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Not that I want to get caught up in someone else’s war.

That’s not my job.

But what we’re leaving in our wake is…concerning. Large forces indebted to Pantheon. Usually leaderless. I try not to think about it.

Especially when there’s a rewarding distraction waiting for me. From South Africa, we head up the coast to Madagascar.

White sand, crystal waters.

A private beach to ourselves.

Circe’s skin has grown deliciously golden from our after-mission endeavors. And not a single tan line to be seen…

Our nights together have become relentless. Addictive. She’s insatiable. My thirst for her is unquenchable.

She’s thrilling. Inspiring. Fearless.

The private jet out of Melbourne carries a safe and the only woman in the world with the biometrics to open it. We take over the crew, hijack the flight. Safe to say that we retrieve the documents in the safe. Circe is even kind enough to bandage the woman’s missing finger and eye before sending her on her way with a parachute. Set the plane to crash in the ocean, make our escape.

I’ve jumped out of planes before.

But never one in a nosedive.

By the time we land on a floating dock waiting for us in the drop zone, we’re both down to our swimsuits. A boat is fueled and waiting. Let it wait.

I take her right there in the middle of the Pacific, water lapping across the deck and great whites circling. Pure. Adrenaline.

Just like soaring through the Alps a few days later wearing squirrel suits, gliding at breakneck speed.

Raid the office at the secret mountain home of a certain Prime Minister with his hands in several underworld cookie jars. Leave no witnesses. Spill no blood.

Tricky, if you don’t have a good sleeping agent to deploy. Fortunately, the staff is enjoying a bit of wine that somehow got spiked. Which inconveniently includes the driver of the supply van we stowed away in to get there.

Good thing we brought our own way out.

The back terrace overlooks a ravine, the view almost as stunning as my cohort. Circe drags me into a deep, brain-melting kiss as we stand on the railing with nothing but a hundred foot drop awaiting us.

Then the bitch pushes me off!

Of course, I snag her suit with my foot and send her spiraling. It isn’t the only time either of us almost die in the flying race to our safe house that follows. The same safe house we accidentally burn down the next day after a wild night of brutal lovemaking.

Ananke nearly blows a fuse when we tell her she no longer owns a Swiss chalet.

Playing by the rules seems to be a good way to earn back some favor.

A.k.a. playing police for a heroin dealer in Myanmar. Locate the players, follow the product, the money, tracing it back to the kingpin, the growers. What most law enforcement agencies can’t do in months, we do in two weeks.

With the head of that snake removed, we set fire to acres of poppies and vanish. Ananke will no doubt be livid. So we don’t bother checking in for a week and a half.

Bangkok, Saigon, Hainan Island, Taipei, all the way to Seoul.

“I hope you two got it out of your system. You’re heading inland.”

Straight through China, Circe altering our appearances along the way. By the time we reach the highlands, I don’t recognize myself in the mirror.

Makes it much easier to blend in as we take to horseback across the Mongolian plains.

The Triad gunrunners we ran afoul of outside of Beijing give us a hell of a chase.