Tate looked up. “So, if all the players changed, then who is CJ working for?”
“Specifically? She didn’t, or couldn’t, say, but she intimated she was working for the same group, so I can only assume she moved up the chain when the regime changed.”
“Then how in the hell can I be of any help? I don’t know any of those players. We infiltrated the lowest level, as supposed foreign operatives working with Italian counterspies they’d tapped a year before. It’s the only reason they’d have anything to do with us as women. We’d just begun to make inroads when Buonfiglio was found out to be a triple threat, working for the Afghanis as well as his government and ours, and flipped on all of us to save his sorry, cowardly ass.”
“Which he didn’t, by the way. He was killed shortly after you retired.”
Something flashed across her face, but she said nothing. Derek thought about letting it go, but decided to nudge, just a little. He needed to know where she stood. “What?”
“Nothing. I just—” She held his gaze, and hers was all steel now, reminding him of their days working together. She’d been rock solid then. She still was now, though she probably thought she wasn’t. Some of that had been trained into her, but mostly it was who she was. You couldn’t make an agent out of nothing, you could only hone and enhance the elements that were already there. And being unshakable was one of her sharpest natural components. It was why she was sitting across from him today, and not in a dusty grave in a desert halfway around the world. “I’m not sorry he’s dead,” she said, at length. “I don’t know what that says about me. No one deserves to die, especially not like he probably did.”
“He was directly responsible for the death or torture of a half dozen people, four of them his own countrymen and working directly on his team. He was a mercenary and, you’re right, a coward. Neither of those qualities generally lends itself to a happy end.”
She didn’t say anything.
“What else?” he asked.
She looked up. “What else, what?”
“You had a look. And it wasn’t simply satisfaction over Buon’s death.”
“You know what I miss the least about not being part of the team any longer?”
“The team, or my team?”
“Yes,” was all she said.
His lips curved slightly. “What do you miss the least?”
“Having my every blink of the eye, flicker of emotion, twitch of the lips examined, analyzed, and probed.”
“You know better than anyone that you can’t just keep your opposition under a microscope. In the world we operated in, you had to keep close watch on your own as well. As Buonfiglio so rightly proved. If the Italians had been paying closer attention to their own, he’d never have gotten far enough to do what he did.”
“We could say the same thing about CJ.”
He nodded. “We’re far from perfect. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try our damndest.”
“I know. I didn’t say I didn’t understand it, the need for it, or even approve of the need for it. I said I don’t miss it. Here in the world I’m in now, no one cares what I’m thinking about, or what my next move might be. I’m not on anyone’s radar. Ever. Claiming that kind of absolute independence and freedom is a heady thing, Derek. Giving up even a shred of it grates. Deeply.”
“Understandably.”
“Then you’ll forgive me if I don’t allow you insight into my every thought.”
“I’m not being nosy. I need to know my partner.” His lips quirked again when she scowled. “Recalcitrant though she may be.” He turned serious again. “It’s been three years. I need to know you, what you’re thinking, the conclusions you are drawing. It could be the difference between success or failure.” He didn’t have to add that that usually equaled life or death. With her, he didn’t have to.
“You’ll have to settle for knowing what I see fit to tell you. As I said before, I don’t work for you any longer. You don’t own me, or have rights to anything I don’t care to give you access to.”
“We’re partners, not team leader and agent. You’re stuck with me now, like it or not.” He lifted a hand, briefly, off the bed. “No need to clarify which side of that you stand on.”
“Derek—”
“I may not have any rights where you’re concerned, but we’re in this regardless of whether or not it’s right, fair, or anything else. We both know that life is often none of those things. I can continue to apologize for dragging you into this, or we can accept that this is the lot we’ve been handed and get to work on solving it.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing.”
“Okay. Then when I ask you a question, I need you to answer me. I’ll do the same for you. Partners, Tate. You know better than anyone what it takes to make a successful partnership. You and CJ were the best team I ever had.”
Now it was her turn to quirk her lips, only there was absolutely no humor in her eyes. “And yet, look where it’s gotten me. The irony, eh?” She stood and shoved her chair back.
“We just started,” he said. “We still have an enormous amount to cover and time is something we can’t waste any more of than we already have.”
“We?” she asked, arching a brow.
“Tate.”
“You need to rest. And I need to…regroup.”
“Tate—”
She picked up the food tray from the dresser. “Neither of us is going anywhere right this second, Derek. I’ll be back later.” She paused in the doorway. “As your partner, I’d advise you to get as much rehabilitative rest as possible. We have no idea what the next few days will bring, but I think it’s a safe bet to assume that the stronger you are, the better chance we’ll have of getting through them.” She didn’t wait for his reply.
But when she turned to leave, she caught the tray on the edge of the doorframe. She corrected the movement immediately, before anything could topple to the floor, but the sudden action revealed two things to Derek: her reflexes were still sharp as ever. But her body was not. It would have taken someone with his dedication to detail to notice, but there’d been a slight, yet definite hitch in her step when she’d readjusted her trajectory and that of the tray. She’d healed from her injuries in a far more superior way than even he’d have ever projected, even knowing her for the bulldog she was.
But while she might give the impression of being one hundred percent, or damn near it, she wasn’t. He knew she’d undergone multiple surgeries to repair the damage done to her limbs, all four of them. You wouldn’t know it to look at her today that she’d ever been as broken as she was. Until that brief, but telling moment.
She’d been out in the rain, hiking the hills. Then she’d come in here and sat in that chair for the past half hour. And now she was paying the price. A price
