Page 122 of Born for Starlight

I opened up the middle console and pulled out my tablet. “This went further than Brazil. Further than South America. It primarily impacted Europe, so I was working with Interpol in the end.” I pulled up my encrypted files and handed my tablet to Billy.

I was curious to see what he would do with them. I knew he was a former SEAL, and they only recruited smart. Still, it was a complex network.

“Here.” He pointed at the family in Dresden. It was the right group of people to be pointing to. “How long have they been operating?”

“Before the Berlin Wall fell.”

“So, they have lines into Russia,” Billy said. He caught it. Yep. Smart.

“Exactly,” I nodded. “I couldn’t reach there, so I handed it off. But everything this particular group was running in South America? It’s shut down. Everything in the EU? Europol and Interpol are on it.”

“What you’re telling me is there won’t be any blowback here.”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

He handed me my bag of cinnamon rolls.

I’d shaved. My shirt was ironed. Yes, ironed. It was the best I could do. It wasn’t nearly enough. Neither were the cinnamon rolls, but all of it was a start. I rang the doorbell. I heard her walk to the door and pause. I knew she was looking through the peephole. She was deciding.

This hurt.

It really hurt.

Yeah, most of me had known she would want to kick me in the balls to begin with, but there was a little part of me who was really hoping that the woman I had held, made love to, kissed. That woman would want to throw open the door and be as desperate to see and hold me as I was to see and hold her.

I rang again.

The door opened.

God, she looked good. She was wearing yoga pants and a t-shirt that fit her just right. Her hair was all fluffed out in a way that reminded me of sex hair. But she wasn’t smiling.

I held up the bag of cinnamon rolls.

She shook her head.

“That’s not going to do it,” she said very softly.

“What will?”

“Honesty.”

I stepped forward, and she stepped back. I held up my hands, bag in hand. “Okay, you’ll get honesty, and I won’t pressure you.”

“Come in, Matthew.”

I walked down the small hallway to the white couch where we had once made love. She sat in one of the chairs instead of the couch. So did I.

“Can we start from the very, very beginning? When you targeted me at Zoe’s engagement party?”

I set the bag down on the floor beside the coffee table, out of sight. This was not the time for teasing.

“I’m like your cousin Code, only with more field experience.”

“So, like Bruno?”

I winced. “I get my hands dirtier than Bruno. At least I have for the last four years. I didn’t before. Before I was probably more like him. By the book.”

“What changed?”