Chapter 2
“It’s good to see her smiling and happy,” Easton Spears, one of my teammates, said from beside me.
The “her” was Kira Winters, now Kira Cain, and Easton was wrong—it wasn’t good , it was fucking fantastic. After everything that woman had been through, seeing her happy gave me hope. Kira was the poster child for shit luck. If it could go wrong it had.
She’d lost her entire family but had found the strength to not only overcome that grief but use it to fuel her ambition. She could’ve wallowed in her pain and no one would’ve blamed her, but instead she used it to flourish.
The woman was wicked smart, funny, and loyal.
Cooper was a lucky son of a bitch but before he came along Kira Winters was ours—mine, Easton’s, Smith’s, Jonas’s, Cash’s, and Layla’s.
She was more than a teammate, more than the intel specialist, hacker, software designer.
She was way more than my handler when I was out in the field.
I loved that woman like a sister. So after knowing her more than ten years, knowing she was a lonely workaholic on a mission to prove herself, seeing her smiling and happy was everything.
But I didn’t say any of that. It was unnecessary seeing as I knew Easton felt the same.
So instead I kept my eyes on the newly married couple swaying to some love song I didn’t know in the middle of the dance floor and gave a simple, “Yep.”
“What are you two doing?” Layla asked as she and Kevin stopped next to the bar where we were standing.
“I think he’s,” Easton shoved his thumb in my direction, “trying to blend into the wall so no one asks him to dance.”
That was exactly what I was doing, minus the wall since my ass was out in the open at the bar, though I planned on correcting that oversight as soon as Easton got his drink and left.
“Me?” he continued, “I’m just waiting for my beer and the music to change so me and Cash can show you fuckers how to dance.”
Easton and Cash would show the crowd something but it wouldn’t be how to dance. It would be how to make an ass out of yourself.
I heard Kevin chuckle and glanced over at the man who had managed to claim my team leader, Layla.
Much like Kira, Layla’s intelligence was blade sharp.
She could and had outsmarted war-harden terrorists.
She was CIA-trained but the skills she had were not from her time at the CIA; she came by them naturally.
Kevin was not lucky like Cooper, whereas despite what Kira had been through there was still a softness to her.
Layla had protected herself by encasing her heart with barbed wire.
Kevin had worked hard to uncover what was underneath all those razors before striking gold.
“You don’t know how to dance,” Layla reminded him.
“Says who?”
“Says the same people who tell you, you can’t sing.”
Easton snagged his fresh beer off the bar before raising it up in a salute.
“Do I look like a man who gives a shit what other people think?”
“Nope,” I answered before Layla could.
“Correct.” He smiled before bringing his beer to his mouth and guzzling half of it in one go.
Layla’s laughter that followed was still startling.
For the first ten years I knew the woman I’d never heard her laugh.
That also counted the time I knew her before I’d faked my death and went undercover, before she’d taken on the task of sending five men out on dangerous missions attempting to uncover corruption that went so deep, that with each mission we’d learned we hadn’t begun to scratch the surface.
The network we’d built all came crashing down when I’d been captured. Layla had pulled the plug and ten years went down the drain—all to save me.
The guilt of that still coursed through my veins like lava.
Not only did we lose everything, but Kevin and Zane had almost died trying to rescue me.
“It’s a damn good thing Layla tossed out her rule book.” Easton bumped my shoulder as he strode past, beer in hand, destination the dance floor. “Time to have some fun.”
“Rule number seven,” Kevin started. “No fun.”
“No fun on an op ,” Layla corrected.
I couldn’t say we’d had fun during our ops, but the guys and I had broken every rule Layla had put in place.
She’d forbidden us to see each other between missions, though we regularly got together when we had downtime.
None of us were allowed contact with anyone back in the States, yet Easton had reached out to Garrett Davis in an effort to mend fences.
I couldn’t think of a single rule we hadn’t ignored.
Working for Zane and Z Corps was proving to be much like working for Layla—there was a rule book in place, however, no one paid it any mind either, which gave my new boss and his Mini Me Kira fodder for ball breaking.
“Everything okay?”
At Layla’s soft-spoken question my gaze went from watching Easton to her.
“Everything’s great.”
Her narrowed eyes told me exactly what she thought about my canned response.
“Theo—”
“Tonight we’re celebrating Kira,” I interrupted her. “Let’s leave it at that, yeah?”
“As long as you know I’m worried about you.”
Layla’s veiled acquiescence hit me square in my chest. I didn’t want her worried about me; she’d already spent ten years worried about me, Easton, Smith, Jonas, and Cash. She didn’t need to waste any more time on us.
“It’s all good, Layla.”
“Have you talked to your brother?”
My brother, Bronson, was a sore subject. I didn’t want to discuss him today or any other day. But I knew I had to give her something.
“We’re getting there.”
By there , I meant he’d vowed to never speak to me again.
“I can talk to him,” she offered. “Explain everything.”
That was a hell no. My brother was rightfully pissed at me. He felt I betrayed him, and in a way I had. I’d hurt him, my stepfather, and my mother. Thankfully my parents understood why I’d done what I’d done. Bronson, on the other hand, did not.
“He needs time and I’m giving him that.”
Thankfully Kevin handing Layla her drink ended the conversation.
“Are you joining us?” Kevin asked with a smirk, knowing damn good and well I wasn’t going to sit with them at a table out in the open.
“Thanks but I’ll pass.”
“Afraid Kira will get you on the dance floor?”
“Yep.”
“We’ll leave you to it then,” Kevin finished.
Layla reached over and squeezed my forearm before she followed Kevin back to their table. And there I was, right back to how I’d felt since I came home from ten years overseas—surrounded by people yet very much alone.
Alone with my thoughts.
Alone with my anger.
Alone with my misery.
Just. Alone.
An hour later, I was doing my best to hide in a corner so I didn’t get pulled into the absurdity that was happening on the dance floor.
What was supposed to be a choreographed line dance looked more like twenty people dancing to twenty different songs that the other people couldn’t hear.
For a group of men who could stealthily move together in perfect sync they couldn’t dance for shit.
Absolutely zero rhythm among the lot of them.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and mentally came up with a new excuse to give as to why I was not going to dance.
With a fake smile firmly in place I turned, ready with my explanation.
My excuse along with my smile died when I didn’t find a happy partygoer as expected but instead a woman who should’ve been somewhere in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska, or Georgia, or California. Where she absolutely shouldn’t have been was at Cooper and Kira’s wedding reception in Maryland.
“What the hell are you doing here, Bridget?”
I watched as her eyes widened but my gaze went over her shoulder to the man standing behind her.
“I need your help.” Her plea was barely audible over the thumping music.
Or was that my pounding heart I could feel roaring in my ears from seeing her again after I’d already mourned the loss of her, that made her request hard to hear?
Mourned might’ve been a slight overstatement but not by much.
For months I’d guarded her. I’d spent hours and days with her and I’d denied myself what I’d wanted and kept every interaction professional.
When she was taken from me and put into WITSEC I said nothing.
I let her go knowing it was the only way she’d be safe but now there she was standing in front of me with a man who looked old enough to be her father behind her.
Old and out of shape and no way was the man a Marshal or a bodyguard.
I blamed my next move on knowing her situation, on instinct, on the fact she should not have been anywhere near Maryland or me, so when I tagged her hand and yanked her to my side, shifted her behind me, and drew my weapon I felt no remorse when the man stepped back two feet.
Smart.
Bridget’s hand went to my side, curled around, and her fingertips pressed into my ribs.
“Don’t hurt him. He’s a friend.”
This man was no friend if he’d taken her from the safety of her new life.
“Explain that,” I demanded.
“I will, but can we go somewhere private?”
Yeah, privacy would be good before one of my teammates saw her. Or worse, Zane.
“You.” I used the barrel of my Sig to motion to the man. “Turn around and go out the door behind you. Turn left, go down the hall. Three doors down on the right there’s an office.”
The man frowned and ignored my instructions.
“You sure you can trust this guy?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Bridget said from behind me.
Why did that feel so fucking good ?
Of course she trusted me. I’d watched over her while she slept.
I’d eaten dinner with her almost every night—lunch and breakfast, the same.
I’d brought her groceries. I’d watched TV with her and sat quietly across the room while she’d read.
I held her while she cried in frustration as the weeks had turned into months.
Then, there was the trial, and I’d been there through that as well.