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Aggie
“She offered you a job, didn’t she?” T asked, leaning back in the deck chair, lifting his already-tanned face to the tropical sun.
After leaving Charley, Aggie had taken the jet to LA and vanished. She’d liked Charley well enough, but she trusted no one—especially not someone in Charley’s position. Now that Charley knew she existed, Aggie was going to have to rethink how she went about doing things.
So she’d decided to go off grid for a while. To take a break and regroup. There was no place better to do that than her private island, and no one better to provide answers than her brother. Only one person had the connections and knowledge to pull a stunt like that, and he was currently sitting right beside her.
“She had a hell of a sales pitch,” Aggie admitted.
“You’re not interested?”
“In working for her? No. Too many rules.”
T chuckled softly. As a former SEAL, he knew all about rules and didn’t care for them any more than she did. That was why he’d created his own organization. To be a Chameleon, the rules were few and simple: cut all ties and cease to exist.
Unlike Charley, however, he didn’t only recruit already-trained operatives who’d proven themselves. He took regular people, those who had nothing and no one and gave them everything—training, purpose, a chance to exact vengeance.
Not everyone could be a Chameleon though. T hand-selected his people. Each was carefully screened and thoroughly researched. He said he knew within minutes of talking with a potential candidate whether they had what it took. He hadn’t been wrong yet. In fact, many of his operatives believed he was psychic—a rumor which T did nothing to discourage.
“Plus, you know I can’t stand the idea of answering to anyone,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
“You answer to me.”
She laughed. “You wish.”
“I do wish,” he said on a sigh. “I wouldn’t have to call in markers to get your butt out of trouble quite as often.”
She shielded her eyes and glared at him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re brilliant, but you’re not good in the field.”
“I’m good in the field,” she protested.
“You were abducted. You got hurt. And it’s not the first time.”
Well, there was that. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“You got sloppy.”
She clamped her lips together and said nothing because he was right. She hadn’t seen the threat until it was too late.
Aggie knew her greatest value was in her digital skills. However, she couldn’t stand the thought of sitting behind a screen day in and day out. It was too confining. Too restrictive. She needed to move. To live in the real world and be with real people. T understood that, even if he’d prefer that she’d stay safe and work from within a luxurious ivory tower.
“Has there been any word on Sam?”
“Still MIA.”
“Someone should do something.”
“Such as?”
“Find Sam and figure out what’s on those files. I get why he’d run from the mob guys, but from the FBI? Something stinks about that whole situation, and it’s not just the pollution in Parryville.”
“Hmm,” T hummed noncommittally. “Tracking. Obtaining information. Meting out justice. Sounds like exactly the kind of thing a certain mercenary specializes in. For a price, of course.”
Zeke.
Just the name was enough to make her body respond. Not a day had gone by when she hadn’t thought about him or that last full day they’d spent together at the chalet.
Or the way he dropped her off at the safe house, taken his cash, and skedaddled.
A soft breeze blew over them from the water, only slightly cooler than the air. Aggie turned over, letting the sun warm her back—partly to even out her tan and partly to avoid T’s assessing gaze. The man saw everything. His code name wasn’t Taser for nothing.
“Maybe someone should hire him to do it,” T continued.
“I thought you wanted to hire him,” Aggie said, remembering the way T’s eyes had lit up in interest.
“No.”
“How come? Didn’t he live up to your expectations?”
“Oh, he’s done that and more. The guy’s good. He tracked you all the way to Mount Elbert.”
“How the hell did he do that?” she asked, astonished.
“I told you, he’s the best. By the time he got there though, Charley was gone, and the facility went back to being a sad casualty of the post–Cold War era.”
“So ... if he’s that good, what’s the problem?”
“You are.”
“Excuse me?”
“I can’t have another besotted agent. People are going to start thinking I have a heart, and that’s bad for business.”
Her heart swelled in her chest. “Besotted, huh?” Then, she remembered their last day together and shook her head. “No, he was only too glad to be rid of me.”
“Well, he blew through more than fifty grand in a matter of weeks, looking for you. That says something, don’t you think?”
Her heart leaped, though she was afraid to hope. Afraid to believe that the regret she’d seen in his eyes when she got out of that vehicle wasn’t just her imagination.
Aggie extended an arm and ran her fingers through the pristine white sand. The sun beat down on her back. The waves lapped gently at the shore just yards from where they lounged.
What would Zeke think of this place? Did he even like the beach? Was he more of a mountain guy?
Finally, she said, “He didn’t do what the Navy said he did, did he?”
“No, he didn’t,” T confirmed.
“So, why’d he sign the papers that said he did?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” T mused, though she had a feeling he already knew. “You can ask him when you hire him.”
She snorted. “I have no idea where he is or how to get in touch with him.”
“Good thing I do then.”
Her hand lifted from the sand and shot out to the side. She grabbed a bit of the soft skin at the back of his arm between her thumb and index finger and twisted. Hard.
“Timothy.”
“Ow!” he exclaimed, brushing her hand away. “What was that for?”
“You know where he is?”
“Of course I do. What kind of big brother would I be if I didn’t?”