"You said you love me," she said. "How can you really prove to me that you do and that you aren't lying?"
"The flowers are one way," he said. "And the fact that I've been secretly looking after you for the last seven months shows my intentions. You don't have to take me back right now, Ariana. But I want to hear one thing from you. Do you still love me?"
She opened her mouth to say no but she found herself saying otherwise. She wasn't a liar and didn't want to play around with anyone's feelings. Especially not Jayden's.
"I still do," she admitted.
"I love you," he said, and she noticed wetness starting to brim in his eyes. "Oh, how I've wanted to say that, Ariana. How long I've waited until I could finally say it to you."
She loved him still and could feel her ice breaking. "But why did you wait this long to tell me? Why couldn't you tell me this months ago before I walked out of your life, Jayden?"
"Because I didn't want to pressure you. I wanted you to love me up until now and I'm glad that you still do. And I told you, Ariana. I'm willing to make up for lost time. I'm willing to work for it just so I can gain your trust again."
She was crying too, but it was from happiness. Without thinking, she reached out for him and they held onto each other. He leaned down, kissing her through the tears that they shared. Everything disappeared and it was just the two of them. Reconciling and gaining back the trust that both had lost. She was finally happy and even if she had forgiven him, he couldn't just come back without working for it.
And he did. He proved to her that being with him was the best decision she had ever made in her life.
THE END
In Hiding
Chapter 1
Travis Smith was awake before his phone’s first ring had even come to an end. The clock by his bed read 3:17 am. Picking up his phone from the bedside table, Travis was already pulling a pair of jeans out of his closet by the time he answered. “Yes?” he asked. The caller display had read “Tony’s Pizzeria” and that meant only one thing - his boss was calling. And if his boss was calling at three in the morning that meant that something was wrong.
“You have to get out. Now. Meet me at Maud’s.” And, with those cryptic instructions, his boss hung up.
But the instructions were all too clear to Travis. He tossed the phone onto his bed, yanked on the jeans and stuffed his feet into a pair of red Converse sneakers. As he was grabbing a black backpack from the top shelf of his closet, he heard the lock of his apartment’s front door quietly clicking open. Silently, Travis swung the backpack over his shoulders and picked up his phone. Turning it to silent – nothing was more embarrassing than having an ill-timed phone call give away your hiding place – he slid it into his back pocket. He could hear the stealthy footsteps of three, no, four, men as they crossed the kitchen, making their way to his bedroom.
Quietly opening the door to the large en suite bathroom, Travis slipped through just as the first assassin turned the corner into his bedroom. He was a huge man, tall and heavy set, with a slight stoop in his shoulders and a thick curl of orangey red hair hanging out of the bottom his balaclava.
“He’s getting away!” the masked man shouted. A volley of machine gun fire followed his warning and Travis threw himself to the floor as bullets battered the reinforced bathroom door.
Another machine gun joined the first and Travis knew the door wouldn’t last much longer, reinforcements or no reinforcements. Keeping low and pulling himself along by his arms, Travis wiggled his way to the full-length mirror next to the sink. Gripping the edge of the mirror, he pulled it toward himself and it swung back to reveal a narrow metal shaft that headed almost straight down. Glancing back at the rattling door, Travis threw himself feet first down the tunnel, tugging the mirror shut behind him as he went. Whoever those men were, he didn’t want them following him down his escape route. Just as gravity took over and he began to slide down the shaft, he heard the bathroom door finally give way, and the armed men come bursting into the bathroom. As he fell, Travis smiled to think of their confused faces.
The shaft soon joined the garbage shoot and a moment later Travis found himself in a dumpster in the alley behind his apartment building. Making a face, Travis pulled himself out of the bags of trash and up over the edge of the dumpster. Landing gracefully on his feet, he ran for the street. Quickly checking to make sure no one was watching the alley, Travis pulled a set of car keys from the side pocket of his backpack and made a beeline for a nondescript Toyota station wagon parked on the other side of the street.
Unlocking the driver’s door, he slid in, tossing his backpack into the passenger seat as he let the engine warm up. After a few tense minutes of idling, the car groaned to life and Travis shot down the deserted street, heading for Maud’s. Maud’s was one of his organization’s safe houses, so named for the old lady that lived there. He took a circuitous route, constantly checking to make sure he wasn’t being followed. But, after twenty minutes of detours and doubling back, Travis was satisfied that he’d left his attackers back at the apartment and headed to the safe house. Parking couple of streets away, Travis snuck through a few blocks of backyards, zigzagging around swing sets, sandboxes, and forgotten toys until he reached Maud’s back garden.
This particular safe house was in a quiet suburban neighborhood, in a house that supposedly belonged to a harmless, aging lady with a penchant for cats. Though this might seem like an odd choice for an international spy ring’s safe house, the old lady, Maud, was actually one of the agency’s top weapons specialists, although she was retired now. And she did, in fact, actually quite like cats. As he approached the safe house from behind, he saw there was a light on in the kitchen. A large, white Persian was sitting on the back step, eyeing him reproachfully. Travis reached down to pet it, only to have it hiss angrily in response.
“Okay, okay, have it your way,” he whispered, taking his hand back quickly before it got scratched.
Maud, as if she had somehow heard the cat, opened the back door. Silhouetted against the warm light of the hall, Maud looked even smaller and frailer than Travis remembered. Mind you, he told himself, she must be in her eighties by now at least. She’d already been old when he’d been recruited. “We were worried you hadn’t made it,” she told Travis, interrupting his thoughts.
“I took the long way here,” he told her. “Better safe than sorry.”
Maud nodded, her blue eyes magnified behind her thick, tortoise shell glasses. “Very true. Bruce is in the kitchen. Would you like some tea?” she asked as she led him into the kitchen.
“Err, I’m more of a coffee man myself,” Travis admitted. “But thanks, Maud.”
“Eh,” Maud replied grumpily, that one sound making her opinions on coffee very clear.
“Travis,” Bruce, their boss, stood, coming forward to grip Travis by the arm. Bruce was a big man, even compared to Travis, who stood several inches over six feet himself, and his iron-like grip made Travis wince a little. “God, I’m glad to see you. I’m afraid you’re the only one who’s made it out.”
“What?” Travis gaped at the older man. “What happened?” Picking up the tabby that was occupying the nearest chair, Travis deposited the cat on the floor and sat down. The tabby glared malevolently up at him before stalking away huffily when Travis continued to ignore it.
“My best guess at the moment is that Nabokov is out for revenge,” Bruce said, sitting back down as well. The chair creaked under his weight.
“Coffee,” Maud interrupted, banging a tray down onto the table between Bruce and Travis. “Bruce doesn’t drink tea either.”
“Oh, you didn’t need to bother, Maud,” said Travis.
“You’ve got a long drive coming up, young man,” Maud told him, sitting down on the third chair, drawing the Siamese that had been sitting there onto her lap. “So do as you’re told and drink your coffee. And have a cookie while you’re at it.”
Travis nodded meekly and poured hims
elf a coffee, grabbing a few chocolate chip cookies off the plate. “Thanks, Maud,” he said.
“Eh,” said Maud again, pouring herself a cup of tea from the floral patterned teapot she’d already had on the table. “Pass the milk.”
As Travis passed the milk, Bruce resumed his story. “You remember Nabokov, don’t you?”
Travis nodded. “It wasn’t one of my jobs, but I remember him. Russian arms dealer who was selling to a White Supremacist group in South Carolina and we brought down the whole racket. Wendy got shot in the leg during that, didn’t she?”
“Well, now she’s been shot somewhere a lot more fatal, I’m sorry to say,” said Maud, stirring milk into her tea. “I liked Wendy. Had a way with the cats, she did.”
Bruce nodded, running a hand through his close-cropped gray hair. “I’m afraid Maud’s right. Someone’s hacked into our network and decoded everything. All our agents’ true identities, addresses, weapons caches – the whole shebang. The only reason Maud wasn’t hit is because she’s not in our database anymore.”
“Really?” Travis said, turning back to Maud. “Why not?”
“Because I retired last year, that’s why,” Maud replied. “I never trusted all these online shenanigans anyway. ‘Oh, it’s all encrypted, Maud,’ they said to me down in IT. Well, encryptions are like rules, I always told them: made to be broken. I had them take me off the registry the minute I left active service. And a good thing I did too,” she said primly, re-adjusting her blue and white quilted housecoat.
“Unfortunately, Maud’s right. Every other safe house has been compromised,” Bruce told Travis.
“But surely Nabokov didn’t have the connections for this kind of coup,” Travis protested. “I mean, his operation was more or less wiped out after we had finished with him. Last I heard, he was hiding somewhere in Botswana.”
His boss nodded. “That’s what we thought too. But he always was a tricky one.”
“Personally, my money’s on Miyazaki, that Yakuza drug lord that Sara and Miguel took down last year. They said there was no way he could have gotten off that yacht before it sunk, but you know what we always say: unless you see the body…” Maud shook her head, leaving her sentence hanging.
“Or there’s Matthews, from that human trafficking ring we busted in Indiana. Him and a few of his top guys escaped from police custody the night the FBI cracked down on their warehouses,” Travis pointed out. “And I’m sure he didn’t appreciate us shutting down his Serbian suppliers either.”
Bruce sighed. “Let’s be honest. It could be anyone. All we know right know is that tonight someone hit just about every agent we had. Quickly, quietly, and efficiently. Luckily I was having drinks with an old college buddy instead of lying asleep in my bed. Miguel called me right as they gunned him down or I’d have gone home to a bullet between the eyes as well.”
“Miguel’s gone for sure?” Travis asked, swallowing hard. Miguel was one of the agency’s top spies – and one of Travis’ closest friends. They’d worked at least a dozen operations together.
“I’m afraid so,” said Bruce nodded sadly. “I heard him breathe his last over the phone. They left him to bleed out in an alley in Playa del Carmen. I’m still holding out hope that Sasha, Dembe, and Michiko will turn up, but everyone else is accounted for – and not the good kind of accounted for.”
Travis nodded slowly. “What do you need me to do?” he asked. He felt anger building in his stomach. A spy’s life is lonely and precarious and his fellow agents were the closest thing to a family that he had. Even as Travis tried to come to grips with the loss of his friends and co-workers, a loss that still didn’t seem real, he could feel anger beginning to grow in inside him. He wanted revenge.
As if he could sense Travis’ growing fury, Bruce shook his head. “For now, all I want you to do is to go far, far away from here. You’re being put into deep cover, Travis. I’m not risking your life too. Not until I get this mess sorted out.”
Travis frowned. “But I can help! I can help you figure out who is behind-”
“Listen to your boss, boy,” Maud interrupted him. “You’re still a professional, aren’t you? So take your orders like one.”
Travis looked from Maud to Bruce. “Please,” he said, gazing into Bruce’s eyes. “Please, let me help.”
But his boss shook his head. “No. I want you kept safe. I want there to be someone left after all this blows over. If anything changes, I will be in contact immediately. But, until then, you are to lie low and stay put. Are we clear on that?”
Reluctantly, Travis nodded.
“I assume you came prepared?” Bruce asked, pointing to Travis’ black backpack.
Travis nodded again. “Yes. I’ve got all the fake documents and paperwork I’ll need, plus a couple of handguns and a box of ammo.”
“Good,” said Bruce, reaching down to pick up a small, green duffel bag that was lying next to his chair. “Then all you need is this,” he told Travis, putting the duffel bag on the table in front of them.
Travis unzipped the bag to find it crammed full of bills. He raised his eyebrows at Bruce.
“Maud wasn’t the only asset not in the database,” Bruce smiled. “This should keep you afloat until I find out what’s going on.” Reaching into his jacket’s inner pocket, Bruce pulled out a scrap of paper. “Go here,” he said, handing the scrap to Travis. “Consider it your new home until further notice.”
Travis memorized the address then handed the paper back to Bruce. “Oregon?” he asked.
“Oregon,” Bruce replied.
Travis sighed. He was being sent to the middle of nowhere.
“There’s a car on the street for you. A blue Mazda. Here are the keys. Now get going.” Bruce offered Travis a set of car keys.
“Thanks, Bruce,” said Travis, looking his boss directly in the eyes as he took the keys. “For everything.”
Bruce nodded.
“And thanks for the coffee, Maud,” Travis said, standing up and taking his two bags with him.
“Don’t mention it,” said Maud, looking up at his through her large reading glasses. “Seriously, Travis. Don’t mention it. I have a reputation to maintain.”
Smiling for the first time since he’d left his apartment, Travis nodded. “Mum’s the word,” he told her.
And with nothing more to say, he turned and headed for his new life.
Chapter 2
Travis drove all night and all day, his mind racing even faster than the car as he went over who could have done this and how. At least the why, he thought with a grim smile, was fairly obvious. Travis worked for an international spy ring loosely associated with the CIA, which infiltrated and took down everything from corrupt dictators to human trafficking gangs and drug smugglers. It was the kind of work that made you enemies – powerful ones. But, for all the years that Travis had worked for the organization, nothing like this had ever happened. Sure, there’d been close calls and the odd leak or mole, but they’d always been contained issues, never something this massive.
Finally, his mind and body exhausted, Travis pulled over on the side of the highway somewhere in Montana for a few hours of sleep. At least, even if he was no closer to coming to any conclusions, he only had another day’s drive until he reached the tiny coastal town of Chilloot Bay, Oregon.
When he arrived in Chilloot Bay, it was night again and he drove slowly through the quiet streets of the sleepy town, looking for the address Bruce had given him. Finally, away from the main street, he found an old, abandoned florist’s shop. Next to the shop’s entrance was a narrow red door with 1290 nailed to it in rusted brass numbers. That was him.
Driving around the block to leave the car in the small driveway behind the store, Travis made a face. What on earth was he going to do here for the next few months? If only Bruce had let him help. But orders were orders, so Travis parked the car, slung his two bags onto his back, and made his way up the rickety wooden back steps to
his new apartment’s back door. He shook his head. What self-respecting spy lived above a flower shop?
But he was too tired to think any longer. Dropping his bags on the kitchen table, Travis lay down on the couch and was asleep in seconds, his feet dangling over the edge of the armrest. He assumed there was a bedroom somewhere, but the couch was closer. Gratefully, he let oblivion take him.
The next morning he woke up to the sound of banging on the door. Immediately, Travis was on his feet, one hand already drawing the gun out of his ankle holster. Silently making his way down the stairs to the front door, Travis looked for a peephole but the door was solid wood. The banging got louder. Adjusting his grip on the gun, Travis inched the door open – only be nearly bowled over by a robust old woman bearing a tray with tea and scones on it.
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