“I don’t know. We’ll find out, but be safe.”
At the bottom of the stairs, I started sprinting left, and she went right. Neither one of us said goodbye. We knew the rules. We just switched back to the main comm channel and bolted.
As I sprinted for the boat, shoes in my hand and the decryption device shoved in my bra, I glanced back up at the house on top of the hill and saw someone running. They had a long, strong gait, and their gun was aimed at me.
I started running in a zigzag pattern, waiting for the bullets to rain down, but they didn’t.
He was waiting for something. What?
I turned back. The sun had already begun to set, making the sky a light purple hue. I frowned because there was something familiar about him, but that wasn’t one of our uniforms. We tended to favor black leather, with a tighter black jacket, but he was wearing tactical cargo pants and jacket.
He was Exodus.
But he still didn’t shoot.
I climbed into the boat, taking care to make sure that my wig was on correctly after the long sprint. If I couldn’t straighten my hair, I wore a wig. The last thing we needed was anyone recognizing me because of my Afro or my curls. I started the engine and turned back to make sure the Exodus agent wasn’t coming after me. He wasn’t. He just stood there, staring.
I tapped my comm unit. “I have the device, and I’m coming in.”
Tyler’s voice was satisfied. “Copy, I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.”
“Roger.”
I couldn’t shake the feeling. I knew that Exodus agent… but from where?
Marcus
“On your mark.”
I checked the scope. My target was a woman with long, flowing dark hair. She was getting in a boat.
“I see a target escaping at the north side of the beach. Already in the boat.”
“Do you have a shot?”
That was the tricky part. From this distance and with the right wind, I could probably hit her.
But something itched over my skin every time my finger moved to the trigger. I had a long-range rifle. I could take the shot.
At least try.
I couldn’t do it though. I knew female agents were just as deadly as the male ones. Hell, I worked with many of them that I wouldn’t want to cross. But there was something about that woman. She was familiar, like an echo I already knew.
She reminded me of someone.
Simone.
Simone Bellevue had been my fiancée and also an agent. We’d been stationed in Paris together. When my mission in Prague hadn’t ended well, I’d been shot pretty badly. She’d come to see me at the safe house. Rhodes had arranged it.
But we were ambushed, and someone had killed Simone that night. She’d thrown her body over me, and they’d made a clean kill shot. I hadn’t been able to protect her when they had come for me.
Rhodes and the rest of the team took them out. I had never really recovered from losing her. Because of love, she’d come for me and paid with her life. I’d never been able to shake that feeling of helplessness. And that was four years ago.
“Agent Black, report.”
I dragged my attention back to the task at hand and pressed the comm unit. “Already gone. I’m heading back to the house.”
“Copy.”
As I ran back, still unable to shake the lingering familiarity of the woman on the beach, I asked, “What’s the status of the device?”
“We’re working on getting in the safe now.”
“I want to see that guest list.”
“Copy, it’ll be here when you get back.” As I headed toward the house, the hairs on the back of my neck refused to relax. What was it about that agent?
I made a mental note to go through a catalog of our most wanted. Maybe that’s why she seemed familiar. I hadn’t been able to see her face, but there was something about the way she ran. She’d moved like a dancer, lithe, easy, athletic. Still, my skin itched just thinking about her. I wanted to know who the fuck she was. When I reached the house, I found Rhodes in the master bedroom. Tusk was seemingly passed out.
“Are we going to revive him?”
Rhodes shook his head. “No, he’s completely out of it. A little too conveniently because getting into the safe is tricky now.”
“And the rest of the house guests?” Tusk had been throwing some kind of party.
“When the shooting started, everybody scattered. We’re already tapped into local police. We have three minutes before their arrival. We already dispatched all of Tusk’s security team. What’s your assessment?”
The Firm had beat us here again. The woman had been with them, but had they gotten what they came for?
Rhodes snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Hey, Earth to Marcus. What’s going on with you?”
“I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right. If this was The Firm, I caught sight of one of their agents running off along the beach. It’s like I knew her.”
He lifted a brow. “You recognized her?”
I shook my head. “No. She was too far away, but she was so fucking familiar. I can feel it.”
He looked at me quizzically. “You’re not making any sense, man.”
“Fuck, I can’t explain it. Just trust me.”
Rhodes blew out a low breath. “All right, if you think you know her, after debriefing go through some footage. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Neither one of us believed in luck.
One of
