Chapter Fifty-Five

Ghost

A lmost as silent as me, a six-foot-five Danish former J?gerkorpset came up on my six.

I glanced over my shoulder at theHuntsman. "You're a long way from home."

"My hygge is not a place."

"Danish proverb?"

"Fact."

I didn't reply. Christensen didn't seek anyone out unless he had something to say.

The lethally trained Spec Ops Jaeger Corpsman stood next to me on the deck as he scanned my view of the lake, then the untouched acreage around us. "Peace and a well-built house cannot be bought too dearly."

This time, I didn't ask. "Danish proverb."

"Ja."

I took a sip of my beer but didn't offer him one. I'd never seen him drink. Or eat, for that matter.

"Pheonix is rising."

Not shifting, not moving a muscle, not giving a single tell, I controlled my heart rate and switched to Latin. " Exoriemur ex cineribus ."

"I did not say we shall rise from the ashes." Christensen looked pointedly at me. "The earth under your feet is burned. Your mission is complete. Your sister is safe. This fight is no longer yours. Do not lose sight of what is ahead now."

Calculating which one of his statements to react to, I took another swallow of my beer and mitigated. "I don't have a sister." Technically I had a half sister, but she hadn't spoken to me in eight years. Not that we'd had much of a relationship before that.

"Half blood is still family."

"You would know." Little known fact about Neil Christensen—he'd raised his nephew after his brother and sister-in-law had been killed in a car accident. It was the reason he'd left the Danish Armed Forces and his elite Spec Ops unit in the middle of a deployment in Afghanistan. Being the only blood family the kid had, he'd relocated to Central Florida where his nephew lived. Then he'd renovated the house his brother had owned, given it to the kid, and his new career as a contractor was born.

"This is not a conversation about me."

"It never is." As a rule, Christensen didn't talk about himself.

"He will do what he has always done."

"He who?" I didn't miss his unsubtle Phoenix reference. I knew exactly who he was talking about. The only question was how he knew about the fucking asshole I'd left a dead body to deal with not twelve hours ago. Something I would've cogitated for more than a second if it were anyone else, but this was Christensen, and the fucker was practically omniscient.

"His fight is not yours," Christensen regurgitated.

"I don't know who or what you're talking about. I'm retired." I drained my beer.

"The Syrian woman is unattended."

"Don't know a Syrian woman." I grabbed another beer from the cooler on the deck.

"Half Turkish, half Syrian," he corrected, somehow knowing Safiya's father had been Syrian. "Trefor has relocated all of your other women, but your female is unattended, and your profiler is not dead."

Yes, she was. "I don't have a profiler, or a Syrian or Turkish woman." I had this fucking view. And a wife who'd chosen not to wait for me.

"You are wasting time and reason."

I took a long pull of the cold beer. "Is that what you came here to say?"

"No."

Narrowing it down to three reasons why he would've made the trek up here, I glanced at Christensen and raised an eyebrow.

His expression almost unreadable, he didn't disappoint. "The young female. Do not leave her at my ranch."

Mentally checking off the first reason I'd come up with for why he was really here, I nodded. "Copy that." I looked back out at the lake and acreage I'd bought long before I'd met a sheepherder girl from Turkey. "You want me to contact November, or did you already handle it?"

"She is your responsibility. Not my project manager's or Trefor's hacker's." He turned to leave.

I took a stab at the second reason why he'd come up here. "Acreage next to this property is for sale." It'd come up last week. Figuring Christensen would be on top of it, I hadn't put an offer on it yet.

"Already purchased it this morning."

I took a swallow of my beer. "I'll let you know if I want to buy it."

"Too late."

The bottle halfway to my mouth again, my grip tightened. "I don't want neighbors." It was the only warning I'd give him. Half the land that was for sale was within scope range, the other half I could get in my sights from the water.

"Take it up with the new owner." He hit on the third reason why he would've sought me out. "We broke ground on the oceanfront estate. The foundation and framing are already in place. Schedule is as we discussed. And do not ever text me again to shut down one of your properties. I am not your personal sweep team."

I turned, but the stealth prick had already disappeared from the wraparound deck.

As if on cue, my burner rang.

Not bothering to glance at the screen, I swiped to answer and waited.

"What did Christensen want?"

Using my drink as cover, listening for any background noise, I tipped the bottle and scanned the length of the shoreline. Swallowing the now tepid beer, I silently cursed, then chose my wording carefully. "You told me I was out." Where the fuck was he?

"Glad your memory holds. What did Christensen say?"

He didn't have access to my satcoms, and I'd been careful on the way up here. I should've fucking questioned Christensen on protocol the second he'd stepped onto my deck because one of us had fucked up.

I didn't bother covering for Christensen. "He mentioned you."

"And?"

And he'd fucking proverbed me in a very unsubtle, un-Christensen way. "He said my fight was done." While simultaneously telling me to clean up my shit. "Said yours was rising."

"Your fight is done."

Maybe. If no one looked too closely at Venezuela, and if he'd gotten rid of the body.

"Did you clean up the mess?" If he hadn't, I'd out the profiler as the CIA mole for al-Hashimi and let the Brass and alphabet soup agencies spend the next decade spinning the details until they were palatable enough for a redacted statement.

"Are you going to sell me the satellites?"

For the first fucking time in my life, I made a decision solely for myself. "I'm not selling, and this is the last and only time I'm going to have this conversation."

We'd both benefitted from each other, but I was done with the covert bullshit. I'd accomplished what I'd set out to do. Safiya and Feralyn were safe, the women were relocated, and the world had one less fucking monster in it. But that wasn't all that'd changed. I'd fucking changed.

"You want to speak to me again, come in person." I was never going back on the grid, but I was done hiding. "Otherwise, lose my number."

The line disconnected.

Boots hit the deck. "Was that the boss?"