by Alice Bello
Not to mention a kiss.
I could still taste Troy on my lips.
He’d always tasted a little bitter, and now there was an undercurrent of something spicy.
Gunpowder?
I forced myself to keep walking. I couldn’t stop. My head was ready to burst from all the things troy had just told me.
I worked for the state department. I knew the military and other groups had highly trained—
Killers…
Assets.
They were placed all over the world. This was nothing new.
But Troy. Troy was a good guy. Even when I’d hated him in our youth I knew he was a good guy.
A white hat.
But then that fire had claimed his family.
I’d been with him that night. We’d spent half the night kissing down by the river.
And then on the way back into town, we’d seen the flames licking up into the sky.
He’d run toward them.
Nothing could have stopped him.
It took everything in me not to reach out a few minutes ago and touch the slash of scar that ran up his neck, jaw, up to his cheek. I knew there were more scars under his shirt as well, though I had never seen them.
Thinking about that night made me sick to my stomach, so I could only imagine how the memory of that night affected him.
When I looked around me again I was standing at the driver’s side door of my car, my keys forgotten in my hand as I stared at the blinking Exit sign on the wall.
I was going to go back up to the office and get a little more work done. I’d been utterly unfocused after seeing Nastia…
After thinking I’d seen Troy.
He really didn’t look at all as he had back when we had…
Been in Love (capital letter love)?
About the same height, but now he was solid muscle, so amazingly strong looking, with that coiled, ready for violence stance.
My stomach fluttered, but my heart was beating hard and my flesh was hot—so damn hot.
Damn…
His voice and face had changed as well. Rougher, harder, darker.
Scarier.
But his eyes…
I couldn’t see them at first, with that stupid baseball cap on, but then once I’d dropped into the taxi cab.
It had been like a shock running through my body, almost painful, almost ecstasy…
Almost everything…
I kept telling myself the rest of the day I’d just imagined that the guy had been Troy.
It couldn’t have been.
But I knew his eyes. I’d stared into them, memorizing them, for almost three years.
How long had it been? Ten years? Twelve?
And then there he’d been sitting in the café.
Some spy he was. I’d seen him staring at me a few moments before Benjamin, Nastia’s secret fiancé had gotten up and left.
The funny thing was I think Troy had been genuinely lost in his thoughts.
Either way, Mr. Peeping Tom had been all too easy to catch doing his peeping.
Peeping Troy…
Okay, I was going to have to say that to him—
I was just about to think When I see him again, but…
But… I was never going to see him again.
Was I?
He’d hurt me so deeply when he left, disappearing into the big bad world.
I thought about him all the time.
The locket I wore warmed against my skin as if demanding I open it.
I didn’t have to, though. I had the boy I’d been in love with committed to memory long ago.
He had been mine.
He was still mine.
Damn it!
And damn him too!
I could go home and wait around for him to show himself again—he’d spilled his guts so easily to me earlier. I was sure he wouldn’t just be able to leave me alone.
No, he was a watcher, a spy… a freaking shadow, right? He’d be watching me.
And hadn’t he said he’d bugged me?
It was either in my jacket or my purse.
I reached into my purse and pulled out my cell phone.
I needed information on him. The kind of info you needed clearance for that was far higher than mine.
I knew only one person that could do something like that for me.
I scrolled through my phone’s contacts until I tapped on the name Dora.
Dora was five foot nothing.
Dora was a little bipolar, a little ADD, and a whole lot of computer hacker genius.
Her phone rang twice before she answered it. “The guy you just slapped, right?”
And she was creepy in that she always had her eyes on you.
“Yes, his name is—”
“His name is Troy Allen Cooper,” she cut me off, “who went to high school with you, who joined the Marines right after graduation, having lost his entire family in a house fire… interesting… he almost disappeared after that.”
“Almost?” I prompted.
Dora tsked. “Almost. Everything about him after he joined the armed forces is expunged and top-level classified, which usually means…” She sighed with satisfaction. “Which means he’s a spook, a spy, and a highly trained assassin. Milly?”
I blinked then said, “Yes?”
“You didn’t just slap him… you kissed him outside the café too.”
I gulped, my mouth dry. “Yes.”
“So he’s your boyfriend?”
Wait, what? “I haven’t seen him in years.”
“But you reconnected a few minutes ago, and though he’s a scary government trained killer, you have history, and that kiss was steeeaaaammmmyyyyyy!”
“Dora!” I not-so-gently banged the back of my head against the roof of my car.
“Steeaaammmmyyyyy…” Dora repeated.
Fine. “Yes, it was…”—hot, sizzling, incredible, panty-melting—“steamy.”
“Hell yeah! Oh, he was a member of the Ghost’s crew.”
Ghost? “Is that good?”
“They’re like covert ops heroes. They go in and save people when no one else can.”
Oh…
“So Troy’s a hero?”
Dora was silent.
Dora was never silent.
“Dora!”
“From some of the reports done on him, he was broken when he entered the service, but he kept it buried and hidden well, too well. They trained him not only to protect and defend but to kill… and…”
I breathed in and out, feeling my nervousness just seep away. “They trained him to kill and to torture his targets to get information.”
“He told you that?” Dora sounded surprised.
“Yes… he also said he enjoyed it too much.”
“That’s what I’m getting from these performance reports. He broke a little more every time he used his skills. That’s why they sent him to work a surveillance unit. Less chance he’d go… over the line.”
He hadn’t been lying. He was a murderer… hell, I had no idea how many people he’d killed.
But he was Troy.
My Troy…
He would always be my Troy.
“Good news is,” Dora said, “It seems working covert ops is helping him with the whole killing people thing.”
“How well?” My voice sounded more like me than it had since I’d first recognized him. I was analyzing the problem at hand.
That was a good thing.
It was my thing.
“He’s excelled at surveillance tactics, to the point he’s called the Shadow.”
I had to stop and acknowledge I’d just thought of his as a shadow… oh, and my cat.
Okay… creepy.
I shook it off.
He really must be good. Military types don’t give code names like that lightly.
So he must have been really distracted by me if he let himself get seen.
I had to smile at that.
I distracted him…<
br />
“He’s also cut back on the killing big time. Unless he’s taking people out on his spare time—which there seems to be very little of—or he really has cut down. Only one kill in the last two years.”
That was like an alcoholic only having one drink in the last two years.
That was impressive.
And then something occurred to me.
He would kill for me…
My eyes started to burn.
I never wanted that to happen.
I never wanted him to have to do anything like that for me.
Ever.
“So,” Dora asked, “Do you have any other psycho-hotties hanging around in your past, or is this a onetime thing?”
“Sorry, sweetie… he’s the only one.” My one-and-only psycho-hottie.
“Hmmm…” Dora hummed.
“Dora?”
“I was just thinking since I’ve got his crew’s info pulled up, I could, you know… swipe right a few times.”
“Dora?”
“Well, I’ve got some things to do, so I’ll let you get back to tall, dark and homicidal.”
And like that she was gone.
That girl had a death wish.
Of course, look at me.
I let myself fall forward until my forehead was pressed against the cool metal of my car’s hood again.
This situation was…
Fucked to Hell and back?
I really didn’t think I was in much danger from Kazimir Sokolov’s men.
Sure, they’re like giant teddy bears, with brass knuckles and guns and sharp, sharp knives, and…
I shuddered and then shook myself.
And then there was Troy.
Troy, the boy I’d grown up with, who I fell in love with.
And who left and never came back!
Until now…
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my car keys.
I needed to go home.
I needed to pack.
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Chapter 4
If Troy was following me around, watching me… well then, I was going to make him earn his money.
I packed a travel bag with a couple pairs of jeans, some tops, clean undies and some travel toiletries.
I traveled a lot for the State Department, so I had most everything I needed already packed.
I also had a friend who owned a little cabin in the woods not a forty-five-minute drive from my apartment.
It was time to hit the road.
I took my jacket and purse though (since they were probably what he’d bugged).
I wanted to make him work a little, but I didn’t want to completely lose him either.
And why is that?
That gave me pause as I slid in behind the wheel of my car.
Why did I want him to follow me?
Was it morbid nostalgia? We’d grown up together.
Morbid curiosity? He was a government trained killer and spy.
How twisted was it that I found that so…
Intriguing?
Confusing?
Hot?
The way my flesh warmed just thinking about Troy (aka, the Shadow) answered that question for me.
It was hot…
He was hot.
That scared me.
I was playing with fire… with a fire that had already taken lives… and I was doing it because I thought he was hot.
I shook my head and opened my car door, ready to get out.
But then memories of Troy fell into my mind, slide after slide: me making fun of his pronunciation difficulties in French class; him taping a sign to my back that asked the question, Nice Ass or Asshole?; me putting a tiny tack on his seat in Biology class; him breaking into my locker and leaving a dog turd cradled in a hotdog bun and on a small paper plate, with a packet of ketchup.
Me confronting him at his locker, calling him a slack-jawed asshole.
Him telling me I was a frigid bitch.
Me slapping him.
Him grabbing me up and kissing the ever-loving shit out of me.
Me pulling him into the janitor’s closet to make out amongst the fetid mops and brooms.
I still felt a wave of lust when I smelled industrial strength disinfectant.
Those nights sneaking out, stealing kisses, talking about nothing and everything, falling from lust into love.
Love…
The way my heart broke for him when his family died in that house fire.
The way my soul cracked to pieces when he wouldn’t even look at me when I came to see him.
He wasn’t being mean. I don’t think he even realized I was there, that anyone was there.
He had burns on his shoulders, his arm and a long slash of burned flesh on his face.
I’d stood there for an hour, hoping he would look at me—show any sign he knew I was there.
He hadn’t.
I left crying, hopeless.
Feeling sorry for myself, I didn’t go back. I couldn’t handle that he was damaged.
It scared me.
And then, when I heard he was going away, I’d rushed to try and say something—anything.
I’d failed him, giving up too soon.
And when he saw me at the train station, not a single emotion showed on his face.
He simply stared at me for a few beats, turned and climbed up onto the train.
He’d recovered those months at an aunt’s house, and I talked her into forwarding my letters to him. I tried to explain why I’d stayed away, why I’d given up, that I was scared and stupid and… and so many things. There were maybe ten letters in that first year.
He never wrote back.
I’d take it that he didn’t forgive me.
I’d taken it so very personally.
And I’d learned to hate him.
Deep in my petty little heart, I’d decided he’d been the asshole, not me.
But, sitting there in my car, with him suddenly—and absurdly—dropped back into my life, I knew the biggest reason I wanted to see him again.
I was still in love with the bastard.
Yup... still in love… with him.
I bit my lip, pounded my head back against the headrest of my car and pulled the door shut.
If I wanted to see Troy again (and I most certainly did), I needed to get my but in gear and start driving.
Chapter 5
Troy (aka, the Shadow)
I’d left Milly alone for less than an hour and her tracker pinged that she was leaving New York City.
WTF?
This was not my problem.
She was probably just driving out of the city to cool off, maybe an already planned get away.
But I’d hacked her phone and already searched her day planner.
She had no plans to get away.
Hell, she had work tomorrow!
I had my bag packed and was ready to hop on a plane and go off somewhere and drink myself into oblivion for a few days.
Try to forget ever seeing Milly again.
But now I had to wonder if she had left the city of her own free will.
Maybe Nastia’s security detail had been ordered to keep Milly away… keep her away permanently.
Fuck me…
I pulled up my tracking program and found she was already ten miles outside city limits, going just above the speed limit northbound on Albany Post Road.
I tried calling her cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail.
Was she in her own car?
I pulled up her GPS data.
Yes, she was in her own car.
But I hadn’t bugged her car—which I was kicking myself for.
But she’d been out of danger, and…
And I’d wanted to get away from her.
As much as every cell in my body wanted to be near her, to follow her and watch over her, a big part of me just hurt seeing her.
It was like seeing wh
at your life could have been like, the woman you could have been with all these lonely, dark years. And then being tortured by the fact that you could never be with her.
You’re too damaged.
You’re a fucking psycho killer who just happens to do his killing for the US government.
You’ve never been in a relationship since her.
Since Milly…
And now she was in danger again.
Well, she might be in danger.
I sighed as I slammed the trunk closed on my Chevelle. This was probably just a ridiculous mistake. Milly was probably just putting some distance between her and him.
Which was smart.
But…
But we are talking about Kremlin trained operatives trained much as I’d been trained.
And Milly had infiltrated their turf and had—
She’d risked her life to pass along love notes for a couple of…
Of her friends…
No matter how I felt about her when we were young—and it had been pretty adversarial back then—I’d had to admit she was one fierce, loyal friend.
Even when I’d left town, not able to say a word to her when she’d come to see me off—even then she’d sent me letter after letter. Aunt Rebecca had forwarded them to me. And I’d read every single one.
I still had them in a safety deposit box in Switzerland. I had digital copies on my personal server too.
I just couldn’t write her back.
I knew I should. She was blaming herself for not being there for me.
But there was no me then to be there for.
I pulled out my keys and noticed for the first time in years that I still had a piece of her with me.
Back when we’d been sneaking out at night in high school she’d had this charm bracelet.
There’d been this silver feather on it. She’d said it stood for her dreams.
She’d given it to me the night…
Well, on the night I’d lost my family.
And I’ve kept it with me ever since.
It was amazing I hadn’t lost it.
But I hadn’t.
I’d had a few close calls, and I have to confess I’ve killed a few men to keep it in my possession.
Yeah, I was going to go after Milly.
I would follow her to the ends of the earth.
I angled in behind the wheel of my car and started the engine. The motor revved up gamely.
We were both ready to chase Milly wherever she ended up going.
And I’d kill anyone who tried to get between us.