I’ve always believed that we needed to have someone on the inside in a top position, calling some of the shots.
I’m so close, so Goddamned close I can taste it.
“No. I’ve almost—”
“She’s pregnant, you ass.”
His words shut me down instantly, and I feel my entire purpose in life make a drastic shift in the opposite direction. I don’t question him, because I think a part of me knew that I’d filled her the last time we were together.
I had prayed that I hadn’t left the woman I love with my child when I knew that I could die and leave her to raise him alone.
Even as the shock ripples through me, I feel elation unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. This is a happiness that’s indescribable.
And yet I feel the danger of it, too, because if anyone should find out, they’d go for her so fast that Miah and Jared wouldn’t know what happened.
“Keep her locked inside that house and out of this till I get home.”
“No. That’s your job, and if you ain’t here to do it, bro…well then that’s on you. I’m not doing another Goddamned thing or taking another order from you till you tell me what the fuck is going on and why you did what you did to Dobson.”
And there I hear it, the recrimination I knew to expect from Miah. The man is a good friend and a better brother, but to him there is never a time when the ends justify the means, I can’t quite blame him for his attitude.
“I didn’t,” I say, watching the door to my room in case Dyson decides to take another one of his midnight strolls as he’s been doing of late.
I sleep, when I can manage it, with an eye and ear open because something tells me that Dyson and Cleo haven’t fallen for my act as they tried to get me to believe.
“What the hell are you talking about? Of course you did. I saw your calling card myself.”
“And I’m telling you it wasn’t me.”
The silence that follows is deafening before I hear Miah start cursing and what sounds like Jared’s yell and a feminine squeal. When he finally gets back with me I hear a keyboard clicking and I smile at the thought of Jared’s dark scowl and the way his hair would be standing on end while he types furiously.
“You know what that means. Whoever the SEAL mole is—”
“I already took care of the mole and Williams, so try again, bro.”
“Christ, Roman. Get the hell back home before someone kills you. This shit ain’t worth me having to hold your girl up as we lower you into the ground, man. Please.”
“And then what? The last member of the secret council gets away and starts all over again in a few months? Nah, man, I haven’t worked this hard and risked it all just to walk away when I’m this close, Miah.”
If I thought I could forgive myself for it, I’d run home as fast as I could and spend the next few hours just holding Mel in my arms.
I want that so badly, I can hardly breathe for the lump of fear lining my throat, but I can’t. I can’t let it go and have this hanging over our heads indefinitely.
I now have a kid to consider, and by God, my child will be born free of fear and the thought that one day someone could come for those I love.
“It’s better to have you walk out of there than to have to pull your dead body out, Roman. For God’s sake, be reasonable. It’s not just you anymore, bro. You have Mellie and your baby to think of, too. Come home, Roman. Just come home.”
“I can’t. I have one last name to get the senator and then I’ll be home free,” I mutter, hanging my head with a weariness untouched by the happiness I still feel.
“The senator?”
Chapter Seven
Roman
Shit, that was not something I wanted to tell him yet.
This is his interrogation technique. He starts off hard and disarms you with personal shit so that he can spring a trap on you. The fact that I fell for it shows that I’m running on empty and in danger of blowing this op if I don’t step it up.
Fuck.
“I called Melissa’s uncle Jim and he agreed to get the intel I collect back to the CIA. They’re our only good bet right now and—”
“Roman, Senator Dobson is one of them. Even Mel thinks so.”
Jesus, of course they would think that because I told the man to keep his nose clean and stay away from this on the public front. He’s only following my orders.
“He isn’t.”
“Yeah, he is. He’s refusing to help even though the chief was killed.”
“He’s refusing to help because I didn’t want it getting around that he’s feeding the intel to one of my guys in the agency, Miah,” I admit, closing my eyes as he stays silent and starts thinking.