And that scared me, too.
Gianni visibly relaxed some more—he believed me when I said I owed him my success. It felt like I was having a kind of out-of-body experience. I could see every reaction of his clearly. This whole charade was set in a new context of Gianni not being the innocent—if slightly handsy—art dealer I thought he was. Instead, he was up to something.
Slipping my headphones back over my head, I went back to the studio. I’d come out to look at my pieces already hanging on the wall, to remind myself of how many paintings I’d sold the night before. To calm myself down as Jayden called my phone over and over. To tell myself that I could do this.
But I slinked back into the studio and breathed a sigh of relief. Being with Gianni felt stifling this morning, like I had to keep up an act that I didn’t quite understand.
My phone rang as soon as I walked in, and I sighed. Jayden again. I walked over to the wall where I’d left my phone on charge, with the intention of turning it off and flinging it against something hard. But it wasn’t Jayden’s name that flashed on the screen—it was Tanya’s. The tension in my body lessened as I swiped the screen to answer.
“Hey.”
“Hey, you. What’s up? I woke up to this cryptic text of yours telling me you left Jayden. What does that mean?”
“It means I left Jayden last night. I slept at the studio.”
“What? I mean, good! He was a piece of shit.”
“You want me to say it?”
“Say what?”
“You were right.”
Tanya chuckled, but there was a hint of sadness in her voice. She took a deep breath. “What do you say I come pick you up and we go out for some waffles? I have the day off, and you shouldn’t be alone.”
“Only if I can also have a mimosa.”
“Girl, you can have as many mimosas as you need. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
We hung up and I slumped down on the couch. Talking to Tanya—knowing that she was coming, and that everything that had happened last night had, in fact, happened—it made it all seem all the more real. I was tired. My body was running on no food and little sleep. I’d been elated last night, and then crushed, and then… Well, then Freddy happened.
I knew that Tanya would want to talk about Jayden, but there was too much to process. I felt sad, betrayed… and relieved. The fact that an undercurrent of relief buoyed me made me feel guilty.
Yeah—I was a mess.
Using the sink in the corner of the studio, I gave my face and armpits a wash and put on some clean clothes. Tanya texted me shortly after that she was outside. As soon as I entered the car, I sank into the seat and smiled.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
Tanya snorted and started driving. We crossed the city in silence, and it wasn’t until we slid into a booth at our favorite diner that she really looked at me. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’m worried about me, too.”
Her face scrunched into a smile, with her blue eyes sparkling. She tucked a strand of curly brown hair behind her ear and sighed. “I’m glad you left Jayden.”
“I haven’t exactly told him yet. He never came to the exhibition last night and I found out that he…” I couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t say that he had been cheating on me for who knows how long. It felt like an anvil was sitting on my chest and I shook my head. “He went out last night, so I just packed my bags and left.”
Tanya’s eyes widened. “Where did you sleep?”
“At the studio.”
“Nope. Nuh-uh.” She shook her head. “Not going to happen. I have a spare bedroom. After waffles, we’re going to the studio and grabbing your things and you’re staying with me.”
“Tanya…” Tears threatened to spill onto my cheeks.
“Why didn’t you call me last night?”
“It was so late, I didn’t want to wake you, I…”
“Hailey.” Her voice was stern. She was a third-grade teacher, and right now I felt like one of her students. My cheeks reddened, and she sighed. “You are my best friend. If you can’t call me in the middle of the night, who can you call? You look exhausted. Have you showered?”
“Sort of.” I scrunched my napkin in my hands, tearing at the edges. I couldn’t meet her eye.
She reached over and squeezed my hand, forcing me to look up at her. “Hailey, it’ll be okay. Everything will work out. You’ll come stay with me, and you’ll tell Jayden it’s over. What did he do? Did he cheat on you?”
My tears answered for me.
“I knew it. That bastard.” Her curls shook as her eyes flashed. “You’re staying with me and if you ever go back to him, I swear I will knock you out. You know I do Jiu jitsu now.”
I laugh-snorted. “I’m not going back to him.” There was strength in my voice. I tried to tell myself was the success of the exhibition that gave me the confidence, but deep down my thoughts flicked to Freddy.
Finchey. His old nickname played in my mind and I pushed it down, just like I always did. I couldn’t trust him—not after everything that had happened. I couldn’t trust anyone but myself… and maybe Tanya.
Our food arrived, along with two mimosas, and Tanya smiled at me. “Eat. After that, we go get your stuff and get you settled at my place. I’m not taking no for an answer.” She bit her lip and reached into her purse, pulling out a small black box. It had a big bow on top, and she slid it over toward me. “I wanted to give this to you last night, but you got whisked away before I could. Congratulations, Hails. We should be talking about your success, not that cheating loser you used to date.”
Tears welled in my eyes again as I opened the box. It was a small, silver pendant of a lion. I laugh-cried and hugged her awkwardly over the table. “Thank you.”
“My lioness. I’m proud of you. You’re fierce and determined, and you’ve overcome so much. You deserve every bit of success that you’ve achieved.”
I felt like my heart was going to explode. I couldn’t take this much emotion. I needed at least a week away from everything and everyone just to recover from the past twenty-four hours. And once I was done my waffles and mimosa, that was exactly what I intended on doing.
12
Freddy
“Why didn’t you tell us you knew her?” Berk slammed his fists down on the conference table, making everything on it jump up from the impact. His big, bald head loomed over me. His dark skin looked even darker silhouetted against the lights. I tried my best not to flinch, even though everything inside me was screaming to move away. After my conversation with Hailey at the gallery, the entire team knew I had a connection with her. I’d told them she was a childhood friend.
“I only found out yesterday. She changed her name, and it wasn’t until I saw her in person that I put two and two together.”
Berk huffed, and I swore that steam actually blew out of his nostrils. “And yet, here we are—almost twenty-four hours later—and I’m just learning this now.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“You didn’t think it was relevant?” His eyebrows drew together, anger radiating from his every pore. His breath trembled, and I knew my next words had to be chosen carefully.
I took a breath. “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to jeopardize the operation before I brought it to the table.”
Berkeley inhaled deeply and straightened up. He rubbed his head with his palm, closing his eyes for a moment. I was waiting for the thunder. I’ve seen him angry, and this was nothing. Still, I could see the tension rippling just under the surface, waiting for any excuse to be unleashed.
But Berk didn’t explode. He just exhaled and opened his eyes. They were dark and angry, but his voice was calm. “You’re going to bring her in.”
“Berk—”
“You’re going to bring her in,” he interrupted. “And we’re going to use her. She’s our connection to the Russos—exactly what we’ve been looking for this
entire time. We’ve needed an inside man, and now we’ve got it. She has access that we will never get.”
“I can’t—”
“Bring. Her. In.” His tone of voice was final. I knew that the best course of action was to leave the conference room and do as he said, but it still killed me. I dragged myself up to my feet and glanced at him. His eyes were trained on me, dark and imposing. I looked up to Berkeley as a mentor, a role model… Up until this moment, I’d done my best to impress him. My position as the lead of this operation was predicated on Berkeley respecting me as an agent.
I nodded. “Fine.”
“Today.”
I stomped out of the room. Other agents poked their heads over cubicles like gophers out of their holes, knowing that I’d just been dragged in there by a very angry director. I ignored them.
I wanted to protect Hailey. Bringing her in meant using her as an asset and inserting her into the center of our operation. That was putting her directly in the line of fire. She was already too close. She was relying on Gianni for her career, and I didn’t know how to disentangle her from it. And now Berkeley was asking me to push her closer to him?
Gianni wasn’t an altruistic art lover. He was using her for something… or at least I thought he was using her. Then again, at the gallery opening, he actually seemed like he appreciated her paintings.
I flew down the hallway, digging my nails into my fists to try and contain my anger.
Hailey was innocent in all this, but because of me, she was in danger. An asset in the field lived a dangerous double life, and if Gianni found out who I was, and who she was… Well, that would be deadly. For both of us.
Thunderclouds gathered over my head and the whole world turned grey. I slipped on my sunglasses and went outside, taking deep, gulping breaths of the crisp autumn air. I needed to think this through. Whatever I’d hoped to do before to keep Hailey out of trouble, that opportunity was gone. I had to bring her in or else risk my career.
I’d worked too hard, for too long, to be exactly where I was in the Agency. This operation was supposed to be my big break. It was meant to buoy my career and get me to the top.
But how could I pursue that and still keep Hailey out of danger? She hadn’t spoken to me in ten years after what happened between us—after I broke her trust.
And now…
Now, I was going to do it again. I might ruin her career right when it was starting to look promising.
“You like her, don’t you?” I jumped at the sound of Gary’s voice. He’d followed me outside and pulled a cigarette out of his breast pocket. He extended it to me, but I shook my head.
“Forgot you don’t smoke,” he said, putting it between his lips and lighting it. Gary was tall and lanky, with a haircut that looked like it was from Supercuts in 1999, and the same glasses he’d worn since I met him four years ago. He wore a short-sleeved button-up shirt that was more than a little wrinkly.
Exhaling a puff of smoke, he glanced at me. “How do you know her?”
“We went to the same school.”
“That prep school?”
I grunted in acknowledgement. “She was my friend.”
“Was?”
“Yeah. Haven’t seen her in ten years.”
“You think she’ll come in? Berkeley seems to think she’s the key to all this.”
I thought of last night—of the kiss. And then I thought of the day that I broke her heart, when I did the worst thing I’ve ever done and she took the fall for it. She expected me to stay by her side, to support her while she saved me from being ostracized and expelled, and I didn’t.
I left. Well, I was incentivized by her father and I felt like I had no choice, but I still left.
I let her take the fall, and I kept my mouth shut. Then, I graduated from our prep school with honors and took off to college with a scholarship. I got a job as an analyst at the CIA and then moved over to the Special Activities Decision. I was in my job now because of that decision.
If she hadn’t taken the blame for me, I wouldn’t be here. I owed Hailey my career, my life… everything.
And she’d been disowned, she said. Her life had been ruined… by me.
And now I had to ask her to be an informant for the CIA? I had to ask her to give up her opportunity with the Russo Gallery to help me out?
Yeah, right.
The logical part of my brain knew that she was in danger, and she was better off distancing herself from the Russos regardless of whether or not she was a CIA asset. The logical part of my brain knew that the Russos were vicious, and that she shouldn’t be near them.
But Hailey’s artwork was good. She was good. She’d been through so much and I felt like I owed her something.
Gary cleared his throat. “Finch? You think she’ll come in?”
I blinked. “I don’t know. She has my number. I’ll wait for her to call.”
“Did something happen between you guys?”
For someone who was glued to his computer 95% of the time, Gary was surprisingly perceptive. I snorted. “Yeah. I ruined her life.”
“Oh.” He sucked on his cigarette beside me, and I was glad that he was there. Mostly because he was quiet.
I checked my phone, simultaneously relieved and worried that Hailey hadn’t contacted me. If she didn’t make contact today, I would have to find her. Berk had been clear—Hailey had to come in today.
Slipping my phone back into my pocket, I nodded to Gary. “I’ve got somewhere to be. I’ll call you later if I need you.”
“Sure.”
It only took me a few minutes to drive home. I made a beeline toward my closet, shuffling aside a stack of hoodies to find the worn legal envelope the back. I pulled it down and sat on the bed. My hands trembled as I placed the envelope on my lap. I flipped open the top of it and slid out the stack of papers.
Shuffling though them, I found what I was looking for. It was a photo of Hailey and I when we were fourteen years old, when she had decided to befriend me at school. She’d been my first and only friend when all the other rich kids looked at me like I was a leper. Staring at the picture, my eyes started to mist. I was carrying her on my back, with her arms hooked around my neck. She had that beaming smile of hers, with a little gap between her front teeth. I hadn’t noticed the gap in her teeth anymore and I wondered if they grew together as she got older, or if she got them fixed.
It didn’t matter, I supposed, but it was just another thing I’d missed.
I brushed my fingers over the photo and felt my heart thumping harder. She’d been beautiful, even then. I always knew she’d grow up to be stunning, but I hadn’t been prepared for the reality. I closed my eyes, gripping the photo as emotions warred inside me.
I needed to make this right.
Hailey didn’t deserve to be beholden to a criminal art dealer for her career. She didn’t deserve to be dragged into a messy undercover operation just because she knew me. I’d already ruined her life once, and now Berkeley was asking me to do it again.
I had to fix it. And I had to see her again.
Opening the envelope wider, I tipped the rest of the contents out into my hands. Yellowing pages of a contract stared back at me as my heart started to beat faster. It was only a page long, but it had changed the course of my life forever. I looked at Hailey’s father’s looping signature, right above my own cramped, scrawly one. Even looking at my signature now, I could sense the fear that had prompted me to sign it.
It was time for me to fix what had happened, to prove to Hailey that I wasn’t the monster she thought I was. I didn’t abandon her all those years ago. I thought I was doing the right thing. Her father lied to me. This contract was proof. I might have to take her away from Gianni Russo, but I would show her that I cared. That I’d always cared.
And I hoped—God, how I hoped—that she would forgive me.
I hoped that she would look at me the way she looked at me the night before, and that I’d get to taste her lips again.
Berkeley would get what he wanted. I would bring her in, and I would convince her to be an asset, but I would do it on my terms.
13
Hailey
Freddy’s card burned a hole in my pocket all day, but I resisted the urge to look at it until I was settled in Tanya’s spare bedroom.
Periodically, as we moved my things from the studio to her house, I’d touch my pocket and feel the little square of cardboard to make sure it was still there.
I knew the minute he put it in my hand that I would call him. I tried to force myself to be mad at him, but all I could think of were his hands on my body. The taste of his lips. His eyes devouring me. It was like he’d put a spell on me when he kissed me. He was a drug— he gave me one hit and now I was hooked.
Addicted to him.
… Again.
I laid down on Tanya’s guest bed and stared at the ceiling. My life was completely upside down but I felt almost… free. Jayden hadn’t called me in a couple of hours, and the silence was welcome. Maybe he knew that this time, it really was over.
Trying to process my emotions was almost impossible. I knew I should be devastated by Jayden’s betrayal. I should have been hurting, angry… anything.
But I just felt relieved.
I went through my relationship with Jayden and catalogued all the memorable moments. His laugh, his cooking, going to Miami together—good. The drinking, the fighting, feeling like I was doing something wrong without knowing what it was—bad.
Having somewhere to live—good.
Feeling like I owed him something—bad.
The more I weighed things up, the more I realized he’d been using the good things as leverage against me. It was toxic—maybe even emotionally abusive. All of a sudden, and I could see what he’d done to me. Jayden had made me smaller, weaker, more fearful.
I inhaled, following a crack in the ceiling with my eyes until I got to the far corner of the bedroom. A cobweb hung there, and I stared at it for a few moments. My mind tried to reach back and think about Freddy, about that moment I decided to protect him, and how that decision ruined my family and my future. I wouldn’t let my mind go there. I pushed the memories back down, as deep as they would go. I had enough on my plate between Jayden and Gianni, I couldn’t face that particular trauma. Not today.
The Protector: The Complete C.I.A. Romance Series Page 42