“Is there a point, Tim?” He didn’t need input.
“Many,” Tim said with a sigh and turned to Joe. “I’ve tried to talk to him. He’s got this thing going where he thinks the twins have been like laughing behind his back or something, but Lou says Kenzie’s been crying for weeks and that she’s listened to something called her sad-girl mix, which from what I can tell is a lot of sad songs about how guys are assholes.”
She’d been crying? “When did you talk to Lou?”
That felt like a betrayal too. Tim had been talking to the Americans behind his back? Was he working for another team? Damn it. Could he find a single person who was loyal to him?
Tim handed over the folder to Joe. “We’ve been working through the data. Not all of it. Rest easy, friend. We’re all still holding out oneach other, but I think we have enough that we should work with them. I know you’re going to be mad, but I’m going to Dallas with the new girl.”
Hannah Hayes, a long-term operative who’d been working in Europe for the last several years. She sometimes worked with MI6. The same MI6 team Ben had worked with when TJ Taggart was kidnapped. She was good, but she didn’t know Huisman. “So I’m out. I do all the work and I’m out because your relationship with Taggart is more important than taking down Huisman. Am I being benched? Should I start looking for another job?”
“The only reason I’m benching you is your attitude. And honestly, your professionalism. I get it,” Joe explained. “She’s a beautiful woman. Are you done with her? I’ll rethink everything if you can promise me you’re not going to take some kind of revenge on her. She had a job to do, too. It’s actually brilliant, if you think about it. They managed to have an operative who could literally be in two places at once if they needed her to be.”
“He won’t be able to do that,” Tim said quietly. “He’s in love with her.”
He hated that word. “I am not. I don’t even know who she is.”
Tim sighed. “Then it’s best you leave her alone and let her heal, man. I worked with them, too. And now that I know what I know, I do feel like I can tell them apart, and Kenzie was always fair with me. She was always nice. I know Kala was rough, but I think that’s just who she is.”
“She left me to die,” Ben pointed out.
“And caught you and took you down with her when you jumped,” Tim replied. “She could have fought you off, could have let you fall, but she didn’t. And I know you’re pissed because she was in love with Cooper, but she isn’t Kenzie. So Kenzie didn’t lie to you.”
“Oh, she lied.” She lied about everything. Her name. Who she was half the time.
And yet he could see how brilliant a play it was. One of them could be out in public while the other worked in the shadows and no one would question her.
He fucking missed her. That was the worst part.
“So did you.” Tim frowned his way. It sucked because often Tim was the only one in his life who seemed to be in a good mood. “Do youthink I forgot the Australian op just because you left me behind? You didn’t walk in and tell her who you were. She thought you were Brian Peters. You didn’t tell her who you truly are until you tried to kidnap her sister and they caught you.”
Not his finest moment. And he’d only had questions for Tasha. He wasn’t really trying to kidnap her. Still, Tim had a point. “All right, I’ll give that to you. I didn’t intend to ever tell her my real name. But after…”
“She works for another Agency. She had a secret. If you don’t want a woman with a couple of secrets, hop on a dating app and putno spiesas one of your requirements,” Joe said with a long sigh. “Maybe it’s for the best. I think you’re too close to Huisman. He’s escalating. We have reports that he’s planning a strike somewhere in Asia. He managed to get out with one of the bombs and his formula for the anthrax. We have it, too, but he knows so he’ll likely change it now. I need someone to go down and explain the situation to Big Tag. Thank god I can call him that again. I swear that asshole picked Mr. Lemon because he knew it sounds stupid. You should get ready for your new assignment.”
“I’ll quit before I leave this case,” Ben announced. His brain was trying to wrap his mind around the problem. What if he could kill two birds with one stone? He could keep his place and get Kenzie Taggart out of his system. “Look, that team is angry with us. I should go and smooth things over.”
Joe snorted.
But this could be the best way to handle things. “I can play nice. Look, you’re all right. I overreacted. She’s reached out several times, so I know she wants to talk. Maybe if we talk, we can work things out. Between our teams. You know they sometimes hold out on us.”
“And we hold out on them when I think we should.” Joe seemed determined to make his case. “This case is not one where our country can get ahead if I hold back some intel. This case is one where the world bleeds if I do it.”
“But you know the Americans won’t see it that way,” Ben argued. “I can go down and talk to Kenzie and get on the inside. She’s always eager to work with me. If she’s upset with how we left things in Nepal, she’ll want to please me.”
Tim’s eyes rolled. “I hope that somewhere in that brain of yours this is all justification because you can’t handle the idea of not seeingher again. Because if it’s not and you’re seriously thinking about playing a woman who loves you, you’re not the man I think you are. I watched that tape. She wasn’t faking. She didn’t try to run. She didn’t fight for her life. She only wanted you. I can’t tell you what I would do if I could get a woman to look at me the way she looks at you. I would be willing to put up with a slightly deranged twin and all the professional lies she would tell me. But that’s me. I guess we don’t have the same values.”
The words hit him hard.
And then that voice started whispering.
What if she knew all along that Huisman was alive?
What if the whole thing was a setup to distract him while Huisman got away?
A flash of the look in her eyes when he reached for her hit him.
She’d softened, those eyes going wide like it was everything she’d hoped for and all that mattered was being with him. He’d felt more connected to her in that moment than he’d felt to anyone for years.
