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“You do,” he agreed.
“They don’t protect me from snipers though, do they?” I whispered, our eyes still locked and loaded on each other.
“No.” He breathed the word. “No, they don’t.”
“Am I at risk?”
“Not as far as I know, but you don’t have to be for me to worry about you. Look at Christmas. What happened at the house. Look what happened with Savannah. There are no assurances.”
My arms tightened around him. “You could be hurt too,” I pointed out.
“I could,” he agreed. “Look at Aoife. She didn’t even have to leave her apartment to hurt. Life is pain.”
His words made something inside me ache.
I cupped his chin and whispered, “That way of thinking is as much of a cage as this apartment could be for me.”
For the first time, I felt a barrier between us, and I didn’t want that so I knew I needed to prod.
Eoghan was the kind of man you could do that with. He wouldn’t slap me if I asked the wrong question, he’d just tell me he couldn’t answer.
He wasn’t my father.
Cautiously, I questioned, “You said that they let you think it’s the last time, but it never is. Who were you talking about? Who hired you?”
“They don’t hire you; they recruit you,” he corrected wearily.
Brow puckered, I questioned, “Who does?”
“Government agencies.”
I processed that. “You work for, what? The CIA?”
“Something like that.” He reached up and pressed a finger to my lips. “Best not to ask questions.”
“Even though whatever they made you do hurt you?”
For a second, I wasn’t sure if he was going to answer, then he said, “There are three people in this world who are as good a shot as me.”
“Three?” More proof he wasn’t my father. Papa was the best at everything. Always.
He nodded. “When I was in Ireland, I was sent to a small town, and after I set myself up, I realized I wasn’t alone.”
“You weren’t alone,” I repeated. “You mean, one of them was there as well?”
“I mean two of them were there, Inessa. Two. Do you know how fucking crazy that is? Three sharpshooters for one job?”
“Jeez. Who were the people you were targeting? Al Qaeda?”
“No. It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?” I argued.
“No, it doesn’t. But I realized something.”
“What?”
“I might never have come home to you.”
