Page 60 of Toxic Vengeance

A startled laugh burst out of him. “You were using me for foot rubs, too?”

“You give awesome foot rubs, and I told you, while I was with you I got to be a different version of me. The one I never got to be in real life,” she said with a smile, then sobered. “Tell me the truth. Are you disappointed with the real me?”

He would have laughed, but her expression was dead serious…and there was concern lurking in her eyes he wanted to erase forever. “No. In fact I prefer this version a hundred times more. The other you would have bankrupted me eventually,” he teased. “All those fancy hotels and dinners and room service.”

They shared a smile, remembering how it had been, then her phone rang. She pulled it out and answered, her expression turning grave. “And Bennett?” She listened a moment. “Okay, understood. Eighty minutes. Bye.”

“Trinity?” he asked as she set the phone down.

“Yes. The Tesla driver made it a few blocks from the scene of the accident before a cop found her.”

“Her?”

“Yes. They took her to the hospital, but she died on the operating table from internal injuries.”

The news surprised him, and was also cause for concern. That woman had definitely been gunning for them last night, or Eden at least. On the plus side, there weren’t a lot of female hitters around, so maybe she’d be easier to ID. “Any idea who she was?”

“Not yet. Amber’s looking into it, along with Kiyomi.”

“Maybe she killed Bennett.”

“Maybe. Chances are she’s connected to his death in some way if she was waiting for us when we left the building. Anyway, we can’t stay in the city any longer, there may be other hitters coming for us, and the cops definitely will be. Trinity’s scheduled a flight for us eighty minutes from now at a small airport outside of town.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to the UK. Rycroft’s team and Amber are working on altering the flight plan and route to confuse anyone who might be on to us and hoping to follow.”

Good. Because they couldn’t risk leading anyone back to base.

Eden stood and grabbed her plate. “We need to sanitize this place.”

He leaned over to grab her arm before she could turn away. “Wait.” He took the plate from her and set it on the table. “I’ll help you wipe everything down in a minute. But first, come here a sec.”

Ignoring her protests, he tugged her around the small table and drew her onto his lap. She was rigid at first, but when he wrapped his arms around her and tucked her in close, his chin resting on her shoulder, she slowly relaxed. “I really do like the real you better than the fake you,” he murmured against her hair. “The real you has the best of both versions.”

She grumbled, clearly uncomfortable with the compliment, then sighed and leaned into him more. “We’re all in danger now, especially the others and me, and I don’t want you hurt or killed because of what you’ve been dragged into.”

“I wasn’t dragged into anything, I volunteered.”

“Before you knew the whole truth of what’s going on.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.Youmatter.”

“And you don’t?” Bullshit to that. He’d—

She pushed up to glare down at him, her eyes blazing with frustration…and a hint of fear. “Don’t you get it? We’re up against an unknown threat from a faceless enemy with powerful connections, unlike anyone you’ve ever confronted before. You have family that care about you. I don’t. No one will miss me if I die. The others and I, we’re…”

He put a hand over her mouth to stop her from continuing, afraid the word expendable had been about to come out. She wasn’t fucking expendable, and neither were the others.

“I’dmiss you, goddammit,” he fired back, outraged that she would ever think she mattered so little to anyone, least of all him. “Don’t you get that? I don’t ever want to hear you say that shit again. That’s Agency bullshit, drilled into you by the same people who made you into a weapon they could use and dispose of when it suited them. Fuck that. Fuckthem.”

Her anger faded, the look in her eyes replaced by something bordering on exhaustion. “Zack, you don’t know me. Not really. And you don’t know the things I’ve done. If you knew the truth…”

He wasn’t going to listen to any bullshit excuses she threw out to put distance between them. “We’ve both done things we’d rather forget in service to our country. But I know and admire the most important things about you.” She looked away but he took her face in his hands, forced her to look at him. “I know you’re brave and smart and determined, and that I got to see a softer, freer side of you that no one ever has before.”

Her eyes filled with torment at the last part, but she didn’t deny it.

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