“Yeah,” he said quickly, needing to de-escalate the tension in the room. “Call you soon.” He ended the call and stuck the phone back into his jeans pocket. “We’ll talk about Friday,” he said to Ana. “But first—”
“You need to tell me why I’m not handing the Russian spy over to the FBI.” Beckett and his straight-edge, no-bending-the-rules attitude, damn it. It had always been a source of contention between them over the years.
Ana faced the TV screen again, grabbed the remote, and turned it off. Probably a good idea. She didn’t need any reporters getting into her head, not after she was finally freeing herself of some of the guilt she’d held on to about her parents’ lives.
“She’s undercover, but things went sideways,” A.J. rushed out.
Beckett shook his head. “Trouble follows you everywhere you go, Alexander James.”
He didn’t need a lecture from his forty-year-old brother. Beckett may have been older, by a mere two years, but he wasn’t A.J.’s dad, though he often acted like it. “And you haven’t made any mistakes?” he challenged, which was a low blow because he didn’t want to throw Beckett’s past in his face right now. The man had his own demons. A.J. hung his head and took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. His brother wasn’t the enemy. “Can we start over? Ana’s not a threat to anyone in the family, and you must know I’d die before letting anything happen to my niece.” How could Beckett ever think otherwise?
Beckett’s hand slipped from the holster and relaxed at his side, but just because he didn’t want to shoot him anymore, didn’t mean he didn’t want to throttle A.J. for bringing a “fugitive” to the ranch, innocent or not.
Ana snatched her bra and panties from the floor, apparently just noticing they were there, then held them behind her back and stood next to A.J.
“You two were here having sex at Grant’s house, meanwhile her face is on every major news outlet in the country.” Beckett curled his hands into fists at his sides. Tension gathering like an impending afternoon storm.
“Since when do you watch the news? You hate the media.” Not the point. Focus. “We have to go. I’ll explain everything once it’s safe to do so. Please, just don’t report we were here, not unless you want us getting killed.” He hoped his brother would set aside his high-and-mighty moral compass if it meant keeping A.J. alive.
Beckett’s mouth opened, prepared to speak, but then he tightened his lips.
“I really am so sorry.” Ana stepped forward, keeping her undergarments hidden behind her back, and reached out with a tentative hand in Beckett’s direction, but Beckett walked back a step.
Beckett stared at her with such contempt it had A.J. wanting to knock his brother in the jaw for daring to hurt Ana’s feelings. “You never come near my family again. You got it? If I see you back here, I’ll be the first to bring you in,” Beckett warned, eyes pinned on Ana.
She blinked, then bowed her head and returned to stand beside A.J. in defeat.
“You’re out of line.” A.J. stepped in front of his brother, hating Beckett had two inches on him, and he had to look up to meet his eyes. “You have no right to talk to her like that. You don’t know a damn thing about her aside from what bullshit the media has cooked up.” Anger at Beckett radiated off A.J. in hot waves, and he nearly forgot the gravity of the situation.
But they needed to get out of Grant’s house ASAP.
“And maybe you shouldn’t come back, either. Skip Ella’s wedding.” Beckett angled his head, eyes thinning. “If you don’t have the good sense to know not to bring trouble to our town, to our home—regardless of your reasons—then you don’t belong here.”
A.J. was ready to lash out, but at the feel of Ana’s hand on his arm, he faced her, witnessing a plea in her eyes to back down.
“Get out of here. You have five minutes. If you ain’t gone by then, I’m calling the Bureau myself.” Beckett turned and started for the hallway but then paused and threw a look back at him over his shoulder. “Don’t fucking die,” he said in a softer voice. “Mom wouldn’t like that.”
Once Beckett was gone, A.J. dropped his face into his palm. “I’m sorry about him. He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t do gray areas. Very black and white.”
Her hand was on his bare chest when he opened his eyes. “It’s all my fault. I never wanted to come between you and your family. And I shouldn’t have involved you in my mess.”
He gently seized her wrist when she began to pull away. “You can’t mean that.”
“I don’t belong in this place. It was a fairy tale being here with you, but I don’t deserve a storybook ending.”
“Ana.” He let go of a ragged breath. “Your story ends however you want it to, and if you think for one minute I’m going to let Beckett change my mind about you, you’re mistaken.”
Grant would forgive him for borrowing his truck as long as he didn’t return it riddled with bullet holes. The BMX that A.J. decided to load into the truck bed at the last minute—yeah, Grant would kill him for taking that. But it might come in handy if he and his team did go to the safe house in Carrollton as planned Friday night.
A.J. settled his wrist over the steering wheel as he drove on back roads. Harper had been concerned that if he and Ana went to the team’s location on the outskirts of Birmingham, they’d have trouble crossing into Georgia later. It was best they got a head start even though it was doubtful anyone knew Ana was currently in the South. And since the FBI manhunt had officially begun, A.J. didn’t want to chance being stopped at a state line checkpoint.
They crossed into Georgia after a ninety-minute drive that should have taken an hour. The back roads slowed them down.
“Mendez had no choice,” Ana spoke for the first time since they’d rushed from Grant’s house. “The Cayman account, the surveillance video outside Porter’s house, and the media getting wind of my identity,” she listed. “I knew this could happen, but I didn’t expect it to hurt so much. Or for the national news to learn my real last name and bring up my parents’ sordid story. I might as well kiss my job at the Bureau goodbye.”
“Don’t say that.” He slowed his speed, worried about deer in the backwoods. “You’re an incredible agent.”
“How can I be an agent again now that my face and story have been broadcasted all over the world? The words ‘Russia’ and ‘spy’ will forever be attached to my name even after the case is closed. You know how people are.” Her tone was somber. The stubborn intensity he loved gone. Defeat in its place. Hopefully that was temporary.
“You don’t need to give up. That’s not like you.”
“And if I want to?” she whispered. “If I only became an FBI agent to fix the wrongs of my parents’ past—well, what’s the point after this is over?”
“If you don’t want to be an agent, that’s one thing, but don’t let my brother or the media influence your choice.” His parents, Ella, Jesse—they’d all been blowing up his phone since he left Grant’s house. A.J. had no idea what Beckett had told them, but surely his family would be pissed, too.