Page 139 of Until the End

He wanted to spend the rest of his life making it up to her. Loving her. Not squandering this second chance they’d been given that had been paid for in blood. Though that sounded a bit heavy in his head. “I swear to you, as soon as I’m done here, I’ll get to the hospital and start making it up to you. Trust me when I say it’ll be quite some time before I’m done.”

“You’re nothing if not a man of your word. I trust you. I love you. And I know that no matter what, you’ll come back for me.”

“You better believe it.”

Epilogue

Northern Virginia

Three Weeks Later

Kit raised her glass of club soda to the Gray Box crew seated with her at the table in a private room in Rocky’s Bar.

“Welcome home, Knox!” Everyone toasted.

Knox Cody grinned back and drank as well.

Kit couldn’t help thinking how he looked like Captain America. Wholesome, handsome—sexy, with the distinct possibility of being deadly.

But no one trumped Castle in her eyes.

Castle threw his arm around her, relaxing back in his seat beside her.

Knox stood up. “It’s good to finally be home, despite the circumstances. I know everyone is nervous about the current situation.”

Current situation was code for shitstorm rolling through the Gray Box. Castle had kept Sanborn’s ugly secrets. He couldn’t bring himself to air all the dirty laundry.

In the end, Castle blamed Khan for everything. The anthrax plot targeting a water plant. Z-1984. The deaths of Director Pomeroy, Senator Boswell, and even Sanborn. Bravo and his team were made to look like Khan’s accomplices.

And the Gray Box got their win. The real anthrax device had been recovered and a high-ranking terrorist had been eliminated.

The truth about the director of a covert organization going rogue and the unavoidable fallout would’ve been too big for any agency to survive.

Somehow, Castle understood Sanborn’s motives, even if he despised his methods, and still loved him for all the good he’d done. Castle felt obligated to share the truth with his team. There was a mixed bag of positions on the matter, but they all seemed determined to stay quiet.

Whether Castle had made the right choice, Kit didn’t know, but she saw how it plagued him, the burden he carried. He was the toughest man she knew, his strength, his determination, but his grief shredded her. He didn’t need her judgment, only her support, and she would give him that and everything she had with an open heart.

The one thing Kit had no reservations about had been Castle’s decision to deliberately expose the Gray Box.

It had been too much unchecked power for one man and too easy for Pomeroy and Boswell to divert their black budget funding. The only way to prevent the same mistakes from happening again was to tell the world that a secret, deep-state intelligence agency existed.

Now the Gray Box was public knowledge. Out in the light, where it had to be held accountable.

“I have some hearings to attend,” Knox said, “but I’m going to get our home straightened out. We might be closed right now, but the doors will open again.”

“You mean if we get a favorable review by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, right?” Ares asked.

“We will get a favorable review,” Knox said with such confidence it was staggering.

Apparently, he was Mr. Sunshine and Rainbows about it.

“I welcome the hearings. It’s time the intelligence community and the public knew about us. We belong in the system of checks and balances. We’ve gone ungoverned too long.”

“Well, let’s hear your speech after they decide to never reopen our doors and sack you,” Alistair said.

“It’s not as if the committee’s house is in order,” Knox added. “They’re not in the most advantageous position from which to judge.”

When he returned, Knox had leaked files that Sanborn had waiting for him about Lee Pomeroy, Ed Boswell, and the sitting president. The bioweapons project had been splashed all over the news. Important heads were rolling, and the impeachment process was getting started.