Page 11 of Justified Lies (TFH Team Bravo #3)

Six

Eden had her arms crossed over her chest, and she refused to talk to Kap.

It was immature, and she was behaving like a temperamental nut job, but she hated losing control.

She did not want Kap to know just how freaked out she was.

Yes, she was a spy and had been shot once before.

Most people thought spies were all like James Bond, drinking martinis and outrunning explosions.

There was some of that, but she had been more of an undercover spy who worked in the open, daring people to figure out she was a spy.

And, for the most part, she had pulled it off until that one horrible weekend. Just this had her thinking about that weekend. The shot she had taken to her shoulder and the thought that she had lost her other half…her twin.

The main reason to cross her arms was to hide the fact that her hands were shaking. Hell, her entire body was shaking. Eden could always keep her cool, but once things were over, she fell apart. That was another reason she hadn’t been cut out to be a spy. She hadn’t had the nerve.

“Are you going to stay mad at me?”

His voice had always sent shivers down her spine. Not because she was scared, but because the man was sexy as hell. The entire package with a body built for sin, those amazing eyes, and the muscles…inwardly, she sighed. She’d always had a thing for Southern men, and Kap had a deep Georgia accent.

“I’m not mad. I’m thinking.”

The sound he made told her that Kap didn’t believe her. What the hell ever. She was still trying to figure out why someone would come after her. Was it because of the investigation or someone from her past? What the ever-living hell was going on?

He pulled into her driveway. Before he had it in park, she popped out of the SUV.

Being cooped up with him for even less than ten minutes was too much to take.

Right now, she was scared. And she wanted nothing more than to lay her head on Kap’s shoulder.

But she couldn’t. He wasn’t hers. He didn’t want to be hers since he’d found out she was a dirty spy.

And if she did what her brother had suggested before she’d left the scene, Kap would end up hating her even more.

“You need to trust him,” El said.

She glanced at the man in question, then back at her brother. “I don’t think that’s important.”

He stepped closer and looked at her. “You can play the ball buster with everyone else. I know you’re scared. This isn’t searching for some nameless asshole. This is someone who is coming after you.”

“He could come after you, too.”

He nodded. “I’ll handle that better if I don’t have to worry about you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, you can, but he’s investigating the situation. Trust him.”

She knew her brother was right, but she knew that the moment she told Kap, he would hate her more. And yes, she played the tough former spy, but every time he looked at her with disdain, she felt her soul shrivel.

“Hey, slow down,” he said, rushing toward her. “You were shot at tonight, so don’t you think I should check things out?”

“I thought maybe I shouldn’t stand outside waiting for someone to shoot me from a distance.”

She unlocked her front door and disabled the alarm. “See.”

“Doesn’t mean no one is in here.”

“Dillon would have been alerted. I have a massive amount of security in the house. Cameras outside, sensors throughout the entire back yard.”

One eyebrow raised. She used to love that. It was so sexy. Okay, she still liked it.

“Don’t you think it’s overkill?”

“Well, seeing how someone shot at me, I think I might have been onto something.” They stood there, staring at each other. There was a tickle in the back of her throat. “I need a drink.”

She walked into the kitchen and pulled out her bottle of whiskey.

After dumping at least three fingers of it into a tumbler, she walked back to the living room.

She didn’t offer him any because he was on the job.

Kap always played by the rules. He studied her with calm patience, as if trying to figure her out.

“Don’t.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t analyze me. You won’t like what you find.” Fear had her entire system working overtime to protect her, and even though she knew it was a tell, her lips twisted as she spat out, “Remember?”

Unfortunately, he didn’t rise to the bait. “You aren’t surprised.”

She drew in a deep breath, releasing it before taking another large gulp of her drink. It would be so much easier if he would just fight her.

“Oh, believe me, I didn’t have someone trying to kill me while I drove home tonight on my bingo card.”

“But you knew you were being watched.”

“Oh, yeah. Both El and I have been watched the last three years.”

He blinked once, then tilted his head. “Does this have to do with that lost weekend?”

She let out a bark of laughter that had nothing to do with humor. “That’s a good way of thinking about it. Although it was a little more than a weekend.”

“Let’s start there.”

She took a healthy swallow, enjoying the way the whiskey burned as it slid down her throat. “I guess it couldn’t hurt. The Wednesday before we were supposed to meet up, I got a call about El. He had been working in Qatar.”

“For how long?”

“A couple of weeks, but he never arrived there. I didn’t know. I should have known.”

Not for the first time, she felt as if she had failed her brother. She had been so…infatuated with Kap that she had been slipping in her job of being her brother’s keeper.

“How could you have known?”

“We’re twins, Kap. We…okay, not all the time, but when we’re in trouble, we know. We just know.”

“Okay.”

He sounded like he was dealing with a nut job, and she was sure she sounded like one. Maybe she had lost her mind over the last few years. It made sense. Now that someone had taken a shot at her, she knew that all of her suspicions were right.

“Anyway, I found out on that Wednesday—he would have been in Qatar for ten days at that point—that he was missing. I called Sam, and she helped me track him. He never made it to Qatar and, worse, there was something wrong with his orders.”

“Wrong?”

She sighed. “Our supervisor never sent him to Qatar. Sam found out that he was in Saudi, so I illegally—”

“What?”

She shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time I did that. Anyway, I slipped into the country and got him out. It took us a little bit to get back. First, he had been tortured. We found a medical facility to help in Saudi. Also, I had a gunshot wound and—”

“What the fuck?!” Kap strode to her.

“I was shot getting him out of there. It wasn’t that bad.”

“Where?”

“What?”

“Where were you shot?”

“Shoulder.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“I would have, but you accused me of being a dirty liar and walked away from me, Kap. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”

He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.

“We never figured out who sent him the message about Qatar.”

He just kept staring at her for a long second. “He doesn’t remember his abduction?”

She shook her head. “He had a concussion, along with a broken arm, a broken finger, and two broken ribs.” Eden took a quick sip of whiskey for courage.

The memories always left her feeling bruised and battered.

“We think that he was given some kind of drug because he remembered only stopping in to get a drink at the hotel bar in Qatar, then he woke up in a dark room. The men I took out had no identities at first, but Sam found out they were guns for hire.”

“And this has to do with what is happening now?”

She nodded. “Both the men murdered here were on our suspect list.”

“You still don’t know for sure?”

She shook her head. “I only trust Sam and El.”

“Not this Uncle Marv?”

Eden sighed even as guilt moved through her. Her parents had had Marv over to their house all the time while they were growing up, and she did look up to him. But neither Sam nor El trusted him.

“I only trust Sam and El,” she repeated. “Both of them have said not to trust him.”

He nodded but said nothing, continuing to stare at her. It was the longest they had spent together since she had arrived in Hawai’i months earlier. At least alone, that is. There would probably never be a time when she didn’t want Kap. It was her burden.

Needing some space, she turned away from him.

She only got a couple of steps away when he reached out for her.

The moment his fingers wrapped around her arm, her entire body lit up like a Christmas tree.

The man didn’t have to do much. From the moment she’d met him, she had been overwhelmed by him.

Men had always been something she could do without. Most of them bored her.

He pulled her back against him, her back to his front. He leaned down.

“I’m sorry.”

Those two words almost broke her, but she kept her spine as straight as possible. At this point, she couldn’t show weakness.

“It was a long time ago.”

“It feels like it was just yesterday.”

It did for her, too, but the last time she’d opened her heart for him, he had stabbed her and left her bleeding.

“Was this what you wanted to tell me about?”

She turned to face him. “About the case?”

“No. When we talked on the phone, you said you wanted to talk to me about something.”

“You remember that?”

He chuckled, the rich sound tumbling through her entire system. The man would always be sexy. Was that why she hadn’t been able to move on? She had yet to take another lover. She couldn’t trust anyone, or that’s what she told herself.

Was that the reason, or was the reason standing in front of her right now?

“I remember everything about you. Sometimes against my own wishes.”

“I know the feeling.” She sighed and finished off her whiskey. “Do you mind if I take a shower before you ask me any more questions?”

“Go ahead.”