Chapter Eight #2
Kala stepped out of the conference room, ready to pretty much run and hide. A cowardly thing to do, but here she was. She’d tried to dip her toe into the ocean, and now she felt like she was drowning.
And she definitely hadn’t known how to swim.
“Hey.”
Her sisters moved in, Kenzie taking the lead, but Tash close behind. “I think we should talk.”
The last thing she wanted to do was talk. She was so done talking. Talking was what got her in trouble in the first place. Or maybe she should have talked more to Cooper and then she would have realized it wouldn’t work.
It hadn’t worked. It was an actual ache in her gut, and she finally understood how much she’d been counting on having a few weeks with him. A month or two. A year, tops. She could have sunk into it, guarding herself, of course. She could have put off making decisions.
“I don’t think Zach has a reason to bomb Dr. Walsh, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She knew it wasn’t, but she wasn’t doing this here. “We’ll know more when Lou gets a look at the bomb. Way to get yourself a free trip to Stockholm, bestie.”
Lou was coming out of the conference room, TJ behind her. She looked at Kenzie and Tasha, obviously taking in the scene. “You guys, you know better than to corner her. She’ll talk about it when she’s ready to talk about it. You’ll do way better offering her late-night waffles. Somewhere in the middle of her third she might drop a moment of truth.”
Her bestie knew her way better than anyone else. Even her twin. She and Kenzie loved each other but didn’t always understand the other’s motivations and actions. Like Ben Parker. Ick. She did not get the attraction. He was cold and ruthless. He was an obvious playboy, an agent who used his looks and magnetism to get what he wanted. She would always have to question his intentions. Cooper was earnest. A woman tended to know where she stood with him.
Shit. She was like Parker. It was an opposites-attract thing. Coop was the Kenzie in this situation.
Damn. She was always the bad guy.
“I’m afraid I’m not hungry tonight.”
Kala started down the hallway. She wanted to get home and get to bed and be alone. The only problem was she’d come with Lou and TJ. She needed to be less dependent. She was their constant third wheel, and it had to grate. The last thing she wanted to do was fuck up her best friend’s relationship.
Why hadn’t Cooper come out of the conference room? She glanced back and her mom was exiting, talking to Tristan. The door closed and Kala stopped, waiting for it to open again.
Shit and balls. There were only two people left in that room. Cooper was in there and so was her dad, and the chance that they were talking about the op was zilch.
“Who told Dad?”
Everyone seemed to take a step back as though she could take them out with a mere glare.
Her mother stepped in. “It wasn’t your sisters. They won’t give me anything. It was him.”
She pointed Tristan’s way, and he paled. “I didn’t. I said something offhand because it’s…I…okay, I might have mentioned in a casual way some of the events of the evening. It’s not like he wouldn’t find out. But like I said…”
She punched him. Right in the nose. Let Aidan set the fucker. He was somewhere in the building. Tristan had two people he could count on, and both of them had MDs. He didn’t need to go around tattling on her like a fucking toddler.
Tristan groaned, putting a hand over his nose. “Damn it, Kala. You can’t expect to sleep with Cooper after five thousand years and not have anyone talk about it.”
“I told you,”
a feminine voice said, and then Aidan and Carys were moving toward their Dom. Carys was in street clothes and had an ice pack in her hand. Like she’d expected the violence.
Aidan chuckled and looked Tris over. “Just had to gossip, didn’t you? You had to tell Big Tag, let him know you knew something he didn’t, and now here we are.”
“It slipped out,”
Tris complained.
Why were they still in the conference room? Her mom was standing in front of it like she was guarding it or something. Kala was pretty sure she should get in there and stop whatever the hell was happening.
Her mom put a hand up. “Unless you want to sit down and talk about what happened tonight, you should go to the locker room.”
She put her hands on her hips and stared her mom down. She wasn’t a child anymore. She hadn’t been for a very long time. “You don’t think I have a stake in whatever the hell Dad’s doing in there?”
“I think your father loves you and wants the best for you.”
Her mother was unmoving. Charlotte Taggart was a force of nature, representing strength and love and devotion. She was everything that was good in Kala’s world.
She turned and walked away because she couldn’t punch her mother the way she had Tris.
She was antsy and emotional. Could she find someone who wanted to spar at this time of night?
She strode down the hall, conscious of how everyone in her way suddenly decided they needed to be somewhere else.
The evil Domme was pissed, and everyone was scrambling for cover. There were days when she would find it amusing. Today was not the day.
Up ahead she saw Kenzie and Tasha still arguing with Lou about how to handle her.
She didn’t want to be handled.
Maybe the decision whether or not to stay with the team would be easier than she thought it would. She should go to the locker room and get ready for the ride back, but she just couldn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t get into TJ’s truck and pretend like nothing happened. She couldn’t stay here and watch as Cooper walked out of the conference room, shaking hands with her father, likely commiserating over how hard she was to deal with.
So she turned and walked out of the club. She could walk. Or call a ride. It didn’t matter.
“Hey, you okay?”
Lena Gallagher stood outside the entrance, her cell phone in hand. “I thought y’all would be going a little longer. I was waiting to see if I could catch a ride with Drake. We’re at the same hotel.”
“I’m fine,”
she lied. “It’s getting late, and the parents get crabby when they miss bedtime.”
She looked behind Kala as though trying to catch sight of someone. “Any idea if Drake came out?”
She shook her head. “I lost track of him. Sorry. I’m going to head home.”
“I know you hate me, but give a sister a ride?”
Lena asked, sounding less shrinkish than usual.
“I was going to walk,”
she admitted. “I didn’t bring my car.”
“Do you live close? This seems like a kind of deserted part of town and it’s late,”
Lena said, glancing down the street as though looking for danger. “I know you’re a badass operative, but still… Also, is this club what I think it is?”
Kala stared at the darkness and remembered another night when things with Cooper McKay went hideously wrong and she’d walked away alone. Huisman was out there. Was she really this dumb? Was her pride worth living through that nightmare again?
Or was that precisely the point?
Did she make the same mistake again and again because deep down she knew she deserved whatever happened to her?
That was the moment TJ stuck his head out the door. He hadn’t changed from his leathers, merely thrown a T-shirt over them. He pointed her way. “Kala Taggart, I swear to god if you try to walk home, I will fucking find you and drag you back, and I will tell everyone I found you crying like a girl who lost her favorite teddy bear. I have secrets, sister. I will tell every one of them if you leave this club without me or Cooper.”
Fucking TJ. She sighed. She’d just come to the revelation herself, so she couldn’t exactly argue. She could, but it would be counterproductive, and going home with TJ and Lou would be better than anyone else. “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
He sighed as though he’d expected more of a fight. “Were you serious about not being hungry? Because there’s a Waffle House on the way. I mean, if you want.”
He was a walking never-full gut. But she did like waffles, and Lou wouldn’t push her. Lou would talk about everything else that happened in the club and what she was going to do in Sweden. Listening to Lou would be soothing. If they stayed out long enough, Kenzie might fall asleep, and then she could avoid her twin’s questions. “I could eat.”
TJ’s expression suddenly turned sunny. “Cool. Give me ten and we’ll pick you up here.”
He walked away but not before she saw Lou standing behind him. Sneaky bestie.
God, she would miss Lou if she left. The thought of not having her around nearly brought tears to her eyes, but she had to think about it.
“He’s your cousin?”
Lena asked.
Kala sank down to the bench Gabe had built. The Hideout was a work in progress. It wasn’t much to look at right now, certainly not from the outside, but every week the board worked on it, and slowly it was becoming something they could all be proud of.
What would it look like ten years from now? Would it rival Sanctum or The Club? Would she ever see it again if she walked away from her team?
“Yeah. He’s my uncle Theo’s oldest,”
she replied. “I have a ridiculously large family.”
“Yes,”
Lena agreed. “Four brothers on your dad’s side, and your mother has a sister.”
“It’s way bigger since my parents collect people. My parents have had the same close group of friends since long before I was born. They’re family, too. It can be a lot sometimes,”
she admitted. And wonderful, but it also was hard because she didn’t fit with them. “How about you? You have any siblings out there?”
Lena sighed, and her eyes found the darkness again. “No. I’m afraid I’m on my own. My father was involved in the intelligence business at one point, and he was killed in the line of duty. Not that I spent much time with him. My parents weren’t married. He didn’t want a kid at the time, but I like to think if he’d lived, he would have been a better dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
Maybe she shouldn’t get to know this woman. It was easier to hate her when she was nothing more than an Agency spy sent to break up her team. Which she was thinking about doing herself. “Was it hard to work in intelligence? Or was it easier? Everyone thinks I’m here trying to be my father, but it wasn’t him. It’s something I needed to do.”
“This work fills something inside me,”
Lena explained. “It’s gotten me to where I need to be to do what I want to do. If that makes sense. I have goals and dreams and plans like everyone else. Being here gets me closer to achieving the goals.”
Did she have goals beyond the next job? Anything that didn’t involve work? Cooper had been…not a goal exactly, but definitely a dream.
Lena got quiet, and the silence sat between them, not a comfortable one. It was awkward, and Kala remembered that wasn’t the only question Lena had asked. “It’s a BDSM club. Did you not get the background research on my family? I suspect it’s one of the reasons the Agency watches us so closely. Can’t trust those perverts.”
Lena sat down beside her. “Of course I have read all the relevant background, and your parents’ lifestyle was covered. I wouldn’t say it’s perverted. Simply more open than most lifestyles. And since you’re in an honest lifestyle, do you mind if I ask a couple of questions?”
“Is this a session?”
If she could fit in one of the required sessions, the night might not be a total loss.
Lena snorted like she knew exactly what she was thinking. “Not a session. This is just me asking some questions so I can work better. The whole team is involved, correct? I can understand you all better if I’m informed.”
Lena made it sound so reasonable, but Kala’s suspicious nature still made her careful. “Sure.”
“So I do understand that there are a couple of different ways to play… That’s the word, right?”
“Yes,”
Kala allowed. How long would TJ be? Lou had already changed. She wouldn’t take any time at all. She would grab her bag, but TJ probably wanted to look pretty or some shit.
“So there are different ways to play. Pain can be oddly relieving for some people. For some people who don’t like traditional therapy, the careful administration of pain can release pent-up emotions. Are you a submissive, Kala?”
Kala sighed. Naturally, she was a woman so she should submit to someone. “Nope.”
“So you prefer to be the one inflicting pain?”
Kala lifted a brow, staring plainly at the therapist. “What happened to the careful administration of pain to relieve inner turmoil? Your disdain is showing, Dr. Gallagher.”
“Sorry. I’m not disdainful at all,”
Lena countered. “I was simply surprised. I’ve heard the lifestyle can often provide a place for the other side of a person to come out. You deal with violence in your daily life all the time. You’re in control. You have to be. I’m surprised you prefer to dominate. I guess some of us are simply wired one way and don’t have another side. See, I’m learning.”
Learning she was a violent freak? “Yeah.”
Lena sighed and sat back. “And I’ve put my foot in my mouth again. I’m truly not judging you. I find you fascinating. If I looked merely at your records, I would say you’re the perfect lone wolf operative. I would say you would be able to work the blackest ops, but then there’s the issue of your team.”
“What about them?”
“They ground you,”
Lena replied. “Working with your family gives you something a lot of other operatives don’t have. It can be good in that they can act as a check and balance to your—and every other operative’s—darker impulses. And bad in that you’re forced to think about them before the mission. What I’m trying to figure out is where’s the line. Where does family loyalty come into play before the job? If I was talking about your twin, I would say that line is very thick, and she would struggle to ever cross it. I believe Kenzie would throw the job out to spare her friends’ feelings, much less their lives. You’re different.”
“Of course I am.”
It was nothing she hadn’t heard before, but she was raw tonight and Lena’s words were touching all her nerves.
“Stop being so defensive, Kala. I think you take the job more seriously than anyone on the team. I genuinely believe you are one of the brightest operatives we have working today,”
Lena explained. “One of my jobs at the Agency is to identify truly gifted people. I think you qualify, and before you say because I’m some kind of brutal monster, I’m talking about more than your skills at taking down the bad guys. I’m talking about how you can see patterns and recognize danger before anyone else knows it’s there.”
Comforting words. Words she should listen to. Lena might be helpful if she decided the team would be better off without her. She might be someone Kala could bounce ideas off of. She certainly couldn’t talk about this with her mom or dad or sisters. Lou would get worried, and that was the only time her bestie would go behind her back. “The team exists because of me.”
“Why would you say that?”
“It was my idea,”
Kala admitted. “I knew from a very young age this was the kind of work I wanted to do. Kenzie went along with it. It helped after she got into these young adult novels about spy school. I got her into those, too. I wanted her with me. I knew our parents didn’t want this life for us, but I had to do it.”
Sometimes she felt so guilty about dragging Kenzie in. She should be happily dating and living the life of…whatever she wanted to do. Kenzie would likely be married with a kid or two by now if she hadn’t followed Kala.
“And you’ve done an enormous amount of good,”
Lena countered. “Our parents don’t always know what’s right for us. They’re simply humans who take into account their own damage and trauma. I’m sure your father’s prior employment with the Agency played into his desire to keep you away from intelligence work.”
“He still came out of retirement when I wouldn’t be swayed. It wasn’t like I wanted to work for my father. I kind of rebelled against the idea,”
she admitted.
“And now?”
“I kind of like being close to them, but it can also be a heinous pain in my ass. Like tonight.”
Tristan should have kept his mouth shut. Then his nose would still be in the same place.
Her gaze was on the street in front of them, watching in the distance as cars lazily drove by. Even at this time of night, there were still people out and about in Dallas. Roughly two miles away it would be different since the rambling house she and her sisters lived in was in a nice, solidly suburban-feeling neighborhood, but here the city still held sway.
“What happened tonight?”
Lena asked.
And she realized she should have kept her mouth shut. No one would have told Lena shit. It was one thing to tattle to her father, another to the Agency. They would definitely like to know if two of the operatives on a team were suddenly fucking. Which they weren’t.
Luckily, she had plenty of recent events to fall back on. “The Zach thing. My parents liked him. Not that I didn’t. Zach was cool, but I hold myself apart better.”
“Precisely why I think you’re an excellent operative,”
Lena allowed. “I believe you’ll give my theories some thought. I assume the rest of the team feels like Kenzie and your mother.”
In this she could be honest because they all would. “Tris is close to him. He firmly believes there’s shit we don’t know about. My mom, Kenz, and Tasha are definitely team Zach, and Lou is, too. TJ will be more cautious. He would hear Zach out, but he would also make sure the team was safe while he did it.”
“And Cooper?”
Kala shrugged. “I don’t know. You would have to ask him.”
“Do you have something going on with that young man?”
Lena asked. “There was a certain tension between the two of you tonight.”
“Nope. We grew up together and now we work together, and that’s all she wrote.”
And all she would ever write because it turned out she wasn’t a sexual creature at all. Another way she didn’t fit in. She spent half her time at a sex club, and the one time she tried had been a spectacular failure. Though it wasn’t like Coop had been some sex god. Disappointing was definitely a word she would use. She’d heard rumors that he was great in bed. So it probably was a her problem.
“You should be careful with him,”
Lena advised. “I like Cooper. He’s a lovely young man, but I don’t think he’s going to ever become a true operative. I think he’ll play around with it for a couple of years and then go back to his first love.”
“Flying.”
She’d always known that truth, too. “He’ll either go back to the military or go civilian. He’ll want a family and roots.”
Would she get an invite to his wedding one day? Hear about the birth of his first kid? She wanted that for him, but damn it hurt. “Yeah, I suspect he will. I’m sure we can find someone else for logistics.”
The door opened and Drake strode out, stopping when he saw Kala sitting there with Lena. His eyes widened. “You two okay?”
Lena waved him off, standing. “Just having a chat. You heading back to the hotel?”
He nodded. “Yes. I’ve got a conference call with the Swedes in a couple of hours. You need a ride?”
Lena straightened her skirt and settled her purse on her shoulder. “Yes, thank you. And Kala, I hope you think about what I’ve said tonight. I do think you can do great things, but you have to believe it, too. We can talk more at our next session.”
She gave Lena a jaunty thumbs-up before she walked away with Drake.
She wished the parking area didn’t wrap around. Had her parents snuck out the back door? Had Cooper?
She groaned. How had she fucked things up so badly?
“Are you sure you want me to help? I mean, I could send someone who’s not like related and stuff. I think Gabe’s still here. He’s used to weird projects,”
a familiar voice said as the door came open. “Also, why? I would like to know why? Do I want to know why? Maybe I don’t.”
Her brother Seth stopped, his skin flushing slightly. “Oh, hey, sis. Uh, you doing good?”
What the hell? “I don’t know. Am I, Seth? Who are you talking to?”
Seth hung up really fast. “Dad. He wants me to come out to Sanctum tomorrow. I think he’s pulling a prank on Uncle Adam. You know those two. It never ends.”
She stared at him, trying to tell if he was lying. Seth wasn’t a great liar, but he did know how to add in some truth to throw things off. “Is this about me?”
Seth held a hand up. “No. Dude, I do not fuck with you. Like whatever happened tonight between you and Cooper is your business.”
He seemed to think of something, and his jaw went tight. “Unless he did something he shouldn’t have. Do I need to deal with him?”
Her singer-songwriter brother wanted to fight with Coop? “I think I can handle it.”
“You shouldn’t have to,”
Seth replied. “If he fucks with my sister, I can take care of it. I know I’m not some badass operative, but I’m still a damn Taggart. I know how to get some revenge, and not merely through song. If I decide Coop needs some justice, I’ll administer it.”
So weird how nice it was to hear those words. She took it for granted that no one would protect her because she was the protector. Kala sighed and walked to her brother, wrapping her arms around him. “I think that’s sweet, Seth, but I can handle Cooper. He didn’t do anything wrong. We just weren’t meant to be.”
Seth only hesitated for a second, likely out of shock that she was being so affectionate. Then his arms came around her. “Are you sure? You’ve loved him for a long time, and I know he’s been waiting to make a move. You don’t see how he looks at you.”
She sniffled and pulled back, looking him over. Her snot-nosed, obnoxious brother was a handsome young man. He was talented, and someday he was going to be a star. She loved him so much, loved them all. “Sometimes it’s not enough. And you’re one to talk. Should we discuss your situationship with Chloe Lodge?”
Her brother immediately backed away, holding up his hands. “Nope. She and I do not get along. She’s uptight and picky.”
“And you think she’s hot,”
Kala teased because this was a place where she felt comfortable.
“She is but…she’s not for me,”
he admitted, and there was a hint of sorrow in his words.
“And Cooper’s not for me.”
She reached out and squeezed her brother’s hand before releasing a long sigh. “Well, let me know if you need help on the prank front. I still need to get Uncle Adam back for fucking with my security system.”
Seth winced. “Yeah, you should do that. No one should fuck with your security system. Just so you know, that’s my stance on this, and if it ever happens again, I won’t be a part of it. Never.”
Okay, that was weird, but there was the sound of a car stopping and then a honk.
She turned and Lou waved at her from the passenger side of the truck. She was about to tell Lou to give her a minute so she could interrogate her brother further, but then her sisters were walking out the front door. Tasha held hands with Dare, and Kenzie’s eyes lit when she saw Kala.
“Gotta go. Don’t want to keep Lou and TJ waiting.”
She bounded down the stairs.
“Coward,”
her twin called out. “You know I’ll still be there in the morning.”
But she might not. Kala settled herself into TJ’s truck and put off the problem of her sisters for another day. Tonight she would drown her sorrows in waffles and bacon and put off the moment when she had to be alone again.