by Lucy Monroe
Chapter Twenty-two
“You would have died rather than betray your government,” Jamila said with deep respect.
“Or you. They wanted me to confirm I wasn’t just a tourist.”
“But you would not expose me to harm.”
“No.”
“You are a strong woman with great moral character.” Jamila smiled at Rachel, a genuine smile Rachel wasn’t sure she would have been capable of in the circumstances. The Egyptian woman’s own strength shone in her dark brown eyes.
Rachel didn’t see herself that way. “I am what I need to be.”
“And we are never going to get out of here if you don’t start packing these files.” Kadin’s tone was indulgent, his hand once again reaching out to touch her.
To remind her that he was there. And maybe to remind himself that she was, too.
When they finished, they put the physical evidence into the trunk of the car their contacts had provided. Rachel appreciated a criminal who didn’t trust computers completely and therefore kept a paper trail. It would make their job that much easier.
Jamila had packed some clothes and a few items of sentimental value while the mercenaries and Rachel emptied the filing drawers in Massri’s secret room, as well as combing it for any other possible physical evidence.
“He will not even notice I have taken these things. He knows so little about me and shows even less interest,” Jamila said as she and Neil carried her single suitcase and a medium-size box out to the car.
They collected Jayne and Cowboy, who seemed pretty pleased with what they had found in Chuma’s office and the safe in his bedroom, and headed back to the landing strip where their private jet waited.
Once the plane was airborne, Rachel immediately started going through Massri’s files while Jayne dug into Chuma’s hard drive with Neil’s help. Their plane landed in Morocco nearly five hours later, but only to refuel before taking off again for the U.S.A.
By the time they arrived in DC, Rachel could barely keep her eyes open, but she was confident she and Jayne had catalogued enough documentation to not only bring Dr. Massri to justice but to get Terne Lavigne put up on charges of treason in France.
And the Egyptian politician, even if he was not imprisoned, at the very least would see his career in the political arena annihilated.
There were others involved, as well, and they would take a fall, too, but one thing was clear. This information revealed the true head of the Hydra and how to cut it off so the organization would die.
Kadin didn’t ask if she wanted him to go home with her. He just got into the SUV Andrew Whitney had sent to take her to her small apartment in Maryland.
Housing costs were too high in DC for Rachel to even contemplate keeping an apartment there, especially considering how little time she was at home. However, she was regretting the choice now, when she had a forty-five-minute car ride between her and her bed.
Rachel had offered Jamila a place to stay, but the younger woman had refused, saying she was fine with the protective custody Whit had arranged.
Rachel felt a lot better about it when she discovered that the FBI protection detail included an agent she’d known since her DEA days.
“We’ll meet in the office tomorrow to go over evidence and information,” Whit instructed. “Tonight, get some sleep.”
It was early evening, but since Rachel hadn’t slept except fitfully during that first plane ride in over thirty-six hours, she didn’t argue.
She was still nodding her assent as Kadin pulled her into the back of the SUV and buckled her seat belt for her. “Lean on me. You can sleep on the drive into Maryland.”
“You’ve got my back,” she slurred tiredly.
“Always. If you’ll let me.”
She didn’t answer, just snuggled into his side and let her head fall onto his shoulder. She was only vaguely aware when he carried her from the car to her apartment and then proceeded to tuck her into bed.
She didn’t slip back into full sleep until he joined her, though.
It was still dark outside when Rachel woke up. Kadin’s body was wrapped around hers, one big hand in firm possession of her hip.
She turned a little, so she could look up at his face in the light cast by the streetlamp outside. He hadn’t shut the blackout drapes over her window.
The sheer voile curtain did little more than diffuse the glow.
His body tensed subtly, telling her that even that small movement had woken him. His eyes opened, their sherry brown depths indiscernible in the shadows.
“Please tell me you don’t normally wake up at …” He looked over at her digital alarm clock. “Four-thirty in the morning. I thought I gave up those kind of insane hours when I left the military.”
She smiled at the cranky rumble to his voice. “Only when I go to bed before the time I usually eat dinner.”
“Dinner’s supposed to be eaten at six o’clock. No later. A man could faint from hunger if the chow’s not on by then.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.” He made an X sign over his chest. “Cross my heart.”
“And does this man cook?”
“Of course. I’d pretty much starve otherwise. I live alone.”
“Good, because if you want to eat by six, you’ll be making dinner more often than I will.”
“I can live with that.”
Rachel stilled and then shared her greatest fear. “I’m afraid you still have an idealized view of me. I don’t think the real Rachel Gannon will be able to live up to that woman on a twenty–four/ seven basis.”
“Would you say you had an idealized view of Jamila?” he asked.
“No.” Rachel stopped and thought. “Not that, but I did underestimate her.”
“And that’s what I did with you ten years ago, but, my sweet angel, I haven’t underestimated you since carrying you out of that cell in Morocco.”
“You said that perfect image of me had sustained you through the ugliest parts of war.”
“You sustained me, thinking of you somewhere safe in the world because I was willing to fight for freedom. That’s what sustained me.”
“I can’t be less than I am, but I can’t be more than I am, either.” Would he understand that?
He rolled over on top of her, holding the bulk of his weight up on his arms. But then he lifted a little, reaching toward the table beside the bed.
A second later the lamp clicked on, its yellow glow revealing Kadin’s expression. His brown gaze was filled with an emotion she’d once believed in. Could she again?
She’d already accepted that he loved her, but could she trust that love to endure? The two of them together, so close they shared everything in their lives?
“I don’t want you to be anyone but exactly who you are,” Kadin said with unshakable confidence. “And I damn well don’t want to live another day of my life without you in it. I screwed up ten years ago. So badly. And it makes me ashamed to admit I didn’t even realize how bad my choice was for both of us until Morocco.”
“You left because you thought I couldn’t handle what you’d become.”
“Yes, but you were right the other day. I left because I couldn’t handle what I’d become, either.”
“You were worried that you’d been used as a weapon against targets that shouldn’t have been casualties of war.”
“I was.” His voice was raw, his expression totally open, and she could see that it ravaged him to admit this. “One of my first kills. He was a political target, not a military one. I figured it out when I saw his picture on the local news. I couldn’t understand the language being spoken, but I got that he was dead. I asked somebody exactly who he was.”
“Not military.”
“Definitely not.”
“Kadin, military assassins aren’t always given other military as targets.”
“I know, but back then, I was such a kid, and I really believed I was fighting for our freedom.”
“You w
ere.”
“But I was also fighting for political leverage.”
“War is like that, ugly and multifaceted and very, very costly in so many ways.”
“It cost me you.”
She finally understood that it had. Kadin had done something that his twenty-year-old self could not reconcile with his beliefs and sense of honor.
“You gave me up in penance.”
His throat convulsed, his face twisting in pain every bit as deep as her own had ever been. “I think I did.”
“You didn’t believe you deserved to be happy anymore.”
“But I destroyed your happiness along with mine. I destroyed Linny’s life.” He buried his face in her neck. “How can you forgive me for that?”
Two weeks ago, she would have said simply that she couldn’t. But a lot had changed inside her in the past days. “I already have. And the truth is, it wasn’t you … or even me … who destroyed Linny. Arthur Prescott destroyed Linny’s life, and she helped him do it.”
It was so hard to admit that, but Rachel wasn’t going to live her life with any more lies. Even ones she told herself.
“Jamila could have curled up into a ball after what happened, but she’s going to fight for a better life.”
Kadin lifted his face, their eyes meeting again.
It felt so good, Rachel sighed.
He smiled and then said of Jamila, “She took back her power.”
“And she’ll keep on taking it. Linny gave up, and that was her choice. It will always hurt, and I’ll probably always believe I could have done something if I’d been paying better attention, but she hid her sadness too well.”
“Prescott played with her mind.”
“Men like him do, but my sister could have reached out to me. She knew that. She chose not to. She chose to give up when he dumped her.”
“She was a sweet girl, Rachel, but she liked things easy.”
It hurt to hear, but she couldn’t deny the truth. “And she drank too much. You can’t make good choices when your brain is pickled half the time. I didn’t know that, either, you know? I didn’t find out until I started investigating after her death.”
“She made mistakes, but she loved you.”
“And she knew I loved her,” Rachel admitted for the first time in four years. “It hurts so much to know that wasn’t enough.”
“You’re enough for me.” Kadin pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re exactly what I need, what I want, and every dream I let myself have.”
It was so much, this acceptance that had been ten years in the making. She didn’t pick it to death, and she wasn’t going to let Kadin overthink their reconciliation, either. They were moving forward. The past had claimed too much of both their lives.
“I don’t want to raise our kids with one or both parents gone for indeterminate periods of time,” she said with certainty.
Kadin’s body tensed, and then she felt hot wetness rolling from his temples to hers. “I love you, Rachel. I don’t know how to stop. And I’ll do whatever it takes to finally convince you of that.”
“Good. Remember that the next time you decide to punish yourself.”
He chuckled, his breath hitching a little.
“I love you, too,” she whispered against his lips as she pressed their mouths together.
They made love like they hadn’t in ten years, with full certainty of their future and the love that bound them together.
Afterward, he cuddled her close. “So, no more mercenary?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“No more secret agent?”
“Nope. I’m not sure if I even still have a job, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve spent ten years more alone than I ever want to be again.”
“My family wants me to move back home,” he said.
“Sacramento’s a pretty good place to raise a family.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“I need to go into TGP’s offices today.”
“I have to write my reports for Roman.”
“Maybe the Atrati could use a training facility on the West Coast.”
No one could have been more surprised than Rachel to come home from a grueling day going over evidence and assessing how complete the picture they had was, to find out that her parting shot that morning to Kadin had been nothing short of prophetic.
“The facility is north of Sacramento, almost at the Oregon border. It’s small town out there, but we’d be closer to my family, and I’d get to hire my own instructors.”
“They’re making you the head of the facility?” she asked in shock.
“No way. Chief gets that job. But I’m in charge of sniper training and tactical warfare.”
“That’s kind of amazing.”
“Yeah. Maybe someone up there doesn’t think I screwed up too badly after all.”
Rachel found herself smiling. “I’d say that’s a given.”
“I want you to come on as an instructor.”
“I’m a spy, not a soldier.”
“You’re an expert marksman and have sniper training as well as covert ops. You’re exactly what I need out there.”
“As one of your instructors?”
“As my everything.”
“No one should be someone else’s everything.” But for a lucky few, the love was so deep, it would always feel that way.
“Okay, but can I just feel like it?” he asked, echoing her thoughts.
She grinned. “Yes.”
What else could she say? She and Kadin had both built lives without each other. There was no question they could survive on their own, but to be deep-down happy? They needed the other half of their souls.
“I’m glad to have mine back,” she sighed against him as he kissed her.
“Your what?”
“Soul mate.”
“Me, too.”
“Always,” she said the way she used to.
“Forever,” he replied as he always had. And now she knew that he meant it.
Even if they’d had a detour to their future, they were still twined together with love so deep, it hadn’t died despite ten years of pain, loneliness, and even sometimes hatred.
True love had that power, and it was a power Rachel was never letting go of again.
Epilogue
The news reported that a certain Egyptian politician was sentenced to death for treason and acts against allied nations. Jamila Massri could not make herself mourn the man’s coming demise, any more than she mourned her own father’s incarceration and being stripped of all his money, luxuries, and freedom for the rest of his life.
Dr. Massri hadn’t even discovered his empty filing cabinet before he was arrested upon his arrival at the airport in Cairo.
He’d never tried to find her, never brought her up during his interrogation. Both Jamila and her protectors had come to realize that her father assumed Abasi Chuma had eliminated her.
Stupid, arrogant man.
Some men, especially bad men, were like that. Some men, like Mr. Andrew Whitney, were good men and helpful.
He’d arranged for her transfer to a university only a few hours’ drive from her new friend Rachel’s home with her husband, the big ex-mercenary, Kadin Marks.
Jamila was majoring in criminal justice and minoring in psychology. She was going to be an amazing undercover agent someday.
And she would never forget what Rachel had done for her, saving her life and her sanity.
The world had many good people in it, and Jamila wanted to spend her life protecting them from the ones bent on destruction and pursuing their own selfish purposes no matter the cost.
Maybe one day, she would even be a TGP agent like Rachel, or an FBI agent like the ones who had protected her until it was determined her father believed her to be dead.
Whatever she became, her future was hers to plan.
Just as it should be.
Also available this month from Brava, Demon Hunting in a Dive Bar by Lex
i George.
She was wiping down the bar when she saw him, sitting in his usual spot at a table in the corner, surrounded by shadows. Shadows that he brought with him, Beck thought with a surge of annoyance. Conall Dalvahni carried his own black hole of gloom wherever he went. With his dark hair and eyes, and his brooding expression, he was the freaking Grim Reaper, if Death were a demon hunter.
Beck couldn’t stand the guy, and the feeling was mutual. So, why was he back? He’d made it clear he thought she was pond scum, an insult to decent, right thinking creatures everywhere.
He was a demon slayer and she was a demonoid. Polar opposites. Oil and vinegar. TNT and a lit match.
It had been nearly a month since she’d last seen him. Twenty-one days, to be exact, three whole weeks without Mr. Dark and Gloomy, and good riddance. She should have shrugged off his icy disdain by now, forgotten about him and moved on. But his obvious contempt for her had stuck in her craw. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, and that pissed her off.
Everything about him pissed her off. His forbidding, humorless demeanor and his arrogant, holier-than-thou attitude.
And now he was back. Not for long, though. This was her place. She’d kicked him out once and she’d do it again.
Hefting a liquor bottle with a metal pour spot in one hand, she stalked over to his table.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“That depends.” His deep, rough voice grated on her nerves and made her stomach knot. “What have you to offer?”
“Nothing you’re interested in.”
His dark gaze raked her up and down, casual and insolent. Infuriating. Beck’s grip tightened on the bottle.
“You are mistaken,” he said. “You have information about the demon activity in this area, information that I require.”
“Get your information someplace else, mister.”
“I am more than willing to recompense you for your trouble.”
A flat leather pouch appeared in his hand. Opening it, he tossed a thick wad of hundred dollar bills on the table between them. Beck stared at the pile of bills. It was a lot of money, several thousand dollars at least.
“There is more where that came from, Rebekah.”
Something hot and hurt flared inside her. On top of being lower than dirt, he thought she was for sale. She pushed the feeling aside. It didn’t matter what he thought. She was an idiot for letting the guy get under her skin.
