“Now, Jack, please.”
When the tone of the words went from begging to threatening, Jack complied. He stroked on the condom and more lube, then sank in.
“God,” Jack hissed, burying his face in Ethan’s chest.
This was so completely wrong, but he didn’t care. Later. He would care later. When he couldn’t feel this dangerous, crazy man all around him, couldn’t feel him shake and quiver. Or hear him breathe Jack’s name, or taste his sweat and skin and musk, or watch the long curve of his neck as he tossed his head back, or the way his legs wrapped around Jack’s hips. He would care and worry after he’d come.
At least twice.
Several hours of sated sleep later, Jack roused to the strange sensation of another person wriggling against him. It had been a very long time since he’d actually slept with someone, so the feel of Ethan rolling over was odd enough to wake him. Conversely, it didn’t prompt a violent response, his body already adjusting to the other man’s presence.
“Jack?”
“Mm?”
“Come with me.”
Intentionally misinterpreting to give himself time to comprehend the words, Jack mumbled, “Didn’t I already do that? Twice.”
Ethan snickered and burrowed under Jack’s arm to press his lips to a bared shoulder. “Yes, and as good as that was, I mean leave with me. Help me find the person protecting Valadian. I think we’d make a good team.”
Jack unwound Ethan from around him and put as much distance between them as he could without slipping from the warmed sleeping bag into the cold night. He didn’t want to be distracted by Ethan’s naked body, but neither did he want to be uncomfortable.
“You do?” he asked.
“I do. We worked well together at the torture shack and against the dingoes. It would let you finish your job, as well.”
“No,” Jack murmured. “No,” with more conviction.
Ethan gave him silence to fill but when he didn’t, prompted with, “Why not?”
Jack wanted to say, Because I’m not like you. I can’t kill a man, then step over his body as if he doesn’t exist anymore. I can’t walk away from all the moral corruption and bad decisions as if they mean nothing. There’s too much inside my head. Too many bad memories. If I don’t let them go, it’ll be worse than marching into my CO’s office and punching until they pull me off, but couldn’t. Not while Ethan looked at him with wounded innocence.
Instead, he said, “This job is finished for me. I was here for Valadian. He’s gone and I have all the information we need to make a start on tracking down the rest of his partners. It’s time I went home.”
Ethan met his eyes and, as if he could see the words Jack didn’t say, nodded. “I understand.”
They didn’t move back together, but didn’t move any further apart either.
The next time Jack woke up, he was alone. Rolling over, he saw Ethan, dressed and packing tins of food into a backpack.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving. I think it would be best I got started sooner rather than later. Element of surprise and all. And speaking of which, I would prefer if you could keep the matter of Valadian’s protector to yourself. If he or she is alerted to my search, it will only make my job much harder.”
Whether it was the combination of the orgasms and the lingering warmth of Ethan’s body, or because he simply didn’t want to believe in the possibility of a traitor, Jack said, “Yeah, no worries. I won’t mention you at all.”
Ethan’s smile was glorious. “Thank you, Jack. I’ll take the buggy.” He stilled Jack’s protest with an upraised hand. “If it breaks down, I can fix it. You can’t. Sheila will be here for you. If you go due east, you’ll find a mine within four days. Once you’re safe, Sheila will find her own way home.”
He was right, and the last several days had allowed Jack to form an uneasy truce with the dumb lump of a camel.
Ethan was ready to go in short order. Jack followed him out to the buggy.
“How long do you think it’ll take you to track down this person?” he asked as the assassin settled into the driver’s seat.
“I shouldn’t think more than six months,” Ethan said confidently. He fussed with the seat for a moment, then looked up at Jack again. “Paul St. Clair.”
“Who’s he?”
“Me.”
Jack stared at him. “You?”
“You were right when we first met. Ethan Blade is a name fit for a circus performer or an assassin. Paul St. Clair fits neither of those professions. It doesn’t strike fear into a stout heart. Don’t try to look him up in any of your databases. He doesn’t exist anywhere other than here.” Ethan tapped his own chest.
Stunned by the offer of confidence, Jack asked, “Then why tell me?”
“So the next time you hear it, you will know it’s me.”
Jack swallowed the sudden rise of emotion in his throat. “The next time I hear it, or see you, I’m going to . . .” He couldn’t finish it, not with Ethan looking at him so openly and honestly.
“Going to . . . what?”
Floundering for something not pathetic, he found, “Arrest you.”
Ethan grinned. “Won’t that be fun.”
Then he was gone, disappearing into the shimmering distance.
“Monitoring’s down in the cell, as well,” Maxwell called out from behind.
“You’re an imbecile,” McIntosh yelled back at him as she raced after Jack.
He paid them no heed, fixated on getting to Ethan in time. He leaped down the stairs recklessly, then barrelled around the last corner and slammed into the door to the next level.
“Open it up, fucking now!”
“Do it,” McIntosh commanded, pulling up behind him. She was speaking into her phone. “Now!”
The door clicked open, and Jack was through and pelting down the corridor to the cells. Thank God the door to Ethan’s cell was sliding back by the time he reached it. He grabbed the edge of the opening, then swung around and into the cell.
“Jack, so nice of you to come.”
Panting, Jack took in the scene.
Harraway, against the wall, limp and defeated. Ethan, awake, in scrubs, barefoot and regarding Jack grimly, his lip split and cheek reddened. He was pinning his target with one hand to his throat, the director’s own gun pressed into Harraway’s stomach.
“He’s awake,” Maxwell gasped from behind Jack.
“Well observed,” Ethan murmured. “I trust the plan went swimmingly, Jack.”
Not quite able to form words, Jack just nodded.
“Ms. McIntosh.” Ethan let Harraway’s throat go, but kept the gun trained on him as he stepped backwards. “If you would care to take this man into custody. I think you’ll find he’s been very dishonest in his dealings for the Office.”
McIntosh, barely even breathing hard, looked between Ethan and Harraway.
“We can prove it, ma’am,” Jack said. “I have the data that pinpoints Harraway as the one covering for Valadian. It might take a while, but I bet when we start looking, we’ll find other persons of interest he’s been protecting as well.”
Finally, McIntosh nodded. “We probably will. Glen? Honestly?”
Harraway sagged even further, then sighed and straightened. Pulling his shoulders back, he smiled smugly. “I had a good run. Earned a lot of money none of you will ever find, and I had fun watching you all scramble at the crumbs of information I let you have. Frankly, I’m tired of it all. We work and work and still, the bastards are out there. As long as they’re running the show, why not make some money off it.”
“Was it fun killing Maria Dioli?” Jack asked bitterly.
“No, son, it wasn’t. You tried to warn her off, but she didn’t listen. She found discrepancies between what information Intel passed on and what she’d discovered herself. When she confronted me about it, there was little else I could do.”
McIntosh shook her head slowly, disbelievingly. “I knew you were losing patien
ce for the job, Glen, but this? Couldn’t you have retired?”
“On the pension this place gives you?” There was no malice in Harraway’s tone, just weariness, as if now that he was exposed, he didn’t want to linger. “Trust me, Alex will start to feel it in a couple of years, when all this stops being a big game to him. You, Donna, you probably won’t care. You’re here for the righteousness of it all.”
“Glen,” McIntosh murmured, as if she still couldn’t quite believe it.
Harraway turned that apathetic smile on Ethan. “Was this why Valadian hired you, son? To get rid of me before I could give him up?”
Ethan returned the smile, chilling and empty of compassion. For a moment, Jack thought he was going to pull the trigger.
“No, Director Harraway.” He lowered the gun. “Jack frowns on unnecessary death.” He faced Jack, his smile just as dead as the one he’d given Harraway. “You were right, Jack. My plan wouldn’t have worked. This was much better.”
Some of the anxiety coiling in Jack’s stomach eased. “You forgive me, then?”
“No.”
Jack tensed right back up. It was the buggy and the cave all over again. Jack had put himself between Ethan and his objective, had prevented the assassin from completing his meticulously detailed plan. The man still held a gun.
“Not until you apologise for punching me in the face.” Ethan winked.
On an explosive gasp of relief, Jack managed a half-hearted, “Fuck you, Blade.”
“Good enough, Jack.”
While two of the sublevels’ security personnel came in to process Harraway, the rest of them retreated to the corridor. Ethan was asked, extremely politely, to surrender his weapon, which he did. Jack, too, had to give up Maxwell’s gun. Maxwell was also stripped of his gear and, via McIntosh’s clipped, cold words, stood down as head of security. By the time Tan showed up, McIntosh was promising Maxwell he’d be spending at least the next four months on review, and in hearings for probably the next year. Jack’s smirk was wiped away when she threatened him with the same.
The oddest moment, however, was when Tan approached Ethan. It was then that Jack understood what Tan had been after in his interview with Jack. Tan wanted Ethan. Wanted his skills and methods. Someone like Ethan, highly trained, capable of working in so many different theatres, somewhat morally ambiguous, would probably fulfil all of Tan’s wildest dreams and hopes.
“Mr. Blade.” Tan oozed respect. “Thank you for your help in this matter. The Office is in your debt.”
McIntosh looked like she wanted to call Tan an imbecile as well.
“Not at all, Director Tan,” Ethan said urbanely. “I was merely doing my job. Which will be completed once Jack hands over the data stick he took from me earlier.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jack muttered as all eyes turned on him. “Forgot about that.” He reached into his hair, found the stick, and unclipped it from where it had nestled, camouflaged in his black curls. He handed it over to McIntosh, who closed her hand around it as if it were the last vial of antidote to the poison running in her veins.
“It holds all the data that proves Director Harraway was protecting Samuel Valadian,” Ethan confirmed. “As well as the key to shutting down the Matryoshka program.”
“Thank you,” McIntosh said, still icy.
“What now?” Jack asked, wondering just how Ethan planned on getting away this time.
“My job is finished,” he said simply. “Time for me to leave.”
After a long, tense moment and exchanged looks filled with silent arguments and counterarguments, Directors McIntosh and Tan stepped back and waved Ethan between them, in the direction of the stairs leading out of the sublevels.
As relieved as he was to see Ethan given his freedom, Jack had to wonder just how Tan would justify it to the minister.
“Cheers,” Ethan said happily and, with a parting smile for Jack, walked away. The guards and assets who’d been milling at the far end of the corridor peeled aside to let him go.
“Wait, Blade!” Tan called just as Ethan was at the door.
“Yes, Director Tan?”
“How will we contact you, if we have a need for you in the future?”
Jack hid a smirk at his thoughts being proven correct.
“It’s simple. Ask Jack. He’ll know how to get in touch.”
And he was gone.
Things went both blurredly fast and agonisingly slow after Ethan Blade left the building. Glen Harraway was officially arrested and recorded his confession. Jack was plonked into a chair in an interview room and forced to repeat the whole tale over and over. Around the twelfth time, he nearly admitted to fucking Ethan so hard he went blind in one eye for a minute. Escaping that potential pit of madness, he was released into building detainment again. His request for clothes was rejected, as was the one for fudge. The Aston Martin was found abandoned on the side of a road halfway to Newcastle, the passenger seat full of shopping bags containing the intel that originally led Ethan to the Sydney branch of the Office. The car was impounded and the driver never found.
On the fourth day of Jack’s confinement, he was summoned to McIntosh’s office.
“Sit, please,” she said, cool but solicitous.
Jack did so, a little self-conscious. He was still in his black combat attire, which had stopped being tolerable around noon on day three. Perhaps the smell might help them reach a decision about his future prospects as a gainfully employed asset.
“Before you ask, your actions are still under review by DIC Lund and Minister Simmons,” McIntosh said. “Hopefully their deliberations won’t take much longer. Both Director Tan and I have made our statements. I don’t know exactly what Tan said, but I gather it was generally supportive.”
Her ice-blue gaze drilled into him. Just as she didn’t like Tan’s propensity for retroactively approving the reckless actions of his operatives—and now one of hers—she’d made it clear she wasn’t happy with Jack’s show of initiative during this whole thing.
Jack was thankful for Tan’s backing, but had to wonder if McIntosh had been as supportive. Her stony expression gave nothing away.
“For my part,” she continued in the same steady tone, “I studied your interviews and reports, and spoke with Dr. Granger.”
They’d given him a break from the interviews on day two for another psych evaluation, which had been rough. Jack was halfway certain the doctor had come to all the right conclusions about his relationship with Ethan. Right then, he wasn’t sure if he cared.
“And?” he prompted, wanting this finished.
McIntosh regarded him for a long moment, and then her gaze actually warmed up several degrees. “And,” she said, almost grudgingly, “I believe you. You were in a difficult position and you did, if not exactly the only thing you could have, at least what you felt to be right.”
Jack carefully closed his mouth and took a few moments to order his thoughts. “Thank you.”
“I won’t pretend to be pleased with any of it,” she clarified, “but I am willing to admit my own culpability. I put you in that position to start with.”
“Because you suspected me of having turned.”
“No, not exactly.” A small smile flittered across her face at Jack’s confused frown. “I’ve suspected for some time someone was acting contrary to the Office’s purview. The flow of intel through every department has been sluggish for a long time, but it wasn’t until we stumbled across the extent of Valadian’s operation I realised just how compromised it was.”
Pieces falling into place, Jack nodded. “That’s why you sent me in so fast. You didn’t know who you could trust, so you had to act alone.”
“Exactly. I’ve been investigating it on my own since you went undercover. If we’d received all the intelligence on Valadian, that operation would never have ended as it did. Or been necessary in the first place. I’m sorry, Jack, but I used you shamelessly this past year. If everyone thought I was suspicious of you, they wouldn’t look too clo
sely at what else I might be doing.”
“Did you discover Harraway’s part on your own?”
She shook her head. “I suspected him, but hadn’t yet found the proof. Blade’s use of the Matryoshka program cut through hundreds of hours of man time. You were right about him, Jack. His methods are blunt, but he did surprise us. The only damage to the staff he caused during his escape, apart from bruises and a lot of headaches, was a broken arm.”
“It’s that personal code of his,” Jack said wryly. “He does the job he’s paid for, nothing more, nothing less. Is Tan serious about using him in the future?”
McIntosh startled him with a sudden laugh. “I’m not sure, but I’m looking forward to seeing his capital expenditure request if he does.”
Jack chuckled, pleased to realise it was genuine. Perhaps he and McIntosh weren’t in such a bad place after all. Which was why he said, “Ma’am, I understand the concerns you had regarding my loyalty.”
The amusement faded away and his director regarded him steadily, her gaze warm and patient, though, encouraging him to go on.
“And I wanted to let you know that I trust myself again. I have accepted the fact that what I did while in the desert was the only thing I could have done.” He’d been unable to say this to Ethan, but now, in regards to his future career and relationship with McIntosh, it was easier to admit. Less . . . important. “I’m back, ma’am. This is where I belong.”
McIntosh was quiet for a long moment. Then she nodded. “Dr. Granger agrees with you. And so do I. Welcome home, Jack.”
On that heartening note, McIntosh let him go. Day six saw him in Director Tan’s office, feeling even more unclean and rumpled compared to the neatly suited director.
“That was a big risk you took,” Tan said without preamble.
“I didn’t think it was that big a one,” Jack replied. “After all, you had gone to some length to tell me how your operatives were given more leniency than those of ITA.”
Tan steepled his fingers. “You’re not an ETA asset, Mr. Reardon. Would you like to be?”
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