shot, beaten. Stepped on Seth’s freaking Legos. Don’t discount those. But nothing, nothing, was ever as bad as the drug he gave me. I would have killed my own sister to make it stop. I would have done anything. I screamed. I begged. I pleaded with God to kill me. And when my heart stopped, my prayers were heard.”
“Kala.”
Her sister could also make her name sound like the revelation of a long-held secret.
“I asked Dad not to talk about that part,”
she explained. “I didn’t want to freak you and Mom out, but I think our cousin here needs all the bad parts or else I’m just trying to scare her. I am. The truth is terrifying. I went into cardiac arrest but only after the paralytic wore off and I tried to break my own bones to make the pain stop. My chest still hurts from where the Canadian got my heart started again and…”
She winced. “I know that CPR requires mouth things, but, eww. I think that might be the worst of it. I had to wake up to my twin’s dream boyfriend’s mouth on me. But the point is, if you think you’re safe, you’re wrong. Huisman wanted Tasha. Not me. He took me because my last name is Taggart, and he blames my father for an event he wasn’t even there for. Let me see, last time I checked, your last name was…”
Devi put a hand up, her expression softening. “I get your point. I’m sorry. I’m not handling this well. I really…I really liked him. I thought we were getting somewhere.”
“You thought for once it was going to be you,”
Kala replied. She understood what it meant to pine for someone. She’d been doing it for years and years, and it was time for both of them to get this shit out of their systems and move on. “You thought for once I’m going to get the epic love story. I blame Aunt Serena. I often wonder how much better off we would be if she’d, like, written murder mysteries and we all grew up wanting to hang out in British country houses waiting to solve some rich person’s untimely death. Anyway, maybe listen to Landon. About the bodyguard stuff. Not anything else. Maybe don’t put the people you love through having to worry about you because you’re pissed a guy turned out to be less than you thought.”
“I will.”
Devi sniffled because she was capable of feeling. “I’m sorry, Kala. I didn’t know.”
It wasn’t that Kala was incapable of feeling. She felt shit all the time. But she couldn’t cry about it, couldn’t let it out in healthy ways.
So she found unhealthy ones. Well, she was sure the shrinks would tell her dominance was a coping mechanism. “You weren’t supposed to. And if anyone asks…”
Devi nodded. “I know nothing. Everything is classified.”
“But if I maybe left this folder here when I went to the bar to grab a Coke,”
Kenzie offered, touching the file that held the secrets of Zach’s life.
Her sister was way too romantic. It would get her hurt one day. Or fired. Kala grabbed the folder. “No. This is classified, and I wouldn’t want Zach handing mine around even if he did think it might help me get laid. It opens Devi to things she doesn’t need in her life, so I’ll lock this up.”
Kenzie sighed and sat back. “I just think if she knows what he went through she might be easier on him.”
Kala took the folder anyway, locking it up. Her knee ached but she still kept the boots on. No one wanted a flat-footed Dominatrix. She closed the locker and when she turned, Devi was there.
“I truly am sorry. You’re right and my bitch came out and you were an easy target,”
she admitted. “Forgive me.”
There was nothing to forgive. She was a big girl. She could take it. “It’s fine. Stay safe and tell me if you see anything weird. I mean anything.”
“I work in fashion design. Everything is weird.”
She wasn’t wrong. “You know what I mean. And maybe come in for some refreshers in self-defense. We’re all benched for the time being, so we can help out.”
There was actually one thing she felt bad about. “I’m sorry I said you were like me. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. You say what needs to be said. That’s all I meant.”
She didn’t want Devi to start thinking she was bad deep down, that she had a dark soul or that she wasn’t lovable.
Devi stared at her for a moment, and there were tears in her eyes. “I can’t think of anything I would rather be than like my cousin Kala. No one ever tells Big Tag he’s too much.”
“I assure you my mother does. A lot.”
“It’s all a joke when she says it. No one thinks your father needs to change anything about his big, loving, brave, over-the-top personality, but they tell you all the time. I see you, Kala. You think I don’t, but I do. All of our lives, you were the protector. If you had a set of balls, no one would question it, but because you’re a woman, they say you’re too much. Too intense. Too bombastic. Too scary at times. You are exactly who we need you to be. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
She reached out, putting her hand in Kala’s. “I need you to know that even while I’m hurting because I thought I was in love with Zach, I see you, too. And I’m sorry I made you feel like less than you should. You should know how much we all love you and appreciate what you do for us.”
She wasn’t sure she believed it, but she was grateful she wouldn’t have to fight with Devi. “Be careful, and let me know if he tries to contact you. You won’t believe me, but I think he was into you, too, and he’s a big old dumbass, so it could happen. Don’t keep it to yourself. You don’t have to tell the parents, but you do have to let me know.”
“See.”
Devi squeezed her hand. “Protector.”
She walked off, joining the others.
“You are, you know. You even protect me from myself because I totally would have given Devi that file.”
Kenzie leaned against the row of lockers.
“Because you are also a dumbass.”
Kala checked her lock. Not that it would matter if Kenz decided to go for it. Her sister was an excellent thief.
“Did your heart really stop?”
This was what she’d been wanting to avoid. “Yes, and you didn’t feel it so we’re not weirdly connected like you’ve always worried. It’s good news because you don’t die if I do.”
Kenzie groaned. “You are…”
And here they were. “Too much.”
Kenzie sighed, her eyes softening. “I shouldn’t say that. I don’t mean it. You are stubborn, though. I’m glad Ben saved you, but you should know according to Dad, Cooper completely blew our cover that day.”
“How?”
She’d heard nothing of this. Shouldn’t someone have told her Ben Parker knew who she was? “He knows we’re twins? Why the hell would Coop tell him?”
“No, he didn’t tell Ben anything. He had a very large reaction to Ben carrying you out of a burning house unconscious. He thought you were dead. Ben is back to the firm belief that Kara and Cooper are a thing.”
She could deal. “Next time I see Ben Parker, I’ll kick Cooper in the nuts and tell him we broke up. No harm, no foul. Well, except to Coop’s nut sack. I should probably warn him. He could wear a cup or something.”
“You are missing the point,”
Kenzie replied.
“If the point is Cooper’s balls, I assure you I won’t miss.”
“The point is Cooper went all emotional in the middle of an op.”
Kala was certain her sister was embellishing. “He felt bad. Coop is a control freak. He thinks everything is his fault. He’s fine now.”
“He’s not.”
Kenzie’s head shook. “Watch him. He’s not okay, and I think he’s ready to make a move, so you need to figure out what you want. You’ve put him off for years. This might be your last shot with him.”
So her sister thought she was going to fuck up. She had no intention. “If it’s my very last shot, my ‘don’t collect two hundred dollars, go directly to jail if I don’t take it’ shot, then I should make it a good one. I might be late tonight, sis.”
“Because you’re going to sit down and have a long heart-to-heart discussion about years of pent-up feelings?”
Kenzie asked but in a way that let Kala know it was wishful thinking.
“I thought I would ride him like the stallion he is and get him out of my system,”
Kala explained. “I really did do the whole almost dying thing, and when I came out of it, I realized I want to experience that man’s penis.”
“You are so close,”
Kenzie insisted. “Move about two feet up and I believe you’ll find the part of Cooper you need.”
“I do not need his man nipples.”
She wasn’t giving Kenz an inch. This wasn’t a love connection. It was a physical need they obviously both required to move on.
“I’m talking about his freaking heart.”
Kala walked out because the one thing he didn’t want from her was her heart. She was fairly certain he didn’t think she had one.