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“Is that all?” she asked, trying to keep her emotions in check. Her pulse fluttered rapidly beneath her skin and she felt the pressure behind her eyes of tears that wanted to fall.
“I can go on if you want me to,” he said, grinning at her in that disarming way he had. She felt the tension leave her shoulders.
“They’re just scars, Eden. Nothing more. We all have them. Some are just more visible than others.”
She knew he was talking about himself, and the pressure behind her eyes began to burn again, but once again the tears refused to fall. She thanked God for that.
“You’ve gotten to see the kind of man I am over the last several days. Intense situations bring people closer a lot quicker than normal. You know what else I see in you?”
She was almost afraid to ask and her voice was hoarse when she said, “What?”
“All of those qualities I listed earlier tells me that when you give your heart you give all of it. Which means you must have loved him very much. Which is why the betrayal cut so deep.”
She took a shuddering breath and her body started to shiver, but not from the cold.
“He was my husband,” she finally managed to say as her teeth started to chatter. “The night he shot me was our wedding night. That’s when I found out he wasProteus.”
Eden was almost comforted by the rage that flashed across Nate’s face. It was a secret she’d never told another soul. And deep inside, she knew she could trust him.
“I’m going to check the perimeter,” she said, and quickly made her escape.
ChapterEleven
Nate blew out a slow breath as Eden left him alone.
He didn’t know how long he stood there. To say he was shocked was an understatement. There had never been a whisper that Eden and Jonah had been married. Or romantically linked for that matter. Salt had no family at all and was linked to no one. If the agency had known, it would have caused a stir for sure. They tended to frown on interpersonal relationships. Domestic disputes didn’t go well while on life and death missions.
He wondered if Atticus had the same rule. In all honesty, he’d never bothered to ask because he’d had no intention of ever getting involved in a long-term relationship again. He already had one daughter who was growing up without her father. But he was a different man than he’d been back then. Work had always come first.
He’d met Jane riding high after a mission that had almost gone terribly wrong and he and his team had walked into a bar a few miles from the base where she was living in the dorms. She was in the last year of the four she’d committed to serve in the Air Force, and they’d taken one look at each other and never come up for air. There had never been anything but physical between them, but it had been enough for Stella to arrive nine months after that night. He’d gone out on the next mission and hadn’t given Jane another thought until he came back a few months later. And boy had that been the shock of a lifetime.
They’d married quickly and quietly and then gone about their respective lives. And luck had been on his side that he’d been between missions when Stella had been born. He and Jane had divorced before Stella’s first birthday.
But being with Eden—working with her and fighting beside her—seemed as natural as breathing, and he was starting to have trouble imagining what it might be like without her. He could imagine long-term with her. A life that included shared interests and travel that didn’t involve assassinating foreign dignitaries. Hewantedlong-term with her, even if that meant marriage. He knew Eden’s upbringing and beliefs were part of who she was. He’d never disrespect that.
Now he just had to figure out a way to convince her that she wanted the same. He could kill Jonah Salt a hundred times over and it still not be enough for what he did to her. Knowing Eden how he did, he understood that shooting her had been nothing compared to the betrayal of her heart.
Before he could dwell on it anymore, he picked up the satellite phone and called Atticus.
“Nate,” Atticus answered.
“You’ve sent me into a complete cluster.”
“I sent you to retrieve one agent,” Atticus said. “How hard could it be?”
“Almost impossible when it turns out Jonah Salt is alive and she’s been hunting him down like a dog for shooting her three times in the chest on their wedding night. Not only that, but Salt has his foot on Russia’s neck by wiring up a few of their oil tankers with explosives and blackmailing them for money. And, oh yeah, did I mention that Jonah Salt isProteus?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. And then Atticus said, “Start over from the beginning.”
Nate ran through everything that had happened since he’d found Eden in the warehouse, standing over the bodies of Russian intelligence agents.
“What do you need?” Atticus finally asked.
“I need as much information as you can get on an area called the End of the World here in Alaska. Your pal Joe told us that it’s an area where people go missing. I think that’s where Salt is hiding. And I need Cypher on the tech end of this. I don’t want to stumble across any more land mines or something worse. I want satellite imaging and heat-seeking capability.”
“Hold on a sec,” Atticus said. “Cal is here in the office. I’m putting him on speaker.”
Calvin Cruz, also known as Cypher in the hacking community, could work magic with any technology and could build something out of nothing. He was like MacGyver on steroids.
