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)
“Taylor wasn’t involved.” He said the words but even as they came out of his mouth his brain was already working overtime.
That was what you thought about Julia when Kyle came to you. Your sister couldn’t be involved. Your sister was…she was your sister and you didn’t know who she was. Why the fuck would you think you know who a chick you fucked once is?
Because it hadn’t been fucking. It had been something more. It had felt like something more.
“I don’t know.” Brad tapped the folder in his hand. “But I’ll check into it. Uhm, is there something I should know, man? I wasn’t close to her when they took her out, but she was saying something about needing to talk to you. And she wasn’t…well, she seemed as quickly dressed as you do. Did something happen?”
Drake felt his heart harden. How could this have happened twice in such a short amount of time? Julia had tricked him and now Taylor. She’d likely thought he could help her when the Agency found out what her father had been doing.
Or she’d thought she could use him to better her father’s position with his Russian homeland. So when they went back, they could go in glory, and he would be the idiot spy who gave up all his country’s secrets to a woman who led him around by his cock.
She could have cost him his whole career, could have cost his family everything. His mother would lose her legacy if anyone found out about Julia. He’d been careful to cover it up and then he’d nearly fucked it all up by falling for a damn Russian asset.
He forced himself to go cold as he turned to the man he considered a friend. “I was working her. You told me to figure out what was going on. You could have given me a heads-up that I didn’t need to fuck her to get the intel. If you’d been an hour quicker, you might have spared me the experience.”
He hated every word that came out of his mouth, but he needed them because he might not survive if anyone ever figured out how close he’d come to giving that woman his soul.
“I’m sorry.” Brad frowned. “The bosses didn’t want to give her a heads-up. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to sleep with her. But I can make up for it. I’ve got a lead you’re going to want. I think I know who killed Borys.”
He stared for a moment, though the SUV that had taken her away was long gone.
He still had a job to do, and it looked like he’d barely missed taking yet another bullet for a woman he’d loved.
Love. What a fucking word.
He hadn’t loved Taylor. He’d been vulnerable, and she’d been a good memory. A memory from a time when the world hadn’t seemed so complex. She couldn’t have known he would end up here, but she’d been excellent at using him once he was.
Or maybe she’d had something to do with it. He couldn’t count that out.
He shoved it aside and closed the door before turning to Brad. “Tell me.”
It was time to get back to work.
Part Two
Wyoming
Present Day
Chapter Five
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” a familiar voice asked.
The floor beneath Taylor’s feet rocked with the rowdy sounds of the bar below. The Cowgirl’s Choice was hopping on a Friday night. She wished she could walk down there, take a seat at the bar, and wait for some big, gorgeous cowboy to sit beside her and offer to buy her a drink.
Not that she would let him, but it would be nice to have the option. Instead she was stuck upstairs with an Agency handler. Well, one former operative who happened to be the only person Taylor Cline would listen to, the only one her father had believed in. “Ready? I’ve been training for this for over a year. These people killed my father. I’m ready to take them down and then get on with my life.”
If she had a life when she was done with The Consortium. The truth of the matter was she knew this could end up being a mission she didn’t come back from, and she didn’t honestly care.
Even if she could go downstairs and join the party, she wouldn’t. She would sit up here and go over dossiers and mission briefs. She hadn’t had sex since…
She wasn’t thinking about that fucker tonight. Liar. That was Drake Radcliffe to a T. He’d lied to her so he could figure out what her father was doing, if her father was a double. After that awful day when the Agency had shown up at the safe house in Romania, she’d never heard from him again. He’d stayed behind and let her walk into an ambush and probably never thought of her again.