by Kat Mizera
“I have to go down to the studio,” I told Nick and Sandor.
“I’ll call to have the car brought around,” Sandor said, nodding as he pulled out his phone.
“I’ll see you later,” I called to Nick as he got off on our floor and Sandor and I continued to the parking level.
“Are they fooling around?” I asked Sandor quietly.
“They? They who?” He looked completely blank and I didn’t think he was faking it.
“Nick and Skye.”
He raised his eyebrows but then shook his head. “Not that I know of. I’ve never seen him alone with her, but I’ve also not been looking. My focus is you and Luke.”
“Would you tell me if you did?”
“Would you want me to?”
I thought about it for a moment and then said, “You know what? I guess not. It doesn’t really matter because this is nothing but a marriage of convenience anyway.”
“What made you ask?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I stepped out of the elevator and Sandor gently took my arm.
“It’s okay to start feeling again,” he said softly.
“You mean, feeling like a woman interested in a man?” I huffed out a laugh. “No, it’s not. It’s going to take a long time before I feel like that again, if ever.”
“You’re twenty-three. Don’t do that to yourself.”
I gave him a little shrug. “It’s not something I can control. Romantic feelings and sexual attraction just happen, whether it’s spontaneous or something that grows over time, but they can’t be forced. Either I’ll feel them again someday or I won’t, but right now, I definitely don’t.”
“I think you were jealous just now.”
“It was more about being possessive than anything else. He’s my husband, but more importantly, he’s my best friend. I was thinking in terms of losing that, but it’s not fair to keep him from finding love if there’s someone important to him. I wouldn’t wish the emptiness inside of me on anyone. Speaking of which, you don’t have to spend every waking moment with me. You’re allowed a day off now and then… You’ve been pretty uptight lately and I’m thinking you need a woman.”
“I’m good, thanks.” He tried to look haughty, but I saw the color on his cheeks and it made me laugh.
“Sex might put a smile on your face.”
“No doubt. But I’m definitely not going to tell you about it.”
“You’re no fun,” I teased him. “I mean, if you’re going to be with me almost twenty-four-seven, the least you can do is tell me some fun stories about what you do on your time off since I don’t do anything fun anymore.”
He glanced at me and for the first time in a long time he gave me a genuine smile. “I don’t have any time off, but if I find myself with any shenanigans to share, you’ll be the first to know.”
I wasn’t sure why, but that made me smile.
15
Erik
My training with the CIA involved special circumstances. I wasn’t a spy in the same sense as most covert operatives, like Liz, for example. My status afforded me the opportunity to get the benefits of working with the CIA, like a new identity and key intel about what was going on in my country, in exchange for my knowledge of the inner workings of Limaj. They would come to me when they needed me, barring unforeseen circumstances, and my life in Monte Carlo wouldn’t change all that much. My exact duties hadn’t been spelled out because we would be establishing them as we went.
The only things I knew for sure now was that my new name was Scott Baxter and I now had an American passport. I also had to work hard to perfect my American accent. I’d worked with a linguist the last few days and while it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t bad. We’d found that I did better with a Southern accent, so that’s what I would be adopting.
I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the CIA, anxious to dig into intel about Limaj while simultaneously resenting them for turning me into someone else. It was a necessity, and I understood all that, it was just my stubborn pride refusing to completely let go of the past. Maybe it was because that would mean letting go of Casey, but whatever it was, it was hard as fuck.
“What are you thinking about so seriously?” Liz asked as we headed back to the hotel with her at the wheel of our rental car.
“Life.”
“Yeah, the CIA can make you think about that kind of thing. Just keep your eye on the ball. That’s the best thing you can do.”
“Which ball is that?”
“The one where you take down that bastard running Limaj?” She glanced at me curiously.
“Is that even the goal anymore?” I stared out the window without really seeing anything.
“Are you giving up?” she asked incredulously.
“It’s not giving up so much as facing reality. I can’t do it alone and my allies are few and far between. One of them is protecting my woman and my son. Another has become a limo driver in Monte Carlo. The people I love aren’t in my life for the most part and I’ve lost everything that means anything to me. Parts of me can’t help but wonder if it was worth it. Was Anwar worth it?”
“He definitely is not,” she said firmly. “But the sacrifices you’ve made have been for the safety of Casey and the baby, your sister, hell, even Sandor, Daniil and Elen. None of that has been in vain if they’re all safe, which they are.”
I didn’t respond, more frustrated than I should have been at this point in the game.
Her cell phone rang, and she hit the button for the hands-free unit. “Kingsley.”
“Aries has begun. You’ll need to be at the meeting place tomorrow. Eight p.m.” The caller disconnected.
I glanced at her. “A mission?”
She nodded grimly. “Our first, actually.”
“Our first?”
“Aries is the code name for the civil war in Limaj. Apparently, it’s begun.”
“Seriously?” I grabbed my phone and called the burner phone my father kept for emergencies. Once I’d called him on one, he disposed of it and got another, which he would use to call me so I would have that number. Then we’d repeat the process.
“Not a good time,” he answered briskly.
“Civil war has started,” I told him.
“Shit.” He muttered a few more curses in our language, then told me to hold on. Once he was relatively sure he had some privacy, he got back on the line. “Are you sure?”
“CIA intel.”
“Are you on your way to Limaj?”
“I’m not sure what the plan is but I’ll keep you posted as I can.”
“I’ll be working on things from my end.”
“I’ll talk to you soon, Dad.”
“Love you, son.”
“Me too.” I hung up and looked at Liz. “So, where is this meeting place?”
“Ankara.”
“Turkey.” I frowned. “That’s closer to the northern part of Limaj.”
“It’s a safe house. We’ll assess the next steps when we get there.”
“Let’s go.”
If I’d thought being in the CIA would be boring, I would have been wrong. We were on a flight that night that got us into Istanbul at ten in the morning and Ankara by early afternoon. It was odd traveling under an assumed name, going into a country I knew well, and being so close to the border of Limaj. I’d been to Ankara quite a few times but I’d never been to the part of town where the safe house was located. It was old and run-down, with few residents and even fewer shops. It looked sad and forlorn, unlike the beauty I’d seen in much of the rest of the country. I wondered if this was what Limaj would look like after being ravaged by civil war.
We walked into a run-down old building with bars on the doors and windows, through a musty shop, and knocked on a large green door. A man the size of a tank opened it and eyed Liz.
“Aries is flying,” she told him.
He moved aside and we went in, through a dark hallway and into an elevator. We went down and when the doors opene
d, I blinked in surprise. We were in a bright, modern room filled with desks and office equipment. A red-haired man in camouflage pants and wife beater looked up with a grin.
“Lizzie!” He got up and hugged her, spinning her around.
“Hey, Ace.” She turned to me. “Scott Baxter, meet Andrew ‘Ace’ Ross.”
“Your Highness.” He gave me a cheeky grin as he shook my hand and I tried to figure out why his name sounded familiar. I glanced at Liz and she nodded.
“It’s okay. Ace is family. Tricia is his aunt.”
Tricia. Nick’s mother. Did she have siblings? I realized I had no idea.
“Tricia’s brother’s son,” Ace said, sensing my confusion.
“Sorry, took me a minute to place you.”
“I grew up in L.A. and I’m a year older than Nick, but I spent a bit of time running around the Charleston with Nick, Liz and Casey.”
Casey. Ace Ross. The guy she’d lost her virginity to. Her first broken heart. Part of me wanted to laugh, but another part of me wanted to punch him in the mouth. I was definitely not firing on all cylinders tonight. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I wanted to hate him.
“So what’s the latest?” Liz asked, diverting the conversation.
“General Willem Doza led the rebels in an attack on Ferdinbrag. They took the city and have blocked off all main routes in and out of town. They’re burning everything in the town square and have taken the mayor and police chief into custody. Residents have been put on house arrest, anyone caught out after dark will be arrested.”
“Shit. Ferdinbrag is the southernmost city in the north, the gateway between the capital and the port cities, allowing those in the smaller mountain villages access to supplies without traveling all the way to the coast. Without Ferdinbrag, the north is completely cut off from the rest of the country. To go around, they’d have to come through Turkey or up through Georgia, and those aren’t easy borders.”
Ace nodded. “King Anwar has called General Doza a traitor and has a bounty on his head. Soldiers have been dispatched to Ferdinbrag but they’re at a standoff. Anwar is supposedly considering taking out the whole city.”
“Taking out…” I met his eyes. “As in, destroying civilians as well as the rebels?”
Ace looked grim. “Yeah. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
“Is the U.S. planning to intervene?”
“I don’t know. I’m not privy to what they’re thinking in D.C., but the agency doesn’t think so. This isn’t our fight.”
“Thirty percent of our oil goes to the U.S.,” I said.
Ace shrugged. “I can only tell you what I know.”
“I wish…” I let out a huff. I was wishing I could make some calls. But I was dead. And that put a damper on things.
“What about Elen?” Liz suggested softly, referring to Sandor and Daniil’s younger sister. “She still has friends and family in country.”
“Elen is safe at the Sorbonne, finishing her degree,” I said. “I don’t want her involved unless absolutely necessary.”
“A civil war seems pretty necessary.”
Our eyes met.
“She’s young and inexperienced. There’s no purpose in it.”
“At some point, we may not have a choice,” Ace pointed.
“Yeah, I know.” I really fucking hated this being dead bullshit. All the reasons it was necessary didn’t matter in reality, when matters of urgency came into play. Rage and disappointment and frustration worked their way through my psyche on a daily basis, making me unsure about my choices and regretful of what I’d set in motion. I hated knowing how much Casey was struggling. Holding my son that one time had been the absolute best thing in the world but never being able to hold him again was…incomprehensible. I wanted something, anything, to feel normal. Because this didn’t.
I would do what was necessary—I’d already sacrificed too much not to—but I didn’t have to like it and I sure as hell didn’t have to be happy. Maybe that was my penance, the idea that I would never be happy again and simply move through the motions in life. Though this wasn’t my fault, I’d dragged Casey into my nightmare and created a child with her to boot.
I took solace in the fact that Nick was a good man and he would love my child. Even if he didn’t for some reason, Casey and her family would give him everything he could ever want, from love to material items to education and cultural experiences. I clung to that knowledge, and let it fill me right to depths of my soul, as I picked up the phone and set a whole new series of events in motion.
16
Casey
With the charity ball only a week away, I was pulled in a lot of different directions. It seemed like someone needed something from me every minute of the day and by the time I dropped into bed at night, I slept soundly. I’d found that the busier I was, the less time I had to think, to miss him, to lament what had become of my life. I focused on my children, my parents, and school work, filling the extra hours with the tedious details of life.
They weren’t all tedious, of course. I had begun to enjoy helping Tricia with the charity ball, my classes this semester were easy, and Nick was still my best friend, though I was looking at him differently now. The way he’d looked at Skye when he’d seen her in that dress had impacted me deeply, and though my initial reaction had been jealousy, I’d told Sandor the truth when we’d talked about it. I’d been feeling more selfish than jealous in that moment, because I didn’t want to lose my best friend and companion. Nick had held me together during my pregnancy and then again in the aftermath of Erik’s death. I didn’t know what I would have done without him during the darkest days of my life, but it wouldn’t be fair to hold on to him if there was someone important to him out there.
I just didn’t know what to do about it because I knew where he was almost every minute of the day, and it wasn’t with her. So how had these feelings come to be? Had it started just before my life went to hell and he’d stepped up to the plate for me and my baby? I wanted to ask him but I knew he’d deny it.
“Casey, I can’t find my pink binder,” Sasha said, flouncing into my bedroom and throwing up her hands dramatically.
“Is that the one you covered in stickers?”
“Yes! And it’s gone.”
“Did you look in your Barbie house?”
She paused. “No.”
“I’m pretty sure you were putting stickers on it while you were having a tea party with your dolls.”
“Okay.” She disappeared and a moment later came running back in. “I found it!”
I smiled. “Did you finish your homework?”
“Yes. But multiplication is hard. Can you test me while I draw?”
“Sure. What’s eight times eight?”
“Sixty-four.”
We went through some of the harder ones and she knew them all. “They don’t sound so hard to me,” I told her.
“Dad and I practice when we’re walking through the casino.”
I paused. “When did you start calling Nick Dad?”
Sasha didn’t look up from what she was drawing. “Everyone else at school has a dad and I kind of wanted one too.”
“Didn’t your friends at your old school have dads?”
She glanced up, shrugging. “Well, everyone at my old school knew I didn’t have a daddy, but I didn’t want people here to know.”
“How come?”
“I just want to be like other kids.” She met my eyes. “With a mom and a dad and brothers and sisters. Even my friends whose parents are divorced still have families. Mommy and I just had us. We didn’t have anyone.”
Tears pricked my eyelids. Though I had family, I understood her loneliness, could almost feel it, and I held out my arms. She climbed into my lap and I hugged her tightly. “Your mom couldn’t help that,” I said gently. “Her parents died when she was young and she didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“It was so complicated.” She sighed, a little too heavily
for a nine-year-old and I gently stroked her hair.
“Well, nothing has to be complicated now. You have me, Nick, and Luke, plus Grandma Teal and Grandpa Lucas and—”
“And Grandma Tricia and Grandpa Nicky and Auntie Kari…” She spouted off a few more names, including Sandor’s, and I just smiled.
“See? It’s not complicated at all.”
She cocked her head. “Are you going to be my mom now?”
“If you want me to be. I can be your Auntie Casey if you’re rather call me that.”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, I want another mom. I just had to be sure you wanted the job first.”
I bit back a laugh. “Rest assured, I do want the job, if you’re hiring.”
“I think so.” Sasha hugged me tightly. “Just promise you won’t ever leave me.”
“I won’t.” I kissed the top of her head. “I promise.” I felt like a fraud making a promise like that because I knew all too well how easy it was to break it. No matter how much you didn’t want to.
The day of the ball was cool and sunny, but I was frazzled. Sasha was generally sweet and loving, but her grief had been poignant this week because it would have been her mother’s birthday. I put on a happy face for her, but deep down her grief reminded me of my own and there had been more tears in the last few days than there had been in months. It was emotionally draining, and gearing up for something as high-profile as the ball was exhausting. Nick did the best he could, but he was no more prepared to be a father to a grieving nine-year-old than I was to be her mother, so we were both flopping around like fish in foreign water. She’d been seeing a child psychologist, but progress was slow so each day brought new struggles. Today, she’d melted down over what to wear and it had eaten up my entire afternoon.
I dressed in a rush, not bothering to join Skye, Aunt Kari and the others as they let professional hair and makeup artists get them ready. I figured a few passes with the curling iron, my usual makeup, and a dab of perfume was the best I was going to manage at this point. Sasha was still having a meltdown about not having a dress like mine and I finally left her with the nanny, Marisol, telling her to wear whatever she wanted. Probably not my finest moment as a parent, but I’d run out of both time and patience.
