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“She left,” Nem responded.
“Are you seriously telling me she went home, the last place on earth she’d ever return to, over an argument with me?”
“It was more than an argument, Cayman.”
“Do not get me started, Delfino.” I leveled my most lethal gaze at her.
“That’s it!”shouted Nem. “If you’ll excuse us, Kima, I’ll meet up with you later.”
“I’m not in the mood for this,” I said, turning to walk out of the room. Instead, I came face-to-face with Z.
“Sit down, Trace.Now!”
“You all seem to have forgotten this ismyhouse. I will not be ordered about by either of you.” I skirted around Z and returned to the second floor. While tempted to stop in the room Bexli had stayed in just to see if she’d removed her belongings, I continued to the next bedroom. Once inside, I slammed the door hard enough the paintings on the wall shook.
I pulled off the clothes I’d been wearing for so long I’d lost track and thought about taking a shower. Given it meant leaving this room, I decided against it.
After putting on flannels, I flopped on the bed much in the same way I had as a child. God, I certainly felt like one.
What in the hell had just happened? I returned home from one of the most difficult ops of my life, one during which I came within minutes of losing my life. I’d saved innumerable other lives, and yet I felt like a bloody idiot.
Mithras was still at large. We had no leads on who Pharaoh was or if there was a third or fourth person working with them. We’d lost four damned good agents on this mission, and while I’d be eternally grateful we’d rescued Bexli, no matter how angry I was, it was one of several objectives we’d started out with and the only one we’d met. As a leader—particularly one being considered as chief of MI6—I was an utter failure.
As I lay on the bed, I thought again about whether it was fair of me to want Bexli in my life. I shook my head. Not that it was much of an option now, given she’d left. Perhaps that was a good thing. Rather than manning up enough to push her away, I’d been a colossal horse’s arse. Mission accomplished, then, as they say.
But would she really have gone home? I couldn’t fathom it. She detested her father—worse than she might feel about me at the moment.
I had another thought. What if she’d decided to contact Xavier? The two had seemed quite close when I came around the corner and found them in each other’s arms. At the time, I’d thought she was in danger; however, perhaps there was more to it. Maybe the two were lovers. “Argh,” I groaned. Yes, they were lovers. The day after she escaped from the clutches of a human trafficker. God, what was wrong with me?
But where could she have gone? Did she think for one second I wouldn’t be frantic with worry over her?
I grabbed my mobile and called her. Naturally, it went straight to voicemail.
22
BEXLI
“Ibloody hate him!”I shouted when Wren opened the cottage door. It’s where I went when I stormed off, not giving any thought to what time it was. “My God, I’m so sorry. I woke you. Forget you saw me. Jesus, what an idiot I am. Sorry.”
“Stop!” she shouted when I turned to walk away. I froze. “Get back in here, and tell me what happened.”
By the time I got to her door, I was crying too hard to tell her. And when I stopped, both Kima and Hanadarko had arrived.
“I’ll start,” offered Kima.
I nodded.
“Neither Bexli nor I could sleep and talked late into the night. She was worried about Cayman, obviously, and I was worried about Poseidon. She stayed with me in the cottage and, when we woke early, decided to go for a ride, just to get out of our heads for a bit.”
She looked at me, and I motioned for her to go on.
“We went down to the stables and asked if it would be okay if we took two horses out on the trail.”
“The barn manager said they were the gentlest ones,” I interjected.
“Yes. Precisely,” said Kima. “We weren’t out on the trail for more than ten minutes when another horse passed us. I didn’t realize who it was until our horses slowed when his did and he yelled at the two of us.”
Hanadarko handed me a box of tissues, and I blew my nose.
