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)
But his mind was on Taylor and how pretty she’d looked in her corset, how good it had felt to lay there and let her sleep on him. Even dealing with Nick Markovic had been kind of fun. For once he was in a relationship important enough that a father figure wanted to intimidate him. He would prove to Markovic that he was good enough for Taylor. He would make himself good enough for her.
“Are you okay?”
He forced himself to focus. Lydia sat across from him, a glass of wine near her hand, though she hadn’t touched it. She’d dressed for the occasion and looked far more like she was on a date than he did. She’d worn a sundress and heels and jewelry he didn’t remember seeing her wear before, but then he never exactly paid attention to what she was wearing. “I’m fine. You said he was supposed to be here at eight?”
“Eight thirty,” she assured him. “And I’ve already checked to make sure no one can hear us talking. Between the outside noise and the blocking equipment I have on, we should be able to speak frankly. I’ve also assured that there are no CCTV cameras pointed this way. I’m not going to have a repeat of Kraków.”
He glanced back toward the hotel where his mother was staying. A mere two blocks away, he probably needed to go by and do a walk-through before Taylor went in. He had all the schematics, but there was nothing like actually seeing a place. The fact that his parents were there would be good cover.
He fully intended to be in that luxury hotel when her op was on. He had several good reasons to be there, and he would use any one of them to ensure Taylor wasn’t alone.
“I wish we’d been able to figure that out. I would feel far safer.” Lydia had dark hair that she normally kept in a neat bun. Tonight it was down, one side held back by a flower clip. “I always worry that I’m working with someone who tried to kill you.”
He frowned. “I don’t think they were trying to kill me in Kraków. They simply didn’t want the intel that was passed to me to get to HQ. I don’t think it was personal in any way, though I was lucky to get out alive. I still wish I knew how they found us. I’ve gone over the CCTV around the site, and my asset was good. He kept his head down. If I hadn’t known it was him, I wouldn’t have suspected a thing. He managed to hide his identity well, and I didn’t ID anyone who was following him. So they didn’t tag him at the train station. They knew where he would be. They knew where the safe house was.”
She bit her bottom lip as though wondering if she should say something. “Have you ever thought about the fact that Brad knew?”
“Of course he knew. He was helping me. A lot of people know where the safe house is, you included.”
“The location isn’t well known for obvious reasons,” she pointed out. “The only reason I know about it is the fact that you’ve used that safe house in Kraków three times over the years and the first time I had to figure out how to get you there without using public transportation. There were very few people who knew where the safe house was and that you would be meeting an asset close to there, and Brad was one of them. I only say this because I’m worried about you. I know you weren’t meeting friends earlier last week. That wasn’t a vacation, and you weren’t on the West Coast with friends.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Because I know you. You don’t have friends outside of the Agency. I can put things together. I’m not stupid, and I wish you would trust me after all these years. What happened with Kyle? I read the reports, but it feels like something is off. Did you leave because you’re in mourning? I know he was your friend. He was my friend, too. I enjoyed working with him. I understood why he left after Julia died. He was heartbroken.”
He didn’t want to have this conversation with her. He’d made the decision to leave her out of any knowledge of what was going on with Kyle, the same way he’d left her out of the loop when it came to Julia. He would have left Brad out of it, but that had been decided by people higher up than him. Brad had taken on the operation to map The Consortium and its companies and hierarchy because Drake had been too close to the subject.
He often wondered how many eyes he’d had on him in those first days, how many people wondered if he’d been in on it with his sister. He thought if it hadn’t been for his close working relationship with McKay-Taggart, he might have been left out of anything to do with The Consortium altogether given his relationship with Julia. He’d been brought in to work the Maddie Hill case because they’d decided he could handle it if her old boyfriend got involved since that would mean Taggart would be involved. Sometimes being the only one the big guy didn’t necessarily want to murder was a good thing. Of course it had gotten him punched by Deke Murphy, but Tag had let the op continue, and he rather thought that was because of him.