Deadly Promises (Tracers #2.5)(35)
Tears started fresh again. She kissed him hard and passionately for what seemed like forever and not long enough, then pulled back with a worried look. “What about my family? Every one of my brothers is an honest businessman, but you of all people know how the past can cause problems. Will they be on your agency’s radar, because I don’t want to put my brothers or dad at risk… by me being with you.”
Trust was a bridge between them that could go crashing down or bind them together depending on if they could build it.
Jeremy trusted her so it came down to whether she could trust him. “I’m glad you have brothers who watch over you for when I’m not at home to protect you myself. As long as your family doesn’t threaten U.S. national security they won’t be on our radar. And I swear I won’t be watching them like an agent when I’m around your family, which is bound to happen. That is, if you stay with me.”
She didn’t hesitate this time. “I’m not going anywhere, because I trust you and love you. And I don’t want to ever lose you again either. You belong with me.”
She wanted to keep him.
Relief whipped across his skin, freeing the tension in his body. Jeremy lifted her off the floor, swinging her around and around in his arms, ignoring the pain throbbing in his shoulder. He could endure anything with her at his side.
CeCe’s laugh was music to his soul. He intended to hear that song played over and over. When he stopped spinning and settled her to her feet, CeCe’s eyes twinkled with a mischievous smile.
He kissed her forehead. “What?”
“Holidays with you and my family are going to be interesting.”
Leave No Trace
CINDY GERARD
It is not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.
—Aung San Suu Kyi, 1990
One
It had become too much about the scotch, Cav admitted with brutal honesty. Too much about relying on it to make it through the nights. Too much about craving it to help him deal with a life where the shots called him, instead of him calling the shots.
With a heavy breath, he leaned back in the mahogany and leather desk chair in the Jakarta mansion that had been his base of operations for the past six years. He slowly swiveled until he faced his office window, then rocked back and held the heavy-bottomed glass aloft, watching the sunlight play over the amber oblivion before indulging in another sip.
Yeah. Way too much about the scotch.
That was all about to change.
Everything was about to change.
Tomorrow morning he was going to give notice via his handler. After a decade and a half of being a good little spook, David Cavanaugh and the CIA were finally going to part ways.
It was past time.
He watched the ebb and flow of traffic shooting by the window and wondered why he didn’t feel relief. Instead, ever since he’d made his decision, he’d been overrun with recurrent flashes of guilt. And, yeah, panic. What now? What next? Where did he go from here? What did he have left to give?
The sound of light footsteps on the polished teak floor brought his head around. He’d dismissed the two bodyguards that were a part of his cover earlier, but Dira, his aman, stood in the towering office doorway, the wide strap of her woven straw purse slung over her shoulder. The twelve-foot ceilings dwarfed the quiet Indonesian woman’s five-foot stature.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Windle?”
Frank Windle had been Cav’s CIA cover for the past six years. Windle’s expat, unprincipled venture capitalist persona came with this fully staffed luxury mansion, the personal bodyguards, a force of jangas—armed guards with dogs who patrolled the high cement wall surrounding the compound—and an expense account that would make the Prince of Wales weep with envy.
He’d come a long way since his initial CIA assignment in Ouagadougou, Africa, working undercover as a lowly U.S. embassy staffer and sharing a three-room tenement flat with fellow rookies Wyatt Savage and Joe Green. He lived in luxury in Jakarta now, and he regularly rubbed elbows with the scum of the earth.
“I’m good, Dira, thanks.” He dismissed his longtime housekeeper with a soft smile. “Enjoy your evening.”
He planned to enjoy his. Alone. With a farewell toast to both the Company and his love affair with Glenlivet.
With grim determination, he looked around the polished opulence of the wood-paneled room. He wouldn’t miss the subterfuge, but he’d sure as hell miss this place. The spacious office was one of twenty luxurious rooms in a mansion that personified the historical Dutch East Indies architecture with its steeply pitched gables, large airy rooms, and soaring finials. The house was a jewel. Cool, airy, and regal… and living here had choked the life out of him.
He downed the last of the fine single malt and wondered how the Company would explain it when Windle, who’d made a name for himself as an unscrupulous player in not only the Indonesian but the international black market by being open to any number of illicit business transactions, made a sudden departure from Jakarta and cut off its intel pipeline.
The Company’s problem, not mine.
Right. So why did a knot of anxiety tighten inside his chest like a fist? And, Jesus, why the guilt? He’d been a good Company man. He’d had plenty of incentives to flip and go over to the dark side. Lucrative incentives. And while he wasn’t as naive about the international spy game as he had been when he’d first signed on to play, he was still a patriot. He didn’t need to feel guilty about anything—not about his work, not about leaving. And yet…