I helped Gage into a seated position. He sucked in air because I had knocked the wind out of him. He tried to talk, but I gripped his shoulders.
“For now, just breathe. My team will be here soon. Does anything hurt? Do you think you’re bleeding?”
His breathing was close to normal. “What the hell? I don’t…”
“Do you feel okay?”
He nodded, then shook his head, then turned to stare at the two men lying motionless. “What did you… What the hell?”
Kessler entered the alley from the same direction I did. She knelt and checked Gage’s eyes and his pulse. “Do you want me to call a medic?” she asked me.
“No,” Gage said. “I’m fine. I just… Can I get out of here?”
He asked Kessler, not me. He didn’t even look at me.
Two black vans pulled up near the alleyway, one on each end of it. In unison, the side doors opened, and two men in head-to-toe black ran out of each. One of the men from the van nearest us carried a silver shock blanket with him. We wrapped it around Gage, who had started to shake.
“Gage.” I took his face between my hands. “I’m sorry you had to see that, but it’s over now. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “Can I… Can we go home?”
My heart leaped into my throat. He’d saidwe. Maybe there was a chance he didn’t hate or fear me after watching me shoot a man.
“This is Smith,” I introduced the operative who’d brought the blanket. “He’s going to take you to the van and drive you home, okay? I’ll be there in…” I glanced at Kessler and quirked an eyebrow.
“Li and I can handle the paperwork,” she said. “But X is on her way here. You’ll need to go with her.”
I blew out a long breath. X had been looped into our comms, but since she had yet to speak to me, I’d hoped she was going to overlook the snafu we’d just had. No such luck, but that was no surprise. In our business, if you wait around for luck to help you, you’ll be dead by the time it arrives.
“I’ll be there shortly,” I told Gage. “Can you go to my apartment and relieve Florence? I’ll text her that you’re coming.”
He nodded.
“Wait for me there, please. I need to talk to you. And you can’t leave because Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants will need the company.”
“Got it,” Gage said.
“He’s fine,” Smith mouthed to me, then gave me a thumbs-up.
I knew I could trust him. I pulled Gage into a quick hug. He didn’t reciprocate, but he didn’t pull away. Then he was bundled into the van, and they drove away. X’s car pulled into the space they’d left.
I turned off my comms and turned to my old friend. “Thanks, Kessler, for everything. For having my back, having Gage’s back, talking X into letting me be on this operation.”
“Sure thing,” she said. “But maybe you should wait until you’ve talked to X to thank me for that last one.”
* * *
“This is my fault,” X said.
I didn’t know what threw me off my game more: X coming close to apologizing, or X wearing the most exquisite, most sequined, most ruffled black evening gown I’d ever seen. It was hard to have a discussion with my boss when it looked like she was ready to walk the red carpet at the Met Gala.
“I put you in position for a future mission with Roxy Energy because you know the players,” she said. “I should have anticipated they would eventually blow one of your covers, so they would know the realyou,as well.”
“So, who hired the thugs?” I asked “Volkov or Roxy Energy?”
“Hard to say, since they’re in bed together. It seems they might have gotten closer when they realized they had a common enemy, a lone mercenary operative who works for the highest bidder to procure whatever is needed, be that information, objects, or people.”
“That’s my cover story for this operation?”
