AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He finishes my thought. “You think she was only there to pump you for intel.”
“Yeah, but I don’t understand why she was so deceptive about it. We could have had a conversation about working here. She didn’t need to lie.”
Shep rubs his hand over his head from back to front like he’s punishing his scalp. After a beat, he says, “Man, I’m sorry. I don’t know why she did it, but she worked at the CIA for a long time. That can change people.”
“You don’t think I’m overreacting?”
I was prepared for the first person I unloaded this on to tell me how overdramatic I was being. To toughen up. Suck it up and drive on. Take the victory of an epic night of hot sex.
But Shep isn’t doing any of that.
“Knowing what I know about Mia, I don’t think you’re overreacting at all. She’s not the type who walks into any situation unprepared.”
There’s a slight hitch in my chest as his words validate my feelings.
“Any idea why she picked me? There were three other guys there that night who work here. Jonesy and Tomer tried to talk to her, but she blew them off to go after me.”
Shep’s gaze flits to the clouds while he considers my question. “Did you have email or chat communications with Big Al or Tomer or anyone else about wanting that position permanently?”
All the dots connect at once.
“Yeah. Plenty. With both of them.”
With a nod and a bonus cringe for good measure, he says, “You were her competition for the job, Klein. She needed to know who she was up against.”
Those words confirm every fissure of pain I’ve felt since I found out I’d been nothing more than a mark to her.
She didn’t pick me because she wantedme.
I was an op. Nothing more.
The connection wasn’t real.
That explains why she slithered out that morning without looking over her shoulder.
And now I have to work with her every damn day.
I can’t do it. Either she goes, or I do. Asking to return to the field is out, so I either find a new employer or get her to leave.
But I’m not built that way. I’m not manipulative or underhanded. And I don’t want to be. I need to be the better person and stick to my moral compass.
Even if it sucks.
But wait. The timing doesn’t line up. She hacked our system after we’d already slept together.
Unless…
“The day we found out about the hack wasn’t the first time she was in our system, was it?”
He laughs humorlessly. “Not likely. We used to call her Ghost for a reason. She was invisible and could go anywhere she wanted. In and out without leaving a fucking trace. That’s why I wanted her at Redleg. She’s fucking good at what she does.”
Understatement of the year.
I blow out a sharp exhale. “I guess you can take the girl out of the CIA but not the CIA out of the girl.”
“You know why, right? As a Ranger, we had our share of shit to deal with. Enemies hiding behind every corner. Paranoia eats at you. But when we got home, we could leave it behind us. But that’s not the case for her. She never got to come home to her family in the airport holding balloons and a hand-painted sign, knowing that the threats were behind her. She knows too much and will never stop looking over her shoulder. How do you downshift from that? Not making excuses for her, but I understand.” He holds up his fingers in front of his face, thumb and index finger almost touching. “A little bit. This much.”
My head lolls around my shoulders while I try to shake out the tension and shame. “I feel like a fucking fool.”
