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“I lost her too,” he said. “I lost you both because you ran away. You can’t just bury the pain and pretend it doesn’t exist. You need to talk to someone.”
Grace shook her head as her eyes filled and tears threatened. But she remained in control, and her voice was steady when she spoke. “It’s over between us, Gabe. Seeing you is a painful reminder of things I don’t want to think about. I signed the divorce papers a long time ago, and I think it’s best if everything between us from now on is business only.”
Grace swiped her card at the elevator and left Gabe behind. For the second time.
ChapterSix
Hazy morning light filled the interior of Ethan’s bedroom, and he opened his eyes with both reluctance and anticipation. He put his feet on the floor and stretched, knocking over an empty coffee cup on his nightstand along with a smattering of papers. He swore and reached for his glasses, though they didn’t clear the sleep from his eyes. He grabbed his pajama pants off the floor and stumbled into them before shuffling to the bathroom.
When he came out, the smell of coffee greeted him, and the last lingering dregs of sleep faded as he realized someone had breached his security. He grabbed the closest thing to him, which happened to be a shoe, and crept into the main room as adrenaline flooded his system. Fear lodged in his throat, making it difficult for him to swallow as he ran probabilities and the implications of what a breach would mean. The others had to be dead or captured.
His thoughts spiraled out of control with every step he took closer to danger. What had he done wrong? He should have been alerted the moment someone stepped foot in the hallway outside his apartment. He’d never had problems with his security before. No one had ever been able to breach it. Well, except for Gabe, but that was to be expected of the guy in charge.
“Are you planning on shoeing someone to death?” a cold voice asked from his right.
Ethan whirled around to find Grace leaning against his kitchen counter, a cup of steaming coffee in her hands. She was dressed in a threadbare gray T-shirt and worn jeans, and her hair was braided loosely down her back. At first glance, Ethan thought she looked closer to his own age, but her eyes held an experience and wisdom that most people never achieved. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d earned every inch of her reputation.
“How in the hell did you get in here?” Ethan asked.
He felt the flush of embarrassment working its way up his neck, and that only intensified his anger. His system had not only failed, butshehad been the one to do it. He dropped the shoe and ran to the front door, tripping over the corner of his rug and barely catching himself on the corner of the couch before he face-planted on the tile. He ignored the sting to his pride, too curious to see what she’d done to the system he’d installed. He opened the panel in the wall, but everything was just as it should be. The wires were intact, and the red light was engaged, just as he’d left it the night before.
The muscles in his back tensed, and his palms were damp with sweat. He turned around slowly, wondering if he could make it out of the building before she got him. He’d seen the looks Gabe had been giving him lately. He knew the team didn’t trust him completely. Didn’t think he could handle the pressure or remain loyal to what they were doing. Well, screw them. He knew where his loyalties lay, but he wasn’t going to stop having fun just because everyone else wasold.And it might be perverse, but he was having a good time seeing how far he could push Gabe before the man snapped completely.
“Relax, Ethan. I’m not here to kill you,” Grace said.
“Well, that’s a relief. Like you’d even tell me if you were.” He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and headed back to the kitchen.
“Look at it this way. If I were, you’d already be dead. Here, it looks like you could use some of this.”
He took the coffee she offered him, his mind split between thinking he was going to die and wondering how she’d breached his system. Ethan drank from his cup deeply and winced at the bitterness that touched his tongue. The coffee tasted like it had been boiled a week and stirred with a leather boot.
“Never eat or drink anything someone you don’t know or trust offers you. It could be poisoned. Spy School 101.”
“Is that a joke?” He ran his tongue along his teeth and waited for something to happen, for the bitter taste of arsenic on his tongue or foam to start bubbling from his lips, but there was only the bitter remains of too-strong coffee.
“I never joke.”
“My mistake.” They stood in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes—or at least he was uncomfortable. She had a way of looking at him that made him think she could see into his soul. It was a little disconcerting.
He grabbed some cereal from his cupboard and ate it dry out of the box. “What did I do wrong with the system? How did you get in?”
“It’s a good system. You had a couple of secondary traps set up that I’ve never seen before, and I don’t see anyone outside of this group getting past your security. It took me almost fifteen minutes to get in, and if I was on a mission I would’ve had to abort. If it makes you feel better, probably Gabe and I are the only two people in the world who could’ve gotten in. We used to practice B&E for fun. It keeps you sharp.”
Ethan relaxed a little at her explanation, though he was already thinking of ways he could tighten the system. A couple of more secondary trips and maybe a body-temperature sensor would take care of it. She’d thrown down the gauntlet, and he was determined to best her.
“So you and Gabe have worked with each other a lot, huh?” he asked, curious to know more about the man who didn’t seem to have a past. Whose records had been wiped so clean there wasn’t a trace of him anywhere. And Ethan had certainly looked. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if Gabe Brennan was his real name.
Her lips quirked in either a grimace or an attempt at a smile, he couldn’t be sure which, but she didn’t answer the question.
“Now that we’ve had our moment of bonding, you might want to change out of your jammies for our recon meeting. Jack lives to torture, and he’ll be here in about thirty seconds.”
Even as she said it there was a knock at the door.
“Punctual as always.”
Ethan speared his fingers through his hair and went to do just that, not sure if he’d passed or failed whatever test she’d just given him. At least he was still alive.
* * *
