Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Learning she was a violent freak? “Yeah.”
Lena sighed and sat back. “And I’ve put my foot in my mouth again. I’m truly not judging you. I find you fascinating. If I looked merely at your records, I would say you’re the perfect lone wolf operative. I would say you would be able to work the blackest ops, but then there’s the issue of your team.”
“What about them?”
“They ground you,” Lena replied. “Working with your family gives you something a lot of other operatives don’t have. It can be good in that they can act as a check and balance to your—and every other operative’s—darker impulses. And bad in that you’re forced to think about them before the mission. What I’m trying to figure out is where’s the line. Where does family loyalty come into play before the job? If I was talking about your twin, I would say that line is very thick, and she would struggle to ever cross it. I believe Kenzie would throw the job out to spare her friends’ feelings, much less their lives. You’re different.”
“Of course I am.” It was nothing she hadn’t heard before, but she was raw tonight and Lena’s words were touching all her nerves.
“Stop being so defensive, Kala. I think you take the job more seriously than anyone on the team. I genuinely believe you are one of the brightest operatives we have working today,” Lena explained. “One of my jobs at the Agency is to identify truly gifted people. I think you qualify, and before you say because I’m some kind of brutal monster, I’m talking about more than your skills at taking down the bad guys. I’m talking about how you can see patterns and recognize danger before anyone else knows it’s there.”
Comforting words. Words she should listen to. Lena might be helpful if she decided the team would be better off without her. She might be someone Kala could bounce ideas off of. She certainly couldn’t talk about this with her mom or dad or sisters. Lou would get worried, and that was the only time her bestie would go behind her back. “The team exists because of me.”
“Why would you say that?”
“It was my idea,” Kala admitted. “I knew from a very young age this was the kind of work I wanted to do. Kenzie went along with it. It helped after she got into these young adult novels about spy school. I got her into those, too. I wanted her with me. I knew our parents didn’t want this life for us, but I had to do it.”
Sometimes she felt so guilty about dragging Kenzie in. She should be happily dating and living the life of…whatever she wanted to do. Kenzie would likely be married with a kid or two by now if she hadn’t followed Kala.
“And you’ve done an enormous amount of good,” Lena countered. “Our parents don’t always know what’s right for us. They’re simply humans who take into account their own damage and trauma. I’m sure your father’s prior employment with the Agency played into his desire to keep you away from intelligence work.”
“He still came out of retirement when I wouldn’t be swayed. It wasn’t like I wanted to work for my father. I kind of rebelled against the idea,” she admitted.
“And now?”
“I kind of like being close to them, but it can also be a heinous pain in my ass. Like tonight.” Tristan should have kept his mouth shut. Then his nose would still be in the same place.
Her gaze was on the street in front of them, watching in the distance as cars lazily drove by. Even at this time of night, there were still people out and about in Dallas. Roughly two miles away it would be different since the rambling house she and her sisters lived in was in a nice, solidly suburban-feeling neighborhood, but here the city still held sway.
“What happened tonight?” Lena asked.
And she realized she should have kept her mouth shut. No one would have told Lena shit. It was one thing to tattle to her father, another to the Agency. They would definitely like to know if two of the operatives on a team were suddenly fucking. Which they weren’t.
Luckily, she had plenty of recent events to fall back on. “The Zach thing. My parents liked him. Not that I didn’t. Zach was cool, but I hold myself apart better.”
“Precisely why I think you’re an excellent operative,” Lena allowed. “I believe you’ll give my theories some thought. I assume the rest of the team feels like Kenzie and your mother.”
In this she could be honest because they all would. “Tris is close to him. He firmly believes there’s shit we don’t know about. My mom, Kenz, and Tasha are definitely team Zach, and Lou is, too. TJ will be more cautious. He would hear Zach out, but he would also make sure the team was safe while he did it.”