Page 186 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

Except I’m lying, and he knows it. I’m not fine, but I’m also unsure how to deal with the surge of emotion building in my chest.

Graham doesn’t even start the car. He just sits there, looking at me. “Forget about Oumar for a moment. You don’t have to pretend. I’ve worked with enough people to know when they’re in shock. Give yourself some grace.”

“I can’t. He got away. We should have stopped him.”

“I wish we had as well, but we didn’t.” He grabs a tissue from the box in the console, reaches over, and presses it against my neck. “I don’t think it’s enough to need stitches or anything, but he drew blood. You have every right to be shaken. Even in our profession.”

I pull down the visor mirror and stare at the smear of blood on my neck. I take the tissue from him and wipe it away. I know he’s right, but this is more than the aftereffects of a standoff. I want to tell him about William—part of me does anyway. But the lines between then and now have become blurred. I try to tell myself that it’s adrenaline. Just nerves. But something back there dragged up what I’ve been trying to bury for weeks. I don’t know if it’s the grief, or the guilt, or something else, but I can’t ignore it.

“Sam. . .”

I start to tell him that the only person who ever calls me Sam is my grandfather—Sam Vincent Jordan. But then stop. Because if I’m honest with myself, I’m glad he’s here with me, even if it means I have to show him a side of me I don’t let people see. Because right now, I’m more afraid of being alone than being vulnerable.

“The last security officer on our team got attacked and ended up being pushed off a bridge into the water,” I say. “I know this is different, but there’s something about what just happened that brought back a flood of memories.”

“I read the report. I’m sorry.” Graham glances at me. “I understand you were shot that day.”

I shrug off the reminder, already regretting letting down my guard. “It was only a graze. No lasting complications.”

Not with the gunshot anyway. William is another story.

“It’snone of my business, and I’m probably overstepping my bounds, but if you want to talk about what happened, well. . .I’ve been called a good listener once or twice.”

An unexpected flash of anger sweeps through me. He’s right. My relationship with William isn’t any of his business. What I want is for this to never have happened. To never have watched that mob walked toward him, and to not only lose him, but have no idea where he is. I want to wear that ring on my finger and tell my friends and family that I found someone who I’m going to spend the rest my life with.

Now I’ve lost all of that.

But none of this was Graham’s fault, and no matter how frustrated I might feel, I wasn’t going to take it out on him.

“Every night I go to sleep wondering what I should have done different,” I say finally. “If I would've stayed. If I would've helped him. If I would have insisted he came with us, we might have all escaped.”

“From everything I’ve read about the situation, getting your asset to safety was the right thing to do.”

I shiver, knowing I will need to process what just happened later. Right now, we have bigger problems.

“Do you have any idea what he was talking about?” I ask, changing the subject.

“No, I don’t.”

Tell Langley to stay out of this.

This might not be Kidal, but we will still win.

I shake my head, repeating over and over what he said in my mind in an attempt to understand what he was trying to tell us. It sounded like a threat, but it was more than that.

It was personal. But how is that possible?

“He knows who we work for,” I say.

“Referencing Langley could simply be an assumption that we’re in intelligence, not specifically tied to the CIA,” Graham says.

“I don’t think it was random. He was sending a message. Maybe it wasn’t for us, but it was for someone he knows.”

“A message he hopes we’ll pass on?” Graham asks.

“Maybe. And what about the reference to Kidal? Do you know what that could mean?”

“Not a clue.”