Page 57 of Wrecked With You

“Do you remember when I told you that Eliza and I ran because I learned our father was going to sell us?”

“My father? Oh, God, my father was the buyer?”

I nod as he shivers. “I told you I’d never heard of him, but I had. Of course I had. I can’t tell you how much I celebrated when I read that he’d been murdered. His body blown apart so much it was practically unrecognizable.”

I meet his eyes. “It was staged, of course.”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Yeah, of course it was. He knew that somehow his predilections had gotten out. He had to disappear. So he staged his death. Probably bribed someone in the LAPD, the coroner’s office, who knows. Then he has surgery, changes his appearance, and lives life a little less flamboyantly. Fucking prick.”

“How do you know he’s alive?” I ask.

“Thea,” he says, meeting my eyes. “She told me right before she died.”

“Poor kid,” I say, pleased to see his sympathetic nod despite the fact that she’d been working for The Serpent.

“She got sucked into a life she didn’t want and couldn’t escape.” He sighs as he looks at me. “Could have been you. Eliza.”

“Don’t I know it?”

He reaches for me, pauses, then draws his hand back. “Thanks for telling me all that.”

I clench my hand tight, stifling the urge to tug him back and cling to him. Instead, I simply watch as he steeples his hands in front of his face, then exhales. “I’m not joining Stark Security,” he says. “I do that and the leads go cold, and I’m stuck getting shuttled off to the far side of the globe on some other mission. I did that when I was working for Deliverance, and that was fine because most of the time The Serpent had gone under. But now that I know my father is alive? I’m not going to rest until he’s dead.”

“But the resources are—”

“I’m saying no to joining. I’m not saying no to you.”

My heart does a little tripping number, even though I know perfectly well he’s not talking about us personally. “Explain.”

“You push the mission. Tell Stark and Ryan what Morgan means to you. Tell Quince and Eliza, too,” he adds, and I nod. It’s time my sister knew, anyway. “And then you tell him about the connection. And we team up. Like a joint task force. I get the benefit of Stark Security without the ties. You get a pretty damn awesome partner.”

“True,” I laugh. “But I don’t get you.”

The words are out before I realize I’ve said them, and I immediately scramble to cover the gaff. “I don’t mean hearts and flowers and happy ever afters,” I say. “I just mean that we had a good time on the island.”

“We did,” he says, then frowns. “Is that what you want? An island-style arrangement? Friends-with-benefits?”

Part of me wants to jump at the chance. I miss his touch. I miss having him right beside me. The scent of him when he’s close to me. I can’t even remember the last time I turned down a FWB deal with someone I was attracted to, but this time there’s not even a temptation. Because the truth is that I want more. I’ve never wanted it before. I’m not sure if I’ll ever want it again.

But I’m not about to say it out loud because I know it’s not what he needs. He needs freedom. He needs his vendetta. And until his father is either dead or this hot core inside him burns out, he won’t stay. And he sure as hell wouldn’t ever be mine.

* * *

“I’m not saying no,” Ryan Hunter says from where he sits behind his desk facing Tony and me. “I just want you to lay it all out for me. I want a sense of how long you’ll be unavailable,” he adds, his eyes on me. “And I want an idea of how long we’ll have to convince Mr. Sanchez to join up permanently.”

“I’m not opposed to the idea,” Tony says. “But until I’ve found him, I stay a free agent, and this mission occupies one hundred percent of my time. Whether it takes ten minutes or ten years.”

“Understood.”

“You also need to understand that I’m not playing a catch and call the cops game here. You know what he did to me. To my family.” He nods toward me. “You know what Eliza and Emma almost got sucked into. And who knows how many girls didn’t escape that predatory bastard.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Because I want to be crystal clear. I find him, I’m killing him. There is no other end to this mission.”

“As this isn’t to be an SSA mission, I wouldn’t presume to make that call. We are, however, happy to offer you the use of some SSA resources, as well as agent Tucker’s time and skill. At least for a limited period. How you run the mission in that period is your call.”

He speaks with stiff formality, but I hear the smile in his voice, especially when he says, “Welcome to the SSA, Sanchez. Even if only as our guest.”