Page 33 of Baby Take Me Home

I nodded.

“All right,” Mai said. “Now you’re going to throw all your strength into each punch as I call it. Ready? Strike! Strike! Strike! ”

I exploded into the first punch and made a decent showing with the second one. But by the third time I smashed my fist into the shield, I was off balance and weak. “I swear I take kickboxing twice a week,” I told them.

“We know,” they said in unison, then laughed.

I smiled, but I didn’t find it as funny as they did to know they and their team, TJ’s team, had been watching me constantly for days, and before that, sporadically for months, without my knowledge. How had I missed it when I’d been so careful? If Luka and his organization had been watching me that closely, how much did they suspect about my investigation?

Wednesday night, I’d come up with the brilliant plan to convince Luka I was harmless, like a beautiful, vapid butterfly with no stinger, no poison. But maybe he was already onto me, which would make my plan useless. Which would force me into WitSec to keep my family safe.

“Hey, earth to Ashlee,” Cynthia said. “You can’t get inside your head like that.”

“It’s not about this,” I held up my cloth-wrapped fists.

“I know what it’s about,” she said. “You’re worried that if we could surveil you without you knowing it, the Carbonados could, too. I have two reasons for you to stop worrying about it. One, if they’d been watching you, we would have caught them doing it.”

“Okay.” That made me feel a little better. “What’s the second reason?”

“We’re better than they are,” Mai said.

I frowned. “I want to believe that.”

“But…?” Cynthia said.

I held up my hands in front of me. “Can I speak freely without risk of reprisal?”

Mai cocked an eyebrow. “You’re under our protection. We’ll take punches for you, not throw them at you.”

“We even got out of bed at the ass crack of dawn to help train your bad fighting habits out of you,” Cynthia said.

“Don’t mind her,” Mai said. “She’s always cranky at the ass crack of dawn. But really, we’re on the same side, Ashlee. What’s on your mind?”

“If you’re so much better than they are, how have they gotten away with so much? How did Aiden and I get kidnapped right under your noses? How could you let him die?” My voice cracked with my last question and I took deep breaths to stave off the tears.

Mai put an arm around my shoulders. “It’s okay, you can let it out. This is a safe space.”

I wiped at a tear and smiled. “Really? Jason’s been telling me the unwritten rules of HEAT, and I’m pretty sure one of them was there’s no crying in spy games.”

Cynthia snorted. “Jensen said that? I’ve seen him cry like a baby more than once.”

“Yeah, when he was getting divorced last year, we were buying stock in tissue companies,” Mai added.

“Really? That’s hard to picture. He’s so freaking happy all the time.”

As if discussing him had summoned him, Jason stepped out of the IT room, walking toward the kitchen. “Morning, ladies. Ashlee, I’m sorry to see you’ve fallen in with a bad crowd.” He shot us a huge grin.

“Yeah, he really is happy all the time now,” Cynthia whispered. “So fucking annoying.”

We watched him disappear into the kitchen, then Mai turned toward me and spoke in a quiet voice. “He’s in love. We don’t discuss it much because the relationship is not sanctioned by HEAT, and as much as he drives us crazy, Jason Jensen is the best damn hacker and computer guy in the spy game.”

“You mean no one’s supposed to know about him and Tamela?” I asked. I’d pegged that bond within the first couple of minutes I’d seen them together.

“Observant.” Cynthia nodded, seeming to approve. “See, you’re still good at your job, even if you didn’t realize we were watching you.”

“I wasn’t worried about my professional skills,” I said.

“You were,” she insisted. “It’s written all over your body language any time the surveillance comes up.”