Taylor held out a necklace chain, but it was what dangled from the chain that made his throat thicken with unexpected emotion. The ring he had spent every spare penny he had to buy her before he deployed turned like a beacon to his soul.
"You still wear it?" He wasn’t sure why that was the question he asked, but his doubts and fears had won that round.
"It was my way of keeping you close to my heart."
He took the necklace from her and undid the clasp. His fingers brushed against her skin as he fastened it. "One day, I hope that you let me put it back on your finger." He gave her a light kiss on the nape of her neck. A sigh escaped from her.
She turned to face him. "I would like that." He felt the unspoken barrier between them.
Time to build that trust. "To answer your question. Max was a prisoner in a gulag controlled by Spartak. When he was caught hacking into Spartak's system, his house was raided. They held his wife and son and forced him to tell them everything that he stole from them." Kam sighed and pulled Taylor down to sit with him on the bed.
"The problem was he didn't steal anything. He was trying to crash their whole system somehow. I'm not sure all of the details, but they killed both his wife and son before believing him. They then took him and forced him to hack for them by threatening his sister and her family and anyone else that they could connect to him."
Taylor looked toward the door. "That poor man."
"He saw something in me that made him trust me. He gave me the rundown of who was who and all of the information I could need on the Volkovs. I, in return, persuaded Ian to bring him with us to Alaska. He mysteriously disappeared one night from the compound on Hive Island. It just so happened that he found a friend waiting for him to give him a life where he could use his skills to take down groups like Spartak."
Taylor gave him a sly smile. "You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, would you?"
"I was with Ian preparing the last shipment. I couldn't have set him free."
"Hmm. Just like you were nowhere near Nalani when they found her."
Kam winced. "I was actually there, but Davin arrived sooner than I expected him."
Taylor's eyes lit. "You were the one they chased through the woods? You could have been shot."
"I could have been killed by Spartak any day I was with them. At least a bullet would have been more merciful than what Ian would have done to me."
Any romantic spark they had shared died with that heavy confession. Not exactly what he had in mind when he started to open up to her.
"It was terrible not knowing if you were alive," she leaned her head on his shoulder, "but I'm not sure knowing where you were would have made my life any less anxious."
He wrapped his arm around her. "I'm not going to lie to you, I did some things during my time in Spartak that I'm not proud of, but I will put an end to them. After that, I want to spend as much time together as we can until you're sick of me."
She sat up. "I would like that too."
Kam wanted to ask why. He had done morally wrong things all in the name of stopping evil men from doing worse, but that wasn't an excuse for what he did.
"Taylor, I…"
Max rapped on the door. "Sorry to interrupt, but I think I found something."
Confession would have to wait. Kam and Taylor stood. She entwined their hands, anchoring Kam in his swirling emotions. "Let's go find some answers."
CHAPTER 6
Taylor's body still hummed with the energy from their make-out session and then Kam's confession. She wanted to pry the whole story from him, and if she had to use her kisses to do it, there were worse ways to gain the truth. Although if she were honest, she needed to pull herself back. It was too easy to get lost in the emotions that were their relationship. They had never lacked passion when they were together, and as much as she wanted to fall back into that whirlwind of comfort, there were other, more important things to do. Like, stop a terrorist from gaining access to US weapons silos.
"What did you find, Max?" Taylor stood behind him.
Max pointed toward the far wall. "There is another work station over there, but you can bring the chair over here for now."
Taylor dragged over the chair that was nicer than hers at the field office. "Is that an auction site?"
"Sometimes." Max opened a link. "Here."
Taylor scanned the screen as her stomach acid rose in her throat. "That's me. Well, Tina Miller, anyway. What is my information doing on this site?"
