Page 38 of How Much For a Life of Lies?

Not that Zach and I were the bad guys.

And the implied sex was between two Shadow Team agents.

Yeah, the analogy wasn’t working here at all.

“Getting the pilot out of the way took a direction we weren’t expecting,” I interjected, then I dragged a chair over so the boss could see us both. I wasn’t letting Zach take any shit for this.

I imagined the cogs turning as Ethan processed Zach’s report. “Threat assessment?”

“Apart from me killing Sierra Three?” Zach muttered.

“Like to see you try,” I deadpanned.

“Jesus, Kai!”

What did I tell our team leader back in Maine, all cozy in his safe house and not in Cedar Ridge way up in northwestern Ontario? How did I tell him everything had changed the moment I grabbed Zach’s hair and yanked him in for a kiss? Fuck the mission.

And worse, he’d shoved me back and somehow dialed into one of my biggest kinks, and I liked it way more than I should have.

“Neither of you kill each other,” Ethan said with barely restrained irritation. “Is the mission still on course?”

“Yes,” I said.

“No,” Zach tried to be heard, only my yes was loudest.

“Which is it? Sierra Two? Yes or no?”

Great, he was asking Zach to clarify—was I not loud enough?

“I’m expecting Sierra Three to get a call requesting him to replace the target.” He glanced at me, and I stayed silent. “So, yes, but the complication is that I’m not entirely separated now, and have no plausible deniability, not to mention Kai claiming me in a bar has messed with my cover. What happened has pulled me in too deep.” He inhaled sharply after the run-on sentences, then exhaled and kept his voice steady. “But we’ll get the job done.”

“Good. And Kozlov?”

“Still no sighting.”

Vladimir Kozlov, former Russian oligarch, murderer, and all-around asshole, was our target. Sanctioned internationally, he’d then turned to other means of financing his lifestyle, keeping the billions steady, and he had way too much control over the illegal mining network in the Canadian Shield. Driven by profit and wanting to regain his status, he was happy to steal natural resources to rebuild his fortune and influence, not to mention have a hold on the amount of drugs leaving the same area. He was a man who operated from the shadows, bribing officials, which is where the Shadow Team had come in after his group of mercenaries had threatened the wrong person—or the wrong person’s family, at least—and killed a man to leave a message.

“Noted,” Ethan muttered. “Okay, work this new angle, and hope that Kozlov doesn’t drop you both.”

“On it.”

That was it; the report was done, and there was nothing else to say.

I watched Zach closely when the screen went blank, his guarded expression betraying little.

Now, he was lost in thought, thinking through the change with his usual fierce commitment to the mission I couldn’t help but respect, even if he was furious with me. Despite my prickliness and issues, and the stick he sometimes kept up his ass, I was still his partner.

He scooped up the files and the laptop and headed out into the kitchen, not surprised when I followed him.

“Zach, this is stupid. We should just talk,” I began.

He rounded on me. “No,” he snapped.

He was done with me. The senseless want consuming me that made me edgy with need had no outlet. Nor would it if he had anything to say on the matter. The whole making me promise we wouldn’t touch each other again was very much front and center.

I hated it.

FIFTEEN

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