by Paige Tyler
“You two are never going to make it through this house unless you start to work as a team!” Sabrina cajoled from the catwalk. “You need to stop worrying about your own butt long enough to cover your teammate’s back. That’s the only way this is going to work.”
Even though Alina knew Sabrina was right, she still had the urge to shoot a few paintballs in the woman’s general direction on the off chance of hitting her.
On the upside, Sabrina didn’t tell them to go back to the start. Why bother? They were doing so poorly, it wouldn’t have helped anyway.
As she and Trevor continued to move through the house, they did a better job of shooting the targets, but when a flash of movement from the left caught their attention in the fourth room, both of them turned that way, leaving their right flank wide open again. Jake stepped out and popped both of them, then darted out of sight before either of them could react.
Alina let out a sound of frustration that rivaled Trevor’s growls. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Sabrina called a halt to the exercise.
By the time they reached the room where the hostage dummy was seated at a table with a picture of an angelic little kid taped to its face, Alina was more than ready for the training to end. She and Trevor needed a reset. Hell, they needed to get outside and talk over the possibility that they might be the worst team in the history of covert operations.
Alina was so focused on that, she didn’t see Jake until he slipped up behind her and draped one arm around her shoulder and neck, yanking her back against him. At the same time, he put the barrel of his paintball gun against her head.
“Drop your weapon, Trevor,” he called loud enough to be heard over the music. “You two are toast.”
Trevor spun around, pointing his weapon in her direction. For a moment, Alina thought he was going to say the hell with it and start blazing away. But before her partner could decide one way or the other, Jaxson slipped into the room behind Trevor and pointed his paintball gun at Trevor’s back.
“Drop it, Trevor,” Jaxson said. “Seriously. It’s over.”
Trevor’s eyes blazed bright with fury. He wasn’t the only one. She’d never performed this poorly in any training she’d ever attempted, not even when she was a rookie going through the academy at Quantico. She hated getting beaten like this, all because she and Trevor didn’t trust each other.
This crap had to end.
Alina caught her partner’s eye and held it. She and Trevor hadn’t been working together long enough for him to read her body language, so she hoped he realized what she was doing. Because she flat-out wasn’t going down without a fight. She was about to do something crazy, and if he didn’t play his part, she was going to get a splat of bright-green paint to the side of the head.
She relaxed against Jake, like she was giving up. At the same time, she tossed her paintball gun to the floor, slightly to her left. Far enough away that it was out of easy reach but close enough for her to get to it when she had to.
The moment she felt Jake loosen his hold the slightest bit, she moved. No hesitation, no concern for what Trevor might or might not do. She just reacted, stomping down on top of Jake’s right foot with the heel of her boot. At the same time, she brought the edge of her right hand down in a groin strike, whacking Jake in the balls. It wasn’t as hard as she could have hit him—she didn’t want the man writhing on the floor in pain—but it was enough to make him jerk away. Protecting the family jewels was as instinctive for a man as breathing.
Reaching up, she grabbed the hand he had draped over her shoulder, twisting it away from her body and torqueing his wrist until she swore she heard it creak. He had no choice but to let her go…or let her break his wrist.
Alina lunged forward and to the left just as Trevor’s gun went off. Hitting the floor, she tucked into a roll then grabbed her paintball gun and came up shooting.
Jaxson had been caught off guard by her sudden move, and he wasted half a second trying to decide if he should shoot her or Trevor. That delay cost him. Alina came up on one knee and popped him three times in the chest.
She continued moving, spinning around to face Jake, not sure what she would find. But she was delighted to see him standing there where she’d left him, a fluorescent pink paint splat right in the middle of his forehead. He looked pissed.
She turned to confirm that Jaxson was down as well and found Trevor regarding her, his gaze both thoughtful and approving.
“See how well it works when you trust each other?” Sabrina called from the catwalk. “Took you long enough!”
Alina ignored the training officer, focusing on Trevor as he continued to study her intently. It was impossible to say how she knew it, but something had just changed between them.
“Don’t stand there looking all impressed with yourselves!” Sabrina shouted. “Head back outside so we can see if you can be a team for more than ten seconds at a time. And Jake, wipe that paint splat off your face. You look ridiculous.”
Alina and Trevor made their way toward the front door. As she screwed another pressure bottle onto the bottom of her paintball gun, Trevor motioned toward the building with his chin.
“How about we try something different this time?” he suggested. “You take lead, and I’ll cover you.”
She didn’t answer right away, wondering if there was going to be a catch. When there didn’t seem to be one, she nodded.
“Okay. I can do that,” she agreed.
Before she could say anything else, the start buzzer went off again.
Alina shoved open the front door with her shoulder, forcing herself to trust her partner. They moved from room to room much faster this time, dealing with pop-up targets and the occasional appearance by Jake and Jaxson. Sometimes, they missed a target and got dinged for it; other times, Jake and Jaxson got them. But throughout the whole thing, she and Trevor worked together and covered each other. By the time they rescued the hostage, she and Trevor were that much closer to becoming a real team.
It was crazy how good that made her feel, considering that, according to the director of the DCO, Trevor was the enemy.
* * *
Trevor hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he and Alina walked into the Pizza Place in nearby Dumfries and he breathed in the aroma of garlic and freshly made tomato sauce coming from the kitchen. Damn, he could eat a whole pie himself.
He and Alina had finished up training two hours ago, then spent another thirty minutes hanging around talking with Jake and Jaxson before getting cleaned up. Alina had been fine with grabbing something for lunch at the DCO cafeteria, but Trevor hadn’t felt like sitting there while his coworkers stared at him like he was some kind of freak. Plus, this place made fantastic pizza.
Spotting an empty booth toward the back of the dining room, Trevor pointed it out to Alina, then gestured for her to lead the way.
The excellent food wasn’t the only reason he’d wanted to get off the complex. He also wanted to talk to Alina in a setting a little more private than the cafeteria. This morning’s training had made him curious about her. Once again, he had this crazy feeling he’d pegged her all wrong.
They both ordered iced tea when their server came over to drop off their menus. Alina glanced at hers for all of five seconds before looking at him.
“You want to split a medium pepperoni?” she asked, her expression hopeful.
“Let’s make it a large,” he said. “I’m pretty hungry.”
Their server brought their drinks, then disappeared with their order, leaving an awkward silence in her wake. Trevor added sweetener to his tea, searching for the best way to start the conversation. Across from him, Alina suddenly seemed very interested in the old pictures mounted on the wall above the booth.
Damn, this was so much easier when he was teamed up with Jake and Ed. Then again, training with them had been a whole hell of a lot less difficult, to
o.
This morning had been ugly, at least at the start of the shoot-house exercise. He was man enough to admit that a good portion of the blame for that train wreck rested squarely on his shoulders. Yeah, he’d been thrown for a loop by Jake’s trick with the noise and cow urine, but the biggest reason they’d done so poorly was because they’d flat-out refused to trust each other. With his shifter hearing and sense of smell taken out of the equation, he’d been dependent on Alina to watch his back as they’d moved through the house, but his suspicions of her made that leap of faith impossible.
It had taken Alina doing something extraordinary, like putting her complete faith in him and risking a paintball to the side of the head, to get him to realize he was being stupid. Dick might have hired her, but that didn’t have to define her. Maybe that’s what his gut had been trying to tell him. Maybe there was more to Alina than the job she’d been hired to do. While he wasn’t ready to trust her completely, he’d at least give her a chance.
“I guess you like pizza, huh?” he asked lamely, finally breaking the silence that had gone from merely awkward to seriously uncomfortable.
Alina turned her attention away from the photos on the wall to give him a sheepish look. “Yeah. When I was growing up, Friday was pizza night at our house. Mom and Dad made a big event out of it, so I always associate pizza with family and good times.” A smile curved her lips. “Now, it’s my number one go-to comfort food. My freezer is stuffed full of them, and the front of my fridge is covered in magnets from all the local delivery places.”
Trevor sipped his iced tea. He’d always considered pizza the ultimate food. “Were you being serious yesterday when you said your parents don’t know what you do for a living?”
Alina’s eyes sparkled with mischief as she shook her head. “I was just messing with you. Of course my parents know I worked for the CIA. Though to be truthful, they refuse to talk about it.”
He was about to ask for details, but their server came over with their pizza just then. It was an absolutely drool-worthy collection of cheese, pepperoni, and excess grease. In other words, perfect. The woman placed the big pizza on the table between them along with plates, utensils, and a load of napkins.
Trevor contained his curiosity about Alina’s family while they each helped themselves to their first slices of pizza. He watched in amusement as she used some of the paper napkins to soak up the excess grease, then practically emptied half a bottle of Parmesan cheese on her slice.
“You plan on having any pizza with that?” he teased as she poked the slice a few times with a fork as if she thought that would help all the added powdered cheese stay in place.
Alina shrugged. “I like Parmesan cheese on my pizza. Is that a crime or something?”
“Nope, not a crime at all.” He picked up his slice and took a few bites. “Back to your parents. What’s the story behind them refusing to talk about you being in the CIA?”
Alina hesitated long enough to take a bite of her own pizza before answering. “My family is what you’d describe as politically active. They’ve been involved in state and city politics for generations. City council, state senate and assembly, state cabinet positions, campaign management and fund-raising—you name it, and someone in my family has done it. With my background, everyone assumed I’d go into politics, too.”
He snagged another slice of pizza and sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on it. “You didn’t want to?”
“Actually, I did. I never saw myself running for office, but I thought about doing the behind-the-scenes stuff, maybe managing a campaign or working on someone’s staff. I even went to college for political science.”
“How did you go from being a poli-sci major to joining the CIA?”
She ate a few more bites of her pizza, nibbling all the way down to the back of the slice but not eating the crust there. When she was done, she tossed the pizza bone to the side and got another piece, drowning it in powdered cheese.
“There was a small Agency recruitment effort on campus,” she explained. “A lot of my friends didn’t want to have anything to do with them, but I went and listened. This was sometime in 2003, and the intelligence failures of 9/11 were all anyone talked about those days. What they told me changed my entire outlook. I signed up a few months later and went straight into the CIA right after graduation. With my background, I thought I’d be doing analyst work, but I ended up in the field instead.”
Trevor had still been in the army at that time and clearly remembered what those years following 9/11 were like. Those events had changed a lot of people’s outlooks.
“What did your family think of your career choice?” he asked.
Alina sipped her iced tea. “My brothers and sister weren’t thrilled, but they respected my decision. But when I told my parents I was joining the CIA, well, let’s just say they were disappointed. I think they had visions of me running around the world, inciting coups, toppling governments, kidnapping people, and assassinating world leaders. There was a period of time in the beginning when both of them stopped talking to me.”
Trevor winced. “And now?”
“It’s better,” she admitted. “But now, when I visit for the holidays, my profession is strictly off-limits. I don’t talk about what I do, and no one brings it up.”
Damn. That sounded really screwed up. “Must make for some tense dinners.”
She laughed. “Not as bad as you might think. I love my family to pieces, but sometimes they act as if the real world doesn’t exist. They’re comfortable believing everyone and every situation, anywhere in the world, can be handled through reasonable political debate and a nice, civil voice. You and I both know that, sometimes, things don’t work out like that. My family would simply rather not talk about those things. They’re comfortable not knowing what I do, and I’m comfortable not telling them.”
Alina might have seemed cool about the whole thing, but the slight elevation in her heart rate told Trevor she wasn’t as chill with her family’s opinion of her chosen career as she might try to suggest. He could get that. Family was family. If you knew they were disappointed in you, it was hard to act like it didn’t matter.
“Are you from the DC area, or did you move here after the DCO hired you?” he asked.
“I grew up in Sacramento, but the Agency had me based out of DC for the past five years. I have an apartment in Del Ray, near Reagan National.”
He reached for another slice of pizza. “Del Ray? That’s practically at the end of the airport runway. You don’t mind living near all that noise?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that bad. I don’t even notice it anymore. Besides, it was really convenient while I was in the Agency, since I practically lived in the airport.”
He chuckled. “I feel ya. Sometimes I think it’d make more sense to live in an RV. That way, I could park it at the airport whenever I go somewhere. Any plans to move closer to the DCO training complex at Quantico so you won’t have to deal with that morning commute?”
“No. I like my apartment, and my neighbor is my best friend. No way am I going anywhere.” She shrugged. “Besides, I still have no idea if this gig in the DCO is going to work out. It would be stupid to move then find out I don’t like the work that much.” She motioned at him with her half-eaten slice of pizza. “How about you? Do you live near Quantico?”
“Yeah. I have an apartment in Woodbridge that I was lucky enough to get into called Kensington Place. I can stumble to my car ten minutes before work and still make it there in time.”
She blinked. “I’ve heard of that place. It’s kind of fancy, isn’t it?”
“It’s a little pricey, I admit. But shifters do get a bonus over the regular GS wage scale. The DCO actually found the place for me.”
She laughed. “The perks of having fangs and claws, I guess.”
Trevor didn’t sense a trace of bitterness in her words, whi
ch was what he usually got from a lot of the other regular agents working in the DCO when they found out that the freaks got paid more than they did.
“Okay, now that you know all about me, what about you?” Alina asked. “How’d you end up in the DCO?”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “It’s a long story.”
She gestured at the pie in the center of the table. “We still have half a pizza left to polish off, so feel free to take your time.”
“Well, in that case, I suppose I should start with the fact that I was born to be a cop,” Trevor said, grabbing another slice.
Alina lifted a brow. “That seems like a tough burden to put on a newborn, don’t you think?”
He chuckled. “I’m serious. My dad, uncle, all three of my brothers, and my sister are all cops in Portland, so I’m not exaggerating when I say my life was planned out for me. From the time I was ten years old, it was a given that I’d either go in the army and serve as an MP, then get out after my first tour so I could become a cop like everyone else in my family, or I’d go to the local junior college and get my associate’s degree in criminal justice, then get a job as a cop like everyone else in my family.”
Alina made a face. “Crap. And I thought my life had been tightly scripted out for me. That had to have been a little claustrophobic.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” he agreed. “But it turned out that in my case, I had even fewer options than that. See, I was a wide receiver for our high school football team, and I was good enough to get some attention from the local universities. I got a couple of looks from recruiters at both Oregon and Oregon State during my junior year, and everyone was talking a full scholarship if I could make it through my senior year without getting injured. I have to admit I was kind of psyched about going to a big school and playing in front of thousands of fans. Unfortunately, my mom and dad weren’t planning on letting me get near any of the big schools. They’d already locked their sights on Western Oregon University. It was only an hour and a half from home, and it offered a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a full scholarship. Dad was practically salivating at the thought of his youngest son hitting the detective ranks before the age of thirty. So at that point, even the military was off the table.”
