“Yeah. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t wondering that. But then I realize I did the right thing. It was time for me to leave,” she said.
She looked out the passenger window, waiting with a slight sense of dread for his next question, the one where he asked her exactly why she’d left the Agency.
Nothing had been the same after the operation in Turkey. In the immediate aftermath of the ambush that had killed her entire team, she’d been so furious that all she could do was think about spending the rest of her life hunting Wade down and making him pay. The need for revenge was like a fever that raged day and night.
The Agency had done everything they could to help her find Wade at first. But after about a year of scouring the globe, the search had started to lose steam as other events took priority. The Agency moved Wade’s cold-blooded betrayal to the back burner, he was placed on a watch list with thousands of other high-value targets, and Alina was told to let it go. She hadn’t, and it had cost her.
Initially, the Agency had allowed her to stay in the field, but over time, her fixation with finding the man who’d killed her team had made her coworkers and supervisors uncomfortable. They began to think she was unstable, obsessive, and a risk to other agents. To some degree, maybe she was. Because for a long time, all she cared about was getting revenge.
Finally, the big shots at Langley had decided to put her zeal for catching traitors to good use and transferred her to the CIA’s version of Internal Affairs. Instead of chasing after bad guys, she’d been chasing dirty agents. It wasn’t something an agent should ever be asked to do, and Alina had hated it. So when the director of the DCO had approached her out of the blue about a new job—one that included a promise to jump-start her search for Wade—she’d hadn’t even had to think about it. That brilliant move had gotten her a partner who had claws and glowing yellow eyes.
Well, she’d wanted a chance to get out and do something different. From now on, maybe she should be more careful what she asked for.
“You going to be able to focus on what we’re doing here?” Trevor asked, pulling her out of her reveries.
Alina gave herself a shake and realized they were in the parking lot of a nice little apartment complex with well-trimmed hedges and perfectly manicured lawns. Around them, the other spaces were filled with electric cars. It wasn’t exactly a place that screamed “cold-blooded killer hideout.”
“I’ll be fine,” she assured Trevor, then added, “assuming you’re actually planning to tell me what we’re doing here. Who’s this guy we’re looking for, and do you have anything linking him to the bombing besides the fact that he happened to come into work early that day?”
If Trevor was involved with the people who’d murdered John Loughlin, why act like he was hunting down the killer? And if he wasn’t involved with the rogue agents and honestly wanted to find who’d done it, why was he so reluctant to talk to her?
“His name is Seth Larson,” Trevor said, shutting off the engine. “The DCO brought him in to specialize in cybersecurity and data protection. Like I said before, he was hired three weeks before the bombing and quit two days later.”
As if that explained it, Trevor opened his door and stepped out of the vehicle. Alina quickly unbuckled her seat belt and jumped out, practically running to catch up with him as he headed for the apartment building.
“You do realize that when he started working at the DCO could easily be a coincidence, right?” she asked as she fell into step beside him. “And as far as quitting right after the bombing, I’m betting a lot of people bailed after that.”
Alina took his silence as confirmation as they entered the building and climbed the stairs.
“Do you have anything else on this guy?” she asked. “Some indication of a payment, a personal beef with Loughlin, a connection with the rogue agents who went on the run?”
Trevor shook his head as he stopped in front of apartment 231. “Nothing like that. But Larson was previously employed by a man John had been trying to apprehend for years.”
“What man?”
“An extremely powerful man who has used other people to do his dirty work. As it happens, he’s also the same man who got Seth Larson the job at the DCO.”
That didn’t tell her much. And while Trevor appeared to be searching for the bomber, he didn’t seem to be trying to find any of the rogue agents.
She opened her mouth to ask him about it, but before she got a chance, he reached out and pushed the doorbell. He immediately followed that up with a few knocks that were louder than the bell.
The door was jerked open so fast, Alina automatically reached for the sidearm on her hip but stopped at the last second at the sight of a young guy in jeans and a T-shirt with wire-rimmed glasses and at least three days of stubble on his face, a little blond boy standing behind him.
“I heard the bell,” the man said, clearly pissed off. “You didn’t have to knock, too.”
Trevor frowned and opened his month to say something no doubt abrupt and snarky, but his words were cut off by a soft, frightened voice.
“Daddy, do you have to go away again?”
Larson glanced over his shoulder at his son. The little boy, who couldn’t have been more than eight, was close to tears.
“No, Cody. Daddy’s not going anywhere. I’m just talking to some old friends.”
Cody moved closer, studying her and Trevor, his blue eyes curious. “Friends?”
Larson looked at them, a pleading expression on his face. “You two are friends, right?”
Alina smiled at Cody. “Yes, we’re friends of your dad. We worked with him a little while ago.”
