After a few more heartbeats, Marco loosened his grip and she yanked her ha
nds down to her sides. But Marco kept his hands on either side of her head, not stepping back as she had expected him to do.
“Well, Camilla, who is he?”
She debated telling him the whole truth. He’d said he’d help her locate the Talent or Talents who’d left the message inside the ruins, but after this, he might change his mind.
But he was right—trust ran both ways. If she didn’t tell him, he might walk away. And while she could handle the mission aspect herself, the thought of never seeing the fierce man in front of her ever again didn’t sit well. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t keep the information from him any longer, she didn’t want to. She was curious to see how he would react.
Ever since they’d left that bar, the charming, flirtatious Marco Alvarez of rumor had disappeared, replaced with an oddly demanding, straightforward man. The same man she’d glimpsed briefly back in the jungle. And while Cam would never admit it to anyone, she was far more intrigued by him than the playboy persona he usually donned.
He kept asking her not to judge him, so maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t judge her like everyone else.
“The man from earlier is named Richard Ekstrom.” She took a deep breath, risking it all with her next words. “And not only is he my ex-boyfriend, he’s a former major with the Federation League.”
Marco’s face went blank and she waited to see if he’d show the same disgust as the others. Marco was clever, and she didn’t doubt for a second he’d make the connection.
Having Cam all but pinned up against a wall, and trying hard not to notice the rise and fall of her breasts so close to his chest, it took Marco a second to process Cam’s words concerning Richard Ekstrom. To be honest, her confession was one of the last things he’d ever expected to hear. Not so much the part about him being her ex-boyfriend, but rather the part dealing with the Federation League—the same group he suspected was setting off the arson fires.
Jaxton’s briefing had included a reference to Ekstrom. The man had once been a strong recruiter for the Fed League, slated to take over command, but then he’d all but disappeared into thin air about two years ago. No one had heard from or seen him since.
If Ekstrom had been that high up in the Fed League, then it only stood to reason that Cam had also been a part of the fringe group at one point in her life. Probably in much the same way as DEFEND functioned, the higher ups rarely had free time outside of their duties, and when they did, they couldn’t share anything about their work without Neena or Aislinn’s approval. Relationships with non-members were, predictably, rare.
Studying Cam’s face, he saw her struggling to hide her vulnerability about how he’d respond. While Marco had researched Camilla Melini before coming to Mexico, he hadn’t found anything about her involvement with the Fed League, meaning it wasn’t public knowledge. But no doubt others had learned the truth and given her hell for it.
He’d see what she had to say before issuing judgment. He wasn’t a hypocrite. “You were involved with the Fed League too, weren’t you? How?” She hesitated, and Marco decided he didn’t like seeing such a strong woman so unsure of herself. “You can tell me, Camilla. Neena let you into DEFEND, and continues to give you important assignments. We both know she wouldn’t stand for a double-agent in her ranks.”
Cam remained silent, so Marco said, “Please?”
Her mouth parted a little in surprise, and he resisted a smile. Catching Cam off guard was fast becoming one of his favorite pastimes.
Good soldier that she was, Cam recovered quickly and said, “Only if you promise this information won’t go any further. I can’t do my job if everyone suspects me of being a spy.” He nodded, understanding a thing or two about keeping secrets and avoiding unwanted attention.
She continued. “You know from my conversations with Kiarra that our parents were murdered when I was young, by our uncle, James Sinclair.” Marco nodded. “After that, I went to live with my Uncle Alex and his two children. They were the best surrogate family I could’ve hoped for, but my anger at the loss of my sister to the AMT, the loss of my parents, and the loss of my brother Gio to another uncle, grew and festered. By the time I was eighteen, I wanted to make someone pay for all of the pain the AMT had caused in my life.”
“And so someone convinced you to join the Fed League.”
“Yes.” Cam looked away from his gaze to stare out one of the windows. “Richard knew exactly what to say to recruit me. He’d been close to his older sister too, and being as young as we were, we both thought that taking out AMT-related targets would scare the AMT Oversight Committee into making changes. Maybe even convince them to shut down the AMT system for good.
“I trained hard, trying my damnedest to become the best. During the final phase of training, the Fed League conducts tests to pinpoint each person’s strengths.” She looked back to Marco. “The results told them I was an excellent sharpshooter.”
He’d never seen Cam fire a gun, but it wasn’t that hard to imagine her doing so with ease. “What did you do after you finished your training?”
“They mostly assigned me to cover members from a distance, watching their backs as they retreated from a target. Unsure of who was working with the AMT or not, I was to incapacitate but never to kill. But as time went on, I became too good at my job, and they decided to make me an assassin.”
Cam watched Marco closely, waiting for the moment when his look would turn to one of revulsion. She rarely revealed her past to anyone—not even her sister Kiarra knew the truth yet—and the few who had heard her case often stopped listening at the word “assassin.”
Yet for some reason, she hoped Marco would want to hear all of it, and try to understand her.
When he’d told her about his cousin with such anger and passion, Cam had instinctively known he was telling the truth, and it had made her feel guilty. Her games and outbursts had taken away from Marco’s efforts to catch his cousin’s murderer. Here she’d thought that he didn’t take anything seriously, while all the while he’d been hiding his pain behind fake smiles and flirtatious remarks, balancing the multiple responsibilities DEFEND had thrust upon his shoulders.
Even without considering Marco’s elemental water abilities, the man had phenomenal control.
Cam wanted to see more of the real man beneath the facade.
But Marco remained silent, and if Cam didn’t do something, she would lose the chance.
Not wanting him to see how much she needed him to listen to the rest of the story, Cam fell back on her usual brusque manner. “I need to know if you want to hear the rest or not because I need to go back to Santa Lucia Park to try to solve the clue I found inside the observatory.”