by Tara Brown
“Because I fucking love you! I was trying to tell you that in the room when you laughed at me, and I was trying to tell you in the courtyard when you brought up the hookers! I love you! Jesus!”
“I don't understand.”
He dropped to his knees, holding my hand in his and looked up into my eyes with that weird expression, not matching his personality at all. It was pure bliss and absolute joy. He sparkled like a child did on Christmas. “It’s my heart, Evie. I am giving it to you. I know you have kids and your mother is a little extreme, and the Burrow is going to take all my life to root out all the small branches to destroy, and the Organization must be stopped no matter how I feel about it.” He sucked his breath and started again, “But I want to find a way. I want to be the man you deserve and the love that you need. I want to find a way.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?” I didn't even know how to say no to him. I could barely stop staring at the mound of red jewelry overtaking my finger.
“No.” He shook his head. “I wouldn't do you the dishonor of saying something so repulsive.”
I had clearly hurt his feelings by laughing in his face, but he had surprised me. I dropped to my knees too, wincing when I landed but not caring. I slipped the ring off my finger and handed it back to him. “Give it to me when we stand a chance.”
“No.” He clenched his jaw, shaking his head in small twitches. “Take it.”
“I can’t. I may not seem like it, but deep down I daydream about having a real proposal and a real wedding and a real marriage. And I have already waited fifteen years for you, Gustavo. I will wait another fifteen.” Tears streamed my cheeks as I leaned in and brushed my lips against his. “I love you with all my heart.”
His hand trembled in mine but we didn't move. We just rested our foreheads against each other for several moments as the castle behind us lit up and the sun set completely. It was magical. Even if it couldn't last and we were still stuck being us, it was magical for the moment we managed to freeze time.
Chapter Twenty-One
What the actual f^&*
I clicked on the earpiece and whispered, “You got me?”
“Yup. Go to the right. The map shows a cellar that comes out near the woods where you are, in the backyard by the gate and the garage.”
I blinked the contact in my eye until I found a comfortable spot for it and pulled down my balaclava. Coop gave me a look. It wasn't nearly as hostile as it had been on the car ride over. No matter what, he wasn't going to be easy to deal with, but we had to work together so we were going to have to learn to behave. He ran in first, wearing his navy cargo pants that made his ass pop out. I tried not to notice. Treating him like an adorable piece of meat was no longer going to be the way we worked. He made it easy by being an asshole.
“Keep up, Evie!” he muttered over the radio. I wanted to remind him that my feet were a hot mess and I had a broken rib or two, but I feared he might tell me how my age was slowing my healing process. I didn't want to have to kill him.
We ran through the woods, I had to work at not noticing the lavender-colored flowers on the floor of the perfectly spaced Black Forest. The trees didn't overcrowd and the branches were high enough that the forest felt like it went on forever. It looked manicured, but I had to guess it grew this way. It wasn't creepy and spooky like I had imagined in Little Red Riding Hood.
My mom passed me, holding her double swords. She seemed to prefer them to anything else as far as weapons were concerned. It was scary watching her fight, but she was gifted in the art of death. She lacked the obvious conscience that would have stopped most people. She was a machine. I feared the parts of her that were inside me. The ability to detach so easily.
“Come on, darling. You’re being slow.”
“Seriously?” I sighed. “Everyone remembers I am injured, right?”
“I ran through a jungle once with a broken leg and a bullet in my thigh. I didn't slow down anyone else and I never complained, Evie.” Coop’s tone was not my favorite one.
“You are the man, Coop.” Jack cheered him on, or he was mocking him maybe. At least he was no longer rocking that ridiculous accent. He didn't have to as he was holed up in the office he kept in the attic where no one could get without a serious amount of effort, combined with Jack’s handprint and his eyes. Luce and Fitz were with the kids watching a movie in the home theatre. “Let's go, Evie!” He cheered me on.
“Shut up, Jack!” I snapped. We rounded the fence that had come up out of nowhere. I ran ahead and slipped through the gate at the back acre.
“Launch there!” Jack muttered.
I pulled a gun that reminded me of a flare gun and shot the top of the garage. I turned and ran back toward the woods where Coop and Mom still were. The object I had shot onto the garage started blinking red. I sped up as the little machine killed all surveillance and transmitting signals to and from the residence.
“You guys still have me?” Jack asked.
“Yup.” Coop nodded and motioned for us to move ahead again.
“I have no heat traces except him. He is alone in the house or he is keeping people in a bunker where you can’t trace heat,” Jack muttered as he typed.
I picked up my pace, forcing myself not to notice the aching of my body. We slid through the gate I had just been through and hurried along the garage to the cellar.
“To your left. The cellar should be right there.”
Coop slid on the ground, digging the door open. All three of us slipped down into the hole as Coop closed the door.
Inside I wrinkled my nose. The dank and dark cellar was akin to Jack’s basement.
“You guys must have the same decorator, Jack.”
“He at least has a proper torture cell.” Mom pointed to the far side of the cellar. I wrinkled my nose when I realized what that was.
“Mom, that's not a torture cell.” I started to laugh. “It’s a sex swing.”
Her gaze narrowed as Jack cackled in our ears.
“Jesus, Vincent. He has a sex swing? He’s seventy years old for God’s sake. That's disturbing. Whom is he swinging with?”
I waved a hand. “Oh no, stop. Gross. Please. I’m super visual.”
Coop barked. “Stop the grab-assing and get moving. Evie, you remain on the first floor, Helena you take the second as requested, and I will take the third. Whoever finds him, we come to you.”
“Roger that.” Mom smiled and headed out, moving like a seventeen-year-old in her leather cat suit. Coop watched her leave and gave me a pathetic look.
I lifted my middle finger, making him grin. It was a bitter grin, but it was a start. “You know what I was going to say,” he whispered.
“That she’s like twice as hot and four times as fit and ten times the soldier.”
He shrugged. “You said it.”
“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes.
He gave me a pained look, the one I didn't like seeing, and nodded his head at the hallway. He headed out first. I waited like he had done for Mom. We both assumed Mom would be the one to find Vincent.
She was the better spy, but the main floor was where most people spent their time in their own houses. The basement and first floor didn't appear to be the main floor of the house. She had demanded to be the one on that floor.
I counted to a hundred and headed out after Coop. I knew they had cleared their way through the basement so I hurried up the stairs at the far side of the long hallway. The first floor of the house was offices and spare bedrooms. Vincent had two home offices for some bizarre reason.
The first one on the right at the top of the plush carpet stairs was a storage room. There were boxes of files. Each one had a name on it. When I saw Anderson on a small box I had to walk into the room. I lifted the file lid off and started combing through pictures of my dad.
He was young and strong and virile in them. They were black and whites of him in the army. A smile crested my lips when I saw Fitz standing next to him. There were pictures of the
Vietnam War. His thick mustache and wide smile were still the same. I combed through, scowling when I saw the pictures of my kids and me and James and even Sissy. Jules was a baby in the first few and then maybe two in the other photos. Under them were addresses, even Montana was in there.
Something turned on inside me. I had to assume there were more pictures of my kids and my life. James was CI and so was my dad. But actually seeing my kids’ pictures in the house of a man who had just killed tens of thousands of innocent and sick people made a dark part of my heart open.
The detached and scary person my mother was, slipped into me like cold water in my veins. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a packet.
“Whoa! Evie, wait! Don't do that,” Jack whispered harshly in my ear.
I looked at the pictures of my kids. “I have to.”
“I know. But wait till you find him. That has a timer. You don't want to set it.”
I bit my lip and slipped the packet back into my pocket. “I am blowing this house up, starting with this room.”
“Okay, fine. But let’s wait till we accomplish the one thing we came here for.”
“Fine.” I glanced at the boxes and paused when I saw one with the label GS on it. My fingers itched to see inside it.
“Evie!” he warned, but I walked forward, flipping the lid off and pausing when I stared at the lone picture of me and Gustavo in Italy. We were standing in the square at the Trevi Fountain. I lifted the picture, stunned to see a photo of Elise, the blonde MI6 agent, under it. They were young, maybe twenty. Maybe. They had their arms around each other and were smiling for the camera.
Servario had two weaknesses. Me and the other female agent he had once loved. I wondered when we had intertwined. When did he love me more than her and vice versa?
“It’s weaknesses. Boxes of weaknesses in case we decided to betray them. They have everything they need to hurt us,” Jack whispered in my ear.
“Yup.” I closed the box and looked at the opposite wall where Jack and Luce both had a box.
“Don't look in my box, Evie. Please.”
A small piece of me wanted to look, but I had to trust him. “Okay.” The fact that he was so secretive and he didn't want me to look made me worried about him, but not more worried than I was about the house needing to explode.
I turned and walked from the room, desperately wanting to spend all my time in there, but aware that it was a bad idea. Other people’s secrets weren’t my business.
I chanted that as I headed down the hall, clearing the second office and numerous bedrooms.
“Your mom has him. I think,” Jack whispered in my ear.
“What?”
“She doesn't have her gear turned on. I can’t hear her and she’s not responding to me and her camera is black, like her eye is closed.”
“Shit! Where was she last?”
“The balcony off the kitchen is where it went black.”
I ran as hard as I could run without making noise. The stairs led to a great room that was level with the hill so the front door was there. I hurried into the kitchen to see my mom through the window, with Vincent on the patio. She had a sword pointed at his throat. I burst through the door. “MOM!”
“Darling, go back inside. Vincent and I have some things to discuss.” She didn't look at me when she spoke calmly.
“I need to ask him some questions.”
“No!” She shook her head. “Go inside.”
Ignoring her, I walked to him, standing with my neck next to the blade pointed straight at his throat. “Did my father and Servario always know what the Burrow did? That they would use some of the experiments or inventions.”
His eyes darted from me to my mother. I didn't need an answer. I could see the lie he was forming, based on the look he was getting from my mother.
“Is the Burrow the same thing as the Organization?”
His lips parted and my heart stopped. I spun, glancing at the fierce look on my mom’s face as the sound of Vincent dying filled the air.
“The Burrow and the Organization are the same thing. I fucking knew it!”
She pulled the blade from his lifeless body as he dropped to the ground. “You don't know everything.” She wiped the blade on his body and stalked back into the house.
“Tell Coop,” I whispered to Jack.
“Holy fuck, Evie!”
“We’ve been tricked.” I nodded as I swallowed hard and followed my mom inside.
“What is this? What is this place and who is he and who are you?” I asked, suddenly aware that I didn't know anything. She was right.
She sighed and leaned on the railing, looking badass and sassy. “Evie, you are serving a purpose, isn’t that enough?”
“I want the truth, all of it.”
“The Burrow and the Organization are similar. The Burrow started first, exactly the way you have been told. The Organization is a branch that grew from the Burrow. They are the ones who want to use what they have found.”
“And who are you in all of this?”
She narrowed her steely gaze for a moment and then laughed. “I’m chaotic good. Just like the old superheroes. I don't believe the Burrow is the solution, and I don't believe the Organization is right. They are both right and wrong and, unfortunately, they don't listen to reason.”
“What about Dad?”
“He believes in the Burrow. He knows about the Organization, and he is the man behind the project you are on. He is the reason you have the job you do. He wants the Organization stopped. He thinks if they can rid the Burrow of the bad people then it will succeed. He thinks only the bad people are the Organization. He doesn't realize or understand what they are trying to do. But technology is growing. It is only a matter of time before someone tries to claim the Burrow. Can you imagine the wrong person finding the Burrow? We have to stop the threat to the Burrow by ending it. And that might mean ending your dad. How could I tell you that?”
“What about Servario?” I didn't want to think about my dad being killed by me or Mom.
“Gustavo has his own agenda; he always has. Ask him yourself. Are we done? Vincent is dead and I want this house gone for good. When you found out he was part of the Organization, I realized it was possible he was the record keeper. He is one of the few who knows where the Burrow is. Me, him, Fitz, Servario, and a few others. The majority of the Organization has no clue.”
“This is all a mistake.” I walked past her, not answering. I wanted to kill her for not telling me the whole truth.
“You know why they didn't tell us, right?” Jack asked softly.
“I guess.” In a sick and twisted way I understood. There was no easy way to tell someone the crazy reasoning and details that went into something as harsh as a prison for innocent people. Adding to that, the possibility we may have to kill my dad, and I was certain I never would have listened to her.
I walked down the stairs and placed my bombs in the rooms of boxes. “Coop, you ready to go?” I asked over the radio. He had been silent for some time.
“No! I need more time!”
“Too late, I set the bombs.” I walked for the front door, intending to steal one of Vincent’s cars and leave that way.
My mom walked to me, nudging me. “You angry?”
“Yes. But I get it. I just hate all the lying and deception and bullshit.”
“You and me both. But you never would have helped out if you understood the mutiny within the Burrow.”
I gave her a look. “Maybe not, but this is over. I am done with the lies and the missions where I don't know everything. Is Janice even a threat to the world, or is it just the bad people in the Burrow who are the threat?”
She gave me a look. “Janice isn’t a threat to anyone.”
“What do you mean?” My stomach clenched.
“She killed herself earlier. Hanged herself.”
I snapped my eyes shut and processed that as Coop came out the door. “Next time wait for me to tell you to set the b
ombs. I had to get Jack access into Vincent’s computer, which required effort, thanks to us killing all the signals,” he snarked and dragged me down the hill away from the house. We climbed into the car and drove away as the house exploded in a ball of fire.
“Will the forest catch fire?” I asked, suddenly concerned.
“No. I have dispatched emergency crews there already. You better hurry.”
Coop pressed the gas, speeding along the back road to the car we had left behind. When we reached it, Mom jumped out and hopped in that one, headed for Jack’s.
We followed her using a road we came in on.
I turned and looked at Coop when I got in the car. “We have been sucked into a war between them all. The Burrow is using us to kill off the Organization, which is part of the Burrow. And the Organization is hunting us. I think CI and CIA are pawns in it. They’re using us to fight a war within their ranks.”
“I know.” He nodded. “I heard it all. I don't even know what to say.”
“Me either.” I looked out the window and wished I could talk to my dad. “Janice is dead.”
“Yeah. I was the one who found her. I think your mom hung her.”
“Me too.” I nodded.
I hated everything in that moment.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The shower didn't make me clean.
Fresh clothes didn't take away the stain.
Walking down the stairs I noticed my ribs didn't hurt as badly today. When I got to the bottom I heard everyone in the kitchen talking. I paused and listened.
“Why didn't he have security at the house with him? That's what I want to know.” Luce popped a strawberry in her mouth, earning a look from Hilda.
“It was a trap. Clearly. Evie told Servario, who is part of both sides of the Burrow-Organization coin and he made sure Vincent was alone.” Coop shrugged, offering Hilda a charming grin and earning himself a strawberry from the spicy German lady.
I leaned against the doorframe and pondered whether Servario had told someone I was going to kill Drusack.