She shook her head as she continued. “I lived my whole life coming in last with the men in my life, at the end of the line behind God, country and unit. I’ve lived every day worrying about my father and brother, either when they were training or deployed and it didn’t stop when they came back. You know what I’ve been through with them both at home, especially Danny. I swore I’d never do that to myself again. Swore I’d never get involved with a military guy period, let alone take a back seat to everything else for any man I was in a relationship with, no matter what. I didn’t want to settle for that kind of life anymore…” She trailed off, leaving him hanging on the edge of a hellish cliff.
She was afraid, he realized. Afraid that he’d wind up a drunk like her father or killing himself one day like Danny just had. He shook his head slowly. “I’m not them,” he said simply, his voice rough. “And you know it.”
Something ignited in her eyes. Anger, yes, but also conviction. “You’re
exactly
like them. You’re trained to think and react the same way they were. I’ve lived my whole life around SF soldiers, so don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. You’ve dealt with everything you’ve been through unbelievably well so far, but I know how you guys think. And I know you wouldn’t hesitate to give up your life for one of your teammates during an operation, just like I know you wouldn’t hesitate to take a dangerous job if Tom or one of the other guys asked you to. It’s part of who you are and nothing can change that.” She stopped and took a breath, folded her arms across her breasts.
“But?” he heard himself croak. There had to be a
but
in there somewhere. It was there in her face. At least, he prayed that’s what he was seeing, and not just reading more into her hesitation than he should.
She spread her hands in a helpless gesture, and he caught the sheen of tears in her eyes. “But despite all that it turns out I was wrong,” she answered softly. “Leaving you was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life, and I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me for hurting you that much?”
What? He sucked in a painful breath, afraid his heart was about to explode. “Claire.”
She held out a hand to silence him. “No, let me finish. I’m not saying I’m okay with dealing with all that shit again, especially after what Danny just did, but when he died I realized something important.”
A long pause followed while she gathered her thoughts and he knew better than to risk saying anything. His heart was pounding, the hope swelling hard and tight beneath his ribs.
Finally Claire swallowed, nodded as if she’d come to an important decision. Her eyes pleaded with him for understanding, for forgiveness. “At the end of the day, life is too short to spend it being miserable. I knew that intellectually, but now I know it here.” She pressed a hand to her chest and he could see she was suffering just as much as he was. More, because this was all compounded by her brother’s death. “I was worse than miserable without you. I sent you away because I was afraid of getting hurt and that was stupid because it didn’t save me from the pain after all. I don’t know how I’ll handle everything down the road with you doing dangerous things in your job and all the other issues we haven’t resolved, but I do know that living without you hurts way more than any of that.”
He was too surprised by that to answer, afraid to move or speak lest it stopped her from talking and ruined everything.
She drew an unsteady breath, tilted her head a little. “So I’m saying that…even though I’m scared and I know it’ll be hard and I’ll come in last a lot of the time, you’re worth it. I love you and maybe I don’t deserve it, but I want another chance. If you’re willing,” she finished in a rush, looking so vulnerable and uncertain it made his chest ache.
Gage could hardly take it all in.
Jesus Christ.
He shook his head, flooded by a relief so staggering he blinked against the sudden sting of tears. If he was willing? Did she have no clue what she meant to him? She was the beating heart in his chest.
He stood up so fast the stool shot back two feet behind him, then he was moving toward her without even realizing it. Two steps across the tile floor, Claire flew straight into his arms. Gage caught her to him and hugged her fiercely, squeezing his eyes shut against the painful swelling in his heart as she returned the tight embrace. Of all the things he’d expected her to say, none of this had even been a possibility. He was humbled by the way she’d laid herself bare to him with her honesty.
“I love you too. Never stopped,” he managed roughly, part of him wondering if he was imagining all this. She’d been absolutely unyielding in her decision when she’d cut him out of her life all those months ago. Nothing he’d said or done had made a damned bit of difference, but the tragedy of Danny’s death had made her willing to fight for them. This was his dream come true, a thousand times better than anything he’d ever imagined.
His face was buried in her hair. He breathed in the tangy, crisp scent of her and held her in a bruising grip, half afraid she’d vanish if he let her go. What she’d said was stuck in his mind. He rocked her ever so slightly, trying to convey his depth of feeling for her with his desperate hold. “I understand why you’re afraid, I do, but you don’t come last with me, I—”
His phone rang in his hip pocket. He silently cursed it and thought about ignoring it but his gut warned him it might have something to do with what Zahra had uncovered the other day. The development he hadn’t told Claire about yet that the rest of the team had been briefed about in a discreet meeting in the funeral home parking lot after Danny’s service yesterday. He’d wanted to shield her from it as long as possible but he couldn’t hide it any longer.
“Fuck. I don’t wanna answer that, but I have to,” he said against the top of her head, her hair silky smooth against his face.
“It’s okay. Go ahead,” she murmured, stepping back to wipe at her eyes.
No, it wasn’t okay. And the instant he found out what whoever was on the other end wanted, they were finishing this conversation. Reluctantly, he eased his grip and let his arms slide from around her, immediately missing the feel of her against his body.
Pulling the phone out, he saw Hunt’s number on display and answered. “Hey.”
“Hey. How you guys holding up today?”
“We’re great.” A thousand times better than what he’d imagined them being five minutes ago, considering everything she’d been through over the past few days. “What’s up?”
“We got word on the suspect in Baltimore. We know who he is, and half the law enforcement agencies in the region are out looking for him right now. The latest transmission from his contact in Tajikistan said there’s a Tuesday night deadline for him to kill the target.”
Gage cursed under his breath, his eyes snapping over to Claire. She was back at the island, watching him. She was completely still as she stared at him, her mug poised halfway to her mouth, the alarm in her eyes telling him she knew it was bad news.
“Bring her here until we know more about the situation,” Hunt continued. “The more eyes we have on her until this is cleared up, the better.”
Fuck yeah, after seeing what the TTP had pulled off in their attempts to get Khalia, Gage wasn’t taking any chances with Claire’s safety. “Roger that. See you in a little while.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket and faced Claire, frustrated that they’d been interrupted in the middle of patching things back together, but hating the reason behind it more. The thought of Claire being in imminent danger made him crazy with the need to protect her.
Her face was pale. “What?” she asked, clearly alarmed.
“I need you to pack a bag with enough stuff to last you a week,” he said calmly. There was no way for him to soften the news, not without lying to her. Running a hand over his skull trim, he decided it was kindest to say it straight out. “Looks like the TTP’s hired assassin’s deadline just got moved up, so for the time being I’m moving you in with the rest of the team for added protection.”
Four hours later Claire pushed her laptop away from her on the kitchen table in the safe house where the Titanium team was staying and leaned back into her chair to rub at her eyes. After such a great start and a promising breakthrough with Gage, the day had suddenly turned to shit and wasn’t nearly over yet.
Not only had the threat level gone up substantially in the past few hours, she and Gage had been too busy working with the rest of the team to even begin an attempt at ironing out the remaining issues that had split them in the first place. Her parents both wanted her to meet them at Danny’s place to go through his things before her mother left town but with this new threat Claire couldn’t come and go as she pleased. And she didn’t dare tell her parents what was going on.
Her father knew something was up though, she could tell from the things he’d asked her over the phone. But as long as she was with Gage and the others, she felt safe.
Unable to fight it, she let loose with a jaw-cracking yawn.
Beside her, Zahra cracked a grin. “Wow. Did Gage keep you awake all night
again
?” she teased, gaze fixed on her own screen.
“I’ll never tell,” Claire answered, though she knew her own smile was answer enough. She stretched her arms over her head and sagged back in her chair with an exhausted sigh. The finality of Danny’s death had begun to sink in, making it hard to concentrate. Grabbing some sleep was an impossible dream at this point, though she doubted anyone would mind if she crashed in one of the upstairs bedrooms for a while.
It was only the two of them in here and no one else was within earshot because the guys were out in the living room gathered around the coffee table to talk logistics. When she’d arrived here with Gage, Hunter had surprised her with the news that he’d hired a cleanup crew to go over to Danny’s place and take care of everything so her parents wouldn’t have to deal with any of that while they went through Danny’s things. She was so appreciative of his thoughtfulness. The entire team’s, actually.
Everyone had been kind to her, especially Zahra, who’d been trying to keep things light with her considering the intel they’d just unearthed. People thought the linguist was aloof and cold, but Claire knew better. It was all a front, designed to keep everyone at a safe distance. If you earned your way into her trust, you saw a completely different side of her.
“Wish Alex would call and give us something else to do,” Claire muttered. She and Zahra had spent the past few hours sifting through more intel while they all waited for word from Alex after he finished an important meeting with several other directors, members of the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security. Alex wanted their team ready to move and staying in the safe house afforded them the best position for now.
“I hear you,” Zahra answered, typing away on her keyboard.
Everyone in the intelligence community wanted to find this Mostaffa guy and bring him in before he could strike. Officials already had a team of FBI agents hunting for him here in Baltimore but his neighbors said he hadn’t been home in a few days and nobody knew where he’d gone. Apparently he was the freaking superintendant of his building, and everyone was shocked that he’d done anything bad that would involve him in an investigation. Claire wrapped her arms around herself, still shaken at the thought of being evacuated from her home because she was on a terrorist’s hit list.
Driven by morbid curiosity, she clicked on the file on her desktop to bring up his picture, though his face was already permanently etched into her memory. A Caucasian man in his mid twenties, clean shaven with dark brown hair and greenish eyes. Mostaffa was good looking, which for some reason was even more disturbing to her.
According to the background info on him, his parents had emigrated from Tajikistan before he’d been born. His father had worked as a plumber and the mother had stayed at home to raise Mostaffa. A few police reports over the years hinted at domestic disputes that had gotten out of hand, but that had stopped once the father died almost a decade ago. Mostaffa—Mo, as his friends called him—had gone to trade school and worked various jobs in construction, plumbing, gas fitting, and most worrisome, as a technician for ADT Security Systems.
Claire stared at the image on screen, trying to make sense of it all. Though born and raised in the States, somewhere along the way Mostaffa had become radicalized. He had no criminal history or anything else that might point to why he’d joined the Taliban cause. He wasn’t even on any of the government watch lists. Likely why the TTP had chosen him.
“Hey, why don’t you shut that down and we’ll take a break for a while,” Zahra said, shutting down her own laptop. “I can’t stand looking at that guy anymore and you need some down time.”
“Yeah, good call.” She powered down the laptop. The scariest thing about this guy was that he looked so ordinary. Nothing about him stood out and he’d left no suspicious trail online that they could find, no doubt why he’d gone completely unnoticed in the counterterrorism world until the past few days. Made her wonder just how many others there were like him out there, sleepers waiting to be activated by cells both here and abroad. Knowing they existed was one thing; dealing with them firsthand—being named their possible
target
was quite another.