“What, Mom? Sean lied to us for years. He’s a spy, he said it himself. He worked deep cover missions, whatever the hell that means. How do we even know what he’s telling us is even the truththistime?”
“I don’t know, the car chase yesterday seems like a good enough answer to me,” Zach replied. “Walking through walls, that’s anothergoodone.”
“That was fuckingweird,” Parker agreed. “Are you part ofAlphaTeam?”
Parker seemed excited at that prospect, but Sean shook his head. “I’m on secondment with them right now for a mission, but I’m not officially on their roster. I usually workalone.”
Greg cleared his throat. “The agent yesterday told us your power wasphasing?”
“Yes. What else did theytellyou?”
“That you nearly died in the Belfast Market Blast,” Naomi said, looking at him as she folded her hands tightly together over the table. “Is that why you don’t like farmers’ marketsanymore?”
Sean flinched at the question, thinking of all the times in the last few years his parents had tried to get him to go to the local farmer’s market in New Seattle for lunch on the weekends whenever he visited. It was an activity they all used to enjoy as a family when he and his brothers were kids. Now, the mere thought of going to one left him cold andbreathingfast.
“Yes,” he managed to get out. “Because I was at ground zero for the Belfast bomb and it’s not something I like to thinkabout.”
Not that he would ever forget. He’d lived with the results of that horrific attack every daysince.
The silence around the table was more than a little awkward. Touching a finger to the terminal in front of him, Sean logged on and tapped in a command to pull up the documents the JAG Corps representative was painstakingly going over with his family. He skimmed through a few of them until he got to their alibi, because there was no hiding the fact that someone had shot up his parents’apartment.
The MDF was apparently spinning the attack as a failed hit by the Sons of Adam, drawing on his father’s status as a United States District Judge as a likely target. It would have been a headline-making story to begin with, but throw in his brothers’ band, and their fans were blowing up social media, giving the story legs it wouldn’t ordinarily have. The MDF had written up a quote, matching his brothers’ cadence perfectly—Sean knew he had Elena to thank for that—putting out that they were safe, but to respect their privacy in thistryingtime.
So far the media was running with the story and not really questioning it. The government was good at creating believable spin, but he didn’t doubt that some journalists would start to dig deeper at some point in the nearfuture.
“Look,” Sean said slowly. “I know this comes as a shock to all of you. I know your opinion of me isn’t going to change in the course of a day, or just because you found out what I really do. Igetthat.”
“The MDF apparently lets its agents tell their immediate family of their change in status. I don’t know about your time in the CIA, but you’ve been with the MDF for years now. You could’ve told us so we didn’t have some telepath mess with our heads,”Zachsaid.
“The director would have still ordered Sergeant Ovechkina to put mental blocks in your minds even if I’d told you sooner. You three travel internationally all the time. You share your entire lives in front of the camera, even when you’re not onstage.”
“So what you’re saying is you didn’t think we could keep our mouths shut, is that it?” Caleb askedangrily.
“I still don’t,” Sean shot back. “You splash my identity across your media platforms and my work as an MDF agent is compromised. Not to mention you’d be too tempting a target for whatever terrorist group was looking to get leverage overtheMDF.”
“We can keep ourmouthsshut.”
Sean pinned him with a look that had his younger brother freezing in his chair. “Too much to drink and one slip up would be enough to get you dead. Not to mention you’re forgetting the most important fact, which is that the United States government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. Telepathic blocks are about keeping you safe as much as they keep me safe. I don’t like that the MDF resorted to that option, but I can’t say I disagreewithit.”
The tense silence in the room buzzed against Sean’s skin. His dad was the one who finallybrokeit.
“They didn’t do the telepathic blocks to your mother and me,”Gregsaid.
“You’re a judge and she’s a doctor. The director figured you two would know how to keepquiet.”
Before anyone else could ask a question, the door slid open, letting in a short, middle-aged woman. She gave Sean a little nod. “Agent Delaney, I’m Meghan O’Leary. I’mwithJAG.”
“Judge Advocate,” Sean said politely ingreeting.
O’Leary took a seat at the head of the table, logging into her terminal again. “Will you be staying for the rest of thediscussion?”
“Yes.”
Sean thought his presence could give more clarity if his family had questions, but it ended up being a fraught three hours of arguments and explanations and apologies that tasted bitter on his tongue. By the end of it, his family was aware of the restrictions on what they could and could not discuss in public, but they didn’tlikeit.
Sean felt that they didn’t likehimat the moment, and it was that feeling which chased him out of the conference room when O’Leary broke up the meeting for lunch. He left without a word, ignoring his father calling his name. As much as he loved his family, as much as he cared about them, he couldn’t be around them for much longer right now. It hurttoomuch.
Waiting for the elevator with a couple of other people, he was more than a little surprised when Alexei stepped off the next one that arrived. Alexei’s face lit up with a smile and Sean could only stare at himstupidly.
