#2
Zach heard Lacey’s accent slip.
What the hell was going on? How had his carefully planned evening turned into a pile of drama? He was supposed to take Devi back into the house and get her in the shower and start the whole process over again. He should be kissing her and washing her hair and fucking her again.
Instead, something was happening, and it wasn’t good.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing with my cousin, Lucifer?”
Kala asked.
“Did you think you could hide her from me?”
“I was doing nothing with your cousin, you complete psycho. I was trying to keep things together since your team couldn’t handle it.”
Lacey was still. Like preternaturally still.
He was confused. Oh, not really. It was super clear to him now that Lacey was Agency. A plant sent in to figure him out. The question was who sent her. And why did she and Kala hate each other?
Lou and Cooper rushed in, filling the small space. He noted Devi had taken a place on the loveseat, and she was watching with wide eyes. Almost like she lived for this shit.
His stomach was in knots. Had he fucked up again? Had Lacey been lying all this time about her contacts? He thought he was close to finding his mom but only because Lacey was working in the background.
“Kala, you need to stay calm.”
Cooper had his hands out like he was dealing with velociraptors he thought he could train.
“Lucy, we should sit down and debrief. You have to know we were not informed you were working an op that touched ours.”
“Of course you weren’t because she would have fucked it all up,”
Lacey snarled.
Lacey. Lucy? God, he was a moron. What the hell had he done? He should use the chaos to leave. He could grab his go bag and be on his way out of Wales before anyone realized he was gone. He would go to ground. Maybe back to the States. Find his aunt. Hunker down until he could figure something else out. Yes, that was exactly the plan. The Agency was obviously using this Lucy person to keep tabs on him. She would be his arresting officer when she decided she had everything she could get out of him. Hell, she might do it tonight since her cover was blown. So the smart play was to sneak out right now.
He didn’t want to leave Devi.
“I would fuck it up?”
Kala asked, brows rising.
Devi looked across the room at him, a smile tugging her lips up, and she held out a hand. An invitation. He could practically hear her. Join me, Sir. Come and sit with me, Zach. We’ll survive the storm together.
He should leave.
“You fuck everything up. Did you think I would forget how you assassinated that guy in Qatar before I could get the intel I needed out of him? Also, that bullet came close to hitting me,”
Lacey/Lucy declared.
“Yeah, I missed,”
Kala returned.
“I did fuck that one up.”
He didn’t even pretend he was leaving. He walked across the space and took Devi’s hand, gently pulling her up and moving so he was the one sitting on the couch. He then pulled her down, settling her on his lap.
Yeah. This was what he needed. The minute he was in contact with her he could feel his panic fading. He wrapped an arm around her waist and settled his hand on her thigh, holding her close. He leaned in.
“I have no idea what’s happening. I think I fucked up again, and we might be in trouble. I mean I might be in trouble.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder.
“You were right the first time. Okay, here’s what I’ve figured out. I think Lacey Rook is actually Lucy Brooke Flanders. I obviously don’t know her personally, but I’ve heard the rumors. She’s from the same town where my cousins spent all their summers. She’s younger than Kala, but something happened when they were kids and they despise each other. Like nuclear hate. Kala doesn’t like to hear the sound of her name.”
“How did she end up in the Agency?”
Shouldn’t it be more elite? Shouldn’t there be people he met who had regular jobs? Why couldn’t he ever meet a mechanic? Or a librarian?
His favorite person in the world designed fet wear, and he wanted to see her in it again.
“Oh, I’m sorry you think I’m mishandling the Zach situation. I’m under a little pressure here since I had to work overtime when he brought his girlfriend back to our damn secret base.”
Lucy had begun moving, edging around the room.
Kala mirrored her.
“Poor baby has stress? I eat stress for breakfast.”
“Yeah, and it makes you gassy and unpleasant to be around. You should try some vegetables,”
Lucy replied.
They really did hate each other. Maybe they were like magnets. Put together the north end and south end of a magnet and they attracted. Like Cooper and Kala. But try putting two north ends together and they repelled.
“It was her dad who got her in, though I don’t think he wanted her at the Agency.”
Lou joined them, though her eyes never left the two predators circling each other.
“Henry Flanders was Big Tag’s mentor when he started his career. He’s the only guy I know who Big Tag lets get away with pretty much everything. He’s probably somewhere nearby. He only works with his daughter. They are a specialized team. The Agency gives him a lot of leeway.”
Devi gasped.
“He’s Arthur. I figured something spy-like out, Zach. I think I’m getting good at this. Arthur is Henry, and that’s why he doesn’t look anything like the dude in the picture at the pub. What’s the chance I would run into the vet? Or you would? I wonder if they had to scramble.”
She seemed so pleased with herself. He couldn’t take that from her by pointing out they’d both gotten tricked.
“I met Arthur a few weeks after I met Lacey, so they’ve had this cover in place for a while. I didn’t think anything about the fact that Arthur didn’t have a bigger web presence than his website. No pictures of anything but cuddly animals. The time I called he wasn’t in, but it seemed like a real vet’s office. When would I run into the real Arthur? I’m kind of stuck out here.”
“Hey, babe, she was serious. There’s nothing but a bunch of beets and green stuff. I found a muffin though.”
TJ joined them and then frowned when he saw his sister on Zach’s lap.
“I can pull up another chair.”
The instinct to back off…wasn’t there. Normally he would feel weird being this affectionate around her siblings. He would never have kissed Tash in front of any of her family, even if she’d initiated it. He would have pulled away and respected her dad and sisters.
Damn, she really had been a way to be inside the family he wanted. It had been more about who her parents were. He loved Devi’s parents, but she was far more important.
All that fucking mattered was Devi. If her dad was here, he would tell Theo Taggart that he would die for his daughter, but he wouldn’t pretend he didn’t want his hands on her all the time. He wouldn’t pretend like having her this close didn’t calm and soothe him. Brought him a peace he was surprised to have.
“She’s fine right where she is.”
Like TJ and Lou should care.
“I’m fine,”
Devi said with a smile to her brother.
“Also, I figured out that the vet is actually Henry Flanders. Look at me. I can be a spy, too.”
TJ’s nose wrinkled.
“I don’t think you should change careers, although I would like to point out that for a fashion designer, you could wear more clothes. Like underwear. Underwear is a great thing to wear around your brother.”
She crossed her legs demurely but didn’t move to fix the situation. She was comfortable in her own skin, and he supported that. If her brother didn’t want to catch her half naked and tied down in a barn with a plug up her backside, well then he should have called.
“So no one knows why they hate each other?”
Zach asked.
They should be dealing with the whole Lacey isn’t Lacey and what the hell is going on that he had an additional Agency team checking on him thing. But this was more fun, and all the gossip made Devi’s eyes light up.
“No idea,”
TJ admitted as the two women in question continued to hurl insults at each other.
“I stay out of that situation right there. I’ve worked with Henry and Luce a couple of times as support. They’ve brought in some scary assholes. They took down this cult leader who was about to Kool-Aid his whole congregation. Fun days. But I don’t talk about that with Kala. I know better than to mention what she calls the unholiest name.”
“I think they’re both territorial assholes who rub each other the wrong way and don’t like it when they get in each other’s business.”
Cooper moved in beside TJ, arms crossed over his big chest.
“From what I can tell, Lucy loves her big sister, Poppy, and Kala kind of got to be good friends with her and Lucy was young and acted out and Kala refuses to forgive her. There might have been a prank involved. I don’t know. She kind of foams at the mouth when I ask her about Lucy.”
He sighed.
“Is it weird that I find it hot?”
“It’s like Ghostbusters but Kala and Lucy are the streams you’re never supposed to cross,”
Lou added as she shook her head.
“The funny thing is she loves Kenz. Like Kala loves Poppy and their parents. She genuinely adores Nell and Henry.”
“Henry, who is Arthur.”
He was catching up.
“We don’t know that,”
Cooper hedged.
His brother was careful.
“Nah, I think Devi’s right.”
TJ had finished the muffin, and Zach could practically hear his gut whining like the mastiff named Sawyer’s did right before dinner. Such a big dog and such a pathetic cry for food.
“There’s beef jerky in my go bag. Second door to the right. Watch out for the cats. There’s also some MREs.”
The look of relief on TJ’s face was nearly comical.
“Thanks, man. Kala made us skip lunch when we got confirmation Devi was here.”
He practically ran up the stairs.
“I’d like to know how you managed to confirm that.”
He had a suspicion. It was time everyone laid all their cards on the table and he got a full picture of what was going on.
“I’m betting Lacey didn’t tell you. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been so shocked. Unless this is all a play for my benefit. I’ve seen Kala act pretty brilliantly.”
“Oh, you’re going to see her act, and I’m not looking forward to it,”
Cooper said with a frown.
“No. We did not know you were with Lucy and her dad. How long has this been going on?”
“I found out she had something of a relationship with my mother a year and a half ago.”
He thought he was the ultimate spy, but they’d all been playing him. He was still that dumbass kid in the trailer park. Still a bit of trash his mother forgot to sweep away because everyone knew she liked to make a mess.
“She actually got me to reach out to her.”
Devi’s head nuzzled his neck. Like she could sense how upset he was. His sweetness.
“She’s excellent undercover. Like she was born for it,”
Lou admitted and then stepped forward.
“Hey, you will not go for each other’s eyes. Come on, guys.”
“They’ll just grow back,”
Kala said, words laced with venom.
“I’ll string yours up and decorate my cabin with them,”
Lucy promised.
“Or we could figure out what’s going on,”
Cooper offered.
But they were off again. Kala got Lucy in a headlock, but Lucy flipped her, narrowly missing the end table and its fussy doily.
“You’re surprisingly calm for a man who recently realized the Agency has been watching him all along,”
Cooper pointed out.
“Shouldn’t you be grabbing that go bag rather than letting TJ pilfer it? I was a little worried I would have to stop you once I realized Lucy was here. You didn’t know.”
“Nope.”
He should feel worse about looking like a fool in front of his brother, but Devi was practically purring in his arms. She rubbed her cheek against his.
“And I would run but I would have to carry her out with me, and I’ve already had to replace her clothes once this month.”
She snorted.
“You did not replace my clothes. You bought me some new ones. Trust me. Your wallet would feel it if you replaced my clothes.”
“It’s time,”
Lou said.
“They’re going for soft spots now. I do not want to be the reason Kenz has to give her sister a kidney. Besides, they’ll be here soon, and we have to deal with that. It would be better to put an end to it before the knives come out.”
“Who is they?”
Zach asked.
“Am I about to be arrested?”
Devi sat up and scrambled off his lap. She faced her cousin and looked like a sexy goddess in her robe and nothing else. Her hair was wild and eyes slightly wicked.
“Kala, you are not having Zach arrested.”
Kala was currently back on her feet, trying to land a punch.
Lucy was good at evading.
“She’s not having Zach arrested. She’ll be too busy in the emergency room. Though you’ll have to find one. I’m planning on feeding your dead body to the pigs. Wait. I wouldn’t want them to ingest all that bile.”
“I’m going in.”
Lou reached into her backpack and came out with a water bottle. The spray kind.
“You’re the one who’s about to be in need of socialized medicine,”
Kala vowed.
“I’m serious.”
Devi wasn’t backing down.
“You are not taking him. He has work to do. I don’t care what kind of oppy thing you’re running.”
Kala swiped out with her leg, catching Lucy’s and sending her to the ground.
“Oppy thing? I was trying to find you, damn it.”
She pounced, pinning Lucy.
“I was worried about you, but here you are playing sex games in a barn.”
“In my barn?”
Lucy’s gaze turned Devi’s way.
“Where the innocent animals are? What is wrong with you? Hey, Coop. Good to see you. Sad you have such awful taste in women.”
“Well, I was taking your dad’s advice,”
Zach shot back.
“He helped me make the spanking bench. I should have asked why the vet knew so much about furniture building.”
“Eww,”
Lucy said, bringing her knee up to catch Kala in the crotch.
“Way to confirm your dad’s here,”
Kala shot back with a wince.
“The good news is he can build your coffin.”
“No. Bad Kala. No.”
Lou moved in, spraying her bestie with the water.
Kala growled but she moved off Lucy.
“Lou, I told you that’s rude.”
“Yeah, Lou, don’t be rude,”
Lucy said in a singsong, sure to frustrate Kala tone.
Lou turned the water bottle on her.
“Bad Lucy.”
“Hey.”
Lucy scrambled to her feet.
“What the hell?”
Devi grinned as she turned to Lou.
“Can I try it?”
“Not a good idea. Lou is trained.”
Cooper moved to the center of the room and looked the women over.
“You two need to chill the fuck out because the Canadians are on their way. We need to get ready for a meeting, and that means keeping everyone’s cover.”
Zach stood because this was news to him.
“The Canadians?”
Kala seemed to sober at the thought.
“Yeah, how do you think we found you? Ben Parker has been looking for you. Zach, that is. Though I suspect he used Devi being missing as another starting point.”
“The last time I saw Parker, he was still upset with Miss Magenta.”
Did everyone know where he was? Because it was hard to believe that if Henry Flanders knew, Big Tag didn’t, and what was the game? It was obvious Big Tag was playing a long one.
“Miss Magenta, gag.”
Lucy said.
“It’s better than Lacey Rook. You sound like some chick with an OnlyFans,”
Kala shot back.
But now that he understood all the relationships, Zach got Lucy’s name.
“Her dad went by John Bishop. She used Rook instead. Both chess references.”
“Very good, Zach. I wasn’t going to be a pawn.”
Lucy straightened her shirt.
“And now I need to call my dad since apparently we’re hosting the Canadians. It would have been nice if someone told me they were here.”
“It would have been nice if you were never born,”
Kala shot back and then held up her hands because Lou was serious about the water bottle.
“Sorry. I can be professional.”
She turned to Zach.
“Miss Magenta and Ben Parker have made up and are working together well now. It’s why he agreed to help us out. We couldn’t look for you with Agency contacts because they would report back and be surprised when we don’t arrest you. At least that’s what we thought. Now I wonder how much my dad isn’t telling me.”
“The Agency doesn’t know,”
Lucy admitted.
“I mean they know I’m working on Disrupt Europe, but I’m hunting a terrorist with ties there. They don’t know that I found the bombmaker, and they certainly don’t know Dad and I are working with Zach. Hopefully your friend doesn’t feel the need to update the Agency.”
“Parker is going a little rogue on this op,”
Cooper admitted.
“Kind of like we are,”
Lou said.
“There’s a reason the whole team isn’t here. We’re doing this without Big Tag and Charlotte. I don’t think Ben’s going to rat us out.”
“You found her? You made contact with her?”
Zach felt his heart threaten to seize. They were missing the big point.
Devi’s hand found his.
“Your mom is here?”
“No, she’s in South America, but she’s coming here,”
Lucy explained.
“That’s what I was working on this afternoon. My mom made contact with her. She’s been living with an underground group in Argentina. They call themselves climate warriors. They do things like make it hard and costly for companies to log in certain places, and I don’t like to think about what they’ve done to convince certain governments to change their policies. Pretty sure they know how to blackmail a politician.”
“Your mom is involved?”
How far was the Agency taking this whole familial thing?
“Yes, but not the way you would think. Some of these underground groups are focused on the environment. They’re activists. Some, over time, turn to more criminal pursuits, and that’s when my mom starts asking questions,”
Lucy explained.
“She’s got a lot of pull in that community. A few years ago, one of my parents’ friends had a daughter who got involved in a bad group. My mom pushed my dad to help her find the kid and he talked to Big Tag, and we’ve been working with the CIA ever since.”
Kala put a hand to her heart as though it was strained.
“My own father betrayed me.”
Lucy ignored her.
“My dad said he thought someone was in town. He worried it was the Agency looking for Zach. He was going to do a review of all the CCTVs coming in and out of the village.”
Devi moved in front of him.
“My uncle won’t let them take Zach.”
They all looked at her like she was na?ve. Damn, if he’d known how one session would change Devi’s mind, he would have convinced her to play with him that first night. It felt good to have her on his side.
It was dangerous for her. If the Canadians were here, there was a chance they would want to get on the Agency’s good side, and an excellent way of doing that was turning him in.
“Your uncle will do what’s best for the op,”
Lucy replied, though not unkindly.
“I mean I don’t think he’ll leave Zach there to rot, but if it comes to it and we have to choose saving the world and saving Zach Reed in the short term, his ass is sitting in a prison for a while.”
“I’m going to turn myself in when this is all over,”
Zach said.
“That was always the plan. I made a deal with Kala.”
Devi turned, and she was staring at him like she’d never seen him before.
“Turn yourself in?”
Oh, he fucked up again. He reached for her hands.
“Yes. I’ve done some things I need to make right, and turning myself in is what I have to do.”
Kala’s eyes rolled.
“Like I’m going to keep you to that, but we do have to deal with the Canadians, and that means I have a role to play.”
She looked to Lucy.
“Are you going to fuck me over?”
“I’ll fuck you up, but I won’t fuck you over,”
Lucy admitted.
“Are you going to pretend to be your better half and make Parker think you’re not all weakhearted girl for Coop? I take it he wasn’t invited to the wedding.”
“You can’t turn yourself in,”
Devi said quietly.
He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, not quite sure what to say.
“No, he wasn’t, and how the hell do you know all that?”
Kala asked.
“Not the wedding. The whole Kenz and Parker thing. We’ve kept that out of the reports.”
“Oh, I know how she knows.”
Lou slipped the water bottle back into her pack.
“Big Tag feels the need to gossip. Henry is the only one in his life besides Aunt Charlotte who has the clearance to actually hear his stories, so he talks to Henry.”
Lucy nodded.
“Dad gets sad and lonely when Mom’s not around, so he gets chatty with me. I looked Parker up. He’s hot. Way to go, Kenz.”
“He’s a douchebag,”
Kala complained.
“You think everyone is a douchebag,”
Lucy countered.
“Are they going to take me home?”
Devi asked.
It would be for the best, and he was a selfish bastard to not turn her over right this second. Instead, he breathed in her scent.
“Not unless you want to go.”
“I think I’d like to stay a while if only to make sure you don’t do something dumb.”
And to explore this thing between them. Thing. What a stupid word. This miracle that seemed to be going on between them. He called it that because he never expected to feel this way.
TJ strode back in, a big piece of beef jerky in hand. And a couple of kittens clinging to his pants. He wasn’t sure TJ even knew they were there.
“Thanks, Zach. I was dying. So what’s happening? Are we bunking down here?”
Lucy’s eyes had gone almost comically wide.
“Is that meat you’re eating in my home, TJ Taggart?”
TJ shoved it down his throat so fast. He was still trying to chew when he shook his head.
“Nope. All plant based. Yup.”
The kittens were climbing TJ like a tree.
Lou moved in and carefully pulled one off him, her face going soft.
“Oh, they’re so cute.”
There was a knock on the door, and Lucy moved to open it.
“Maybe we should go change.”
Zach wanted to get her alone. Even if they did nothing more than talk about what was going to happen next. Hell, he didn’t know what was happening next.
He noticed Cooper had his gun at his side, and Kala did the same, both staring at the door. He should have been doing that, too, but he’d gotten soft. So fucking soft.
“Uh, guys, I think something’s on my back,”
TJ said quietly, staying still.
“Is this like Australia where everything wanted to kill me?”
Devi snorted her brother’s way.
“It’s like a shelter where you’re a perfect cat climbing toy. Come here, baby. You don’t want to play with my stinky brother.”
“I’m not stinky,”
her brother protested.
“Guys, it’s my dad,”
Lucy announced.
“And it looks like he’s been hunting. Game faces on.”
She opened the door and Arthur was there. Henry. Henry was there. It was plainly obvious that he’d been hiding a lot because the man was suddenly a predator. Gone was the mild-mannered vet who gave good advice and gently took care of all creatures great and small.
In his place stood an operative. And a pissed one at that.
He had also dragged two bodies to the porch. Some dude Zach hadn’t met before and Ben Parker. Damn. He hoped the guy wasn’t dead.
“We have a problem,”
Henry announced.
Yes, they definitely did, and it was getting bigger by the moment.