“You would never have changed his mind,” her father said firmly. “I’m disappointed. I thought you of all people have been taught to think with your head and not your other parts.”
She was ruthless. She was savage when it came to business. She’d viewed Kyle as a challenge at first, and then she’d seen how the darkness in his soul matched her own.
She wasn’t willing to give up on him. Why should one argument screw up the rest of their lives together? She was the only woman in the world who could understand him. If his parents knew what he was capable of, they would almost certainly turn away from him. She could love the whole of Kyle.
Well, she wasn’t particularly fond of the part of him that had shot her, but no one was perfect.
However, as a couple they could move mountains. She simply had to get him to see it, to buy into the vision.
“Did you put the money in his account?” Her stepfather sounded like he usually did. Gruff. A bit angry.
He was only truly happy with her when she was working, and now she was sidelined until she could find a new identity and new face.
She liked her face. Her brother was going to cost her everything.
She refused to blame Kyle. He didn’t understand, and she hadn’t explained it properly. If she had, they would be together right this minute and she wouldn’t be staring at her face for the last time. She would have to become someone else. Someone boring. Jane Adams. Even that woman’s name was boring.
“Of course I did. It’s there, and we’ll have the proof that we need to keep him in line,” she said. Her father had insisted that they maintain some kind of leverage over Kyle Hawthorne. “I sent you everything you need, but you’re not going to use it until we have to.”
She might have sent Kyle on a few non-Agency approved operations. Not that he’d understood it at the time, but now he did. It was precisely what had gotten her in trouble in the first place. He’d figured out the person he’d assassinated wasn’t a dangerous terrorist, and he hadn’t taken it well.
But she could turn it around because she knew everything about the man she loved. Including his bank account numbers. Setting him up was nothing more than an act of love.
He had a streak of bourgeoisie morality that was proving hard to rid him of. At first he’d gone with it, living life on the reckless edge.
Then he’d started visiting home and coming back with all sorts of stupid ideas. He’d questioned some of their ops and even talked Drake into agreeing with him.
So she’d lost both her brother and the love of her life.
She wasn’t sure she could fix the relationship with Drake. She could accept that. Losing Kyle wasn’t a possibility she was willing to consider.
“All right. When is your first surgery?” her father asked. “I want to know when you can get back to work. There are a couple of situations that could use your unique skills.”
So he wanted her to steal something or seduce someone. “I’ll be ready to go in a few weeks. Maybe two months. I don’t know. John’s taking care of the scheduling.”
In The Consortium there were a few customs and rules. Women were always used as the principal operatives during any long-term operations. Women, they’d discovered, were far better go betweens than other men. She’d negotiated the end to many a corporate war. If both companies were in the group, that negotiation could happen over a couple of glasses of wine. If one side wasn’t, then she destroyed them. Women in the group took on a code name. She was known as Lizzie.
All the male assistants were John. Johns were good for any number of tasks. They handled most of the physical work, though she didn’t mind shooting someone every now and then. They were also around for security and stress relief. In her case, hers would be playing nursemaid as well since she would be having a whole lot of surgeries in the upcoming months. John would be the one who would ensure that it was easy for her to slip into Jane Adams’s life when the time came.
John had been with her for over a year, and keeping him a secret had been hard as hell. He’d let her know he was there for all of her needs. All of them.
She hadn’t needed a John for stress relief when she’d had Kyle.
“John is the only person you need in your life right now,” her father growled. “Beyond doctors, I don’t want you associating with anyone but him. I’m putting the data you sent about the missions with Kyle in with my other files. You be careful and stay away from Kyle Hawthorne or I’ll take care of the problem for you.”
“Of course. That’s over. I know it was useful to have a CIA operative, but I can move more freely now, and I don’t have to worry about Drake finding out.” Because he already had. Because the worst had happened and now she had to find her way back. She wasn’t going to tell her father that she had no plans to walk away from her future husband. “And I can work on finding another operative inside the Agency.”
“I’ll work on that from my side. I do want someone else on the inside, but it needs to be the right person,” her father replied.
Maybe if she found the right person to recruit, her father would get off her back. And Kyle’s. Her father would do it. He would deploy the leverage she’d built against Kyle, and that wasn’t how she wanted to use it. She would greatly prefer to use it to force him back to her side when the time was right.
She would have to be patient. He would likely go home to Dallas to lick his wounds.
“Stay out of sight until you can move to the next phase,” her father instructed. “I’ll contact you. You should know that your mother is hiring a company to look for you.”
Her mom. Senator Samantha Radcliffe hadn’t been around much. Her career was far more important. In some ways, her mother had taught her a lot. “They won’t find anything. Besides isn’t my brother busy covering it all up? Can’t hurt the family name.”
Not that she had the family name. Her biological father had left her behind long ago, left her in the tender care of Don Radcliffe. She often thanked the universe for that one gift. She had no idea who she would have been if she’d been left with her dull father who’d moved on to teach math or something and had another couple of mewling sheep children. Instead, she’d gotten a true spy. She’d been trained to steal secrets from a young age, and she’d learned that nothing was more important than power. Power and money were the only things in life that mattered.
And desire. Love. Sometimes she wished she’d never met Kyle Hawthorne. Life had been simpler back then.
“Your mother is doing what she does. Eventually she’ll accept that you’re gone and you’re not coming back. We might need to arrange someone finding your body so we can give her some closure. I trust Drake won’t ever say a thing. He’s too worried about his part in it.”
“He should be.” After all, he’d taken Kyle’s side and he’d left her there when the fire had started. It turned out to be a lucky thing, but at the time it bugged her.
“Don’t let anyone take your picture or see your face. Am I clear?”
She sighed. “As crystal.”
The line disconnected and she went back to looking out over the skyline. The next time anyone important saw her face, it wouldn’t be her own.