Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
“As far as I know. In our world is anyone really dead?” Brad asked. “Isn’t that why we’re in the position we’re in now?”
“Julia seemed pretty fucking dead to me.” Kyle poured himself another drink. “I left her body in a burning building. Next time I’ll make sure to take it with me so I can kill her again if she wakes up.”
“As for Lev, all our intel shows he died on a mission. On a mission that included The Consortium operative we now believe was actually Julia,” Brad explained. “Now that we understand who we’re looking for, we believe Julia spent a couple of weeks recovering from the damage she took in Singapore. After that, she began working full time for The Consortium. The security cameras were grainy, but we believe it was her. Killing Lev was one of her first acts, perhaps the one that solidified her place with the group.”
“How did she know about Lev?” His treacherous sister had killed Taylor’s dad. She would never forgive him. While he’d been seducing her, his sister had been taking out her father. “Why target him?”
“Because he was working on The Consortium,” Kyle said, sitting back, glass still in hand. “I even remember talking to him in a bar one night. Not while Julia was around. I worked with him a couple of times, though I never met Taylor.”
“He kept her out of sight as much as he could,” Brad explained. “It was important to Lev that Taylor not show up on anyone’s radar. She was insistent about running her father’s tech. She’d done it since she was a kid. Very strange education, that one.”
“I can only imagine.” She’d talked a lot about how she’d moved across the globe with her father, trained in ways most preteens didn’t. She’d basically grown up in the Agency. Like he had. Another way they connected, though he’d had a prep school education. Of course that education had been as much about gathering intel for his father as it had getting into an Ivy League. He’d basically been undercover since he’d understood what it meant to be.
Except with her. He’d been himself with her. Or some version of himself he’d actually liked.
“Lev was working on identifying the group that had taken up the work of The Collective, and that included recruiting operatives from intelligence agencies across the globe,” Brad explained. “It’s in the report, and I’ll be going over everything with Taggart’s group tomorrow afternoon. If he’s still coming. Do we still have an op? I’m not sure she’ll want to work with me. You do understand that there’s no op without Constance Tyne, and Constance Tyne doesn’t exist without Taylor. That day she was taken into custody and once everything was sorted out, she was offered this mission. From what I can tell, she’s the one who came up with the idea of creating a superagent for The Consortium to recruit. She’s not going anywhere.”
Yeah, his brain was already working on that one, but he might have to shelve that plan. “She’s not getting rid of me, and I’m not allowing her to walk away.”
It was the one thing he couldn’t do. Now that he’d seen her again, he knew he’d been a stupid bastard to have not gone after her. It had been shitty timing. Had it happened today, he would have gone after her. Had it happened before Julia’s death, he would have gone after her. But he’d been caught between mourning his sister and hating her, believing his every instinct was wrong, and how could something as good as Taylor be real?
Brad stood. “All right, then. I’m going to go and talk to Solo and make sure they don’t slip away in the night. You know where you’re going? We’ve got a room on the third floor. Now that I know where I am, I have questions about the room.”
Drake shook his head. “Ask Sandra.”
Brad ambled out, seemingly happy to be getting back to business.
“So you’re in love with Taylor.” Kyle didn’t make it a question.
“You’ve hung around your family far too long.” Drake took his first drink. Kyle was right. The whiskey tasted of peat and smoke and spice. It was delicious. It was probably going to get the job done if he drank enough of it. Maybe if he drank the bottle he could forget the look on Taylor’s face when she’d seen him.
“Okay. We’re not ready to use the L word yet,” Kyle allowed. “Are you telling me you’re going to be able to keep your emotions out of this and simply do the job?”
“Nope.” Well, he wasn’t going to lie to the man.
“So we need a plan because I assure you she’s making one right now,” Kyle pointed out. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to get kicked off the op, and I need you.”