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When she stalked out, I glowered at the door. We were on thin ice. We needed that intel, and we needed it soon, or Gennifer Goode, bitch extraordinaire, was going to prove to be a goddamn liability.
Gabe
I turned around in the alley of the Pompous Bar, and the man I’d come to find stood in front of me, arms crossed, a leather jacket hanging over a white shirt, dark jeans, and a beanie cap pulled low. "You look like shit, mate."
"Webster, nice to see you again."
"Did you bring the handcuffs? I was starting to like it."
"You would."
He rolled his eyes. "Don’t kink shame."
I shook my head. "You like what you like. I promise to remember the handcuffs next time. Better yet, I’ll bring Saff and she can wield the cuffs. She won’t be gentle."
He chuckled low. “Sort of counting on that. How is the ball buster?”
“Still thinks you’re the devil.”
Webster winced. "There's no coming in from the cold with that one."
"That was your choice. I could have brought her in ages ago."
"You and I both agree that when it comes to what happened, your sister, while she understands that I didn't cause your parents' deaths, would very much like to kill me just the same."
I shrugged. "Yeah well, she holds grudges."
"Fair enough.”
As far as all of Rogues knew, Webster was one of the bogeymen we failed to catch a couple of years ago. He worked for Antonio Igno, an all-around scumbag. Weapons, drugs, human trafficking, all of it. When I'd sent Saff and Lachlan to get close to his son, Massimo, in the Winston Isles last year, Drake had been instrumental in saving Saff's life.
But still, my sister had a right to hate him. He’d been sent in by Igno undercover with Saff to get close to her to get access to our parents. When our parents died, we’d all assumed it was him. I was the only one who knew that he was undercover MI5 and he’d been working as a double agent keeping Saff safe and trying to warn my parents. He’d failed.
We'd met in an elite MI5 training program years ago, before my parents were killed. When I was seventeen, given my aptitude, British Intelligence had come sniffing. My father knew it would teach me discipline. The program included military training as well as intelligence analysis. All the things I was already good at. All the things the Abbotts had already shown me. But it was for MI5. Guaranteeing that I'd be a spook.
"Not a good idea to look at the past."
I shrugged. "Can't help it. Every time I come to this spot, I think about us, a couple of shit kids, undisciplined. I’m fortunate my parents got me out of the streets and put me in the program. Otherwise, I’d have been a menace.”
As far as I knew, the program was still running. Instead of waiting for agents to come out of the military, or from whatever walk of life they came from, they started them young. Like an internship for baby agents.
Drake had been in for about six months when I turned up. My father thought it would be a good crash course, a good way for me to learn the intelligence game before coming to work at Rogues.
As it turned out, I was good at it. I enjoyed it. It was a challenge, and I might have stayed if my parents hadn't died. I finished their internship program and had just started going on missions, working my way up. Drake and I had been side by side. He'd graduated their program before I had, and he was going undercover. We hadn't seen each other in about two years, and then everything with my parents happened.
That was when I had to go look after Saff. I didn’t know he’d been given an assignment. When I was read in on the mission that Drake was on, deep in with Antonio Igno, I was furious. I was only read in because of the connection to my parents' death, and they didn't want me going after him.
Drake had found me though. At this very same bar. He'd sent me a coded message and I'd come, desperate to know what the fuck he'd done.
I tried to kill him. Almost succeeded too.
But he hadn't thrown a single punch. He had accepted it, knowing the trauma he'd put my sister through. He had tried to warn her, but it was too late.
At any rate, he had to go back to Igno, and I'd taken over Rogues by then, keeping Saff's seat warm.
But ever since he'd saved my sister's life, the rest of Rogues thought he was our prisoner at this top-secret black site. He wasn't. But for appearances, when we needed help, I'd call him in. And then we do the song and dance with the handcuffs and stern faces. We sometimes got the benefit of him coming just off a mission, so he might have been already roughed up. Other times we'd use makeup. My sister would kill me if she ever knew.
"I have something for you,” he said.
