Chapter Six

“Are you sure?” Carys was still feeling vulnerable hours later as she stood in her cousin’s room. “I can sleep in the office.”

Kala had changed into boxer shorts and a tank, looking lean and predatory even with magenta pink hair piled on her head. She waved off the thought. “I sleep with Lou about half the time anyway. Bad dreams and stuff. I know. It’s a bad habit I haven’t broken yet, and tonight I have a perfectly valid reason.”

Her cousin had some secrets. She didn’t worry about Kala physically. Emotionally was another story altogether. “So TJ is cool with you sleeping with them?”

“Oh, I totally wait until after they’re done with the sex stuff. And then I leave before the morning sex stuff. He’s got a very specific pattern,” Kala admitted, and she looked around the room. “Maybe be careful in here. I can’t remember where I put all the weapons. Though I did disable all the traps. I think.”

“There are traps?”

Her pink-haired cousin’s head tilted slightly. “Of course. Who doesn’t have traps?”

“Me.”

“And that is why you fail.”

Her cousin was such a weirdo. “I will try not to touch your stuff. Luckily I had packed since we were supposed to spend tonight at the Ritz-Carlton before we got on the flight to Montreal tomorrow. Maybe we should still go. Aren’t we supposed to be pretending like nothing’s wrong?”

The door opened and Kenzie strode in with a couple of extra pillows. She handed them to her twin. Unlike her sister, Kenzie wore super feminine satiny shorts and a camisole top. “Did you disable all the traps? The last thing Carys needs is an arrow to the head.”

“What?” Carys asked.

“She’s kidding.” Kala frowned her sister’s way, but she could have sworn her cousin had said “it’s fine” under her breath.

Maybe she should sleep in the office. Or at her parents’. It had been a viable alternative, though she would have to have taken a bodyguard with her. Her mom had cried and asked her to come home, but she couldn’t do it. If she’d gone home, she would have let her mom and dad coddle her and talk her out of what she needed to do.

Go to Canada. Finish this thing once and for all.

We’re going in. I got a call from Huisman. Your uncle thinks he’s the one who sent the helicopter. We’re going to Canada on Wednesday, Aidan had said when they’d all sat down in her uncle’s office since he’d told her she’d violated his precious conference room.

Her dad had tried to not listen to that particular messy conversation.

All her conversations felt messy as hell now. Especially the super-stilted ones with Tristan and Aidan.

There had been little said beyond Aidan explaining he’d talked to Huisman and now Tris couldn’t keep them out. He’d said it like he was giving her a gift, like he’d done it for her.

She’d been both afraid and gratified. And oddly invigorated.

They were going to finish this. It was going to end one way or another.

“As to if you should go to the swanky hotel you were going to consummate your marriage in, the answer is no,” Kala said. “Unless you want a bunch of us sleeping with you. Personally, I think you’re better off here. Have you thought about what would have happened when you’re getting all down and dirty with Aidan and suddenly oops, Tris is there?”

“He wouldn’t have…” Except he’d been at the wedding, and he was an arrogant bastard who probably thought he could sneak into her bed. Maybe it was something he and Aidan had been planning all along. She wouldn’t put it past them.

“I bet he would have.” Kala frowned. “After all, the dude is willing to sleep on the couch.”

Kenzie’s nose wrinkled. “Yeah, I should warn you about that. They kind of broke in and took over the office, so you should know they’re probably going to be here in the morning. By probably I mean will be.”

“Unless you want me to get rid of them.” Kala’s expression had brightened.

“They have their own place to go to.” She’d assumed they would go to their house or to the apartment close to the hospital she and Aidan had recently moved into. There were no rooms at this particular inn. They were kind of filled to the brim at this point.

The twins’ sister, Tasha, had moved out, but it hadn’t been more than a few days before Tristan’s sister, Brianna, had moved in. She’d lived in her parents’ guesthouse for a long time and had jumped at the chance to be on her own. Kala had explained how it didn’t hurt they now had someone who could easily watch after the big mutt they called Bud Two and the house when they were off galivanting around the planet.

So all four bedrooms were full, and no one apparently wanted to stay in the office.

“Cooper tried to convince them to come back to his place, but they were not listening,” Kenz said. “Like not even to each other. They both argued the other one should go to Coop’s or The Hideout, and then they argued about how the other one was trying to cut them out. It was a lot of boy drama. Are you sure you want two dudes? It feels like a lot of emotional turmoil.”

It normally wasn’t. It had worked for so many years, and then it simply hadn’t. “Well, I probably don’t have to worry about it now. I mean afterward. I really have to worry about it now since I’m stuck with them until we get back from Canada.”

Uncle Ian had gone over the parameters of her mission.

Don’t get fucking killed.

He had a way with words. Basically they were going so Tristan and Kala/Kenzie—who would be playing her best friend/companion/bodyguard—could get access to Huisman’s estate and hopefully find some dark lair where he kept all his secrets. They talked about him like he was some comic book villain who could murder her with a snap of his fingers. She was there to look pretty and be quiet.

She got that a lot these days. It was starting to rankle.

“Or you could, like, talk to them,” Kenzie said quietly. “They’re out in the living room arguing about who should take the first watch.”

“There’s a watch?” They must have come in after she’d showered and gotten ready for bed. Likely because they’d had to get Tristan’s bags from wherever he’d left them. “Also, why did you let them in? I thought we were going to be an all-female refuge. Well, all women and TJ and Bud Two.”

“Bud’s kind of half dude since he lost his balls. And TJ is proof you can’t trust any men. I mean he’s good for carrying heavy things and stuff, but he folded when the guys showed up,” Kenzie admitted. “They started whining about how they would sleep outside your window and he let them in.”

“I would have told them to go for it,” Kala replied. “I happen to have a great trap on the window. You can totally go out of it if you need to, but anyone coming in is getting some new scars, if you know what I mean.”

Her cousin was terrifying. “They were going to sleep outside?”

“They have sleeping bags and everything,” Kenzie explained, sinking to the bed with a wistful sigh. “I kind of thought it was romantic.”

“It’s stupid,” Kala corrected. “But the fun part was Brianna yelling at her brother.”

“Because he’s a butthead.” Brianna stood in the doorway, the frown on her face softening when she looked at Carys. “Hey. Sorry, I was on the phone when you came in and then you were in the shower. Are you doing okay?”

Her parents had blessed her with three brothers and not a single sister. Her relationship with Aidan and Tristan had given her the sisters she’d so desperately desired. Brianna Dean-Miles was precious to her, and the idea of not being in her life made Carys ache. She held open her arms. “I’m okay, sweetie. How are you?”

Brianna sniffled and walked into her arms, hugging her tight. “I was so worried about you. I’m sorry. Tristan is being an idiot, and I don’t know what to do.”

Carys hugged her. She remembered doing this the first time Bri got her heart broken. Bri and Daisy O’Donnell had been her baby sisters, the ones who looked up to her, who came to her for advice. Even more so than her cousins. The twins were a force of nature and had Tasha to look up to. But Bri and Daisy had been hers.

“There’s nothing for you to do,” Carys said, stroking Bri’s gold and brown hair. “None of this is your fault.”

“No, it’s Tristan’s,” Brianna replied.

Damn. This wasn’t like a normal breakup. It was like a divorce. She’d never thought about all the people who’d come to depend on the three of them being together. They were breaking up whole family systems. She hadn’t even thought about how it would affect her parents. They were all so close.

All of her life she’d simply accepted she would marry these men, and this was her family.

Did she honestly know what she was doing? The first thing she had to do was love her friends and make this easy on them. She squeezed Bri and then leaned back so she could look her in the eyes. “Sweetie, it’s not his fault. He was trying to do his job, and it got away from him. I don’t think he meant to get so lost and hurt me, but sometimes we don’t have control over outside forces. I’m going to be okay. You’ll be okay, too, and even though I’m not with your brother anymore doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

“We’re more than friends.” Brianna brushed away her tears and stepped back. “And it was his fault. I love you for trying to protect him, but I’m not a kid anymore. I know when my brother screws up. I can be mad at him and still love him. He’s not only doing it to you. He’s locked me and our parents out. I feel like I’ve lost my brother, and I can’t lose you and Aidan, too.”

Her heart ached for her little sis. “You won’t. You can’t lose me, Bri. I’m always here for you. Why don’t you try talking to him? I’ve heard he’s around.”

Bri sighed. “Not tonight. I’m too tired. He should know if he doesn’t talk soon, I think Dad is going to do something. I saw our parents plotting tonight. There was a meeting, wasn’t there? Back at the MT building.”

“Yep,” Kala revealed. “And my dad wanted to call your parents in the same way he did Uncle Sean and Aunt Grace and Aidan’s parents. Guess who pulled the ‘I’m a professional’ card?”

Brianna groaned. “Well, it’s his fault now because he seems to have forgotten who our parents are. Mom is not the most patient woman, and she married two guys who would do anything for her. I’m supposed to go to their place for brunch tomorrow. I’ll see if I can mitigate the damage. Good night.”

Bri walked out.

“Now I kind of want to kill him myself,” Kala said with a huff.

She turned to her murderiest cousin. “Somehow I think him dying would make things worse.”

“Well, it wasn’t like he was trying to avoid it.” Kenzie’s eyes had widened. “I couldn’t believe he stood there while they were shooting. It’s a miracle all he got was a scratch.”

“Has he always been this reckless?” She realized what she’d asked and backed down. “Sorry. You can’t answer.”

The twins exchanged a look, and then Kenzie turned her way.

“He was known in Army intelligence for being super reliable. Like Tris was the guy who did his job and did it well. He was the dot all the I’s and cross the t’s guy. He was also passed over for Agency work because it was deemed he had too many close ties to really do the job.”

“They were looking at him pretty much from the time he joined the military,” Kala explained. “Because of who his fathers are.”

Jacob Dean and Adam Miles had been Special Forces at one point, but Carys knew it was what they’d done after they left the military that likely made the Agency interested in Tristan. After years at McKay-Taggart, they’d formed their own company along with some other brilliant minds. Miles-Dean, Weston, and Murdoch was known for cutting-edge facial recognition software every intelligence agency would like to get their hands on.

“From what I understand, the Agency discussed bringing him in early, but after consideration they decided he wasn’t morally gray enough,” Kala explained, winking her sister’s way. “We didn’t have the same problem. You should know something. Kenz and I are the only ones on the team the Agency actively recruited. Everyone else was brought in as backup. Cooper McKay would never have been considered if we hadn’t insisted on it. And neither would Tris.”

Carys was confused. “Why? I guess I don’t understand what you mean by morally gray. I get it in a romance novel hero sense, but not here. I mean everything you do, it’s to protect your country.”

“Of course,” Kenzie said.

“Eh,” came Kala’s reply. “I mean, sure. But it’s about how far we’re willing to go. The big bosses didn’t think Tris would be willing to go far enough.”

“Well, he showed them, didn’t he?” It hurt when she thought about it. This could have been avoided.

Or maybe he always would have changed.

“I tell you this because once he started working with my team, he signaled a willingness to work outside it as well,” Kala continued. “Tristan has some very specific skills.”

“He’s addicted to the Dark Web.” He always had been. Even as a kid she’d known how dangerous it could be.

“He’s an excellent hacker,” Kala corrected. “He’s good at putting things together and gathering intel. Turns out he’s good at tracking a signature.”

“And pretending to be someone he’s not,” Kenzie finished, and she studied Carys for a moment. “Have you thought about the fact that he’s basically been undercover for two and a half years? He didn’t think it would be this long, didn’t think he would have to go so deep. Sometimes when an agent is undercover for so long, they take on aspects of the character they’re playing. They kind of have to in order to survive. Tris became incredibly secretive.”

“And reckless,” Kala added. “He wasn’t as reckless in the beginning but lately… Well, I’ve been worried we’re going to bury him. The only one he talks to is Zach.”

She’d seen the handsome Army captain at The Hideout, but she’d never spent much time with him. “They don’t act like the closest of friends when he’s in town.”

Kenzie sat back against the headboard. “I think they do it on purpose. They’re both technically Army intelligence. At least that’s what it says on the books. Cooper is technically military, too, but what he does is logistics and transportation.”

“The point is there’s a lot we don’t know, but we’re worried about Tris,” Kala continued. “You’re now a part of this, and since we’ll be with you, I need to know how hard a bodyguard I’m supposed to be.”

“Well, I would prefer not to die,” Carys replied.

“She means do you really want us to keep Tristan away from you? Right now he’s planning on going in as Aidan’s bodyguard,” Kenzie clarified.

“How can he do that?” Carys was confused on how all this worked. “If this doctor person knows about the wedding, how could he not know about Tris? I know when he entered the Agency they scrubbed him off socials, but there are still records of him.”

The first awful indication life had changed because of Tristan’s job had been waking up to all her socials being taken over. She wasn’t a slave to her socials, but they had been a way to memorialize some of the nice parts of her life. She’d woken up one morning and they’d been changed. All the pictures of Tristan had been gone. All her posts about him, messages to him…simply gone.

It should have let her know how the next years of her life were going to go.

“The Agency is excellent at changing a narrative,” Kenzie insisted. “In this case, we’re McKay-Taggart bodyguards, and we don’t have to pretend. Which makes me sad because I like the undercover aspect. I would have been Carys’s friend from work. Kally the nurse. I had a backstory and everything.”

“Not a nurse.” Kala’s reply let Carys know they’d been arguing about this for a while. “Do you know nurse things? We can dress a wound in the field but there’s more to nursing. I’m glad we’re going in as a bodyguard since we’ll be walking into a nest of highly trained doctors. What would happen if they ask specific questions we can’t answer? You and your back stories.”

She wasn’t about to mention most of these doctors would be arrogant assholes who thought nursing was beneath them and they wouldn’t ask anyone without an MD for anything except maybe another coffee. “It’s for the best. The medical world can be kind of insular. These are guys in highly specialized fields or in what we consider sexy fields like trauma surgery. They won’t pay attention to you. Hell, when they find out I’m in obstetrics, they’ll completely shut me out. I will be considered Dr. O’Donnell’s girlfriend.”

Kenzie frowned. “Well, now I kind of want to take all of them out.”

Carys shrugged. “It is what it is. Maybe we can use it to our advantage.”

“I’m sure we can,” Kala said. “Now how hardcore should I go on Tristan’s ass? Am I guarding the bedroom door?” She turned slightly, looking at the doorway. “What do you say, buddy? Do we need to have a talk? I’m not worried about your friend there, but we do have to work together.”

Carys followed Kala’s gaze, and there they were. Tris and Aidan stood in the doorway. Well so much for respecting her boundaries. “I asked you to stay at your place. I’m perfectly safe here.”

“My place is our apartment,” Aidan insisted, and she wished he didn’t look so damn delicious. He’d changed into PJ pants and decided he didn’t need a shirt. “I’m not leaving you, and I know Kala thinks she can intimidate me, but I’m not about to crawl away in the hopes my cousin won’t take my balls.”

“And she won’t be able to keep me out.” Tris hadn’t changed yet, but he stared at her with dark eyes.

With eyes that reminded her of everything this man could do to her. Had done to her. He could make her feel in a way no one else could. He could also rip her heart out.

“Are you planning on letting Aidan and I do our jobs?” Carys asked since he’d been suspiciously quiet during the hours’ long meeting discussing how this mission was going to work.

“Not at all. I plan on talking you out of it. Aidan’s put us all in a terrible position,” Tristan admitted. “He got overly emotional, and now we have to find a way out. I’ll come up with it. I think our best way out is to replace you with an actual operative. It’s not like Huisman will have studied you.”

“Because I’m nothing more than a prop.” It was good to know they were all on the same page.

Tristan frowned. “I didn’t say that.”

Kenzie stood. “I think they have some stuff to talk about, sis. You sure you don’t want to bunk down with me?”

Kala followed her sister. “It’s more fun to freak TJ out.” She brushed past the boys and turned. “You sure you can handle them? I can toss them out. Or sic Bud on them.”

“Yeah, Bud might lick me to death,” Tris said under his breath.

The massive mutt her cousins had rescued wasn’t exactly a guard dog. She didn’t need one in this case. It was time to start dealing with the problem. “I’m good.”

When the twins were gone, Tristan closed the door. “I’m sorry for putting you in this position, Carys. Aidan wouldn’t listen to me, but I do have a plan. I’ve already contacted a woman I work with, and she’s trying to find an operative who looks similar to you. I can think of a couple, but we have to make sure we can get her here soon so she has time to familiarize herself with Aidan. I wish I could do the same for Aidan, but I don’t know any surgeons who also happen to be operatives.”

He was such an ass. “What are the requirements to pretend to be me? Similar-sized boobs?”

“You know she’s a doctor, too.” It was obvious what play Aidan was making. He was pretending to be on her side.

“I know how smart she is, but you know not a one of those fuckers is going to view her as anything but your girlfriend,” Tristan argued. “The type of medicine she practices, while of the utmost importance, is viewed by them as basic.”

“I don’t treat her like that.” Aidan moved toward the bed. “She knows a lot about trauma. She’s my first and best sounding board. If anything, I’m the one who’s dumb about what she does.”

He wasn’t at all. Aidan often challenged her. When they’d been in med school they would test each other. Even as they’d found their specialties, they’d tried to keep up with each other. “He’s quite proficient at obstetrics, but you’re right about the rest of them. They’ll see me as his girlfriend. Whoever you bring in won’t need to know much.”

“He’s not bringing in anyone,” Aidan declared. “If he tries, I’ll pull out. Tris, you think I’m some moron who got caught up in the moment, but I thought it through. Carys needs this. I do, too. We’re not going in a safe house. We’re going to end this.”

“The fact you think this is the end only tells me you have no idea what you’re doing. This is an intel-gathering mission. We’re not going in guns blazing,” Tris argued.

“He wasn’t talking about ending Huisman.” She needed to be plain with Tristan. “Once we’re done with this, we’ll be out. You and Aidan can go your way and I’ll go mine.”

“Not what I meant at all.” Aidan looked stubborn. “I don’t care about Huisman. After we do this, Tris can decide if he wants to be with us or if he wants to run around the world playing superhero.”

“We are not sure there is an us at all.” It looked like she would have to be clear with Aidan, too. “You lied to me. You worked together behind my back, and I need some time to deal with it. The truth is today might have been a blessing.”

“Getting shot at is a blessing?” Aidan asked, his eyes wide, and then his face fell. “You mean because we’re not married. So you don’t have to divorce me because I lied to you.”

She sighed because it sounded so harsh. The day had been dreadful, and she knew in her logical mind she might feel differently in the morning. Or in a few weeks. She needed time. “I don’t know. Do I have to make a decision tonight?”

“No.” Aidan looked lost. “You don’t have to make a decision at all, baby. I made a mistake. I honestly thought I was protecting you, but I understand how that made you feel and it’s not okay. I’ll do whatever you need me to do to earn your trust back. But we’re going into something dangerous, and us being at odds isn’t going to help. The tension between us… I’m worried it could get us killed. Get you killed.”

“I’m a pretty good actress,” she replied.

“You’re not.” Naturally Tris wanted to argue. “You’re a terrible liar, and Aidan’s right. He’s even worse than you are, which is precisely why this is such a terrible idea.”

Aidan’s head shook. “I’m not arguing tonight. It’s getting late, and it’s been a fucking awful day. Carys, will you let me sleep with you?”

The idea of going to bed alone made her ache. He was right. It had been terrible, and the best thing in the world would be to wrap herself around him and sleep. “No.”

She couldn’t do it. Not yet.

He nodded as though he’d expected her answer. “Then Tris, you can take first watch. Wake me in a couple of hours.”

Aidan strode out, and it took everything she had not to go after him, to shove all this anger aside and hold him. If she did, she would cry all over again and still not get what she needed. She was a ball of stress, and not the kind she was used to. Carys could be perfectly cool under pressure. She could shut it all down and concentrate on her patient, but there was no patient. There was only her and Aidan and Tristan. There was only the rest of her lonely life if she couldn’t figure this out.

She was fairly sure she couldn’t figure this out unless she went to Canada. Unless she finally faced whatever had taken Tristan from them. “You think I’m such a terrible actress I can’t pretend I still love him? I don’t have to pretend. I do love him. The question is can I trust him?”

Tristan moved into her space, and she immediately felt her body heat up. “No, the question is do the two of you work without me.”

She wasn’t about to back down. “We’ve worked for two and a half years without you.”

“Have you?” He loomed over her. Tristan had a good half a foot on her, and his body had gone from lanky boy to muscular man in the last couple of years.

She wished she didn’t want to get her hands on him, to explore the changes in the body she’d loved so much. The afternoon had done nothing but stimulate an appetite she’d hoped she’d outgrown.

Shouldn’t Aidan be enough for her? Shouldn’t she be enough for him? Why couldn’t she be normal and make this work like other people did? Like her parents. And almost everyone she knew. Except Tris’s parents. And some of her friends’ parents.

She couldn’t let Tris see her weakness. “We’ve been fine.”

“I don’t think so, baby. The fact that you fell apart so quickly lets me know the truth. You are not an unforgiving woman, Car. When you think about it, you’re going to understand. I tried to talk to you but you refused.”

“You wanted me to be your secret,” she pointed out. “It’s not the same. You were sending me cards and gifts as a placeholder. You weren’t trying to let me know what was going on. You didn’t keep me in the loop the way you did Aidan.”

“You want to know why?”

She didn’t need an explanation. “I’m sure you were trying to protect the little woman.”

Tris groaned. “Little woman? I wasn’t afraid you would fall apart. I was terrified you would try to save me. I was scared you would ride in like the Taggart woman you are. You talk about how you’re the sensible one and you’re the reasonable one in your family. Your family has Kala and Kenzie in it. Of fucking course you’re the reasonable one. Anyone is reasonable compared to your wild-ass cousins. I don’t know if you’ve given this any thought, but you’re not exactly a shrinking violet. What happened when we got called out as a threesome in high school?”

She and Tris had gone to the same high school while Aidan had been at one across the city. It had been fairly easy for a while to keep their threesome status from their classmates. For several years, everyone thought Tris was her boyfriend and Aidan was a guy they saw occasionally because their parents were friendly. And then they’d been outed.

She hadn’t ever cared. “I told the ones who called me a whore to bite my ass. They were jealous I had two hot boyfriends and was living the dream.”

“And where did you say it, Car?”

“Fine. I said it over the loudspeakers because I wanted everyone to hear it,” she admitted, remembering the day fondly. She’d gotten serious detention, and they wouldn’t let her do morning announcements ever again, but it had been worth it. None of this meant she should be left out of a deep and important part of his life. It had been far easier when she thought she hadn’t been the only one left out.

“Yeah, I’m talking to that woman right now. I was scared you would decide it was too dangerous for me and you would show up in the middle of an arms deal,” he said with a shake of his head. “I talked to Aidan because I knew he would stand down. I needed him, Carys. I needed someone to ground me because I couldn’t talk to my team.”

The whole reason she’d initially felt somewhat comfortable with Tris going into Agency work had been his close proximity to her cousins and Cooper McKay. “Why?”

“Because my team is made up of you on steroids. All Taggart women. If I talked to Coop, it’s like I’m talking to Kala, and Uncle Ian would have smacked me upside the head and caused all kinds of trouble.” Tris paced the length of the small room and then back again, an anxious predator in a too-tiny cage. “I went into this particular mission because I was the only one who could do it.”

“The only one?” Tristan could be a bit on the arrogant side when it came to some things. “No one else in all the world?”

He sent her a look that let her know he wished they were in a club. “I was the only one in place at the time with the skills to track down The Jester. Once I had assumed his identity, I realized how truly dangerous this mission was, and I knew I had to protect you.”

“So now they know you’re The Jester.” She was confused. Maybe because her brain had been churning all night. She was still in shock. It wasn’t the best time to absorb years’ worth of mission information.

“We don’t have confirmation anyone knows anything.” Tris stopped, his arms crossing over his chest. “I think they were likely after TJ. You were listening when Big Tag explained what happened in Germany?” He sighed, softening slightly. “Of course you didn’t. You shut down and then our scene didn’t work, so you’ve stayed shut down. I don’t suppose you’ll let me spank you until you cry.”

She’d thought about it. “It won’t work. I need more than a simple spanking and more time than I’m willing to give you tonight.”

His brows rose. “Tonight?”

“The twins told me The Hideout is open tomorrow.” Beyond how pissed she was, the idea of playing with him again… Well, it all swirled around in her brain like a toxic cocktail waiting to do some real damage. “My first instinct is to tell you and Aidan to find a sub and have fun.”

Tristan’s jaw clenched. “We would never. There’s one woman in the world for us. You know that, right? You realize if you walk away, Aidan and I break, too. You seem to think you’re some sort of ancillary arm of my friendship with him. You’re not. You’re the base of our triangle. You leave and we fall apart. I’ll make a deal with you.”

She barely managed to avoid rolling her eyes because she knew exactly what he was about to say. “You’ll think about letting me on the op if I play with you tomorrow night.”

He chuckled, though it wasn’t an amused sound. “Oh, I thought you knew me.”

“I do.”

“You’re going to have to accept that the last few years have changed me. I’ve got scars you’ve never seen before, baby. On the outside and the inside, and I’ve always known there was one person in the world who could even start to heal them, and it’s not Aidan. No, I wasn’t going to offer you some tiny deal. I’m pretty sure this is beyond my fucking control unless I want to never be allowed to come home again.” He stared down at her. “If I wasn’t a selfish bastard, I would do it. I would call in a couple of favors, and you suddenly wouldn’t have a choice about the safe house. No one would. Not even Uncle Ian.”

“You honestly believe you can outmaneuver my uncle?” As far as she could tell, Uncle Ian and Aunt Charlotte were in control of everything concerning their team. To her they were fun relatives. Uncle Ian was goofy and had a ton of dad jokes and was way too sex positive, while Aunt Charlotte was exactly the kind of woman they all wanted to grow up to be, but she’d learned as she got older there was another side to them.

It was hard to believe Tristan could go up against them. Would dare to go up against them.

“I know I can. If I want to shut this down I can, but I’m asking you not to make me,” he said quietly. “I need you to think this through. What I’m offering you is training. I’ll train you so if I can’t find a way out of this without losing my whole family, you’ll be safer.”

“The twins are going to train me.” She felt the need to remind him of a few truths about her life. “Though you should remember my father put me in karate when I was six. I have a brown belt.”

“And I have a black belt. I recently used it in a fight where my opponent was trying to gut me,” Tristan shot back. “When was the last time you practiced?”

Years. It had been years, and he knew it. “It’s been a while.”

He let a moment go by before sighing. “I’ll talk about work. I’ll talk about what’s happened and why I did what I did.”

She hadn’t expected the offer. “I thought it was classified.”

“Well, it is, but if you’re going to be a part of this, you should know.”

“I thought you were going to talk me out of it.”

His head tilted slightly, acknowledging the truth. “I am, but I’m not going to force it if you agree to my terms.”

“That I sleep with you.”

“That you play with me,” Tristan corrected. “Think about it. You need a session, likely more than one. You play with me and Aidan and I answer your every question openly and honestly.”

Well, the man knew how to tempt her. “It won’t change things. I’ll admit I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay mad at Aidan, but I don’t think I’ll ever trust you again. I’ll always be waiting for you to leave me.”

“Then you don’t have anything to lose. Then you can take what you want from me and walk away at the end. You can know how much it’s going to hurt me if you leave. Show me everything I’m going to miss because I fucked up.”

“But there’s no guarantee you won’t pull the whole mission?” She could see all the ways he could wriggle out of the position Aidan had put him in.

“That’s the risk you take. What do you say, Carys?” It was more of a challenge than a question. “You get anything you want information-wise out of me. No holds barred.”

There were a few problems with his offer. “You could lie.”

“Ask me something. Something you think I would lie about.”

“Have you been with someone else?” She wasn’t sure she believed him. Or maybe it would make everything easier if he admitted he’d been unfaithful.

His head shook like he was disappointed in her. “I told you. No one else. Not ever. You’re the only woman on earth I’ve ever had sex with, and Aidan’s the only other human I’ve shared any kind of intimacy with. Try again. Ask a hard one.”

“Did you miss me?” The minute the question was out of her mouth, she regretted it.

He started to take a step toward her but backed off. “Of course. I’ve missed you every single day.”

“Would you take it back?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know. Part of me says yes. Part of me….part of me is addicted to this life. Part of me can’t stand the thought of not having this kind of power. I want to tell you I’ll walk away and come home and work for my dad. But I don’t know if I can.”

Well, he’d said he would be honest. She glanced at the clock. It was so late. “Can I take the night to think about it?”

Tristan nodded and moved to the door. “Of course. If you decide it’s a no and you still need a session, Cooper can run one for you. Kala wouldn’t mind helping.”

They would give her the pain she needed but none of the pleasure.

She knew what she was going to say but she couldn’t give it to him tonight.

If this was the end, she wanted something from him. From them.

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.” Tristan yawned. “Can I have a pillow?”

She picked up the extra. Kala’s room was oddly spartan. The most decoration she had was a wall of pictures of her and her family and friends. There was a pic of her with Bud One, along with his old collar hanging off it. A pic of her and Lou and Cooper and TJ in high school.

Her and Aidan’s apartment was filled with memories. Did she want to lose them? Would she even be able to look at the pictures if they broke up?

She handed Tristan the pillow, careful not to touch him. “You staying on the couch? It might be better than the office, or so I’ve heard.”

He opened the door and stepped just outside. There was a sleeping bag rolled up on the floor. “I’ve been told the only place I should sleep tonight is outside your door. Your father gave me a whole lecture on how it’s the traditional sleeping place of a Taggart who fucked up.”

Her father was mean, but she’d certainly heard the stories. “My mom kicked him out of their bedroom once, and he slept outside her door. He was worried about her at the time.”

“And apparently your brother did the same for MaeBe.” Tristan unrolled the sleeping bag. “But this is where I’m smarter than they were. I only have to take half the night because I have a partner. He might be pissed at me, but he’ll do his part. Also, I came prepared. I got a bunch of complaints about how crappy it is to sleep on the floor. This baby has a new type of memory foam built in.”

“Good for you,” she said and couldn’t keep the sour note from her tone.

“There’s room for two,” he offered. “Or I could stay with you.”

She hadn’t let Aidan stay with her. She certainly wasn’t about to invite Tristan in. She slammed the door in his face.

“All right, then,” he said. “I’ll be out here doing the Taggart tradition proud.”

Carys turned off the lights and forced herself into a lonely bed.

* * * *

Tristan came awake suddenly with the knowledge he wasn’t alone. Adrenaline flooded his system as his brain came back online.

He reached for his gun, kept hidden under the pillow, and brought it up.

“Hello.” Daisy O’Donnell sat cross-legged at the end of the torture device the twins called a pull-out sofa bed.

Fuck. He was at the twins’ place. He wasn’t out in the field. He wasn’t The Jester here. He was Tristan Dean-Miles. He was himself. Whoever that was anymore.

He’d offered to stay on watch when Aidan had come to relieve him at four this morning, but Aidan had insisted, and his best friend had obviously had enough, so he’d given up his fairly comfy spot for this…punishment of a “bed.”

He pulled the gun away and forced his body to an upright position, taking a long breath to banish the fear response. “Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Daisy said with a wave of her well-manicured hand. Aidan’s sis was a few years younger and what Aidan liked to call a walking ball of chaos. She had good intentions, but things went haywire around the gorgeous brunette. Today she was dressed in shorts and a pink halter top, her hair piled in a messy bun. She’d ditched her shoes at some point, or at least he thought she had. Daisy might have taken to the barefoot life. “It’s totally not the first time I’ve had a gun in my face, so don’t worry about it. I do not take it personally.”

He was actually surprised she’d managed to sneak up on him. He was a light sleeper. Since the episode in Taiwan, he was definitely concerned with people attacking him while he slept. It was the very incident he’d mentioned to Carys the night before where his black belt had come in handy. “What are you doing here? Aidan’s sleeping…”

“In front of Carys’s door,” she said with a wistful grin. “It’s romantic.”

“Well, he’s taking his turn.” He felt the need to point out Aidan wasn’t the only one watching out for Carys. “I took the earlier shift.”

She shrugged, the action making the massive gold hoops in her ears shake. “Well, I’m sure that was easier. It would be better if he was in bed with her, but I can understand why she’s upset. I have recently had to deal with men not treating me like the grown-up, capable woman I am. And I’m here because I thought we should talk. We haven’t talked in a while, have we, Tristan?”

He wasn’t sure they’d ever really talked. She was his best friend’s kid sister. Daisy was close to Carys and to her brother, but it had been years since he’d been in a space with the younger O’Donnell. The truth was Daisy kind of scared him. “No, we haven’t. I’m not sure what we would talk about.”

Were there cameras on him? Was this some kind of prank?

He felt…weird. Like someone was watching him. He glanced around the small room the twins and Lou used as an office. Brianna, too, now. His sister was living here, and she didn’t want to talk to him at all. She’d laughed in his face when he’d suggested he could sleep in her room on her large-enough-for-the-two-of-them, comfortable bed. It wasn’t like they’d never gotten shoved into a small space together. They were brother and sister. How many times had she gotten scared and spent the night in his room? They’d survived a childhood together, but would she do her brother’s back a solid? Nope.

Something was definitely wrong but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Every instinct he had was tingling, but it might be the cloud of craziness that followed Daisy around.

“You can’t think of anything? Not a single thing?”

He sighed. Daisy could be relentless. “You want to talk about Aidan?”

She nodded like she was thrilled a toddler had figured out how to solve a problem. “Very good, Tris. Yes, I thought it would be good to talk about my brother. We should throw some Carys talk in, too. Lucas and I had a long discussion after the whole helicopter thing. I think I convinced him not to poison you.”

Carys’s brother used to be one of his best friends. “Poison?”

“Well, he knows you can probably take him in a fight, so he’s using his talents,” Daisy said like they were discussing something normal and ordinary and not his death by food. “Like I said, I think I talked him out of it, but like me, Lucas takes his sister’s happiness seriously. Now Kyle and David are another story. You would think David would be the reasonable one, but he’s studied a lot of history.”

“Kyle and David want to murder me, too?” Carys had a lot of brothers.

“Yes, but there’s some torture involved before your death. Like I said, David knows a lot about medieval torture techniques.” Daisy nodded, and her spine straightened as though she was ready to get serious. “I don’t know if it’s occurred to you, but you’ve been unfair to my brother and Carys.”

He had so much to fix. It made him kind of want to run. “So I’ve been told.”

“Oh, good. Then you’re aware of the problem.”

“Dais, of course I’m aware.” He needed to handle Daisy with some delicacy. Could he still handle people with delicacy? He’d spent so much freaking time pretending to be someone else, he forgot the charming man he used to be. Could still be. He hoped. “I know how much I’ve screwed things up with Aidan and Carys. I can only tell you I’m trying to make it better.”

“Are you?” Daisy asked, staring at him as though this was a session and she was his judgmental therapist.

He could probably use some therapy. “Yes, but there are things I need to do to ensure their safety before I can even think about being in their lives the way I want to be.”

“Things like leaving them for two and a half years? Except you truly only left Carys because you talked to Aidan behind her back.”

He winced. Well, it was good to know everyone had heard the story. He should have expected it. This was one of the reasons he’d kept to himself. “It wasn’t like that.”

Daisy pinned him with her stare. “It feels like it was. I would bet Carys feels like it was.”

He knew how Carys felt, but she wasn’t thinking about the situation logically. He had a few days to work on her before he had to make the ultimate decision on how he was going to handle the Huisman situation. He’d already sent a text to Tara about finding someone who could take Carys’s place. His tech had promised to do the job. “I know she does, but she shouldn’t. I thought you were here to talk about your brother.”

He glanced around the office again, trying to decide what was making all of his instincts fire off. He was getting paranoid. This was a safe house. His cousins had made sure of it. He was actually a little afraid of walking around too much. He’d thought about making a survey of the place but had found a trip wire outside, and he hadn’t wanted to figure out what it was attached to.

“I am, but Carys is such a part of him. It’s like their souls are combined.” She said it with a sigh as though they were goals as a couple.

They weren’t a couple.

“Uhm, you know I’m a part of that. They’re my soul mates, too. I’ve been there since the beginning.” Then why the fuck had he let this vast chasm open? They were his soul mates, and he’d been empty without them. He’d become more and more the asshole he played out online.

“I mean, you were, but then you weren’t,” Daisy said, waving a hand like all those years meant nothing.

It was annoying. And yet hadn’t there been times when he’d seriously thought about ending things so they never had to know everything he’d done? He had blood on his hands, and they saved lives. “This is precisely why I kept talking to Aidan. I never meant to leave them forever. I’m involved in something dangerous.”

“I’m always involved in something dangerous. I can walk down the street and somehow I end up breaking up a criminal ring,” Daisy said with a smile. “See, this is why I thought I should consider law enforcement as a profession. But then I don’t look great in those costumes they wear. It’s why I didn’t go into the military. Army green is not my color. Now if they’d opted for emerald…”

The thought of Daisy with a military-grade weapon was disconcerting. “I think it’s better you’re going back to school.”

From what he’d been told his sister’s best friend was going to get her master’s in psychology, with an emphasis in childhood development. She’d spent a couple of years trying to find a job that fit her unique personality. And one that didn’t blow up, get raided, or went under shortly after she was hired.

Her brief stay at McKay-Taggart had begun with a street chase and ended with her distracting a couple of kidnappers. At least the building was still standing. He wished Nate Carter all the luck in the world. He was going to need it.

“Me, too. It’s going to be fun. But my point is couples don’t break up because things get dangerous. Or rather the good ones don’t. I’ve had many a dude break up with me because he couldn’t handle the heat. Or the explosions. But Nate is totally solid. I mean he pretty much told me I was his right after a cartel trying to kill me shot him instead. It was how I knew he was the one.” She had a dreamy look on her face.

“I’m happy for you.” Had someone moved the chair? He was almost certain it had been sitting in front of the closet since the bed pulled out across the space where it would sit at the desk.

Daisy must have moved it. But then wouldn’t the sound have woken him?

He’d been dreaming about someone stalking him. That’s what it must be. His brain had been stuck on someone following him and him leading the bad guys right back to Aidan and Carys, and now he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

It was the only explanation he had for the instinct tugging at the back of his head. The one that told him something was wrong.

Daisy nodded. “Me, too. And I want the same for my brother. So you’re going to fix this, Tris. You’re going to do whatever it takes to make this up to my brother and Carys and get back to normal.”

He wasn’t sure what normal was anymore, but finding it again was definitely a goal of his. “Yes, it’s why I’m here.”

Daisy’s gaze narrowed suspiciously. “I thought you were here so you could sneak into their marital bed.”

Well, that sounded bad. “I came to make sure they were safe.”

“So you weren’t going to show up on their wedding night?”

“No.” It was mostly the truth. He’d kind of thought maybe he could talk to them after they were married and had proven to the world they were done with Tristan Dean-Miles and he was done with them. He’d only taken out the room at the Ritz because it was conveniently located near the airport. If they happened to want to sneak him in… Fuck. “Yeah. Okay, yes, I tricked myself into thinking I was only doing it to protect them, but I probably would have tried to talk to them. I tried to talk to Aidan before the ceremony.”

“And he told you to fuck off.”

Not exactly, but close. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“It does because you should learn from your mistakes,” Daisy informed him primly. “It feels like you’re making another one. Da gave us a debrief on what’s happening, and you are screwing all this up again.”

It was good to know Uncle Li was serious about sharing classified intel. It was precisely why he didn’t think any of the parents should be involved.

His parents. They’d sent text after text and called him at least twenty times. He was going to have to deal with them. Brianna would have told them he was here. It would shock him if one or all of them didn’t show up at some point to try to talk to him.

The idea of talking to his parents made his gut churn. What the fuck would he tell them? His dads were heroes. His mom was beloved in her profession. How did he tell them he’d made a mess?

How fast could he get to The Hideout? They might not look for him there.

“Tris, are you even listening to me?”

Tris shoved the covers off. He wore a T-shirt and pajama pants, thank the universe since apparently he didn’t get any privacy. “I am, Daisy. I promise I’m thinking about Aidan and Carys. I’m going to do right by them.”

“I don’t think our versions of right by are going to line up,” Daisy mused and then sighed. “Oh, well. I was going to blackmail you into doing the right thing, but I suppose I’ll simply do the right thing by my friend.” She eased off the mattress, straightening her shirt. “It’s been a real predicament for me. Do I use what I know to help my brother or fess up to help my friend? Thanks for helping me figure it out.”

Tristan put his weapon into its lockbox in case Daisy decided to go commando on him. “That sounds like a threat.”

Her dark hair shook. “No, not a threat at all. The opposite. I was going to blackmail you, but I can see it probably won’t work. Nate said you were too thick. I don’t think he was saying anything about your body though. He wouldn’t body shame anyone. He speaks Australian. I think thick means you’re not very smart.”

Sure, because that was better. “Awesome. Tell Nate hi for me.”

She smiled brightly. “Okay. I will. Good luck.”

She was obnoxious. “Daisy, what were you going to blackmail me with? You could at least tell me.”

She’d stopped at the door. “Oh, I was going to offer you a choice. Fix things with my brother in the next couple of weeks or I’ll tell your mother that you went to all the Doms at The Hideout and threatened to kill them if they played with your sister. I wouldn’t tell Bri because it could hurt her feelings. I know they hurt mine when I found out you and Aidan had done it to me. I was starting to think maybe I wasn’t pretty or something. But I will totally tell your mom.”

Holy shit. Sometimes when he was in real danger it felt like the world slowed down. This was one of those times. “Aidan told you?”

It wasn’t easy being the big brother. Especially in a kink-friendly world. If he’d been born to a normal family, no one would be like hey, take your sister to the sex club you founded with your friends. He didn’t live in that world. He lived in the one where if he didn’t give his sister a membership, she would go and find her own and then probably get in a shit ton of trouble. What was he supposed to do? Let those assholes use his sister?

They were mostly his friends and had been super vetted by him and Lou, but damn it, there was also Lucas and Seth to deal with. They were walking, talking red flags when it came to women.

Maybe he could have talked to Bri instead, but then he would have had to talk about sex with his sister, and it was far easier to threaten the fuck out of every Dom at the club.

“He didn’t have to,” Daisy said with a shrug. “I figured it out. You know I could have been a detective. When I confronted him he admitted you helped him and you did the same with Bri. Also, he said TJ told you his sister was a grown-ass woman who got to make her own decisions, so good on TJ. I don’t have to go to Aunt Erin. But I think Aunt Serena will be interested in this…intel.”

His mom would be pissed. His dads would likely understand, but they would be way more afraid of his mom than they would be of standing up for Tris’s right to protect his sister from a bunch of men he regularly hung out with.

When he thought about it, he was kind of an asshole. Would she see it as interfering or the act of a loving brother?

Yeah, she was going to kick his ass, though nothing like what his mom would do. His mom would write him into a book and kill him off and never, ever let him forget he was part of the patriarchy. It would be awful.

“I could also tell the twins,” Daisy mused.

The twins… He didn’t want to think about what Kala and Kenz would do if they decided a fellow woman was being infantilized. He’d faced down some of the world’s most dangerous spies, and nothing had quite scared him like Daisy O’Donnell. “I’ll get them back. I’ll do it. I’ll make sure they’re safe, and in a few weeks I’ll ensure they let me back in. I’ll take care of them, Dais.”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked him over. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

“If I don’t, then you can always tell her later,” he offered. All he knew was he didn’t want his mom to find out. She would kill him. He suddenly felt like a kid again.

And all he wanted was his family.

He couldn’t have them right now. He had to get through this, had to fix it so he didn’t stand in front of his parents like a naughty boy. When he was the hero, he could have them again. He would be worthy again.

He’d thought he could give all of this up in order to protect the people he loved, but he was facing the actual truth of it now and he couldn’t…he couldn’t.

He couldn’t lose them.

“I could wait,” Daisy allowed.

“If it helps, I think I see how it might have been wrong to do it,” he replied. “Now I’m worried I might have interfered in a bad way.”

Daisy’s eyes widened. “You think?”

“Well, I thought I was protecting her.”

Daisy pointed his way. “Yeah, that’s the problem.”

“Protecting her is a problem?”

A bright smile crossed Daisy’s face. “I’m glad we understand each other now. So any way I could convince you to join your sister? She’s going over to your parents’ place for brunch.”

His mom’s Sunday brunches were legendary. She often invited all her friends over, but even when it was just the five of them, she made it special. He missed those Sunday mornings. He missed being home.

Everyone else got to go home for long stretches of time. It was part of their cover.

He’d had his head down for so long he’d forgotten how much he missed home.

But not the reason he hadn’t been able to go there. “No. I can’t go back yet. I have to handle this situation and then maybe I can go home.”

Daisy’s nose wrinkled. “Oh, well, I guess it’s going to be the hard way then. Uncle Jake, he said no. You should do that stuff you said you would do.”

What the fuck? He turned as the closet door came open, and his freaking father was standing there. His father, whose nickname in the Green Berets had been Ghost, so he knew his dad still had it. He’d ignored his instincts, and now it came back to bite him in the ass.

And his father owned a tranquilizer rifle, which was totally in his hands.

“The hard way it is, son,” Jacob Dean announced.

“Dad…” Tris began. He could reason with his dad. This was ridiculous.

Then his dad shot him. Right in the chest. The dart stuck out of his right pec, and he hadn’t held back on the dosage. The world immediately started to go fuzzy.

“Should have come home,” his dad said as he caught him right before the world went dark.