I swallow the thick lump in my throat as the call disconnects. Kiki pads down the stairs and starts winding around my ankles. “You lonely, little guy?” He’s purring so loudly, I can feel it. “You’re not the only one.”
Leaving Raelynn tomorrow won’t be easy. But I’m going to make the most of the time we have left. One more night to last me a lifetime.
Raelynn
Inara—who showed up half an hour ago with four bags of burgers, french fries, and shakes from Dick’s Drive-In—puts the finishing touches on the charcoal portrait. “This the shooter?”
I lean in to peer over her shoulder, impressed. “Damn close. Where’d you learn to draw like that?”
“Needed something to keep me sane while I was deployed.” She shrugs and adds some shading to the man’s neck. “One of the guys in my unit was an art major before he enlisted. Another used to take the comic books his mom would send and trace every panel over and over again. I stuck to landscapes for the first couple of years, but somewhere around my fiftieth kill…” She stares out the window and shakes her head. “I don’t regret a single shot. But I wanted to remember their faces.”
“Why?” I shouldn’t ask. The former Army Ranger sniper carries the weight of the dead every single day. She never told me her number, but it’s got to be north of a hundred.
Inara passes me the sketch, sorrow lending a shimmer to her gray eyes. “Because they were people. Terrible, violent people who would have killed me, my unit, and thousands more, but still…people.”
I wish I knew what she needed me to say. We’ve never really talked outside of our missions together. Hell, I’ve never done much more than shit talk over a game of foosball with anyone. I thought it was better that way. But in this moment, I wonder if I’ve been wrong this whole time.
West is at Broadcast, getting the security camera footage from the cafe. Wren moved to a plush, zero-G recliner with her laptop and just found some of Nash’s high school records—from Denver, Colorado.
“That was Graham,” Ryker says, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “By the time the sun goes down, he’ll have eyes on every inch of the building. If anything bigger than a mouse gets within half a block of Nash’s apartment, we’ll know. Ripper’s still with his shrink, but as soon as he gets back, he’ll be all over the security camera footage.”
I sink back against the cushions, staring at the face of the shooter. Ry’s memory palace lessons are tedious as fuck, but without them, I’d be holding a blank page. Or at best, looking at a stick figure in a black t-shirt and black leather gloves. Carrying a silenced Nighthawk Custom GRP.
“Pass me the drawing?” Wren asks. At Ryker’s pointed glower, she sits up and reaches for his hand. “You know I’d be climbing the walls if I couldn’t work, right?”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Despite his words, his voice gentles, the tone reserved just for Wren. Until I met her for the first time—a few weeks after I joined Hidden Agenda—I couldn’t imagine anything or anyone softening Ryker McCabe.
Seeing them together has always reminded me of everything I’ve lost. But now, I realize what I’ve found is more important. The entire team dropped everything to help me. Wyatt and Hope are even on their way back from his cabin in the mountains—just in case.
Every time West talked about family, I pulled away. Family was for the rest of them. They’d been together longer. I was the probie. The outsider.
But now, I’m starting to realize they never saw me that way. They shared parts of their lives with me, pulling me in so deep, I’ll never escape. But for the first time since I joined Hidden Agenda, I don’t want to.
Nash could be my second chance at happiness. Though we’re still new, though we both have secrets that could destroy whatever we’re building, there ain’t a damn thing I won’t do to keep him safe.
Even if he walks away.
Chapter Fourteen
Raelynn
I stare at a wall of food and water bowls, not truly seeing any of them.
“I don’t think Nash Grace actually exists.”
Wren’s words play on a loop in my head. “He’s got the smallest electronic footprint of anyone I’ve ever seen. No tax records. No credit cards. Bank accounts will take me some time, but I’d expect at least an email address or two.”
All the little inconsistencies I ignored in our conversations are giant red flags now. He moved around a lot, but his mom had a stove like mine. His dad looked for a replacement for “for years.”
His “Pops” would pick a new place on the map every year, but “we were all together” in the accident that killed Mae. “Mom screaming. Dad…”
So, instead of going straight home, I’m agonizing over whether Kiki’s gonna care if his food bowl is covered with tiny fish or paw prints.
Cowardice ain’t a good look, so I grab the closest set of matching bowls and head for the cashier. What the hell am I supposed to say to Nash when I get home?
Hi. I’m part of an elite group of mercenaries who travel all over the world to save people who need it. So, do you need savin’?
Or maybe something more direct.
