Spy to Die For

She nodded once in obvious surprise. “You know, I’m not sure either.”

And that comment, more than anything else, calmed him just a bit more. If she were trying to con him, she should have continued to push. Instead, she admitted a weakness.

“Give me the tablet,” she said, reaching for it.

He still didn’t let go.

“You know I’m going to figure out who this man is the moment you walk out my door,” she said. “So let me figure it out now. Let’s see what we can do.”

Jack sighed. She was his best choice.

Hell, she was his only realistic choice.

He handed her the tablet, and took a step back, closer to the door. He liked the illusion of escape, even if he was heading into a more dangerous place.

She took the tablet from him, gave him a quick smile, then bent over it.

He should just tell her. But he didn’t want to. Better she find out for herself. He would see the change on her face as she reconsidered her offer. And then he could leave.

“Oh,” she said softly. “This makes no sense at all.”

And neither did her response. It wasn’t one he would have predicted. He didn’t move for the door—not yet. Instead, he waited—although for what, he had absolutely no idea.

Chapter 13

A Rover? Why would a member of the Assassins Guild hire a Rover?

It hadn’t taken long to get the information on that image at all, just a fraction of a second after Skye had activated the tablet’s search with the touch of a finger. She had done it as she got the tablet back from Jack.

Jack.

She looked up at him. His expression hadn’t changed, but his eyes were so different from last night. They reflected a fear, a surprise, and a resolve that she hadn’t noticed ever before.

How had that conversation gone? She reviewed it mentally:

The second guy, the one who refused to go after Jack, had said, Are you serious? I’m not killing one of us.

Then Filip Heller had said, He’s not one of us, don’t you get that?

But the other guy defended Jack. He is to me, the other guy had said.

Skye wasn’t sure what that meant.

Jack’s mouth was open just a little. She wanted to kiss it, just to calm him. But she couldn’t do that.

He looked ready to bolt.

Assassins didn’t feel fear, did they? She never saw actual fear among her colleagues. At least, not when lives were on the line, not even when their own lives were on the line.

She had always heard that Rovers were worse than assassins from the Guild. Rovers were tougher, harder, nastier. Rovers had no sense of right or wrong.

She had gotten none of that from Jack, and she was the person with the gut she had trusted since childhood. That sense was never wrong. She had pitched that sense to the Guild so that she could spy for them to pay off her debts to them, and the notoriously skeptical Guild had agreed with her.

So what had gone wrong here?

One of us. That phrase kept reverberating through her mind.

He had known that this Heller was with the Rovers, and he hadn’t wanted to tell her. He had deliberately avoided her direct question.

And now Jack’s eyes filled with just a touch of sadness. A Rover and an assassin from the Guild meet in a bar. It sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. That’s what she thought about Liora and Heller.

But she could be thinking it about herself and Jack. Except that Skye wasn’t an assassin.

It felt like her world, already topsy-turvy from the night before, had just fallen on its side.

“This makes no sense,” she said, and realized she had said it again. She had spoken out loud when she first discovered who Heller was.

“That he’s a Rover?” Jack asked softly. “Or that I’m affiliated with them?”

He still hovered near the door. He would run out there if she said anything wrong. Maybe, since she had already misjudged him, her assumption that he couldn’t take care of himself was wrong. But she still had that feeling so strongly that she didn’t want him to go.

Or maybe she was so blinded by the attraction between them that she wasn’t trusting her gut.

“Both, actually,” she said.

He didn’t move. “It doesn’t frighten you that I might be a Rover.”

Amazing that he saw that so clearly. She didn’t think she was usually easy to read. But then, she wasn’t acting like a frightened person. She wasn’t sure she knew how.

“It surprises me,” she said. “You don’t seem like the type.”

His smile was thin. “What type is that?”

“The kind who kills for a living,” she said, wondering what kind of answer he had expected from her.

“People who kill for a living usually aren’t obvious about it,” he said. “Most folks can’t recognize them. That’s why assassins are so good at what they do.”

“I suppose,” she said flatly. She had always recognized them before. Maybe not as actual assassins, but she could see the tendency. She couldn’t see it in him.

“Who are you, really?” he asked.

She took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth. She didn’t even know how to lie to him. How could she lie away her reaction? This room? Why she was here? How could she convince him that she was an average person when she clearly was not?

“I investigate people for a living,” she said.

He started, as if the answer surprised him deeply.

“I usually can tell what a person is, even if I don’t know who he is,” she said. “Everything about this is surprising me.”

“Even Heller?” Jack asked.

“No,” she said. “I knew what he was. I just didn’t know who he worked for.”

“You were surprised he was a Rover,” Jack said. “You thought he was from the Assassins Guild?”

When he asked it so plainly, she saw that the assumption made no sense. If Heller had been from the Guild, she would have known him, right?

She hadn’t thought that through. Although she might not have known him if he had been a wash-out or a relatively new recruit.

Except that he hadn’t looked new.

“You haven’t answered me,” Jack said. “Who are you?”

He was relying on her. And honestly, she wanted to help him. She couldn’t remember the last time she wanted to help anyone.

Maybe it was selfish. Maybe she wanted to think about his rangy six-foot-six frame hunching its way through the sector. Maybe she wanted the possibility of seeing him again, even if she knew realistically that it would never ever happen.

He wouldn’t be able to save himself. Even if he was a Rover. An unarmed Rover. Which was just plain strange.

She had investigated his body closely last night. He didn’t have the muscles for a man who killed barehanded. And he didn’t have the enhancements that some in the Guild used to make their own bodies into weapons.

He should have been armed. That detail bothered her.

A lot.

If she was going to help him, she would have to reveal a lot about herself just to get him off Krell.