He lets that hang there for a moment, just to make sure I understand what he’s threatening.
“You said Declan was one of your finest agents.”
“And now he’s one of our finest agents with a weakness. You.”
I can tell he’s serious. If I don’t cooperate, both Declan and I will die.
Fucking bureaucrats.
“Oh, one other item. You’ll end things between the two of you.”
My pulse goes haywire. My hands turn clammy. My stomach clenches into a horrid little knot. We stare at each other for what feels like a long time in total silence interrupted only by the occasional rumble of my stomach.
Finally, I say, “The hell I will.”
“I can’t have one of my best agents distracted. Your relationship is a liability.”
My voice rises. “I won’t end it.”
“You will, and you’ll make up something that won’t make him suspect we had this conversation. Perhaps that you did a lot of thinking while you were locked up and realized he wasn’t the man for you.”
Panic grips me. I’m both hot and cold, frozen in place but shaking violently. My voice shakes too when I say, “He won’t believe it. He’s too smart for me to pull it off convincingly.”
“I have the utmost confidence in your ability to be convincing. After all, Declan’s life is at stake.” He smiles. “And it does seem as though you’re quite taken with him, considering you’d rather starve to death alone in a shipping container than admit you’d ever met. I so admire that kind of loyalty. I know you’ll do well for us.”
He rises. His footsteps are whisper quiet against the floor. At the door, he pauses. I feel him looking back at me, but I can’t tear my gaze away from the empty plate of food on the coffee table. I can’t focus. I can hardly breathe.
Declan is a spy. I’m going to be a spy. And I have to end it between us.
Convincingly.
Or he dies.
Maybe I’m still in the hospital with that brain clot, hallucinating everything.
“I’ll give you some time to get it sorted. Don’t take long, though. Best to rip off the Band-Aid quickly. I’ll be in touch once it’s done. And remember, we never spoke. Don’t try to get creative and tell him about this conversation in some silly way like writing him a note. I’ll know if you do.”
Feeling sick, I say, “How would you know?”
“The same way I know the name of the boy who pushed you down the steps of the quad in school when you were fourteen and made you miscarry. It’s my job. Welcome aboard, Miss Keller.”
The door swings open and closed.
He’s gone before he can see me vomit all over the floor.
38
Declan
I wait for her in another room down the hall from the first. In almost two hours of pacing, I manage to convince myself that I’ll let her go when she asks me to.
Because she will ask me to. That’s a given. There’s no way in hell she can ever trust me again, not after this.
I can’t let myself think about what she might have been through in the past few days. Deprived of food and water, thrown into a cold, black, windowless cell, threatened with who knows what… I can’t think about how she must’ve suffered.
How she must hate me.
I just have to focus on getting her off this bloody ship and safely onto dry land.
A door finally opens. I spin around and see her standing in the open doorway. Our eyes lock. My heart stops dead in my chest.
She’s barefoot. Wearing jeans and a red sweater, both wrinkled and stained. Her hair is a mess of snarls. Her face is pale and drawn.
Her gaze is haunted. She looks like she might have recently been crying.
My heart starts up again, beating painfully hard. I cross the room in a few long strides and swing her up into my arms. Without a word, she buries her face in my neck, shivering.
We take an elevator up to the flight deck. Neither of us speaks. I walk down a short passageway, then we’re out in the cold ocean air.
I cross the flight deck to where the bird awaits. I help her in, buckle the safety harness around her, and put the headphones over her ears.
She closes her eyes and tilts her face toward the sun.
The flight back to the house seems endless. Mile after mile of ocean stretches beneath us before the shoreline finally comes into view. I land on the helipad and barely take the time to shut everything down before I’ve got her in my arms again.
I pass a shell-shocked-looking Kieran and Spider on my way into the house.
Kieran says in Gaelic, “How is the wee lass?”
“Alive,” I answer curtly.
I leave them behind, wondering. They won’t ask more, and I won’t offer any other information. They think it was one of our enemies who rose from the sea to take her. They think I made a deal to get her back.
They can never find out otherwise.
Oh, what tangled webs we weave.
In the master bedroom, I ease Sloane onto the bed. She lies there looking up at me with those haunted eyes.
Why isn’t she talking? Why won’t she say anything? How the fuck did I let it come to this?
I sit on the edge of the bed beside her and carefully take her cold hand. “Are you hurt?”
She’s silent for so long it scares me.
“They tried to make me talk about you.”
I’ve never heard her sound like this. Weak. Hollow. Defeated. “I know,” I say, stroking a strand of hair off her forehead. “I’m so sorry. There’s a lot I need to explain.”
I have no idea where to start, though. Maybe it would help if I knew what they told her in the debrief. Or maybe I should stop worrying about myself for a change.
“Do you want to talk about this now? Do you need food? Should I let you rest?”
“I’m not hungry. I am tired, though. And I think it might be best if we didn’t talk about it at all.”
I say vehemently, “If they hurt you, I’ll kill every one of them.”
She closes her eyes and inhales slowly. Then she turns her head to the windows and gently pulls her hand from mine.
It feels like a kick to the chest.
“Sloane. Baby. Please talk to me.”
She moistens her cracked lips. Sounding a thousand years old, she says, “I can’t right now. I’m…I don’t know what I am. Mainly tired. I really need to sleep.”
All the breath in my lungs leaves in a rush. “Bloody hell. I’m so sorry. I had no idea they’d do this. I—”
“Stop.”
I clench my jaw and sit stiffly, waiting. It’s one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.
After a fraught pause, she opens her eyes and looks at the ceiling. She says flatly, “I’ve had some quality thinking time over the past few days.”
The tone of her voice makes my stomach roll over.
She’s ending it.
“Sloane—”
“Just let me get it out.”
“I can explain everything—”
“There’s nothing to explain. If we stay together, I’ll always be a target for stuff like this. First, it was MS-13. Now, it’s the government. Someone will always be trying to get to me because of you.”