Page 21 of Wild Card (The Trident Trilogy 3)

“Captain Harrison Culver is your guy,” I say to Ward. “He’ll approve it.”

“Good,” Ward says. “Plan on wheels up Monday morning.”

Millie nods as I open the door for her. As we crawl out, we see my team still spread out in their watch positions. I nod to Chase. “You can give them back their keys. We’re done.”

Chase throws the driver his keys and follows Mack over to us.

“What was all that?” Mack says. “Are you in trouble because of me?”

“No, nothing like that. You remember Amar Petrovic?” she says quietly. “He’s missing. They think he might have had some involvement in Sayid’s network. Since I know the most about the network, they want me to go over to Rome to question a few people.”

She’s leaving out key details, especially the part about the agency thinking Amar might be her father. From the look on Mack’s face, I don’t think he’s picking up on it. He’s good at reading her, but he doesn’t have much experience when she activates agent-mode.

“Sweetie, you don’t work for them anymore,” he says. “You don’t have to help them out.”

“I know, but it’s just a few days, and they’re going to pay me a lot of money. And Mason’s going with me.” Mack looks up at me with relief in his eyes. “I just don’t want to leave you for two days.”

Mack looks back at her. “Mills, that should be the least of your worries. I’m going to be here when you get back.”

“But we were going down to the Outer Banks next week to go through Camille’s stuff—”

“Chase and Mar will help me. You took care of everything while I was gone. Let me take care of stuff now.”

Millie nods slowly.

“Hey,” I say, putting my arm around her. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Mack eyes me suspiciously as I pull her away.

She looks up at me. “What? You don’t want to go anymore?”

“I’m going,” I say firmly and then whisper, “Are you going to tell Mack what the director said about Amar being your dad?”

“No.” Her eyes get serious. “And that’s my decision, Mason.”

“It’s the wrong decision. You need to tell him.”

“No, I don’t. It’ll just upset him. Amar’s not my father.”

“I know he’s not,” I say gently. “That’s not the point. You need to tell Mack.”

“I’m not going to—final decision.” She tries to get around me, but I block her. “Mase, leave it alone.”

I shake my head slowly. “You know, I used to think you hid information from people because you had trust issues, but I don’t think that’s it anymore. I think you hold it back because you’re trying to protect people from themselves.”

“I don’t do that,” she says, looking over at Mack.

“Yeah, you do,” I say, stepping aside so she can get around me. “Maybe one day you’ll realize we can protect ourselves.”

She looks over her shoulder at me as she walks back to Mack. “My decision, not yours.”

“Everything okay?” Mack puts his arm around her and looks at me. “What was that about?”

“Nothing, Dad. It’s just something the director said about one of our targets.”

He leans down and looks at her. I’m hoping he can tell she’s lying, so he’ll force the truth out of her. “Is the target dangerous?”

“He’s not dangerous,” she says, smiling up at him.

“Okay.” He puts his arm around her, looks at me one more time, and starts walking to the backyard. “C’mon, let’s get back to the party. I think Butch still has a few pennies in his pocket you need to take from him.”

She laughs as she puts her arm around his waist. “Do you remember when we played poker when I was little? You always looked at my hand and gave me what I needed so I could win.”

“Yeah, and you always wanted to collect only the queens,” he says, flipping her ponytail. “I’d deal you five cards, and even if you had four aces, you’d want to replace them all if you didn’t have any queens.”

I watch them walk through the gate. Millie’s looking up at him—giggling like she’s five years old. I’ve never heard her make that sound. It sounds like pure happiness. Maybe she’s right about not telling him. Their relationship might finally be getting back to where it was before he disappeared. I don’t think there’s any way he’s not her biological father, but if she ever found out he wasn’t, I truly think it might break her.

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