Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“You talked to Ethan?” It came out sounding far much more interested than I wanted it to, and I fought the urge to cringe in embarrassment.
Jason looked surprised. “It was a short conversation. I don’t think he was able to talk long.” He stood. “I’ll take you down to HR, and they’ll get you started on paperwork. I think Shawn’s assistant has secured your work visa already.” A thick, business-sized envelope was pulled from the interior pocket of his jacket and set on the table beside me. “This is to get you through the next few weeks. Let me know if you need more.”
Inside the envelope was a stack of euros. I shoved it aggressively back toward him. “I can’t accept this.”
“That’s not negotiable, soldier.” He breezed out the glass door and waited for me to follow.
I clenched the envelope so tight, the sides dug into my skin as I trailed behind him. “How did you know?”
“I smell military all over you,” he said while moving at a quick clip. “I was with the Thirty-First Infantry.”
Oh. No.
23
ETHAN
I dreamed about Olivia last night. Now I was annoyed I was in another crappy hotel room, and this time I was alone. I tried to go back to sleep where she lingered. Jesus, what had that woman done to me?
I checked in with Jason while heading to the airport to pick up Gio. Vitale’s plane had been cleaned and a new staff hired instantly. Did they not wonder what had happened to the last crew?
Gio hadn’t yet landed when I arrived at the hangar. I had a brief conversation with the waiting driver the Abramos had hired and watched the plane circle on its approach. It was surreal.
A little more than a day ago, I’d been in the cockpit of that same plane with her, worried half out of my mind about what was going to happen.
I would have put a bullet in Giovanni Abramo if it came to it. All my work, and all the CIA’s plans—I’d throw them away for a woman I barely knew.
Maybe that wasn’t true.
I didn’t know every detail of Olivia’s past, although that information was just a phone call away, but I understood her. And I felt like she understood me. There was an undeniable connection to her.
The wheels of the Abramo jet had just touched down when my phone buzzed.
“Can you talk?” Jason asked in English.
“You’ll need to be quick,” I said. “What’s happened?”
The marshal was smart enough to know not to contact me unless it was important. Jason had already blown my cover once, in Croatia. I’d forgiven the guy for that, but blowing my cover now would be a fucking disaster.
“Do you know who she is?”
Daniel had run a preliminary background check on Olivia, and it turned up nothing unusual—or so I’d been told.
A chill coasted down my back.
Was she with another agency, perhaps Canada’s CSIS? Working for one of the Abramo family rivals? Maybe I’d been so filled with lust I’d become blind to what she really was. Had I slipped enough to get played?
“No, I guess not. Who is she?”
“She’s Kathryn Pierce. I don’t know if you were Stateside when her story broke, but it was a big fucking deal.”
The rumble of the engines crawling toward the hangar dropped out.
I had been blind, too blind to recognize the woman whose harrowing story had been used by the Pentagon as propaganda. It had been right in front of me. Her dark look at the mention of a crash, the way she stayed calm when witnessing death, and of course, her scarred back.
“How’d you—”
“She looks different now,” he said, “and it’s been a long time, but at the base where I served my first tour, you couldn’t go five feet without seeing her picture. I doubt anyone would recognize her in Europe with the name change.”
She’d lied about who she was. Yet hadn’t I done exactly the same to her? That night in South Africa I’d asked her what kind of secrets she was keeping, and she’d answered me. Plenty.
“I thought you should know,” Jason said.
Maybe I said ‘thanks’ or ‘goodbye’ to him, but I was too focused elsewhere. The plane hadn’t stopped yet. It would take the attendant at least a minute to get the stairs set in place. I hung up and immediately pulled up the page of the incident on Wikipedia.
There was a picture. Her young, dirty face streaked with tears, under the arm of an Army Ranger, and her too-yellow dyed hair was matted with blood. That was why she didn’t want to go blonde.
The helicopter she’d been co-piloting had mechanical failure and crashed on a mountain in Afghanistan. Kathryn had been the sole survivor and had to wait alongside the dead bodies of her crew, through the long, freezing night for rescue.