“I trust all thirteen of you were unscathed,” she prodded.
“Roman’s got a nice black eye.”
“He can handle a lot worse. What took you so long to get here?”
“Your team refused to let me out of their sight. They were sure I knew where you’d gone. I had to wait for everyone to fall asleep, then sneak past the ones who were on guard, then jog eight miles to borrow a boat from the neighbors.” When he looked at her again, his eyes burned with anger. “You’re fired, by the way.”
She managed a split-second smile. “From both jobs, I assume.”
“You don’t sound concerned.”
“Roman fires me every other month, though this was…” She shook her head. “I don’t know if we’ll recover from this. I betrayed my team.”
“You also betrayed me,” Austin bit out. “You lied. About everything.”
She knew all this. Had beaten herself up over it the last two days. But somehow, hearing it from him stabbed deeper. “Not about everything.”
“About enough. What was true? I assume that would be a shorter list than what wasn’t.”
She read between those lines—about enough to end any feelings he might have had for her. She clenched her teeth and nodded, acknowledging that inevitability.
“I imagine by now you know my last name is Shaw, not Callaway,” she said. “But what I told you about my childhood was all true. My mother and I were aid workers for most of my young life. We lived a nomad lifestyle from the time my father died. She did have psychological issues. But she’s not alive. She was killed in an uprising in Iraq about six years ago. We weren’t close.” She heaved a sigh. “Getting away from her was my reason for joining the military. The Manhunters plucked me out of basic training before it even ended.”
“Manhunters,” he said, scowling at her with a shake of his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. “You’re a Manhunter.”
“I was.”
/> “For ten years?”
She didn’t answer. He’d obviously gotten all the information from Roman. No doubt he saw her in a completely different light now. The realization brought hurt and disappointment.
“A fucking assassin?” he rasped, his voice lowered so Bella wouldn’t hear.
“Our team was no different than yours,” she immediately defended. “We were just funded by a different budget and sent on different missions.”
Austin planted his hands at his hips. “Bullshit.”
“Don’t even think about pitting one tier-one operator with another,” she warned. “We’re all equally as lethal.”
He exhaled heavily. Lowered his head and shook it. Witnessing his obvious disappointment hurt. The ache beneath her ribs had grown so intense, she felt brittle.
“Take Bella and go home,” she told him. “I’ll take care of things here.” She dropped her arms and looked around. “I’ll leave the boat anchored at your beach.”
“That’s it? You’ll just leave the boat at the beach and what? Disappear from our lives?”
“Isn’t that what you want?” she asked.
“I think it’s exactly what you want,” he said. “Just like a Manhunter to leave the carnage behind for the rest of us to clean up.”
That dinged her pride and her heart. “Professional jealousy doesn’t look good on you.”
He huffed a caustic laugh.
“Did you at least work things out with Roman?” she asked. “Are you going to be able to keep Bella without more problems from Seaver?”
“Probably,” he admitted. “After he verifies all the information and leaks it to the media.”
“Ouch. No VP ticket for her.”