Page 150 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

“Yep—climbed out a bathroom window, banged on a neighbor’s door.”

A laugh breaks out of me, rough and completely involuntary. Of course she did.

Charlie adds, “There was also a shrub and a missing shoe. You can get the full story from her.”

I press the heel of my hand against my eyes. “She’s really okay?”

“She is, Miles. She’s a little banged up, but safe.”

For the first time in hours, I can breathe.

By the time I get back to the CSA, the roster has been secured, all six living assets are being moved or placed under protection, and Julian Rooke is no longer anyone’s problem to solve. I should feel victorious.

Instead, I’m just desperate to see one person. I step onto the main floor, and there she is. Reese is sitting on the edge of Charlie’s desk in borrowed socks, a blanket around her shoulders and a cup in her hands.

She looks up, and everything inside me stops. Then she smiles.

I cross the room so fast someone wisely moves out of my way. Reese barely sets her cup onto the desk before I pull her into me.

Her arms go around my waist, and I hold her tight. Carefully. Somehow, both. And she buries her face against my chest.

“Hi,” she says.

My throat closes. “Hi.” I kiss the top of her head. Her temple. Her lips. Then I pull back just enough to look at her.

She has a black eye. Scratches run along one cheek and both forearms. There are red marks around her wrists. I touch my thumb near the bruise without touching it. “They did this?”

“Well, the trash can did the eye.” She gives me a tiny smile. “The can and I fought a bathroom window screen, and it won one round.”

Normally I would laugh, but I can’t.

Her smile fades. “The scratches are mostly shrub-related.”

My gaze drops to her wrists—something that’s definitely not shrub-related.

She sees where I’m looking, and says, “Miles, I’m okay.”

I know. And I know she got herself out. I also know she was brilliant and adaptable and so completely Reese that she turned kidnapping into a story involving a bathroom window and one missing shoe. But none of that changes why she had to.

They took her because she followed my car to my operation. They tied her wrists because they were trying to figure out how she connected to Maxwell Shaw. She is standing here, bruised and scraped, because of my life.

I knew this could happen. It’s the one thing I spent years refusing to risk. I let myself believe that honesty changed the equation. It didn’t change what my life could do to her.

Reese slides her hands into mine. “You got Rooke?”

I nod.

“And the six people?”

“Safe.”

Her whole face softens. “Good.”

She says it like the cost was worth it. Like it was hers to pay. And maybe it was—maybe she really does get to decide that.

But standing here, looking at the marks around her wrists, I don’t know if I can survive letting her ever pay it again.

CHAPTER 28