Chapter Nineteen
Phoenix
Heels sounded on the stone floor a moment before her voice.
“You were sloppy and underhanded.”
Her outfit had changed. Summer dress, less formal, still elegant. Nothing my tomboy little sister would’ve worn. Alpha, life, and a career she hadn’t chosen had all changed her.
She ignored my offer for a drink. “You were also transparent.”
“Was I?” I set the water down and pushed out the stool next to me.
“Have a seat. Our table’s not ready yet.
” I wondered again about what November had said.
This afternoon, I’d had Cypher run another search on my little trespasser, and so had I.
Neither of us had come up with any new intel.
Except the woman wasn’t mine, and I needed to stop fucking thinking about her.
Whoever she was related to didn’t matter. She was out of my field of view.
Maila didn’t take the seat I’d offered. “You know you were being transparent, and I’m not staying.”
I took another swallow of the water. “You came here to tell me that?”
The bartender showed. “Good evening, ma’am. May I get you something to drink?”
I said, “Yes,” the same time my sister said, “No.”
The bartender glanced at me as he aimed for diplomatic. “I’ll check back.”
“No need,” Maila clipped.
I ordered for her. “Another Eagle Rare.”
“Of course, sir.” The bartender retreated.
“I hope that’s for you because I don’t drink bourbon.”
She drank everything. The Vice Admiral and I had trained her young to hold her alcohol. His idea, not mine. She’d been sixteen. “This one’s smooth.”
“You’re not.”
“Sloppy, underhanded, transparent, and not smooth. Understood.” I picked up my bourbon but didn’t take a swallow.
“Anything else?” She had ten years of anger and grief to get out.
I was only giving her another minute to void herself of emotion.
A tactic the Vice Admiral had repeatedly enforced—shut down your emotions or else.
Showing them was a sign of weakness, and weakness didn’t win wars.
You learned to shut down and shut up in the Nilsen household, or you suffered the consequences.
“As a matter of fact….” Maila paused as the bartender returned.
Mistakenly setting the drink and another water in front of me, he smiled. “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Erikson?”
“We’re all set.” I slid a few hundreds across the bar toward him.
“Thank you, sir.” With a nod at Maila, the bartender retreated.
“Three hundred for two drinks?” she asked dryly.
I pushed the Eagle Rare and the water back toward her. “Like I said, it’s smooth.”
The hostess approached. “Mr. Erikson, we have your table ready.”
Maila turned on her. “Give us a minute, please.”
“Of course.” The hostess stepped back but not out of view.
Maila moved in close and lowered her voice.
Then she did the exact opposite of what I was expecting.
She went full emotion. “Do you know what hurt the most when I lost you? More than losing Dad? What cut a thousand times worse than when Adam went right back to his deployment after telling me you’d died?
” Real sorrow filled her eyes. “Losing the only home I ever knew.”
Her childhood nickname bled out. “Emmy—”
“I’m not Emmy to you anymore, and you’re not Billy to me.
We were always going to grow up. But this?
” She touched her heart, then mine. “You destroyed us. I understand you had a path cut for you. I know that serving our country isn’t simply an expression, and honor is a creed instead of a word, but you made choices. ”
“The Vice Admiral made choices. For both of us.”
“I don’t care. You were my home. My safe space, my protector, the father figure I didn’t have.
You were my best friend, and the shoulder I cried on when we weren’t allowed to show tears.
I knew our childhood wasn’t easy. I missed a mother I never knew at every milestone.
I was deeply aware that our father loved his country more than he loved us.
But none of that mattered to me because I had you. ”
“You also had Adam.” He’d been better for her since the moment he’d walked into our lives. That’s why I’d made him promise before every deployment, every mission, that if I kicked down my last door, he’d take care of her.
“I had you first, William.”
“William Nilsen’s dead.” Resurrecting him would endanger us all.
“And how long do you think you can keep up that charade? Drinking and dining at the Four Seasons, walking into AES where there are dozens of Tier Ones—how long do you think you’ll go unnoticed?
Someone’s going to recognize you. People have long memories, and trust me, you were memorable.
Once they see you, they’ll address you by your real name, then your cover—”
“My cover’s fine.” For now. The search on the U.S. Marshals site hadn’t come back with any hits. I’d walked through the hotel lobby twice today. I was here now. My team knew who I was. No one called me Bravo. Any threat worth a damn would’ve surfaced by now.
For a split second, her expression said it all. Then Maila shook her head once and locked it down. “You’re missing the point. The moment you stepped off that ship, your cover was blown.”
I wasn’t missing anything, but she was. “Nothing I’m doing isn’t without purpose.”
“Then you realize everything you’ve done in the past decade is going to catch up to you.”
Good. I wasn’t aiming for anonymity anymore. This whole exercise was an assessment. “Is that your roundabout way of asking what I’ve been doing?” Because she would ask.
“I don’t have to. A faked death like yours only means one thing. Off the books, covert Black Ops. And since Adam has a direct line to the Secretary of Defense and several AES operators have ties to Ground Branch, I’m guessing you reported directly to the Commander in Chief.”
“I don’t report to anyone.”
“Maybe not now. But the sixty-five-meter Heesen yacht anchored offshore, the Sikorsky on her helipad, a fleet of jets that were scattered throughout Europe, Greece, and the Middle East until a week ago, and access to privately owned satellites all paint a picture.”
She’d done her homework. “Of?”
“You haven’t been working alone.”
The great myth of covert ops. “No, I haven’t.”
The real accusation, the root of the betrayal from her perspective came with evident hurt in both her expression and voice. “You could have told me, Will.”
“No, I couldn’t.” Until two months ago, it would’ve endangered her life. Since then, I’d stopped taking the high-risk ops myself and started cleaning up. Planning. For her, for this. For the very crucial reason I no longer had fucking apathy about my own life expectancy.
Leaning toward me, quieting her tone, my sister bit out each syllable as she repeated herself. “You could have told me.”
“You could have called me,” I countered.
She reared back as if I’d struck her. “What?”
Self-righteous, I let the revelation hang there like a head on a spike for a solid beat.
Then I reminded myself why I was here. Two months ago, I never could’ve predicted the text that’d come through on my old number or the subsequent fallout that upended my life.
But right now, this was about my sister. “I’m not—”
“No.” She already had her cell out, her fingers flying across the screen.
I let it happen.
A second later, my personal cell rang in my pocket.
My sister sucked in a sharp breath. “How long?”
“I’m not here to punish either of us or dwell on the past.” My personal cell rang again.
My sister’s composure tanked. “How fucking dare you. I thought you were dead.”
“I thought you’d try to call me. At least once.” Or look for the house in Cap d’Antibes our great aunt used to own.
My personal cell rang a third time.
Reaching out, I swiped across my sister’s phone that was still clutched between both of her hands like a lifeline, and ended the call for her.
She repeated her argument, but this time, the force behind it wasn’t all anger. “You could’ve told me.”
“Yes, established. Also established, you could’ve called me.
Either way, if contact had been made, you would’ve read in Alpha.
” She wouldn’t have been able to keep it from him, but that wasn’t the point.
After my initial shock and anger had worn off, I’d wanted her as far away as possible from this life.
Not enough to cut her off completely, which was why I’d kept the number, but the reality was, if Alpha knew, he would’ve tracked me or died trying.
Then none of us would be where we were now.
That, I wouldn’t apologize for. No matter the outcome between me, Maila, and Alpha, I was still moving forward with my plan.
“You don’t know what I would’ve done,” Maila argued. “But if I had told Adam, it wouldn’t have mattered. He never would’ve jeopardized your cover. You meant more to him than honor. That’s the difference between you two.” Stepping back, she adjusted the purse under her arm.
Carrying a small tray, the hostess reappeared. “May I take your drinks to the table?”
With her gaze locked on mine, my sister grabbed her glass of Eagle Rare and tossed it back in one swallow like it wasn’t a seventy-five-dollar pour of aged bourbon. “I’m good.” She spared the hostess a glance. “He’s not.” She turned to leave.
I stepped in front of her.
Anger flared in her eyes. “Excuse me.”
Setting my drink on the hostess’s tray as I grabbed Maila’s arm, I glanced at the woman who was now wide-eyed, looking between us. “Siblings,” I offered by way of explanation. “Our table?”
“Of course. Right this way.” The hostess hightailed it toward the Michelin star restaurant.
Maila spoke under her breath. “Let go.”
“Two choices.” I dropped my hand. “You can leave, or you can stay for dinner and hear the reason why I’m here.” The tactic was underhanded, but I used it anyway.
For a split second, my sister hesitated.
Then she followed the hostess.