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B rax pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling like he was in the midst of the Spanish Inquisition. Inda, along with Lucas, Zane and River, the team’s hackers, had been questioning him for two hours straight about his former relationship with Quinn while they set up searches and dug deep online for intel. Even though it was only eleven in the morning, he felt drained and a part of him wanted to crawl back into bed. Maybe he’d be lucky enough to wake up later and realize his encounter with his ex had been nothing more than a nightmare.

Pushing up out of the armchair, he knew he had to get out of there and clear his head or he’d go nuts. Because that’s what Quinn did to him—made him lose his mind a little.

“I’m going for a walk,” he announced.

“What if we have more questions?” Zane looked up from his laptop and frowned.

“Let him go,” Inda murmured, and Brax sent her a grateful look. For fuck’s sake, he’d barely escaped getting blown to bits by his ex-wife, the only woman he’d ever loved. He needed to process his feelings and decide how he was going to deal with her.

Because if Quinn worked for The Agency, she would have to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

The idea of hurting her made his gut churn. A fact which pissed him off since he owed her nothing. She was the one who left him and disappeared without a trace.

Grabbing his jacket and phone, Braxton stalked out the door. The shock of running into Quinn and then her trying to kill him made his burned hand throb even more. He’d popped a couple of Tylenol, but they weren’t helping. He needed answers more than anything.

He needed to talk to Quinn.

But how? The woman was a highly-trained, former CIA agent. He knew she wanted him to know it was her last night. Just as much as he knew if she wanted to disappear, she would. Hell, he knew that better than anyone.

Mind spinning, he retraced his steps to the scene of the crime. Stopping halfway up the block, Brax propped his shoulder against a tree and stared at the charred remains of the parking garage which was now roped off with police tape.

She’d meant for him to die.

He squeezed his eyes shut, doing his best to shut down any lingering loyalties or feelings he had for that toxic succubus. Pulling in a deep breath, he knew she was a huge problem that needed to be dealt with ASAP.

“Fuck,” he breathed. Why couldn’t she have just stayed hidden, far off the grid and out of his life? Because that little stunt she pulled last night? It was a declaration of war. And Brax never backed down from a fight.

He’d been a goddamn Delta Force commander, renowned for his calm coolness under pressure. Normally, he could turn off his emotions and focus on the task at hand. But she alone had the infuriating power to rattle him like no one else. It was ironic, too, considering they’d only been together for three months. He’d had a longer relationship with the bottle of ketchup in his fridge.

So why the fuck did this one woman still get under his skin?

It had been five years since she’d left him. At the time, he’d never been so confused…until he’d been called in and interrogated like a suspected terrorist.

Quinn had been accused of selling military secrets to a foreign enemy, secrets everyone assumed she got from him. His entire world had turned upside down and his superiors had suspended him. Alone, without the woman and job he loved, he’d had plenty of time to think.

Eventually he’d been rightfully cleared of any charges. The evidence had pointed to her alone, but he looked like a fool. And he’d kept returning to the same conclusion—Quinn had used him then fled before she could be caught and brought to justice.

Two days after disappearing from his life, she’d called him from a burner, claiming she was innocent and someone had set her up. But Brax had so many doubts, and when she couldn’t give him any straight answers, they had a blowout. She’d hung up and he’d never heard from her again.

Until last night.

His attentive gaze swept the area, wondering where she was…and when she’d strike again. Because he harbored no illusions about her being gone. No. She was close by and, if he had to guess, watching him like a hawk.

◆◆◆

“So you only knew her for one week?” Inda stared at Braxton like he had three heads.

“Why do you keep asking me that?” Brax frowned. The team was gathered in the war room, AKA the warehouse common area, going over every piece of intel they possessed. It was time to end the final few players left in The Agency.

“Because you are the least impulsive person I’ve ever met.”

“I doubt that,” he scoffed.

“C’mon, Pharaoh. You make plans to make plans,” Zane added.

“And what? That means I can’t—” He abruptly stopped speaking. Can’t fall in love and get swept away by the most amazing woman I’ve ever met? “I don’t want to talk about my ex-wife. Let’s focus on the confirmed players left.”

The fact that Inda and the others were right irked him. He couldn’t deny it—being methodical and strategic was a part of his DNA. Although, he had no idea who he’d inherited the trait from because his parents had been so laidback. The salt of the earth, they’d met at church. His dad had led the Boy Scouts and his mom had sung in the choir.

Unfortunately, his mom got sick and passed away when he was barely eight. But he could still remember her bright smile and the joyous energy that always surrounded her. His dad raised him, doing his best as a single parent, and taught him to be honest, reliable and down-to-earth. They’d been extremely close, and Samuel Graves had been so proud of Braxton’s military accomplishments. He died over a year ago, right before Brax joined Ex Nihilo, so disappearing then faking his own death hadn’t been a problem.

His dad had always been a good judge of character. And he’d loved Quinn like a daughter, never believing she was a traitor, despite the evidence to the contrary. He had encouraged Brax to find her and work things out, but by then, she was long gone.

Growing up, he’d never known his dad’s instincts to be wrong. It’s too bad he’d been wrong about Quinn. Even on his deathbed, his father had brought her up, believing in her innocence until the very end. And knowing his son had never been able to move on.

“She still has your heart, doesn’t she?” His words came out of the blue, jarring Brax.

“No,” Brax immediately answered.

“I hope one day you can stop lying to yourself.” His dad patted his hand. “It’s not easy getting over the love of your life. I’ve been trying for twenty-six years. But now I get to see her again, so don’t be sad for me, Brax.”

Losing his dad had hit him hard. He’d left Delta Force and his small apartment in San Diego six months earlier to take care of his ailing father. Once he passed, Brax didn’t know what to do. He certainly didn’t want to stay on the farm in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas, and he didn’t feel any real pull to go back to California.

The call came at the exact right moment. A ghost ops team was being put together and they wanted to recruit Braxton as team leader. The pitch was simple and enticing—join an elite group of operatives who would take out enemy targets of the United States government. They would work off the radar and answer to their handler, Merlin, who reported back to The Agency.

Braxton signed up immediately and headed back to the San Diego area, his new team’s base of operations. In those early months, Ex Nihilo had been told to not get personal and to use their call signs only. But everything changed after losing Tanner “Mayhem” Stiles and realizing they were The Agency’s next target.

So much had happened in the last several months and Brax knew they were one step closer to destroying Nathan “Cross” Mills—the man they’d once trusted as Merlin—and what remained of the elitist group he was part of. The Agency’s biggest mistake was biting the hand that feeds. Because Ex Nihilo was going in for the jugular and nothing would stop them.

Not even Quinn.

The fact that she might be part of the very group Brax and his team vowed to destroy made his gut churn. How the hell had she gotten involved with those assholes? he wondered.

“We have to assume his ex is working for The Agency,” Saint said, saving Brax the humiliation of admitting he still cared about the woman who’d betrayed and left him. “That means she wants us all dead, which I think is pretty clear since she tried to barbecue you the other night, Pharaoh.”

“The question is,” Gray looked over at Braxton, “when the opportunity arises to take her out, can you do it? Or should one of us handle it?”

“I’ll handle Quinn,” Brax gritted out. “You worry about Mesa.”

A dark look swept over Gray’s face. “Roger.”

Alvaro “El Escorpión” Mesa, a Colombian drug lord and member of The Agency, had given the order to kill Gray’s SEAL team, and Gray had barely escaped with his life. Although Ex Nihilo managed to neutralize Mesa’s son and damage his drug trade by blowing up the cocaine-laden warehouse on his private island, the man himself still walked free. But not for long. Especially if Gray had any say in the matter.

“And I’ll deal with Cross,” Ryland stated.

Ryland was itching to get his hands on Nathan “Cross” Mills, his estranged father, who was also the mole who’d turned on his son’s team and helped put a target on their back.

“That leaves Grendel. Mia calls him The Surgeon, and now I know why—he had a lot of torture devices. Fucker electrocuted me.” Saint absently touched his chest where Brax knew the electrodes had been. The red marks were burned in his memory as clearly as they’d been burned on Saint’s skin.

“I saw that table,” Inda murmured with a shiver, referring to the array of terrible instruments Grendel had threatened Saint with when he’d been captured and held in a Russian bunker.

“It wasn’t pretty, Bruja.” Saint clenched his fists. “Thanks again for saving my ass.”

“That’s what we do.”

Yeah, it’s definitely what they’d been doing. The danger was at an all-time high, at its peak, and Braxton knew the end was coming.

“I want locations on Mesa, Cross and Grendel. Then we launch a combined, simultaneous strike to take them out.”

“Working on it, boss,” Zane said, typing away.

Even though he didn’t verbally add Quinn’s name to the list, Brax knew she was on it. The thought made him sick. But if she was trying to kill him and his team, then what choice did he have?

They’d have to take her out. And he’d be the one to do it.