Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(60)

He was never really one for sports.

“Tell who what?” He forced himself back into friendly mode, plastering that smile on his face that he thought let everyone know he simply enjoyed the world around him and wasn’t he the nicest guy?

O’Donnell’s eyes narrowed and Ten was fairly certain the Irishman wasn’t buying his crap. “Tell Faith the truth. Decide right now if she’s innocent or not and tell her what you’re doing. It’s the only way this turns out all right, or you should learn to get on your knees and beg.”

The last thing he needed was O’Donnell’s interference. “You’re not assigned to this op, Li. I think I know what I’m doing.”

O’Donnell chuckled and crossed over to the locker assigned to him. “Yeah, you got no idea, boyo. And you’re not going to listen to a bloody word I say, are ya?”

Ten turned back to his locker, this time avoiding the mirror on the inner door. Why had Tag put those there? Were all his Doms prima donna divas who needed to check that their guyliner was on properly? He pulled out his shirt, shoving his arms in. “You don’t know the op so I think I’ll keep my own counsel.”

“I might not know the op but I know what it feels like to hate meself for what I’m doing to a woman I care about.”

“Faith is simply the target. Actually, she’s not even the target. She’s the means to get to the target.”

“That’s very Agency of you, Ten. Did they teach you that dialogue? Because it’s all a piece of shit. You like the girl.”

He wished O’Donnell would go away. “She’s a likable woman. I’m still not sure she isn’t involved in her father’s business.” Bullshit. That was complete and utter bullshit. This was a woman who had given medical aid to the * who had assaulted her. She’d tended to wounds she’d inflicted, but he really thought she was running around selling out soldiers?

He wanted to follow his instincts. Everything he knew told him Faith was innocent. The trouble was, his instincts had been wrong before. Very wrong.

“Does it matter if she is?” O’Donnell’s voice had gone a bit softer and had an almost nauseating sympathy to it.

Why? Why is it nauseating for a friend to feel for you? Jamie’s voice was back. He really hoped Ferguson never found out that Ten’s dead brother from another mother talked to him.

Was O’Donnell his friend? “Of course it matters. If she’s involved with her father’s business, then she’s responsible for my brother’s death.”

And that isn’t a world you want to live in so it’s not true.

So said the dead guy. Unfortunately, Ten knew it could be true. And yet he really didn’t want to believe it. If it wasn’t true, she could potentially be in danger. What would she do if she ever discovered her father’s scheme?

What would he do?

“Well, then, I guess I was wrong. You seemed very cozy with her tonight. I thought there might be something there. Sorry. I’m a married man. I want everyone to be as utterly miserable as I am.” It was said with the grin of a man who was far from miserable. Liam O’Donnell was a happy man with a baby boy and a wife he couldn’t take his eyes off of. “I’ll also be glad when this op is over and I get my partner back. Although I’m pretty sure Theo’s turned her into a girl. Ruined a perfectly good drinking buddy. I swear that girl could cuss and drink with the best of them. Now she’s probably going to want to talk about her nails or decorating or something. Still, she’ll probably be more reliable than Boomer.”

“Tag put you with Boomer?” Boomer was a first-rate sniper, but Ten hadn’t hired him for his brains. He was loyal as the day was long, but he wasn’t built for intelligence work.

“Been working a missing persons case. The boy was a fighter. I’ve been posing as Boomer’s trainer to get close to the missing kid’s friends. Turns out he wouldn’t take a dive and the mob took exception.” O’Donnell shook his head. “I hate it when I have to give bad news, but at least they have closure and the bad guys are currently being loved on by even badder guys in the state pen. Boomer was excellent at taking a punch, but I damn near lost him. Wandered away looking for a snack right before the bad shit went down. Came roaring back in with a hot dog in one hand. Let me tell you, don’t come between that kid and his food. It’s lucky those boys made it to prison after what Boomer did to them once they’d made him drop his lunch.”

Ten couldn’t help but smile. He missed his team, but it looked like they were fitting in at McKay-Taggart. Even the ones who hadn’t left the Agency were talking about moving to the private side. “I’m going to have to get a whole new team when I get back. Start from scratch, I guess.”

“You’re going back?”

“Once I’ve proven the man who had me burned is a fraud and gotten rid of the Senator’s inside man, yes, I’ll go back.” If he survived. It was all he knew. It was literally the only job he’d ever been trained for.

“You would go back to a place that didn’t fight for you?”

“It’s not like that. The Agency isn’t good or bad. It simply is. And I always knew no one would fight for me. That’s not how it works.”

“You know, I bless the day I got burned. I wonder how my life would have gone if I hadn’t left G2.” O’Donnell had once been an operative with Irish intelligence. A joint mission with the CIA and MI6 went south and O’Donnell had been on the run for years before the situation had been fixed. On the run? Not so much. He’d found a home with McKay-Taggart.