Chapter 27 #2
A strange sense of catharsis washes through me, finally saying it aloud after being forced to bottle it for so long.
I can remember the trip back to HQ like it was yesterday.
No casket in the cargo hold, no procession waiting to grieve alongside me.
Nothing left of him beside the dried blood beneath my fingernails and the memory of Noah’s body being lowered into a cold, unmarked grave outside a rundown chapel in Russia.
No one mourns a dead spy.
Clearing my throat, I push my empty glass away and plod forward.
“Noah had been begging me for years to take some time off together so we could travel—you know, and actually see the places we go—do the thing we set out to do when Raffaele found us. Anyway, he managed to get the details of my assignment from Mateo.”
Kat’s eyes cut to mine. Clearly, she wasn’t aware of that part.
“Yeah, Mateo’s not as straight-laced as he appears,” I reply with a short laugh.
“Noah had a mission nearby—it wasn’t that unrealistic for us to meet up and…
take a little longer to get back to HQ. He, uh—” I clear my throat again as it thickens.
“—he wanted some time with his big sister, you know? Maybe not the adventure we always dreamed about, but enough to avoid raising suspicion.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” she says, and when I blink, she’s no longer the hardened ISA agent. The soft, caring Kat stares back at me. The one I got to see so little of.
“I think I need to if I want to remain breathing,” I joke weakly.
Kat purses her lips and nods for me to continue.
“He decided to tag along on my assignment, wait outside for me—it should’ve been simple, in and out—some big-time Japanese trafficker who’d been hiding out in the woods of Chelyabinsk.
Thought Interpol couldn’t find him there, I guess. So they hired the ISA.”
My eyes flicker to the waning crowd behind us, then back to her.
“The first problem was that he was supposed to be alone. I’d already broken into the cabin when I saw the toys scattered across the living room.
And it made me angry, you know? Of course this scumbag took somebody’s kids.
I was climbing the stairs, thinking about your childhood and my childhood and I kept getting angrier.
” I gather an unsteady breath. “That… was the second problem.”
“When I got to the master bedroom, I was seething. I had tunnel vision—all I could see was his face peeking out from the covers, and the second I confirmed it was him, I fired.” Kat’s hardly moved.
Neither have I. “There was that split-second of elation you feel when you know, down to the core of your being—yeah, I made the world a little less terrible. Then all hell broke loose.”
“The blood was hardly pooled on his pillow when the woman next to him woke up. The third problem,” I continue miserably.
“She started screaming, and before I could process the fact that I wasn’t alone, she was screaming at me.
The one who saved her, right? It was like this guttural, animalistic noise—veins popping in her neck and tears pouring down her face.
I was frozen. That had never happened to me before. ”
I dig my knuckles into my chest. It being the first time talking about it aloud, I’m surprised I don’t feel like I’m about to throw up.
“Of course, I should’ve run.”
Kat nods in agreement. I get the overwhelming urge to slam her head into the bar.
“But it was too late, so I tried to reason with her, tell her she’s safe now,” I say.
“Russian wasn’t working. She didn’t understand Japanese or English.
I could tell she was confused, too, rattling off in Polish and motioning wildly toward the bad guy.
I didn’t see her wedding ring until she barreled toward me. ”
“My brain was moving sixty miles a minute when I started jumping down the stairs—a mural of wedding photos, family pictures, blatantly obvious things I should’ve caught beforehand.
I was in a full sprint onto the porch, vaulting to the ground, headed back to the main road where Noah was meant to be sitting in the car, waiting for me. ”
Here it is. The part that feels like a plastic bag suffocating my heart.
I trudge forward. “Turns out, a woman covered in her husband’s blood can run just as fast as a spy with years of training.
Noah met me halfway down the road, obviously worried, so he was the first to see her running behind me with a hunting rifle.
He, uh… he pushed me out of the way when she fired—once, twice. ”
Kat’s jaw twitches, all the emotion she’s willing to reveal.
“I was on the ground when I aimed and fired—clean shot through the right shoulder, non-fatal—and I charged for the rifle when she fell. When I turned, Noah—” I cough into my hand to hide my wavering voice.
“I don’t know when he landed on the ground or which bullet was the one that hit him.
But the woman got away while Noah bled out in my arms.”
There’s a charged silence, like she’s waiting for any further information, and I make it a point not to notice the group of backpackers that have vacated the other side of the bar. It’ll be empty sooner or later.
Her jaw ticks. “And you didn’t complete the assignment because…”
“Because the final step was to torch the place—no evidence left behind.” I smile joylessly. “So, either we shouldn’t implicitly trust the ISA’s intel, or… or Raffaele knew there was a family inside, and he didn’t care. There’s no reality where that makes us the good guys.”
Kat’s head tilts, her shoulders curving forward a fraction under the weight of my words.
“You know I’m not naive,” I say quietly, strangling my nerves into submission despite the waver in my voice.
“The explanation I got was that their presence was an anomaly, and I really, really wanted to believe that—but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
Not just Noah’s death, but that house, and that woman…
it was a family home, Kat. For so long, I chose to accept the ISA’s narrative, but knowing everything now, well—” I laugh dryly to myself, because this is exactly the kind of critical thinking I was convinced I couldn’t do.
“—it’s plain to me that someone wanted that man dead.
Someone willing to kill an entire family without having to dirty their own hands. ”
She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t even look at me, fixated on spinning the glass in her hand.
“I think it’s plain to you, too—even if you won’t admit it,” I finish.
Several minutes pass and I genuinely begin to wonder if she’s decided to kill me, if only to get me to shut up. Then she pushes back from the bar, stool scraping noisily, and zips her jacket closed. I think she might pull her gun out and shoot me on the spot.
Kat knocks back the remains of her whiskey and doesn’t meet my eyes as she says, “You and I never saw each other. You’re going to disappear, understand? But you cannot do it as Poppy Ashcroft. That cover is burned.”
A sourness settles on my tongue. “You’re going back.”
“My life has never been a fairytale, Sloane. If it was, the man I love wouldn’t be working for the villain.”
Her gaze flashes to mine before shifting to the door.
Mateo. It’s the first time she’s ever admitted to having real, lasting feelings for him, and the show of vulnerability feels like a curtain has been lifted.
She does have a heart after all. Despite what either of us might’ve thought, we still have warm blood pumping through our veins. Too late for the both of us.
“You have an exit. Take it,” she mutters.
My lips part with a response—I’m not sure what—but Kat’s already walking away. She slips onto the dimly lit sidewalk and around the corner. She never looks back, always the stronger one of us.
For what feels like the thousandth time, I wish I was more like her. If only it didn’t come at such a high cost.