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“What does that mean?” I let my eyelashes flutter in a seductive way.
“Be careful, Sydney Miller. That’s all I’m saying.”
He circled his arms around me and I let my body fall into his. He had me. Total control. Complete power over the rest of the night. His fingers tangled in my hair, bringing a rougher kiss on my swollen lips. We had made out until we were at the end of the brick wall.
“This house is empty,” I whispered. “It’s for sale,” I added
His eyebrows waggled. “I think I can get us in.”
“And the wine?” I kissed the hollow at the base of his neck, unfastening the buttons as we edged our way to the deck.
“We’ll drink it after.” He chuckled.
I nodded, knowing the desperation we felt for each other couldn’t be soothed any other way.
Chapter Ten
It was as if I could feel the nervous energy from the other passengers grow stronger around us as we continued a pattern around D.C. They shifted in their seats and tapped the call buttons with more frequency. If it was this bad in first class, I could only imagine the deluge of requests in coach.
Jeff and Cindy raced up and down the aisle serving drinks and sandwiches. I wondered how stocked the galley was for this kind of time in the air. What happened when there was no more Bloody Mary mix? What would Cindy say when she ran out of pretzels and sugar cookies?
“It’s classified, Syd. Classified,” AJ emphasized. “I can’t tell you more than that. Can you give me a break on this one thing?”
“I don’t give a shit if it’s intel for the president. I need more details. I need something to track down the chatter. More than this flight number. You have to give me something else to go on if you want me to find what we need.”
The longer he held out, the farther into the rabbit hole I would go without a carrot trail to lead me back to the surface. It would be harder to retrieve information. He had to give me words. Clues. A message. I needed sites. Names. More than an airplane’s flight number.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There was
a plan so you didn’t find out like this,” he mumbled more to himself than to me.
“What? The cat’s out of the bag. You have to see that. Classified information doesn’t mean anything in this situation. Tell me something. Please,” I whispered softly.
He closed his eyes, letting his head fall into the pillow on the seat. I could see how hard he was debating his decision. It was like I had asked him to peel off his fingernails. This went against everything in his training. Everything he was programmed not to do. Given the option, I wondered if he would have chosen torture over revealing classified secrets.
“It started six months ago,” he started slowly.
“What did?”
He rubbed his jaw. His stubble had started to grow in. The five o’clock shadow combined with his crisp white shirt made him look edible. Another thing I resented about my ex. We were likely going to die, and he looked hot as shit.
“The assignment I was given. It was for six months, maybe less depending on what I discovered.” He hung his head. “My job was to tail you. Gather every piece of intel I could on your contacts and your movements.”
My eyes widened. “You’ve been following me for six months? But that’s when I started traveling for my podcast. I got my first lead then. My first interview.”
AJ nodded. “Yes. I know. I’ve been shadowing every footstep you’ve taken. Although, I didn’t know at first you were recording it for a podcast. I wasn’t sure what it was. It took me a while to realize what you were trying to do. Who you were trying to find.”
My stomach lurched. I felt sick. Queasy. I bit my lip to stop myself from crying or throwing up. “Why? Who did you think they were?” I had to know.
AJ looked away. “The group.”
“Group?” I questioned.
“The hackers you used to work with,” he explained. “I needed to know you weren’t trying to make contact with anyone. I had to know for sure.”
“It doesn’t work like that. No one knows their real identity. It stays dark for a reason.” I was livid. All of this was a huge violation of privacy. Mine and the hackers I used to know. Not to mention the people I interviewed to find my birth family.
“Why? How could you do that? How could you invade my privacy like that?”
