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“He came to check on me. He loves me.”

Her eyes widened. “Already?”

“I know, right? This is the real thing though. I’ve never felt this way about someone before. We connect.”

“But now the FBI is saying you can’t see him.”

“Exactly. Unless I can unravel the mystery of who’s behind this smuggling operation and where all the money is going.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed.

“You have an idea to help?”

“No! I almost forgot to tell you though—I’ve met a new guy.”

I

stared at her, dumbfounded. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Was she really serious right now? I took a deep breath. “That’s nice, but—”

“No, really. He’s great, a rock star.”

At this, my eyes rolled on their own.

“I’m serious, Rose. We’ve been getting along well so far, and we haven’t even slept together.”

“That’s great. I’m glad for you, but I’m kind of in middle of an emergency right now.”

“Have you called your dad?”

“No…Why?”

Kim stared at me as if I was the stupid one. “Because he’s a spy.”

“I’ve told you,” I said in exasperation, “he is not a spy.”

“And I’m telling you—he definitely is some sort of spy. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples for a second. “Kim, are you back on drugs?”

“No,” she said indignantly. “I can’t believe you don’t believe me after all of this time. There’s something off there, and it’s because he’s a secret-keeping spy! Anyway, all this talk of the FBI and spies has me spooked.” She giggled. “Spooked. Get it?”

I clenched my teeth. When Kim got like this, there was no reason to have her around, especially during a crisis. I couldn’t deal with her because I had a hell of a lot of work to do if I was going to bring down the people smuggling precious minerals out of Afghanistan on such a massive scale.

Clearing Warren’s name, as well as my own, was my first priority. I saw Kim out of the apartment and then returned to my laptop. Running the Tor browser made it more difficult for them to watch where I went on the Dark Web, a real source of information that flew fast and free.

As I worked on the story of my career, I realized that if Warren was going to be a part of it, he would have to go on record. My first instinct was to protect his identity, but having his name attached would give the story even more credibility when it broke online.

If I ever finished it.

CHAPTER 34

Rose

As much as I hated to admit it, Kim had given me some decent advice in the midst of her gibberish. Even though my father wasn’t a spy, he was my own personal superhero and might have had an answer to my dilemma.

He appeared surprised yet happy when I appeared at his doorstep. I threw my arms around him and hugged tightly. No matter the situation, he always made me feel better.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Come inside.”