Page 93 of Fire for Effect

“Mellie doesn’t come out here when I’m not around, and I turn in the rent at her house. As for repairmen… to repair… what exactly?” I knew spooks were paranoid. When we’d had to work with them on the team, back in the days when I was in 6th Special Forces Group, we had made fun of the CIA spies and the way they jumped at their own shadows. I never thought Kai would become one of them. “You can sweep every tree and every bit of furniture I don’t have if you like.”

He pinched my rib, tickling me. I squirmed from his grasp, before he wrapped his arms around me, pulling my back to his front so that I stood between him and the fire.

He took the cigarette from my fingers and started smoking, stretching his arm out far to ash away from me.

The night was cold, but I was perfectly warm. We were so far out that the sky was filled with stars, undiluted by the light pollution of nearby cities and towns. The spill of the Milky Way was so much more obvious when we were out here in the middle of nowhere.

“You’re being targeted,” he said, quietly, resting his chin on the top of my head. “I need you to not talk, while I get this out. I’m part of a wet team called Cerberus.”

Wet team. Wet work. It was a fancy way of saying an assassination team. Targeting, and killing.

Finally, I could confirm what he did for work.

“We operate directly under President Lau, and coordinate with the Company.” He was well into his jargon tonight. “Our most recent target was a disenfranchised former DEVGRU.” I wondered if that target knew Trout. Spec Ops was a small world, after all. “He was part of a group planning to attack an event we have yet to identify. But it’s going to be a big one, in retaliation for a choice President Lau made a few years ago.”

“What kind of decision?”

“A prisoner exchange. He traded a few GITMO prisoner for an AWOL Marine.”

I listened, taking it all in. Terrorist groups could start for any offense. I suppose for a bunch of soldiers, losing a high value target for a traitor would be enough.

“Yup,” he nuzzled his nose into the back of my wet hair. “I like your shampoo. What is that? Orange blossom?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to pull away as his breath tickled my skin. “Stop breathing on me, creep!”

He placed his nose at the crook of my neck and started sniffing me.

“Stop! Damnit!” I tried to squirm away, but he held me tighter. “Stop! Okay! Okay! Tell me what the point is!”

He sighed, dropping the cigarette into the bonfire before lighting up another. Was he stress smoking? That was something he had done in the Army. He used to tap me on the shoulder for a smoke break when he was stressed, and that was one of those formative habits that made us close.

“The DEVGRU guy said your name to me. Told me that they were after you.”

“Me?” Well, that was a surprise. So many men were after me, I had never felt so popular in my life. “I’m nobody.”

“Apparently, you’re someone. To Trout. To Paradigm. To me.” He tightened his arms around me, crossing them beneath my breast until I was flush against him. “I like to think it’s because of me, but after today, I think it might be about your Dad. I wasn’t in on the decision for the prisoner exchange, even though I was there when it happened. Now this thing with Brett and the rest…”

He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around so that we were joined at the hips. He wrapped his arm around my waist, looking down at me, his brows together, a deep groove in the space between them.

He’d aged a lot in the last couple of years. Crows' feet that hadn’t been there were now making themselves visible. He had bags under his eyes, and I wasn’t sure they’d go away with just a good night’s sleep.

“Is there anything you could think of that could help me figure this out?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

I tried to think. I really did. But the honest truth was that I had no idea.

“The last of my secrets you learned today. There’s nothing else to know.”

That was the truth of me. I was a simple girl, of simple origins, with no connections, barely any family, and certainly no real friends to speak of outside of the team Kai and I had shared. Nothing special.

Ghost, and Kai… the most interesting things about me seemed to be about someone else.

“I’m not going to get into how bullshit that statement is,” he chuckled. I felt it rumble through his chest, as he pulled me into him. “But if you think of something, tell me.”

I looked at the bracelet on my wrist, letting it jangle. The sturdy metal glinted in the firelight. I always liked silver for this specific property - the way it could reflect the colors around it, far more than the yellow taint of gold.

“Now that you have me chained by this bracelet, how do I get to brand you?” I lifted my arms and put them around his neck.

“You’re already tattooed on my skin. Want me to make it more explicit and get Trinity Blaze Guerro on my ass?”

---