“Very good.” Grace stood and hung her jacket over her arm. “And thanks again, Agent Black. I mean, thanks again, Maggie. I hope this is the last time you and I have to work together.”
Maggie laughed again and bit back a cry of pain that came with it. She understood what Grace meant, even if her choice of words weren’t the most tactful.
The Director General said her goodbyes and left, but her words from before stayed with Maggie as she laid there alone.
You never really leave this kind of life once you decide to live it.
While Maggie hated to admit it, Grace was right. The situation with Ivan Dalca only made it clearer for her. Maggie would be wasted if she were to get a nine-to-five job. Not to mention mind-numbingly bored. The idea of gossiping around a watercooler or heading out to teambuilding weekends made her want to vomit.
She wasn’t cut out for a normal life. Never had been, even before she chose the life of an agent.
Not many people were capable of doing what she could, and to throw it all away would not only feel like she was tossing aside a huge part of what made her Maggie, but she’d be doing a disservice to those who needed help. To those who couldn’t fight back and were desperate for aid. Like Tamira and the other girls she’d saved from the syndicate. There were so many people like them in the world, something she’d witnessed firsthand for most of her life.
There were so many people like Ivan Dalca out there, too. People like Samuel Thomas, and Brice Bishop, people who wielded power like a weapon and used it against those who didn’t have any. She had the ability to stop them, just as she had been doing for over a decade now.
The idea had stirred in the back of her head, though Maggie hadn’t allowed herself to consider it as anything but a fleeting whim, until now. She needed to check with Ashton and see if he would be interested, but from the changes she’d seen in him over the last year, she thought she’d know his answer.
Maggie may not want to be a part of the Unit anymore, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t still help people. On her own terms. With her own rules and moral compass. Under her own agency.
Just as Dalca’s syndicate had created a hit list of agents, Maggie could create one of her own. A hit list filled with the names of the worst abusers of power she could find, and one by one, she would take them down. There were plenty of them out there, more than enough to keep her busy. More than she could ever take down on her own …
Maggie grinned. They had no idea what was coming their way.
After she recovered from being shot, that is.
Leon returned, and she eventually managed to talk him into going home for some sleep and to change out of his old clothes. She slept most of the time while he was away, the morphine lulling her into a dreamless slumber and keeping the worst of the pain away.
“Oh, sorry,” said a nurse as she entered the room. “I didn’t mean to wake you, but these were just delivered for you. Aren’t they beautiful?”
The nurse placed the gorgeous bouquet onto the table wheeled across Maggie’s bed.
“Thanks,” Maggie said, drifting off.
“Aren’t you going to see who they’re from? I bet it’s that handsome man of yours. He’s ever so nice.”
When it became clear the nurse wasn’t leaving without finding out who had sent such an expensive array of white roses and lilies, Maggie forced herself up and picked out the handwritten note.
Dear Maggie,
I heard you killed that idiot Ivan. I should never have entrusted him and his men with the list. You know what they say: “Never use a man to do a woman’s job.”
I’ll see you very soon. Promise.
xoxo Nina
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Hit List Page 23
