Page 81

I ached for her, awake and asleep, but the worst part was not understanding. I knew her well enough to get that if she’d wanted to make contact with me, she would have. Especially given Nemesis had assured me of the one thing she was able to—Verity had made a full recovery.
“You know how it is with Unit 23, Zep,” she’d said. “If they don’t want you to know where they are, you won’t. That comes from the top, and it’s fully backed by SIS and the government. My hands are tied, and I’ll tell you, I even asked Z, who tried his best, but didn’t get any further than I did.”
Those words had slayed me. The woman I’d sworn I detested but then fell in love with in a matter of days was gone. Vanished from my life before I’d had the chance to tell her how I felt.
I slid to the cold ground, wiped my face with the opposite arm, put my head in my hands, and cried.
Rather than going inside onceI’d composed myself, I got in my SUV and drove home. I’d avoided going to Wargrave, knowing like everywhere else, it would make me think about Verity.
Now, though, I had to. While he wouldn’t believe it, the two punches Magnet had thrown at me, hit where they’d wanted them to—inside my head. I’d spent the last nineteen days pushing everyone away as hard as I could. No one was off-limits, even my best friend. I’d found his soft spot and given him a direct hit, which he’d turned right back around on me.
I got that he’d protect Schön and also that his doing so didn’t mean he was sleeping with her. She was on his task force. It was his job to protect her from the likes of angry-and-bitter me. I had no business lashing out at a woman who, from all accounts, had worked damned hard since she left Switzerland. Through herconnection to Baissier, she’d been able to get her hands on intel regarding Godwin we may not have otherwise been able to.
Once inside my house, I went upstairs to the bedroom and stripped off all my clothes, having every intention of running water in the tub that was identical to the one at the hotel in Dubai.
After taking one look at it and imagining Verity there, sitting in the water, waiting for me, I turned the shower on instead. I let the stream of hot water run over my face, watching as it turned the color of my dried blood. While my face hurt, it didn’t feel like Mag had broken my nose. Not that I’d care that much. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
“Argh!”I cried out in the small space. Why in the hell did every thought I had have to remind me of Verity?
“Yours isn’t that remarkable,” she’d said when I told her I feared she’d make me wear a prosthetic nose. It was the same day she’d put her hand on my upper arm and squeezed, saying my eyes, hair, and build were harder to disguise.
I slid to the floor of the shower like I had to the ground in front of the house in Shere and cried again. This time, harder.
“Henry?” I heard a man’s voice call out several minutes later. His use of my given name exacerbated the persistent pain of missing Verity I felt.
“In here, James. Just finishing a shower,” I shouted back to my brother.
I turned the water off, toweled myself dry, then went downstairs after putting on a set of flannels.
“Oh—that looks like it hurts,” James said when he stood and we embraced. “How are you, Henry?” he asked, taking a step back.
“Been better.”
My siblings knew better than to ask anything about the work I did, as did my mum, so James waited to see if I’d elaborate.
“I got this way because I was being a wanker,” I told him, pointing at my face.
He raised a brow and smirked. “How unusual.”
“Yeah, well, this time, I was worse thanusual.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
While I was closest to Robert, my brother who lived in California, the four kids in our family had always gotten on well. It was due to our parents who’d taught us through love more than an iron fist.
“It’s a woman,” I confessed.
While James nodded, he showed no other reaction.
“She’s someone I work with and bloody brilliant,” I continued. “Beautiful, strong—” My voice cracked, and I couldn’t continue.
James led me over to a dining chair, and we both took a seat.
“What happened with the two of you?”
“Initially, things I can’t talk about. But then, she vanished.”
He raised a brow.