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)
“They were auditioning.” Charlie sounded proud.
“And I told you we should have had them tattooed as infants,” Ian announced. His heart was going to explode, and not from love. Nope. Sheer fucking panic. They were going to kill him. He’d known it from the moment they’d been born.
Charlie stood and crossed the space between them, putting her hands on his chest. “Babe, they are so good at this. They were kind of born for intelligence work, and you fighting it is going to do nothing but put a strain on your relationship with them. Can we talk about this? Ask Drake some questions?”
She was altogether too reasonable, but she was right. He’d kind of exploded when the twins had told him they’d been CIA employees for the last year and not happy grad school students in New York.
He should have known they hadn’t gotten scholarships.
He’d kind of lost his shit and vowed bloody vengeance, and then Seth had offered to sing a song to bring them back together. Travis had pointed out a bunch of legal theories on how killing CIA directors could be a bad thing. Tash had baked cupcakes and the dog had peed.
Then Charlie showed him her boobs and he’d calmed down a bit. Enough to realize he was taking it out on the wrong people.
That was when he’d decided to sneak into DC and face Drake. He had a private plane. If he couldn’t use his private jet to attack his enemies, what was it good for?
He’d explained to Charlie he had some business to do and would be gone for a few days, and when he’d boarded the jet, she and Tash had been sitting there waiting for him.
No one ever let him have fun anymore.
“Come on, babe. I want you to really think. Could anyone have talked you out of joining the Army when you were a kid?” Charlie asked.
“Yes. If someone had walked into my life and said ‘Hey, kid. You don’t have to get your ass shot off. Here’s a bunch of money. Go to college.’” It wasn’t like he’d wanted to go into the military. He’d had zero cash and a mom and brother to take care of. He honestly hadn’t thought about what he wanted to do for a profession because he hadn’t had the luxury.
His daughters did.
“And when the Agency came calling?” Charlie continued to press her point.
He growled, but she merely stared up at him with those kick-him-in-the-gut blue eyes of hers.
Because she knew. He might not have loved military life, but oh, he’d loved intelligence work. He still liked solving a mystery. He felt vibrant and alive when he was working intelligence.
Did he want to take that away from his girls because he couldn’t handle the fear that went with it?
Charlie went on her toes and pressed her lips to his. “There’s my husband.”
She knew him so well.
He turned to Drake. It was time to listen to his wife. The twins wouldn’t be swayed, and it looked like they’d worked to get the jobs they wanted.
“I want them on a team. I do not want them out in the field alone. They need to work together.” He hated this, but he hated the thought of them being alone more. “And they need a tech they can depend on.”
Drake chuckled. “I agree. Kenzie and Kala are going to be in a program Taylor and I have been working on for the last couple of years. We recently got funding. Years ago Tennessee Smith recruited a team to support him, a team he continually worked with and could depend on. This team will be smaller and have more ground support. The twins are the technical field agents. They’ve identified who they want for support, and I’ve gotten clearance to use them. Cooper McKay will handle logistics and transportation.”
“I bet he will,” Tash said under her breath.
Kala had a thing for Alex and Eve McKay’s oldest son. A big thing. A practically from birth thing. “Does Cooper know?”
He had to ask because sometimes he wasn’t sure Kala understood the word consent. She could be a hurricane.
“He’s already accepted the offer. He was ready to leave the Navy,” Drake explained. “He’s interested in intelligence work, and I got the feeling he didn’t like the idea of someone else taking the job.”
“That’s interesting.” Charlie sat back down.
Sometimes he got the feeling he was left out of the loop when it came to the next generation’s connections. Mostly he was cool with that. Seth put all of his relationship angst to music, so the other kids being silent made up for it. “And you have someone for commun…fuck. Does Adam know?”
There was only one person the girls would go to. Tristan Dean-Miles.
“More importantly, do Carys and Aidan know?” Tash asked, a frown on her face. “He promised he would come home.”