No More Spies

New Recruits, Book 4, Masters and Mercenaries, Book 30

eBook: Lexi’s Store | Amazon | Amazon UK | Apple Books | Google Play | Kobo | Nook

Print: Lexi’s Store | Amazon

Audio: Amazon | Audible | Kobo

About the book

Kala Taggart has known she was in love with Cooper McKay since she was a young girl. But her wild-child ways sometimes clashed with Coop’s apple pie, all-American persona. After the worst night of Kala’s life, she decided to give up on having any kind of normalcy. She focused on her future and let the idea of Cooper go.

Cooper knows he screwed up with Kala when they were young, but the adult Cooper is unwilling to let their past rob them of a future. He joins her CIA team not for the thrill of the job but to be close to the woman he’s always loved. He spends night after night with her at the club, trying to fulfill her needs, to prove he doesn’t need some perfect partner. All he needs is her.

When Cooper and Kala are assigned to a mission, they find themselves locked together and forced to face their problems. As the truth of that long-ago night slowly comes to the surface, Cooper has to admit that Kala might be further from him than ever. And all his plans come crashing down as the elusive terrorist they’ve been hunting makes a move no one is expecting, but the real threat might come from within.

Excerpt

Chapter Five

This is the first chapter of part two of No More Spies.

“Kala, you went through something traumatic.”

Kala bit back a groan and wished her father wasn’t so invested in freaking therapy. “I like to call it Tuesday, Lena.”

The therapist sighed and sat back. Lena Gallagher didn’t normally work in Dallas. She wasn’t an everyday, ordinary therapist working at the Ferguson Clinic, though for the last week she’d held sessions here.

Because apparently the Agency was worried their experimental team was twelve kinds of fucked up after their last mission.

No lies there. It had been a lot.

“All right, Kala. I have a job to do. After what happened in Montreal, the director is worried about the state of the team.” Lena was in her mid-thirties, a pretty woman who dressed in a neat and efficient manner that still managed to be feminine. She reminded Kala a whole lot of Eve McKay. Lovely and intellectual, and she didn’t exactly like Kala. “You’ve spent three days saying nothing.”

“I know. It’s been a good time, Doc.” She was hell on shrinks. Oh, they tended to look at her like she was their Disneyland, but all of her rides were closed, thank you very much.

An elegant brow arched over dark eyes. “You know I can bench you, right? I understand that the Kara construct you use is very important to several ongoing operations, but if I decide you’re not stable, I’ll still pull you out of the field.”

She had places she could hide a body. Always. It was probably sad that she kept a list. Uncle Jesse and Aunt Phoebe just moved and were renovating, including putting in a pool. Getting the dead body of one of your enemies buried right before the frame went in was chef’s kiss. Lou’s dad’s place had a lot of land. Oooo, Uncle Boomer had a couple of pigs now. They loved to eat dead bodies, right? See, this was why she liked animals more than most human beings. They were helpful.

“All I’m asking is for you to talk about what happened.” Lena crossed one leg over the other, showing off the red soles of her shoes. “You do that and I’ll clear you. I’ve cleared everyone else.”

“Everyone who’s still here,” Kala grumbled.

“Yes, I would like to talk about what happened with Captain Reed as well,” Lena replied, frowning. “But we should start with how you were caught by the suspect’s men.”

She’d been over this a million times. Or at least once, and that should be enough. But no, the Agency needed her to go over and over it…like they were waiting for her to trip up and reveal something.

Like she was the real suspect.

Damn it. Her father had told her to take this seriously, and she was fucking up again.

“I wrote a report. Several, actually,” she replied, sitting back and mimicking the shrink. Though she was wearing combat boots and ripped jeans.

Lena watched her every move and made a note in the small book she held on her lap.

Kala could guess what was in there. The rest of the team had already done their time with her.

Louisa Ward – sweet and charming. Einstein-level IQ. An asset for the Agency, with the singular exception of her poor taste in friends.

Natasha Taggart – organized and emotionally intelligent. She’s the heart of the team as she manages to keep their big personalities in check.

Tristan Dean-Miles – makes things work despite his natural repulsion when it comes to making hard choices. An asset, though more behind the scenes and less in the field.

Cooper McKay – Captain America through and through.

Kala Taggart – morally ambiguous, with anti-social tendencies. Keep an eye on her.

At least that’s what the last one said. She should know. She’d stolen the notes. That probably played into the whole morally ambiguous thing.

“I read the report. Now I want to hear it from you.” Lena’s perfectly cut bob shook. “Or we can close this report, and I can get back to DC early.”

“I thought you were hanging around for a while.” If she could shove the Agency shrink out early, everyone would cheer her on. It would be easier than convincing Aunt Phoebe she needed to Poltergeist her pool. That’s what she would argue. Those X’ers knew how to use a pop culture reference to hammer a point home.

“I was. I’m here to gather information about more than the Montreal mission. I’m interviewing the team about Captain Reed and the possible reasons for his recent decision to…take a break from his responsibilities.”

Zach. She carefully schooled her expression. Zach Reed had been her team’s Army liaison since they’d formed. He’d been sent in to try to find the team’s weakness, but he’d become a part of them. Or at least it seemed so. Now she knew he had more secrets than she could have imagined.

Forgive me. Take care of him.

She hadn’t told anyone about the text she’d found on her personal cell the morning after the Montreal op. She had no idea why Zach would send her a message like that. She had to figure he’d screwed up and used the word him instead of them.

Which him could he be talking about?

“However, I can certainly do the work I need to do back in DC since if I decide the team needs a long time out, everything touching the Huisman operation can transfer to another team,” Lena pronounced.

Uncle Sean had a freezer. He ran several restaurants, and those had plenty of places to stash a body.

Fuck. She was going to have to go along with whatever the shrink wanted. “Fine. Do you want me to start at the beginning? It was a beautiful day in North Texas when a helicopter decided to take out my cousin’s wedding. Not the helicopter itself, of course, but the assholes inside it.”

A long huff came from the doctor. “What were you doing in the bar, Kala?”

Yep, this was going to be an ass kicking. And she’d already gotten such a heinous one. This op sucked. “I went to the hotel where the assets were staying.” She didn’t need to mention that the assets had been her cousin, Carys Taggart, and Aidan O’Donnell, one of her fiancés. Tristan was the other. They’d gotten involved in the seemingly never-ending mission to prove Dr. Emmanuel Huisman was the head of an international terrorist organization devoted to burning down the world. Carys and Aidan were doctors, and Aidan had been invited to a conference by Huisman himself. “The comms units we were using had gone out, and the big boss decided to send a couple of us there to ensure everything was all right.”

The comms units had been turned off because the threesome had been having a knock-down, drag-out fight that led to some serious sex. She’d been in the audience for a bunch of the fight but had definitely been happy to leave before the sex.

Sex. Even the word was hard to deal with. It had been oddly easy to ignore sex for years, but then Cooper McKay had come back into her life, and now it was on her brain again.

“You were acting as a bodyguard?”

Kala nodded. “Yes, but you should understand I didn’t leave my charge without protection. She was with Tristan the whole time.”

“And you were in the bar.” Lena managed to put a lot of judgment into those words.

Kala sighed. “Yes, and that is where Tasha and Zach found me. Carys joined me while Tasha and Zach went up to the hotel room to deal with the comms units. We talked for a while, and then I realized the drink I’d been watching the bartender pour was somehow drugged. I watched him open it, so he must have had the sedative already in the bottle.”

“All right. I won’t go into why you shouldn’t be drinking on the job.”

“It could have been water,” Kala argued. “I wasn’t drunk, and let me say if you want spies to not drink… Well, you’re not going to have any spies.”

Lena’s lips actually quirked up. “Truth. So the bartender drugged your drink and you and Carys were taken to Toronto.”

They’d been taken to hell. Absolute fucking hell.

She thought she’d gotten over what that asshole Dimitry had—or hadn’t—done to her. Well, she thought she’d come to terms with it. If she’d gotten over it, maybe she wouldn’t be a twenty-seven-year-old… She couldn’t even think the word. It was pathetic. It was easier when she could convince herself she wasn’t a sexual being. Not everyone was.

“Yes. I woke up bound to an exam table,” she said, her tone bland. “Dr. Huisman was there. He intended to use Carys to get Tristan to tell him where he could find the bombmaker he’s been looking for.”

“And he brought you along for the ride?”

“The idiots he hired mistook me for Tasha. All they’d been told was to pick up Carys and Tasha. I was with her. They thought I was her.” She kept telling herself she was lucky because if they hadn’t thought she was Tash, she would likely be dead.

But she could still remember what happened next, and there had been moments during that time with Huisman that death would have been acceptable.

“Why would they want Tasha?” Lena asked.

“Because Huisman knew Zach worked with Tristan on The Jester project. Tristan had been working a long-range undercover project. He took over the identity of an arms dealer known as The Jester. Zach worked with him. The rumor on the Dark Web was that The Jester knew how to contact the bombmaker Huisman wants to work with. I don’t know why the dude doesn’t like give out cards or have an Etsy shop or something. He’s not a great businessman. He doesn’t know how important discoverability is.”

“So why Tasha?”

Her humor was utterly lost on this woman. “Because somehow he knew Zach had feelings for her once. He thought he would have Tristan’s girlfriend and Zach’s one true love.”

Luckily the fucker hadn’t been completely up to date since Zach had made a serious connection with her cousin Devi Taggart before he’d decided to go AWOL.

Or he’d played her. He hadn’t been able to get close to one Taggart so he found another.

She hated the suspicions playing through her head. She’d trusted Zach. She’d gotten close to him. Zach had been the one to coax her to join him and Cooper many times. The last few Devi had joined in on, and it had felt like…like a stupid double date. Like they were all normal people having fun with their significant others and their friends and family.

It was one more lie the world told her.

Lena nodded as though pleased with the answer. Probably because everyone had given her the same one. “Did you talk to Dr. Huisman?”

“Yes. He monologued like a motherfucker. I mean it. That dude likes to listen to the sound of his own voice.”

“Was this before or after he tortured you?”

She hadn’t been able to move. She’d woken up on the table and been in the exact same place she’d been when she was fifteen. Wondering what had been done to her body while she’d been completely helpless. She’d sought out knowledge, trying to figure out where she ached, and she hadn’t been able to move at all. “He used an experimental paralytic on me. I believe the guys in R&D got my blood work from the hospital later on. They were hoping there would be traces of the drugs he used on me.”

“Drugs? You’re referring to the sedative and the paralytic?”

“I’m talking about the torture drug,” Kala said, keeping her tone as no-nonsense as possible. “He told me it’s supposed to make it feel like my body was on fire from the inside out. The paralytic meant I couldn’t fight, and he didn’t need to hold me down.”

“And did it?”

Kala shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

She’d screamed and screamed until one of the assholes gagged her, and then she’d screamed but it was a useless, futile thing. She’d burned from the inside out and prayed it would be over. At some point she’d lost consciousness.

At some point her heart had stopped.

She’d come to and the Canadian operative who’d been working with them had been pumping her chest. CPR. He’d given her CPR.

Not today, Maggie. Not fucking today.

Ben Parker was in love with her sister. He’d thought he was saying the words to her, and in that moment she would have done a lot to have him morph into Cooper. To have Cooper staring at her, tears in his eyes, praying she would live.

“Kala,” Lena admonished.

“It’s a very effective torture technique. I would have likely told them anything, except of course I couldn’t stop screaming. He needs to refine it. There’s a happy medium. Also, the paralytic wore off before the torture drug did, and then I couldn’t control my body. I’m pretty sure I have a bunch of nerve damage. All in all, not how I wanted to spend that particular day.”

Lena’s expression went soft. “I’m sure it wasn’t. Kala, I’ve read your file. You’re brave and reckless and still young. You’re already a hell of an operative, but this is the kind of event that can break a person.”

“I’m not that breakable.” She wished the woman in front of her was more like Kai Ferguson. He’d been her therapist after the first kidnapping. God, she had to number them at this point. Kai had taken her to a rage room and given her a baseball bat. And then when she’d destroyed to her heart’s content, tears and screams included, he’d taken her for ice cream and they’d talked. Really talked.

She wasn’t fifteen anymore. She shouldn’t need to beat the crap out of a bunch of stuff to have a breakthrough.

“Everyone breaks, Kala. Everyone.”

Her father had told her the same thing. “Well, I didn’t have to. My team saved me, and now all I want to do is find Emmanuel Huisman and ensure he can’t do it again.” She knew better than to put into words what she was going to do to the doctor.

Make him hurt for days. She would find that drug and see how he liked it. Or she could go old school. There was something pure about putting real physical work behind the torture. The drug seemed like a cheat. She would slowly eviscerate him and feed him his own testicles.

Lena closed her notebook. “I’m not going to get much more out of you, am I?”

“There’s not much more to get.” She certainly wasn’t going to tell the good doctor that when she passed out, she’d had the dream again. The one that followed her since she was fifteen.

In the dream she was always sitting and waiting. It could be on a park bench, the sun warm on her face. At the kitchen table in the house she grew up in. On the bean bag in teenage Cooper’s room where they would make out and she would get so hot she didn’t care about anything but him. And the door would open and she would know it was her mom.

Then Julia Ennis would walk through, the ghost she couldn’t quite shake. She would start walking in as Charlotte Taggart and morph into Julia. A reminder that there were always two sides to every coin. And Kala knew which one she was.

“Tell me one true thing and I’ll close the book on this part of the investigation,” Lena offered. “I still need to profile Captain Reed, but I’ll clear you for duty if you can be honest with me about anything. What were you thinking as you lay there?”

“I thought it hurt. I thought I wanted to die.” Both truths, but not the truth. What the fuck was she so afraid of? Her father did this. Her mom still went to a survivors of domestic abuse group from time to time. She was so tired. “I wished I’d been better. Seen more. Done more. I wished I’d…I wished I’d been in love and had someone love me back.”

Lena nodded. “All right. This is done, but you should know I think you should see someone regularly, and I’m not talking about just for checkups. I won’t force you, but I am recommending it.”

Her father could get her out of it. “Fine. I can sit in a chair and stare a couple of times a week.”

“It takes more than that,” Lena replied. “I’m going to ask you a question and you don’t have to answer. Think about it, and if you come to a conclusion that leads you back here, well, I’m in this office for at least another few weeks.”

“Shoot.” She wouldn’t be coming back.

“Is this how you want to live? I’m not talking about the job. You’re excellent at the job. I’m talking about the walls you have up. I’m talking about the regrets you had as you lay there thinking you would die. Many people find an experience like that can jump-start a change they need in their lives.”

“What kind of change?”

“For you, I believe it’s the acceptance that you are worthy of what you feared you missed. It’s the acceptance that you’re lovable. If you don’t believe it, why would anyone else?”

She didn’t want to admit it, but the doc had her there. How many times had she asked the question? How often had she lied and pretended to be something she wasn’t so Cooper wouldn’t see she was still a scared girl who had no idea what happened to her?

Was it time to put it aside and see what she could be?

Was it time to put Cooper out of his misery? She knew she couldn’t be what he needed. Cooper McKay would want a sweet wife and a picket fence, and she wouldn’t ever fit into that life, but when she’d lain there praying for death, the only thing she’d wanted more had been to know what it meant to be with him.

If she did it, offered herself to him again, he could be free, too.

“Kala, are you okay? I have some tissues.”

Damn it. She hated Manny Huisman. And all the stupid couples around her who made her freaking long. She didn’t long. It was a dumb word.

Her father had found her mom, had forgiven her and let her love him. In his less sarcastic moments, he credited therapy for all of it.

She wouldn’t ever have a real life with Cooper, but maybe they could have something, something she could hold on to when he found the life he’d been born to lead.

But she wouldn’t if she didn’t find a way to change even the smallest bit.

“I don’t need a freaking tissue.” She stood, wiping the tears. “But I’ll make another appointment. I won’t be happy about it.”

Lena stood, her lips almost curling into a smile, but she seemed to know that might not be the best move. “I won’t either.”

Kala strode out, wondering if she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life. Or started down a road that might lead her home.

* * * *

Cooper sat in the conference room at McKay-Taggart, his teammates talking all around him. They discussed their plans for the weekend, how hard Big Tag was about to be on them, what they watched on TV the night before.

But Cooper’s whole focus was on the door because Kala was late.

“She had an appointment with the doc the Agency sent out.” Kenzie gave him a sympathetic look. “She’s been avoiding the psychological debrief, but the bosses told her she has to go and say something beyond fuck you. Don’t expect her to be in a good mood.”

He didn’t need her in a good mood. He needed her here. “Why didn’t someone drive her?”

“She didn’t want a lift,” Lou said from her place beside her boyfriend, TJ Taggart.

“I think she said something about needing time to prepare to deal with assholes.” TJ had already raided the downstairs coffee cart. He was on his second muffin. Or maybe his third. Coop had no idea where he put it. “I’m not sure if she was talking about the psychologist or us.”

“Probably both,” Lou acknowledged. Lou was a sweet-looking woman with brown hair and intelligent eyes behind the glasses she wore.

“Well, I don’t think any of the women should be on their own.” Tristan Dean-Miles sat across from Kenzie, his green eyes on Cooper. “We have no idea where Huisman is, and he’s proven perfectly capable of hurting the women of the team.”

Kenzie snorted. “You try telling my sister she can’t get any alone time. Guys, she’s still processing what happened in Canada. This is how she does it. This, and probably going all Mistress Kala on some sub’s ass tonight at The Hideout. I already talked to Gabriel about finding someone for her to scene with.”

“For us to scene with,” Cooper corrected. “And we have an appointment tonight, so that wasn’t necessary.”

Kenzie put her hands up as though letting him know he was being over the top. “Sorry, Master C. I was only trying to help.”

It wasn’t easy being a top when the woman you were so sick in love with was a top, too. He and Kala had been raised in families who were invested in the D/s lifestyle. But both of their dads were Doms and their moms happy subs.

They had to find their own way, and he’d started by topping subs with her.

Never sex. She never had sex in the club. Sometimes he wished she would since then at least he would know if the guy was treating her right.

At least he would know who he might have to kill.

Because maybe that was what it would take. Years. More than a fucking decade and she still hadn’t forgiven him for being a dumbass kid who didn’t know who he was. Well, he was a man now, and he was done playing around. She’d put him on this team, insisted on him. She could have left him where he was but she hadn’t, and it was time to show her what that meant.

Fuck, he could still see her in Ben Parker’s arms. He’d walked out of that burning mansion with her body, and Cooper had been sure she was dead. He’d known his whole life was over because she was everything. Everything.

When he held her, felt her chest moving and realized she was alive, he’d known he was done being patient with her.

He’d given her time to heal. Time to deal.

You’ve given her like a week, dude.

He shut down the reasonable part of his inner voice. The angelic voice that told him to be patient.

Get her in bed and everything will fall into place. That’s all you need to do. Fuck her. Give it to her better than she’s ever had it. Prove to her you’re not the kid who broke her heart. Show her you’re a man who can handle all that darkness. With your dick.

Yeah, the devil was pretty much in charge and had been since he watched her almost die.

Kenz was giving him a big-eyed stare that let him know she thought he was being a weirdo. “I forgot you guys make appointments. The rest of us kind of go with the flow.”

Sometimes he missed being on teams where he hadn’t grown up with his teammates. When he’d been strictly Navy, he hadn’t had to deal with people who remembered him at the age of five.

“To get back to the point, all I’m saying is Huisman is out there, and we have to be ready,” Tristan reiterated.

“And Zach.” Tasha walked into the conference room, carrying a laptop. Behind her, Cooper could see her fiancé, Dare, walking back to his office.

Zachary Reed. Damn, it hurt. He wasn’t even sure why. He’d only recently gotten close to the captain. Zach was closer to Tristan, but the last few months he’d taken to hanging out with Cooper. He’d even given Zach flying lessons, helping him get his license. Only days before Zach had sat across from him at a diner. He’d brought along TJ’s sister, Devi, since they seemed to be a couple. Or had been. Cooper had sat beside Kala, and he’d felt like they were on a double date. Like they’d done when they were in high school, sharing meals and movies with Tris and Carys and Aidan.

I thought we were hanging out.

Would his fifteen-year-old self follow him always?

“Zach wouldn’t hurt Kala,” Tris argued.

“We don’t know that.” TJ suddenly seemed interested in something besides his girlfriend—or a snack. TJ was mostly muscle and often slept through these meetings. “I do think Devi might need a bodyguard.”

“He’s not going to hurt Devi.” Tris turned TJ’s way. “There’s something going on that we don’t understand. I know Zach.”

“Well, if you know him, why don’t you tell us all why he skipped out on us?” a husky voice said.

Just the sound of her voice made his dick go tight. Kala walked into the conference room wearing her normal uniform of stylishly ripped jeans, an old concert tee, and combat boots, her newly pink hair in a high ponytail. She had her leather jacket over her arm and started walking toward the seat Lou had held for her.

He was going to break her of the habit. Someday she would look his way and know her place was at his side. Okay, even the little devil inside him said that kind of thinking would get him in serious trouble. His place was at her side. Yeah, he would put it like that.

There were definitely days he wished he was wired differently, wished he could give her the submission she seemed to need. Instead, what he could offer was to be the king at the side of the queen.

She stopped and then turned, coming his way. She sank down next to him, and every eye was on her. “What?”

Kenzie’s lips turned up, and she shook that perfectly identical head. They’d been strawberry blonde for the last mission, but two days ago they’d shown up for work and the magenta-colored hair they’d gotten their handle from—Ms. Magenta—was back. “Nothing. Just wondering if the therapist is still alive. You look weirdly calm for having to talk about your feelings for an hour.”

“Oh, she doesn’t,” Lou assured them. “I’m pretty sure she sits there and has a stare off with Lena. I kind of don’t blame her. I’m going to be honest. I didn’t like the woman. She told me I’m trying to turn TJ into my dad. I don’t know what that means. She said I have abandonment issues, but I don’t. My bio dad died. Do you think she means I’m trying to turn TJ into him? Because he was an asshole from everything I know, and honestly, TJ’s not great at math.”

Cooper snorted. Louisa Ward was considered a genius by most of the people who knew her. She was an engineer and inventor, a true innovator, but in this she wasn’t very self-aware. “She’s not talking about your bio dad. She’s talking about how TJ is slowly morphing into Boomer.”

“Am not,” TJ said around a mouthful of muffin.

Kala’s lips curled up in one of those pure amusement grins she rarely shared. “Last night he ate all the lasagna we had left over. Kenz made an extra-large and thought we would eat it for a week. TJ managed to down it in an hour.”

“It was good,” TJ said apologetically. “And it was leg day. You know I get really hungry on leg day. I’ll get us takeout tonight.”

Lou’s head tilted the way it did when she was thinking. “Huh. That makes more sense.”

“When he starts bringing home every sad-sack homeless animal he can find, we’ll know his transition is complete. I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Kala replied, and then seemed to get serious. “Where’s the big guy, and do we have a babysitter today?”

The door to the conference room opened again, and the answer was clear. Drake Radcliffe walked in followed by the aforementioned big guy, Ian Taggart, and his wife, Charlotte. Drake was in his mid-forties and had once been a deadly operative, but he’d shifted into management, and he and his wife, Taylor, were the team’s liaisons with the Agency.

Kala had stiffened beside him, though her expression hadn’t changed.

She was worried Drake was here to shut them down. At one point he would have cheered the very idea, but two years of watching her work had made him understand how much she needed this. She’d been born for this work. He could have been happy in any number of jobs, but there was only one for Kala Taggart. Yes, he could have been happy in several jobs, but he could only be happy with one woman. Her.

“Hey, guys. Sorry I didn’t get out here earlier. I’m afraid I’ve been working on figuring out exactly how fucked we are when it comes to Captain Reed.” Drake took a seat opposite Big Tag and Charlotte. “Taylor is still in DC. She’s working the Dark Web, trying to figure out where he’s gone and what connections we missed.”

“Yeah, I’d like to know, too,” Big Tag said before looking over to Kala. His brows rose when he seemed to realize she’d forgone her usual place beside Lou. “Did you kill the doctor? Because I don’t think Phoebe is going to be cool with our normal body disposal methods. She in your trunk, daughter?”

Drake groaned. “Please tell me we didn’t screw with Dr. Gallagher. She’s new, and the director thinks she’s the shit. She was a top profiler with the FBI and recently took the job with us.”

“I didn’t kill the doctor,” Kala said with a long eye roll. “She’s okay. I told her what she wanted to know and then set up another session with her. See, I can take one for the team.”

It was his turn to stare at her, shocked. “You have a session with her?”

She turned slightly. “It’s not my first time with a shrink. Besides, I get the feeling she needs to spend time with me or she won’t give us the sterling review we so richly deserve.” She turned back to Drake. “Is this yet another ploy to break the team up? Since the Zach plan obviously didn’t work?”

Kenzie pointed her sister’s way. “What she said.”

“Zach didn’t want to break up the team,” Tris insisted. “There’s something more going on here.”

“I agree with Tris,” Lou said quietly, her gaze seemingly focused inward, like she was seeing something she couldn’t forget. “He didn’t want to leave us. I saw him that day. He saved me and Aidan. He didn’t have to. It would have been easy for him to walk right by, but he didn’t. He told me he had to go back to hell. Said he should have known he always belonged there.”

Drake’s tone went low, sympathetic. “I know Zach was good to the team, but he wasn’t who we thought he was.”

“He’s exactly who we thought he was, but apparently with a couple of extra layers,” Big Tag said. “Look, I’m with Lou and Tris on this one. I’m a fairly good judge of character and nothing set me off with Zach. There’s something we’re missing. He’s definitely not working for Huisman.”

“We can’t know that,” Drake replied.

Cooper was kind of team Zach. “It doesn’t make sense. Huisman was planning on torturing him for information. It’s obvious Zach has a connection to someone Huisman is looking for.”

“The bombmaker,” Kala concluded. “He knows who the bombmaker is, and he has all along. If he works for anyone, it’s that dude. I don’t know why. Maybe he’s a childhood friend and there’s some weird loyalty to him.”

“Have we considered Zach himself could be the bombmaker?” TJ asked.

Tasha laughed. Not a little giggle, a mad guffaw. Lou snorted along.

“Guys, don’t be mean,” Kenzie admonished. “Zach is not dumb.”

Kala smiled broadly. “He’s not, but you have to admit, the dude isn’t like an engineer or anything. He’s not even all that great with computers.” She sobered, seeming to think of something. “Unless he’s pretending. Playing dumb is always a good cover, but it’s hard when you work so closely with someone. I’ve read Tristan’s report. We know he’s the one who killed The Jester and set him up to be found by Tris.”

The Jester was an international arms dealer with fingers in all kinds of weaponized pies. It had been The Jester Huisman was looking for when he’d kidnapped and tortured Kala and Carys Taggart.

“My question is how did Huisman know.” Tris sat back, playing with the pen in his hand, cycling it back and forth around his fingers. “About Zach. It was Zach he was serious about. I think I was nothing more than a fun diversion for him. Oh, he wanted to know if I knew anything, but it was Zach he was planning on spending real time with.”

Drake opened the folder in front of him. “Let me see if I have everything straight in my head. Sorry. I know you’ve gone over this a hundred times. So what we know now is that Huisman is interested in the man who built several bombs used in attacks in Jakarta we’ve connected to the Disrupt shadow groups that we now believe are run by Dr. Emmanuel Huisman.”

“And London,” Tasha added. “A few years ago there was an attempted assassination on British royal family members. The bombs didn’t work the way they were supposed to, but according to the experts there were signatures on the bombs that connect them to the weapons used in the Jakarta attacks. Lou could explain it better.”

Lou sat up straighter. “It’s actually very interesting…”

Charlotte held up a hand. “Sweetie, I know you could spend an hour explaining, but I trust you. Can we all agree if Lou believes they were made by the same person, we believe her?”

“Yes,” they all said at roughly the same time. And heartily because Lou would talk for an hour, and he would understand very little because she mostly spoke science.

Lou huffed. “Fine. But you know one day I’m going to give incredibly important information and you all are going to be sleeping or doodling and you’ll miss it. To put it in simple terms, it’s like art in a way. The London bombs were part of his early works. They show promise, but he hadn’t figured out how to smooth over the rough edges. Move on to Jakarta and you see he’s maturing. The detonators have a beautiful and terrifying simplicity. The materials he’s using… Well, it’s obvious he’s moving into small nuclear arms. I’d love to see something he’s recently worked on. I think these bombs could be used to deliver biological weapons as well. I can extrapolate where he’s going from the materials he’s using, but getting my hands on it, being able to reverse engineer it would tell me so much.”

“We have two different definitions of the word simple, Lou,” Big Tag said. “And I haven’t been able to ID any other bombs. I’ve been talking to intelligence agencies around the world, but we haven’t found anything like the signature we found on the Jakarta bombs. Of course if we did, it would likely mean Huisman had, too. The fucker seems to always be one step ahead.”

“Because he’s been planning things for decades,” Kenzie pointed out. “He knows who we are because he’s been following us since long before we joined the Agency and had our pasts erased. Stop kicking yourself, Dad. You couldn’t have foreseen this.”

“He couldn’t have foreseen that some asshole from his past would come back to haunt us?” Kala’s brows rose in a near perfect imitation of the very father she was talking about.

“Come on,” Tasha argued. “How could he know?”

He did not get in the middle of Taggart sister fights. Every man who knew them knew to take a step back. He would stand behind Kala, and Dare would do the same for Tasha, and they would stay out of the line of fire.

“Well, he was Agency for years, and even after he left he fucked over like a million bad guys,” Kala pointed out. “Do I need to go into all the Russian mobsters Mom screwed over?”

“Hey, I always killed them so they couldn’t come back to haunt me,” Charlotte explained. “And your dad tried to as well.”

“The ones left remember,” Kala said quietly, and Coop could sense her mood shift. She’d been joking before, but this part was serious.

Kala was like flying sometimes. He had to get a feel for the air around her, find the good streams that swept them along, and know when turbulence was going to batter them.

“Well, Big Tag didn’t even kill Huisman’s dad.” There were times to protect himself and times to give her cover. Her mom was looking at her like she wanted to ask some questions, and he saw the tightness to Kala’s shoulders. It was time to deflect. “So in addition to wanting to find a bombmaker, he used the Montreal op to begin his revenge on Ian. Who again wasn’t even there when his dad died.”

“Fucking Levi Green killed his father,” Big Tag said in a low growl, mentioning the unalived CIA operative who’d haunted them for years. “But what we learned recently is he blames me. Huisman believes if I hadn’t protected the Lost Boys, his father would be alive and all the dominoes that fell after wouldn’t have and his life would be sunshine and puppies and roses. It’s ridiculous but he believes it.”

“I have Lena working on a profile of him,” Drake replied. “And, Ian, you couldn’t have known that twenty years later some kid you’ve never met would decide you’re the devil and he needs to take you out. This isn’t on you.”

“It’s not. I was just joking about the fact that when you take down as many assholes as my parents have, you should expect someone’s going to come after you,” Kala said, her tone flat. “I believe he said he would visit the sins of the father on his children. Or some bullshit like that. He’s an overly dramatic motherfucker.”

“Yeah, he was definitely overly dramatic when he was using my daughter as a test subject,” her mother said, her tone dark. It was a good reminder that there were two Charlotte Taggarts. Or at least two versions of the same woman. One was the loving wife and mother, the mom every kid adored. One had been a Russian mob assassin, and she never forgot how to kill.

Kala had been given an experimental paralytic, and despite the fact that all the doctors said she was fine, he still wasn’t sure what the long-term effects could be. Huisman had made her vulnerable and then poured fire into her veins.

He really wanted to kill Emmanuel Huisman.

“Do we have any idea where he is?” Tristan asked.

No one needed to ask who he was talking about.

“Who?” Except TJ.

Drake simply ignored him. “The last location we have for Huisman is three days ago in Algeria. He met with a group of mercenaries. We have to think he’s hiring. We believe he’s no longer in Africa. I’ve got some intelligence that has him traveling to Asia, though we’re not sure where. The Canadians are going to announce an investigation into the Huisman Foundation in a couple of days.”

“Are we worried that could set him off?” Charlotte asked.

“I would have to ask Lena,” Drake replied. “We’re considering her the subject matter expert. She’s spent the last couple of months diving into his history.”

“Eve thinks yes,” Big Tag said, sitting back. “You have your experts and I have mine. I think we should authorize protection for the families of the Lost Boys. In particular Owen and Rebecca Shaw. They’re in Sweden right now. I think we should bring them in.”

“I can’t authorize anything without Lena’s go-ahead, but I will talk to her,” Drake offered, closing his folder. “And I’d love to read anything Eve has on Huisman. As for Zach, he’s disappeared off the face of the earth. I’ve gone over his file about three thousand times, and there’s not a hint of a lie there.”

“Sometimes you don’t have to lie. You just have to keep your mouth shut,” Big Tag replied. “We know his mother spent time in jail for cooking meth. We know she had some very sketchy contacts, but we’re talking almost twenty years ago.”

“Where is she?” Cooper was curious. “According to Zach, she drifted out of his life when he was a teen and never returned. He thought she was back to making designer drugs.”

“She’s gone, too,” Drake replied. “We do know she was connected to a couple of cartels back ten years ago. The last known location we have on her is El Salvador. From there she disappears, and nothing I’ve found connects her back to Zach after she split. We have to consider the idea that Zach’s mom is in some way connected to the arms community and knows something. I would love to talk to Zach’s aunt. If I could fucking find her. Disappearing is a way of life for this family.”

“Joyce lives a nomadic life,” Big Tag explained. “After Zach left home, she built out a van and took to the road. I can find her. I just need some time. She’s…a character.”

“She also might be working with her nephew, so be careful. We have no idea why Zach killed The Jester in the first place. I think the likeliest scenario is he wanted to become The Jester,” Drake replied.

“Then why not kill Tris?” Kala pointed out. “He could easily have done it.”

“I wouldn’t say easily.” Tris looked slightly offended, but he carried on. “But Kala’s right. He could have taken me out but he didn’t, and not once did he try to manipulate me in a way I would say would bring him some monetary gain.”

“This isn’t about money.” Cooper felt like he knew the guy. “This is something else.”

Drake stood. “Well, you need to figure out what it is because pretty much every agent out in the field is looking for him. I can’t control what they do when they find him. This is a dangerous situation. I need you guys to lay low for a while. Let Lena do her job. I’ll work on the higher-ups to get more resources. I’ll be in town for a couple of days if you need me.”

“So we’re supposed to sit on our hands?” Kala asked, irritation flavoring every word.

“Rest, Kala,” Drake said. “I know you’re super woman, but you went through something traumatic and you need…”

“I told you. I’m doing the therapy.” Her hands fisted on the table. “I saw all the doctors. I’m doing everything the Agency asked me to do.”

“We’ll prep for providing protection for Dr. Shaw’s family.” Cooper knew what he needed to do. Give her a job. She didn’t relax. The job focused her. “And we’ll try to find Zach’s aunt. We’ll stick close to the MT building, and Lou can work in her lab.”

“Great.” But she sat back, and her shoulders came down from around her ears. “Logistics. Awesome.”

He leaned in, his voice going low. “And we have some other projects we’ve neglected.”

She turned his way slightly, her mouth curling in a smile that went straight to his dick. “Naughty subs. We should probably talk through the scenes we’ll run this weekend.”

Yep, he hoped the meeting lasted a while because he had a hard-on.

“All right, let’s get to work.” Big Tag stood, reaching out a hand to his wife. He always reached for her at the end of a meeting. Or a dinner. Or because they were sitting next to each other. The group started to break up, but he sat.

Mostly because of the hard-on and the utter hell he would get from everyone if they noticed. But also because he wanted to reach for her hand, not because she couldn’t stand on her own. She was a force of nature. No. He wanted to reach for her hand so she would know she wasn’t alone. So he would know he wasn’t alone.

“You coming?” She stopped at the door.

“In a minute.” He pretended to be looking up something on his phone.

And she was gone.

But this weekend, they would play, and he was determined that this time around, they wouldn’t stop.

Copyright 2025 Lexi Blake