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“It’s a woman.”
My eyes scrunched.“Someone inside SIS.”
“She’s trying to help,” he repeated.
“You know as well as I do that sharing classified information is treasonous.There isn’t a person in any intelligence agency in the world who would accept the rationale of ‘she’s trying to help.’Bloody fucking hell, Puck.This changes things.”
He shook his head violently, like he had more than once.“You don’t have a choice, Z.Why aren’t you understanding?You’d rather die than help?”
The anguish in his voice sobered me.That a man would go this far, threatening to kill another for refusing to provide the assistance he was literally begging for, woke something up inside of me.
“No, Sven.I wouldn’t rather die.”
His tears were different than what I’d seen previously.These were in frustration.“Justfuckinghelp me.”
“All right.I will.”
His eyes widened.“You will?”
“This is your chance, Puck.Convince me why I should.”
He stood, looking almost childlike.“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Bring tea,” I bellowed at him as he left the room.“And something more to eat.”
I shook my head, wondering if I was sinking into the same madness as Puck.I, the former chief of SIS, had just agreed to help a man who’d kidnapped me.It went against every bit of training I’d ever received, every instinct—except it didn’t.
I was looking at this all wrong.My instinctswerewhat I was heeding.Part of me wanted to believe Puck.He was one of my agents, dammit.I’dhired him, not Pinch, back when I was director general of MI5.
* * *
“We’ve got this, Dad.”How many times had I heard my son utter those words?If it wasn’t him saying it, Decker was.It seemed every time I offered to help with something on the ranch, one of them would tell me, in so many words, that my assistance wasn’t required.Quite honestly, I was getting bored.
While the time I spent in intelligence was brief, it was where my passion lay.Serving Her Majesty in SIS had been a lifelong dream, one both my parents had supported unconditionally.
I’d lived that dream for three short years.Rivet’s words the day I resigned echoed in my mind often.“If, at any time, you wish to return to the fold, so to speak, you will be welcomed with open arms,” he’d said.
The man was still chief of MI6.Would he recall his words?If I contacted him, would I be welcomed back?The possibility left me as excited as anxious.
Wren had left Texas to attend the University of Virginia, graduated, and was immediately offered a job opportunity by the woman who’d become her idol—Amelia “Vera” Watkins.She led one of the most elite intelligence teams in the United States.I could not be prouder of her.I was also envious.
I was a man in my early forties.While not the spry agent I once was, I still had years of service in me.
Quint, Decker, and I were seated at the kitchen table, about to finish the enchiladas Te-Te had prepared for us, when I decided to broach the subject.
“I’m considering contacting the man I worked for at SIS,” I began.
Both boys, now men, looked up at me with wide eyes.“Yeah?”said Quint.
“I’m not needed around here in the way I once was.If I were to pursue this, how would the two of you feel if I returned to the UK?”
Decker sat back in his chair.“We’d miss you, but we also know you’d be doing what’s right for you.”
I looked at Quint, who nodded.“We get it, Dad.”He scrubbed his face with his hand.“Look, I know you gave up your life in England when Wasp died and Mom wanted to return to the ranch.You could’ve abandoned this place and gone home yourself a long time ago, but you didn’t.You knew this was the best place for Wren and me, Deck too.So you stayed.You did it for all of us and for Mom.Now, it’s time you do something for yourself.”
“You’re sure?I could always come back?—”
I stopped talking when the two burst out laughing.
