Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 149641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 599(@250wpm)___ 499(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 599(@250wpm)___ 499(@300wpm)
How was he here? Where was Kenzie? Was she out there cursing his name?
He sat in the darkness, trying to breathe, to find a way out.
And that was when he heard it. Such a small sound. A ping, and he glanced up.
The camera was off.
Somehow, he didn’t think that was Manny’s doing.
Ben struggled to his feet. What was going on? He still couldn’t see much, and his legs were shaky.
“Hello, lover. Want to tell me why Lou is gone but your mistress is still all happy and whole?”
Kenzie was here, and she was holding a gun on him. And he couldn’t blame her.
He loved her. He loved her so much.
He dropped to his knees, the pain clanging through his body, but so much less than the way it twisted in his heart.
He leaned over, holding onto the bars so he could feel the press of the silencer against his skin.
“Do it.” It would be better than living without her.
He closed his eyes, and his life flashed before him. Well, the parts that mattered.
His life with her.
Part One
Chapter One
Australia
One year before
Kenzie Taggart looked at herself in the mirror.
“She’s going to kill you.” Louisa Ward stood in the doorway that led from the bathroom out to the big hall where the medical conference was currently in full swing.
Kenzie wrinkled her nose and finished the last of her makeup. She looked good, if she did say so herself. She looked like Kara Trent, a pharmaceutical rep from Sydney, Australia. Normally she would have done her hair and makeup from the comfort of the safe house, but the quarters were tight with the whole team hanging out. Hopefully, if all went well today, Tasha wouldn’t be going back to the safe house. “Is Tasha ready?”
She ignored the other part. Kala would be pissed that she’d snuck out before dawn and left her to get stuck in the safe house all day, but she would survive it. It was one of the pitfalls that came with being a spy. More specifically, one of the pitfalls of being a spy when one shared the spy identity with her twin sister and no one was supposed to know there were two of them, even the hottest man she’d ever seen.
Kala couldn’t appreciate Brian Peters. No matter how many times her twin told her she was asexual and hated all peoples far too much to touch anyone, much less let one in her lady space, she was in love with Cooper McKay and legit didn’t see anyone beyond him. So beautiful Brian was absolutely wasted on her, and it was Kenzie time.
If Lou was here it was because Tash was, too. Louisa Ward had been part of her girl gang since they were kids. It had been her and her sisters Tash and Kala and their cousins for as long as she could remember. They’d stuck together through everything. Through every teen drama and college despair. Through all the broken hearts and exploration that ended with them founding their own sex club—as one did—her girls had been by her side. It was kind of the same as high school except now they were a CIA team and had way more access to guns, and the enemies were more impressive than mean girls who called her a slut.
She wanted to be a slut for Brian.
Damn, it had been a long time, and her sexuality wasn’t tied up in one dude. She had an itch, and she was worried the hot guy who worked with their target was the only one who could scratch it.
“Tash is nervous,” Lou admitted, leaning against the sink. “She’s worried he’s going to reject her, and I’m worried that will hurt her in a way that has nothing to do with the mission. Is this a good idea? I think she really likes this guy. He’s the first man she’s slept with since that asshole man-douche.”
Kenzie managed not to spit. Barely. It was an instinct when she thought about Chet Whittington, the asshole who broke her big sister’s heart. Why hadn’t her mom assassinated the fucker yet? Oh, yeah. Tash said no. But accidents happened, and Chet was a CIA operative so he could get in a fight where his insides came outside and die and no one would think much of it.
Sometimes she thought she probably needed therapy.
But then she remembered that all the violence was part of her sunny disposition. And it wasn’t like she visited trauma on the undeserving. She was like karma but with good lip gloss.
“I have a feeling about those two.” She gave herself one more glance, ensuring her magenta hair was soft around her face. Her dad had argued they should go to a more natural color for this assignment, but she’d started talking about the patriarchy, and when that didn’t work how much her period hurt and voila, she kept her favorite color. “Dare seems like a great guy.”