Authors: Nicola Claire
H
e’d come
. He hadn’t waited. I wasn’t sure what to think of that.
Things had turned to shit with a rapidity that astounded, but did not surprise. The New Zealand Government could hustle its arse when it felt threatened.
And threatened it felt.
And so it should. Nine highly trained operatives were currently AWOL and eight of them had their fuses lit. Stopping ignition was imperative. And required certain skills. Skills which no other agency in New Zealand possessed.
But we’d been
his
. We’d been the Director’s enhanced, Operation-Evo-evolved, weapons. We couldn’t be trusted.
So here we were. Hiding. Scheming…
Bonding
.
Joel was funnier than I’d realised. Dry, sarcastic, a little jaded. Sofia had always seemed such a princess, but her reaction to what the Director had tried to do to me had turned her into a momma-bear. Hamish was the mirror image of his brother, Caleb. Twins in looks, but opposites in attitude. Casual and relaxed, where Caleb was serious and lethal.
You might see Caleb coming. You completely overlooked his brother.
Reid was suave; everything you expected a spy to be. But the first thing he’d done when we teamed up after it all went down was to rush forward and squeeze the living daylights out of me. Reid and bear hugs hadn’t computed. But the debonair specialist was all about touch.
I hadn’t seen it. I hadn’t
known
it. Until they’d all came rushing back home… for me.
Brayton, well Brayton was Brayton. Clever, quick. Quietly watching the world behind a hood and sunglasses. But it had been Brayton who’d told me about Adam. Who’d bothered to pull his army records and walked me through Afghanistan.
Brayton understood Adam. And I knew, now, that he understood me; understood what staying away from my stalker had done to me.
So close and yet I might as well have been back in Paris.
And then there was William. I’d never really got Will. He was professional. Perhaps the most professional of the lot of us. Also the most uptight, most stick-up-the-arse, most militant of all of us, too.
But he’d been the one to destroy the Department before the Government had a chance to storm in and see our secrets.
He’d been the one to yell at the PM, to turn down the offer of surrender, in favour of clearing our names first.
He’d been the one to pull us back together. To reknit the frayed fabric that had been our family. There were still holes, still threads threatening to unravel. But Will kept on going, kept on insisting we could do this. We could be free.
It was futile. We all knew it. Even if we found the missing handlers, and that was looking more and more impossible now, the Government would
never
allow us to walk free.
We were staring down the barrel of a gun, our own ammunition depleted, our escape routes compromised. The last rogue spies standing at the end of the firing range.
Our days were numbered, but Will refused to let go.
In a way it was inspirational. He drew us to him like moths to an open flame. We were refusing to let go, too, it seemed.
And now Adam. Stupid, loyal, wonderful Adam. Who had just jumped into the circus ring with us, baring his teeth at the lion.
I loved him all the more for it, even as I donned the mask of the emotionless spook.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest to stop myself reaching for him.
He smiled in return. Fucking smiled. And offered a shoulder shrug as he said, “I knew you missed me, firecracker.”
Yeah, I had. And it had initially confused me. Thrown me for a loop and made me wild. Until Brayton had pulled me aside, shown me Adam’s army file, and laid it all bare.
“He’s stronger than you think, Charlie,”
he’d said.
“Been to hell, climbed back out, and has the scars to prove it. Not everyone wears their scars on the outside, you know, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t earned them.”
He’d been wrong, of course, Adam
did
have scars on the outside. He just covered them. Like I covered mine. With an emotionless façade. With a hard edge and lethal focus. With a wall around me a mile high that no one could get behind.
But he had. Adam had. He’d scaled that fucker and slipped inside, before I even knew he was there.
He matched me. He challenged me. He could get himself killed by loving me.
“This isn’t your battle,” I said. No emotion in my tone. No give in my features.
But I
was
feeling. Fuck, I was. Like that proverbial duck, serene on top of the water, I was kicking my flippered feet for all I was worth underneath the surface.
“Now, you see,” Adam drawled, so fucking like Caleb it made me smile briefly, “that’s where you’d be wrong, Charlie.”
“This should be fuckin’ good,” Joel announced, throwing his feet up on the table before him and rocking back in his chair.
“I say we hear what the pup has to say,” Brayton declared. It didn’t surprise me; not anymore. This was exactly what he wanted. Me out of here. One of us safe, when the others couldn’t be.
“It won’t change a thing,” Reid offered. “Unless, of course, he’s hiding our handlers.”
“Are you?” Hamish demanded, and the look he gave Adam said it all.
Whose side are you really on, civvy?
Adam did a double take, eyes flicking between Caleb and his brother for several long seconds. Then he ran a hand over his face and softly swore.
“Two of the fuckers,” he muttered, staring at the floor and shaking his head in disbelief.
“Double the fun,” Caleb drawled.
“Great.”
“So, are we keeping him?” Ava asked, perched on the kitchen bench off to one side. She was sipping what looked like an elaborate fruit cocktail, but I knew it to be an energy drink. She just liked fucking with people. That was Ava. The Ava I’d only recently begun to see.
Will came forward and pulled out a seat. In smooth but measured moves he sat down, leaned back, and then held Adam’s stare. Adam, for his part, had picked up on who was in charge; his whole demeanour coming alert.
This
was the person he needed to impress, and he knew it. The rest could squawk and quack all they liked, but William Riordan was the one who would seal the deal.
I looked at the man who had taken me utterly by surprise and, while he was at it, stolen my heart. And I couldn’t have been prouder. Adam was no slouch. He was quick to assess a situation. To adapt his behaviour to suit. You looked at him and saw a leather clad drifter who liked bikes. If you weren’t careful, you’d miss the sharp wit, the lethal skills, and the cunning ability to cut to the chase.
I didn’t want him here. I didn’t want him in this fucked up world. Tainted by the Director.
Tainted by me.
But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thrilled to see him, to be near him, to breathe the same air as he did.
I was a lost cause, there was no two ways about it. Adam Savill had hunted me down and he’d caught me. Completely.
What the fuck did I do with that?
“Why are you here?” Will asked in that clipped way of his.
Adam leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, placing himself in an inferior position to the big bad wolves that circled him. He did it on purpose. He did it with
such
ease. I saw Sofia widen her eyes. Saw Brayton smirk. Knew Will hadn’t missed a thing.
Adam was playing us. But, fuck, he was playing us in style.
He smiled, flicked a glance towards me, and then said, “While you’ve been hiding, licking your wounds, we’ve been sealing a deal.”
“A what?” Hamish asked. “What fucking deal?”
Will held up his hand for silence. The room stilled.
“A deal for us?” he clarified. Adam half shrugged. “With whom?”
“You can’t find them.” The handlers. “Neither can they.” The Government. “Neither can we, in all honesty, but that’s not to say we can’t be of some assistance.”
“Why would we want your assistance?” Will demanded.
“Because you can’t find them,” Adam repeated. “Because you’re staring down the barrel of a gun.” I let a breath of air out in an amused and highly impressed huff. “Because not all spies have to work alone.”
“And why would a private investigations firm offer to assist rogue spies?” Will asked.
Adam turned and looked directly at me.
“Why do you think?” he said, and my whole body melted. Just like that. So easily.
I shook my head, broke eye contact, and stared at the floor. I was off my game. Big time. And yet I couldn’t seem to get upset about it. Not really. Not the way I should be.
He’d come. He hadn’t waited. I worked on not grinning stupidly.
“
How
do you think you can help us?” Will asked purposefully, calling Adam’s attention back to him. “You’re well aware of what we’re capable of individually. How can ASI offer
anything
that we could possibly need outside of our own skills?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Adam drawled. “You’re all that and a bag of chips.” He looked at me again. I wished he’d stop doing that. Or maybe not. I wasn’t sure. Things were getting… emotional.
“But the bottom line is your backs are against the wall,” he went on, “the authorities have blacklisted your smiling mugs, and each and every one of you has a bullseye on your back because of it. A trigger that’s just waiting to be squeezed. Every one of you,” he looked at me
again
, “except Charlie.”
“Tell us something we don’t know, Savill,” Caleb growled.
“I know that Charlie has immunity.”
The room spun. The walls closed in. All eyes swung towards me and I struggled to breathe.
“What?” I whispered.
“Your email,” Adam said with a wide smile. “Fucking brilliant, that. You’ve given them something to work with. Something to fight. Of course, the Director’s dead, but his home revealed a few secrets Interpol was extremely excited to see.
Yǐngzi
is gone, but he left a trail. And you think
we
upset the flow of drugs on the streets? We only tumbled the South Pacific. You’ve smashed half the fucking world.” He chuckled to himself, and then the smile became grim. “That won you favour, sure. Made you big news. But it was never going to be that easy.
“Mal,” he added. “Now he’s the real key. And they expect you to deliver the rest.”
“Me?” I queried, dumbfounded.
He nodded.
“You
want
me to hand over my colleagues?” I couldn’t believe he was suggesting this. Here. In front of my team. My
lethal
team. Was he suicidal?
“They do. I don’t.
Nick
doesn’t,” he stressed. “What you give them are the handlers. What you give
them
is the means to allow your freedom. That’s the deal.”
I was to be the inside spook. The one they thought would draw out the others. But they were wrong. And Adam
knew
they were wrong. He was offering me an out, while still allowing me an in.
Emotions swelled; I battled to control them.
“Don’t you think that’s what we’ve been trying to do?” Ava asked, pulling attention away from me, thank fuck. “You’re beautiful, handsome, but
really
, I thought you had more sense than that.”
He offered the most lethal person in the room to handle a high powered rifle a smile and turned to look back at me. Again.
I was getting used to it, I think. Even if my heart wasn’t.
“Stay here and the assumption will be you’ve gone rogue, too.”
I shook my head. “I won’t abandon them,” I stressed, testing his commitment. Testing the parameters of the deal.
His smile widened. “Never said you had to.”
That’s it. I was done. He had me. He’d had me since the moment we’d first met, I just hadn’t known it. But I acknowledged that fact now.
I’d never believed in love at first sight. I’d never believed in the fairytales. I’d not been allowed to. All that had changed, though, when this man walked into my life.
I’d loved Adam from the day I’d first laid eyes on him. It’s difficult to explain it to a non-believer. But there it was. The inability to speak. The way the earth had seemed to halt on its axis. The slow unravelling of the world as I knew it from that day onward.
I’d fought it. Naturally. I was a highly trained specialist, love wasn’t meant to be real.
But it
was
real for me.
Adam Savill
owned
me. He knew me. He understood me. He matched me.
Fuck. He loved me. Why else would he be here? And I was in love with him, as well.
Always had been.
“Then what the hell
are
you saying?” Will snapped. I smiled.
This was it.
Slowly, I started walking towards the man who had changed my world. Who had coloured it with emotions. Showered it with breathlessness. Wrapped it up in delicious adventure and challenge… and made it real.
More real than it had
ever
been.
“He’s saying we play them at their own game,” I said, taking another step forward. “We let them think they have an in. A way to trap you.” Another step. A twitch of Adam’s lips, his eyes target locked on me. “All the while I slip you inside information on what the Government’s latest assets are doing in their search for what remains of the Department.” One more step, almost there. “All the while we organise your freedom in exchange for each handler we hand over.”
“Sneaky,” Ava murmured.
“I don’t get it,” Joel groused.
“You just want to be ornery,” Sofia snapped back.
“It’s got nothing to do with helping us,” Caleb pointed out.
“He just wants in Charlie’s pants,” Hamish finished for his brother.
“I dare say, he’s already been there,” Brayton helpfully supplied.
“This could work,” Will said and all banter ceased.
I paused, about a foot or two away from Adam, and turned to look at our new leader. The man we’d chosen to follow when our world had been torn apart. I hadn’t know William well, I wasn’t sure I knew him that much better now. But I did know he was committed to getting us free.
All
of us.
Adam had moved closer and I hadn’t realised it until his hand slipped into mine. I didn’t pull away. I relished his heat and touch. I savoured it, even as my heart rate sped up and perspiration made my palm clammy. Butterflies. There were fucking butterflies in my belly, too. How whacked was that?