8. Kai

EIGHT

Kai

We slipped into the whole honesty thing well, or at least, Zach knew enough about me to excuse my sometimes idiotic tendencies. We'd been together a year, had a few successful missions and Shadow Team had brought two new members on board, both Canadian Special Forces—CSOC—and based out of a brand-new place in Maine, and when we finally had a team leader, it might seem official.

In a morally gray kind of way.

Zach and I were a team, and we did everything together as a goddamn team.

Only, I'd been left out today, and I hated it.

As I paced outside a nondescript office, my impatience simmered beneath the surface. The waiting area was like any other in the glass-walled building—clinical, drab, and forgettable. Yet, inside that room with the door shut—a storm was brewing, and I was on the sidelines.

The last time this happened had been the whole I-killed-Clarke situation, when Jake and his federal agency buddies had taken Zach to one side, checking if he was still willing to work with a murdering, fucked-up loose cannon like me. I thought we'd got past keeping things from Kai, and I couldn't recall.anything I'd fucked up recently, but there again, I probably had.

I hated it—the feeling of being excluded from the action, especially when it involved tying up loose ends from a job that hadn't only been Zach's responsibility but mine as well. A team.

Somehow in the past year we'd become Zach-Kai, and we worked well together, and there'd been no hook-ups between us of any kind.

No more heartrending stories of fucked-up childhoods, just good old-fashioned ignoring the elephants in the room. No more kisses, or throwing each other against a wall, which was hugely disappointing, but I wasn't so much of a fuckup that I didn't appreciate the kinds of wins we'd had.

And we celebrated wins together.

But today, they'd asked Zach to go into the office alone.

The fuck?

Inside, Zach was undergoing debriefing with Kayden, our Sanctuary liaison, black ops intel officer, and all-around badass. In a lot of ways, Kayden reminded me of me. Or was it the other way around? We both had a wildness in us and a black sense of humor and a distinct lack of respect, but we liked each other, right? So, I don't understand why Kayden had shut the door in my face after telling me to sit in reception, but the tension in the air told me something wasn't right. I'd give him and Zach ten minutes, and then I was kicking the door in, because fuck if I was being left out of the loop.

I didn't get past five when the door swung open, and Zach stumbled out, his complexion ashen. I stood immediately, concern knotting my brow.

"What's wrong?" I demanded, my voice sharp with worry. "Did we miss someone?"

Zach didn't answer, his steps unsteady as he made his way to the exit. I followed close behind, ignoring Kayden's calls from inside the office for me to get my debrief. Right now, Zach needed out, and that was all that mattered.

We reached the nondescript car we'd collected at the airport, and Zach tossed me the keys, a gesture that sent a ripple of unease through me. He was letting me drive? Willingly? I could stand there and ask him what was wrong again, or I could roll with whatever made him seem as if he were two seconds away from exploding.

I chose the latter .

"Where to?" I asked, slipping into the driver's seat as Zach collapsed into the passenger side.

"Just drive," Zach muttered, his voice strained.

So, I did. Out of the city, away from the suffocating grip of the office building and whatever the fuck had happened. The miles blurred together as we sped down the empty three a.m. highway, the hum of the engine a steady rhythm beneath my thoughts.

But as the city lights faded into the distance, Zach's shutdown seemed to worsen. His breathing grew shallow, his hands trembling as he clutched the door handle.

"I'm going to be sick," he gasped.

I slammed on the brakes; the car fishtailing to a halt on the side of the road. I unbuckled my seatbelt and hurried around to Zach's side, pulling him out of the car just in time.

He retched violently, wracked with convulsions as he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the grassy verge. I waited for the spasms to subside, not sure what to do.

Minutes passed in tense silence, broken only by the sound of passing cars and the occasional rustle of leaves in the breeze. At last, Zach slumped back against the car, his breathing ragged but steady.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper .

Zach shook his head. His eyes haunted as he met my gaze. "Kerry," he murmured.

"Ricci's Kerry?"

Kerry was in witness protection after we'd gotten her away from Matteo Ricci, eight months ago, maybe seven? We'd killed Matteo's brother, that much I recalled, gotten Matteo to the authorities, taken them and their role in a vast drug trade out of the equation. Kerry had been Matteo's former girlfriend, or more like a punching bag, and she'd been Zach's undercover mark. His first and only skin job. He'd hated using his body to get undercover, but he'd done it.

I hated him using his body to set up a cover, but I'd rolled with it instead of telling him I wasn't sharing his body with anyone.

I was over it. Mostly. I'd had dark moments during the op when all I wanted to do was haul him out of there, but that wasn't my role. I was his handler, and I'd had to live with it. Even if seeing Kerry's hands on him, or watching him with her, made my chest tight.

"Is she okay?"

We'd left Kerry in the clutches of the intricate WitSec arrangement—the Witness Security Program—a labyrinthine web designed to conceal and protect those who dared to testify.

Last I knew, she'd been set up with a job as a bank clerk in a quaint little town nestled among the rolling hills of New Hampshire .

"She's…" he started, but stopped, and this wasn't like Zach—he was cool and calm to my chaos and this was wrong.

"Who do I need to kill?" I asked, one hundred percent behind anything Zach needed me to do. We might snipe and snap, but after everything we'd shared, I didn't want the pain of breaking in someone new.

Or that is what I told myself, anyway.

He's my partner.

With a shake of his head, he spat at the ground, and leaned back on the car, dragging out a bottle of water from the six he'd bought last night. He swished out his mouth, spitting the water into the grass, then drank the rest of it, and piece by piece, he was pulling himself together.

"Matteo is loose."

"What?"

"The CIA suggest that with his links to Italy, Matteo is worth more if he's turned."

Turned? Against who? We'd taken everyone out.

"And you think he's going to go after Kerry?"

"I don't know. But it's not that…"

I didn't have to be an expert to see that during Zach's undercover stint as Kerry's new lover, he'd grown attached to her. No person can truly sell a cover unless they open their heart a little, and I got the feeling that Zach had opened his way too much and found empathy for the woman who'd been stuck on the wrong path. His tight-ass SEAL control had crumbled, and he'd become sensitive. Hell, we'd only left Matteo alive because Kerry begged him.

Yeah, and see how that turned out if Matteo was back on the streets.

"How about we take a drive over to small town NH and find her?" I asked.

He threw me a glance. "I'm going alone," he murmured.

I swung the keys under his nose, then headed for the driver's side.

"Fuck that. I love a good off-book takedown."

Zach stared at me, his sparkling green eyes full of something that looked a lot like he was going to spout some meaningful shit. "Kai?—"

"Ride or die, Zach. Or is that ride and die? Who the fuck knows? Get in! We have assholes to kill and damsels to save."

He closed the door, but stopped me with a hand to my arm.

"It's worse," he said and was so damn pale—in shock, I think, his lips in a thin line.

"Worse how?"

He gripped my arm for a moment. "Kerry's pregnant."

I blinked at him. Pregnant? I counted back. Hell, it had been eight months .

Which meant either Zach or the mobster asshole Matteo was daddy to Kerry's baby.

Well, shit.