Epilogue
One Year Later
The bourbon was decent. The company was not.
“So I told Misty—that’s my interior designer, she’s absolutely incredible, she did the entire mountain house in six weeks—I told her, Misty, if you put one more throw pillow on that sectional, I am going to lose my mind.
” The woman beside Isaac at the bar pressed her hand against his arm for emphasis.
She’d been pressing her hand against his arm for the better part of fifteen minutes, and it had migrated from his sleeve to his bicep to a spot dangerously close to his shoulder. “Do you have an interior designer?”
“I do not.” He shook his head, trying his damnedest not to snatch his arm away from the woman.
“You should. You absolutely should. I can give you Misty’s number. She’s booked out, but if I call her personally—”
“That’s very generous of you.”
Isaac lifted his glass and used the motion to shift his weight, creating just enough space between them to reclaim his arm without making it obvious. The woman closed the gap within seconds. She was relentless. Under different circumstances he might have admired the persistence.
Right now, he was hoping it didn’t get him killed.
Across the ballroom, the target was holding court near the silent auction tables.
Warren Driscoll. Hedge fund manager who’d been funneling client retirement accounts through a web of shell companies for the better part of a decade.
Three hundred families and counting, their savings dissolving into accounts with his name on them while he bought art and threw black-tie fundraisers for causes he didn’t care about.
Driscoll was the Rogue Division’s first direct target carrying on the work Fallon and Cassandra had started. The irony wasn’t lost on Isaac. A year ago, he’d been standing at events like this one protecting people. Now he was standing at events like this one hunting them.
He preferred the hunting.
A year. Hard to believe. After Kessler, he and Fallon had spent two months at the cabin doing nothing but healing. Letting their bodies knit back together, sleeping late, eating meals that didn’t come from a gas station or a hospital tray.
They’d talked about the future in a way that wasn’t hypothetical anymore. When they’d told Ian yes to joining Rogue, it hadn’t felt like a decision. It felt like confirming something that was already true.
They hadn’t looked back. Not once.
“—and the marble in the primary bath is Calacatta, not Carrara, which a lot of people confuse but there is a huge difference—”
“Oh yeah. Huge.” Isaac wished he had either type of marble available to slam his head against.
Ryder’s voice came through his earpiece. “Brother, I am watching this woman eat you alive over here, and I have to tell you, people are wondering why I keep giggling like a little girl. Of course, I’m sure your fiancée sees the same humor in this situation.”
Isaac couldn’t respond without blowing his cover, which Ryder knew. Which was exactly why he’d chosen this moment to interject.
But the fact that Isaac hadn’t heard a word from Fallon in over five minutes did not bode well.
She was in the command van two blocks away, running the operation the way she ran every operation: calmly, precisely, seeing everything that mattered and ignoring everything that didn’t. She had a team of three analysts with her and access to every camera feed in the building.
She could also see a woman’s hand on her fiancé’s arm, and the fact that she wasn’t saying anything about it on comms was far more dangerous than anything she might have said.
Isaac took another sip of bourbon and considered his options. The woman yapping about tiles was not going to disengage on her own. She'd found a man in a tuxedo who was letting her talk, and as far as she was concerned, that constituted a relationship.
He could excuse himself to the restroom. He could invent a phone call. Hell, he could fake a heart attack, although that probably wouldn’t be great for the overall mission. Still, he considered it.
Ended up, he didn’t have to do any of them.
“There you are.” The voice came from his left, warm and pointed and perfectly timed. “I’ve been looking everywhere. Are we still doing dinner after this, or did you change your mind on me?”
Isaac turned.
Fallon was wearing a black dress he’d never seen before, simple and fitted. Her hair was up, a few loose pieces against her neck. No jewelry except a thin chain that caught the light when she moved. Just like the first night he’d met her in Boston.
A year of waking up next to her every morning, and his breath still caught.
She held his gaze with those gray eyes, steady and unhurried, and he watched her take in the whole scene. He played his part the same way she’d played hers that night that felt like a lifetime ago.
“You’re late,” he said. “I almost gave up on you.”
“Traffic was a nightmare. Forgive me?” She remembered what he’d said that night.
He remembered her response, too. “I haven’t decided yet.”
The woman looked at Fallon, looked at Isaac, and did the math. “Oh. You two are—”
“We are,” Fallon said. She turned to the woman with a smile that was polite and final. “Thanks for keeping him company.”
The woman collected her clutch and her dignity and moved on. Fallon watched her go, then turned back to Isaac. The smile on her face was warm, but her eyes promised a conversation later.
“She was telling me about marble,” Isaac said.
“I’m sure you found it absolutely fascinating.” She tilted her head. Amusement shone in her eyes. “You going to stand here all night, or are you going to ask me to dance?”
He set his bourbon on the bar. “Dance with me.”
“My pleasure.”
He led her onto the floor and pulled her into a frame that fit the way it had always fit, his hand against her waist, her hand on his shoulder.
The band was playing something slow with strings, and the crowd around them was doing what crowds at these events always did: circulating, performing, pretending to care about whatever cause had brought them here.
None of it touched them.
“Nice dress,” he said.
“I keep one in the van.”
“You keep a dress in the command van?”
“A girl should always be prepared to make an entrance. You know, in case the boys get into trouble they can’t get themselves out of.”
He laughed and turned them on the floor, smooth and easy, and for a few bars they just moved together without talking. His thumb traced a slow line against the fabric at her waist, and she leaned in closer than professional distance required.
“You know,” he said, “the next time I put on a tuxedo, it’ll be for our wedding.”
“Two weeks.” Her fingers tightened against his shoulder. “You nervous?”
“Terrified.”
“Liar.”
“Absolutely terrified. What if I trip walking down the aisle? What if Ryder loses the rings? What if Ian gives a speech that makes everyone cry?”
“You do know you don’t actually walk down the aisle, right? But Ian is definitely going to make everyone cry.”
“See? Terrified.”
The song ended. Another started. Neither of them moved to separate. The band played, the room moved around them, and Isaac held the woman who’d spent most of their first months together running from him and was now two weeks from marrying him.
“I should get back to the van,” she said.
“I know.”
“The team needs me.”
“They do.”
She didn’t move. Her hand was still on his shoulder, and his hand was still on her waist, and the song was doing something with piano that neither of them was listening to.
“Let me know if you need any more rescuing.” She rose up and kissed him. Slow, deliberate, the kind of kiss that didn’t care about the three hundred people in the room or the operation they were running or the fact that she had a team waiting for her in a van two blocks away.
She pulled back. Her hand came up to his jaw, her thumb tracing the line of it.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too.”
She held his gaze for one more second. Then she stepped out of his frame, turned, and walked toward the door.
Isaac watched her go. The black dress, the easy steps. Every one of them steady and sure and completely without pain. He had never seen anything more beautiful.
In two weeks, she’d be his wife. Then they had forever. He couldn’t wait.
He straightened his jacket and turned back to the room.
Time to take down some predators.
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Thank you for reading CODE NAME: LEO! The Zodiac Tactical series continues with Ryder and Cassandra’s story.