Kabul, Afghanistan August 2021
“That appeared to go well.” Torres’s voice thickened with sarcasm as I watched Izzy walk away with the rest of the envoy. She hadn’t stomped, stormed, or even glared at me before following Webb toward the armored cars at the edge of the runway. She’d simply dismissed me like we didn’t have a decade of history between us.
I scoffed, but there was no stopping the corners of my mouth as they lifted in appreciation. Well played.
“That’s her, isn’t it?” Torres asked as we fell in behind the politicians. “Shit, I barely recognized her.”
Politician. She hated politics—at least she used to. She’d made such a big deal about getting into the nonprofit sector, never giving in to the pressure her parents put on her to further their own agenda through her career, and yet here she was.
She’d made a choice that day after all.
When push came to shove, she was an Astor.
Anger rose, swift and hot, and I shoved it aside. Logically, I’d always known she’d chosen her parents, but seeing that choice play out cut like a dull knife.
“Sergeant Green.” Graham fell into step beside me. “You want to clue me in on what that was about?”
“Nothing to clue you in on,” I muttered, ripping my gaze from the sway of Izzy’s hair and scanning the perimeter. I lowered my Wiley Xs to shield my eyes from the sun.
Shit, how the hell was she here?
“Right. Because that didn’t just go down like you ran into your ex on the tarmac or anything.” Sarcasm dripped from Graham’s tone.
“She’s not my ex.” We never got to that point. “And wipe the smirk off your face.”
“She’s worse than your ex,” Torres mumbled. “She’s your what-if.” “Touchy, aren’t we.” Graham’s grin faded. “I can’t believe they turned
down the Chinook.”
I grunted in agreement. Earlier today, I hadn’t given a shit that the politicians had refused to take the armored Chinook—or, as we called it, Embassy Air—from the airport to the US embassy. The seven-kilometer route was safe enough—for now. But that was before I knew it was Izzy we’d be transporting. I wanted her behind bulletproof everything. Hell, I wanted her out of here, period.
We reached the convoy, and the aides split between the center two of the four black SUVs. Holt—the aide Kellman was responsible for— climbed into the back of the second vehicle, Izzy following after.
Her backpack slipped off her shoulder, and I caught it by the strap before it could hit the pavement. The common olive-green fabric was soft and worn, the padding flattened by years of obvious use, but there was no mistaking the cylindrical burn mark near the zipper.
The breath punched out of my lungs, and a wry smile twisted my lips as I lifted the pack, my eyes rising to meet hers, both hidden behind our sunglasses. The lenses made it so much harder to read her. Her body language was a solid attempt at calm and collected, but her eyes had always been the best way to get a feel for what she was thinking. Was she all over the place like I was, or had three years of silence really made her that apathetic?
“Your bag, Ms. Astor,” I said slowly as a breeze from the air- conditioning drifted over my face.
Her lips parted, and she swallowed before taking it from my hands and shifting it to her lap. “Thank you.”
“Can you turn the air up?” Holt asked the driver, tugging on his tie as sweat dripped down his beet-red neck.
Graham looked back over his shoulder from behind the wheel and laughed softly. “Sorry. It’s already on max. It’s just that damned hot here.”
Holt fell back against the seat, looking like someone had shot his puppy.
“For fuck’s sake,” Kellman muttered, already heading toward the tactical seats in the back row.
A quick glance told me all the luggage had been loaded into the rear vehicle, and all the aides were secure. I scanned the perimeter again, even though there were six other operators doing the same, and caught Webb’s nod before he slid into the lead car.
It was time to go.
“Buckle up,” I told Izzy, shutting her door before she could respond. There. She was behind as much bulletproof glass as I had on hand.
I took the front passenger seat and shut the door. “Go.” I motioned toward the rolling lead car as the manned gate opened in front of us.
The sweet scent of lemons and Chanel no. 5 hit my nose. That vise around my chest tightened another painful notch as I fought off a barrage of memories that I didn’t have time for. That ring on her finger might have been new, but some things hadn’t changed. She still smelled like long summer nights.
Graham put the car in drive and followed, taking us into Kabul. My senses rose to high alert, taking in every detail of the route and those who walked or drove alongside us, scanning for any possible threat.
“About how long until we reach the embassy?” Holt asked, dabbing at his neck.
Kellman had his work cut out for him with this guy. He was going to be a real pain in the ass for the next week. Not that I didn’t have my own hands full.
Isabeau fucking Astor was behind me, less than two feet away for the first time since that rainy night in New York where everything had gone so massively wrong. When had she quit that firm? When had she decided to go work for a senator? I bet her parents were thrilled. They’d always been about that status-driven stuff. What else had changed in the last few years?
Focus.
“Depends on traffic and whether or not your arrival was leaked to the guys who like to make political statements with RPGs,” Graham answered, his southern drawl lingering on that last word.
The back of my neck heated, and I knew if I turned around, I’d find Izzy’s gaze locked on me, the same way mine would have been on her if
our positions were reversed. Instead, I kept my attention on our surroundings as we passed the one-kilometer mark and traffic thickened. We’d be in the Green Zone soon.
“So is that, like . . . five minutes? Or ten?” Holt asked, squirming out of his jacket.
It took every muscle in my body not to roll my eyes.
“We’d be there by now if we’d taken the chopper,” Kellman noted from the back.
“It was decided that would send the wrong message about our faith in security during the withdrawal process,” Izzy stated, adjusting her backpack on her lap.
“Who the hell decided image was the most important factor in a war zone?” I glanced back over my shoulder, and her chin rose a good two inches.
“Senator Liu,” Holt answered.
“Go figure, the ones who are taking armored helicopters when they get here next week are the same guys telling you to drive,” Graham quipped, keeping adequate distance from the lead car. “Gotta love politicians.”
We passed the two-kilometer mark; we were making good time. “How the visit is perceived is important,” Izzy argued.
What? Every one of my instincts wanted her on the first plane out of here, and she was concerned about the perception of it?
“The fact that you value perception over security is exactly why you shouldn’t fucking be here,” I snapped over my shoulder, raising my brows so she’d know I was talking right to her.
Her mouth dropped open before I looked away. Pay attention.
“We’re just doing our jobs—” Holt started.
“As if you have a say in where I should and shouldn’t be?” she fired back, her eyes narrowing into a glare.
Graham’s eyebrows hit the ceiling, but he kept his attention on the
road.
“You want to do this here?” Maybe it was best since I couldn’t get my
hands on her in the car, though I wasn’t sure if I wanted to shake some common sense into her or kiss her until that damned ring fell off.
Who was he? Some trust fund baby her father approved of? Someone with the political connections and pedigree they’d always wanted for her?
“I wanted to do this three years ago,” she challenged, leaning forward against the seat belt until I heard the click of its locking mechanism.
“Am I missing something?” Holt asked slowly, undoing the top button of his shirt.
“No!” she snapped.
“Yes,” I replied at the same time.
“Huh.” Holt glanced between the two of us but wisely shut his mouth. “I’ve been in firefights with less tension,” Graham mumbled.
“Shut up.” My jaw clenched. He was right, which only pissed me off even more.
We passed the next four kilometers in silence, entering the Green Zone, but only a few ounces of the tension eased as we reached the relative safety of the embassy. The decorative glass windows that wove a chevron- like pattern on the front of the building were just that—decorative. The concrete wall right behind them was built to sustain a blast. I just wasn’t sure it could sustain Izzy and me being under the same roof.
Graham put the car in park, and I got out, adjusting my weapon before opening Izzy’s door to find her fighting with her seat belt.
“This. Stupid. Thing.” She tugged on the belt and jammed her thumb into the release button.
The sight cooled the hottest flares of my frustration, and surprisingly, I fought a smile. It was just so . . . Izzy. If she stayed this flustered, she wouldn’t only fumble; she’d also start to babble.
God, I missed her uncensored babbling. “Let me help.” I leaned in.
“I’ve got it.” She shoved her sunglasses to the top of her head and shot me a look that didn’t need four letters.
Putting my hands up, I backed out as she furiously pulled at the strap. Then I scanned the perimeter again, raising my own glasses now that we were in the shade.
Webb was already out of the lead car.
“Not. Supposed. To. Be. Here.” She seethed with every yank, mocking my words.
“You’re not. This is the last place on earth you belong, Iz.” Did she have a death wish?
“Glad to see you’re still an ass.” Each time she pulled, the car bit harder into the seat belt, making it that much shorter. “What the hell is
wrong with this thing?”
I ducked in without permission and depressed the buckle with a hard, quick push, releasing the seat belt. Her hands jerked back from the contact, scraping my palm with her ring. “At least I’m an ass who can undo the seat belt.”
Our gazes clashed, and the breath of space between us charged with enough voltage to shut down the four-chambered organ known as my heart. Too close.
I backed the hell up, getting out of the car and sucking in a lungful of misery, giving her—and me—some space.
“Sorry, that belt sticks,” Graham called back from the front seat. “Now you tell me,” Izzy muttered, her cheeks flushing pink.
“Isa, is everything okay?” Holt asked from behind me as the aides started toward the guarded door of the embassy.
“Isa?” My head drew back as Izzy climbed out of the car, swinging her backpack over her shoulder.
“That’s me,” Izzy retorted, walking right past me without another glance.
“Her name is Isab—” Holt started.
“I know her name,” I said, cutting him off.
Webb stood to the side as the team filed inside with their charges, watching the exchange with a tilt to his head that said I was going to hear about this in about five minutes. It was bad enough that Izzy knew my real name—which was something I was going to have to talk to her about—but I was acting like a fool and knew it.
Worse, I couldn’t seem to stop.
“You’ve always been Izzy.” I followed her past the third row of trees that marked the front of the embassy and toward the door.
She stiffened, then spun to face me right in front of Webb. “Izzy is an eighteen-year-old girl who has to have her hand held. I’m not that girl anymore, and if you have a problem with me being here, then go ahead and assign me to someone else, because I have more important things to do than spend the next two weeks proving anything to you.” She jabbed her finger at me, not quite making contact with my chest before turning on her heel and striding inside the embassy.
“So, I take it she’s still pissed?” Torres asked.
I ignored him and the grating pain in my chest, blowing out a long, exasperated breath.
“I’m going to ask you this one more time, Sergeant Green.” Webb fell into step with me as we followed them in. “Is there going to be a problem here? Because I’ve never seen you distracted like that. Ever.”
That was because nothing distracted me like Isabeau Astor. She wasn’t some bright, shiny little diversion. The woman was a meteor, a shooting star capable of granting impossible wishes or destroying life as I knew it.
And she was currently greeting the ambassador behind the glass wall of the conference room directly in front of me with the kind of practiced ease that spoke to a wealth of experience I knew nothing about. Maybe she was right, and she wasn’t my Izzy anymore . . . not that she’d ever been mine. Not really.
“We have history,” I admitted. History didn’t even cut it. We were bound in ways I’d never understood.
“No shit, Sherlock. Is it going to be a liability? Because your replacement should be up and about in a few days, and you can be on your way to the Maldives.”
“I’m processing.” I hadn’t even given my little prepaid overwater bungalow a thought since Izzy had stepped onto the tarmac.
I glanced at Torres.
“Why are you looking at me like I have anything to say that you don’t already know?”
He cocked his head to the side.
My jaw clenched as Izzy smiled and shook the ambassador’s hand. “Just let me know by tonight,” Webb ordered, then headed toward the
conference room. “They added two stops to the itinerary, so this show is on the road tomorrow morning,” he called back over his shoulder.
I slipped into an unoccupied hallway to pull my shit together.
“You going to hand her over to Jenkins?” Torres asked, leaning against the wall next to me.
“Every instinct tells me not to,” I said quietly. “But at least he’d treat her as just another detail.”
“Just another mission.” Torres nodded. “Solid point.”
Jenkins wouldn’t spare a single glance for her eyes, her smile, her curves. He’d be 100 percent focused. “She’ll be safer with me.”
“Because you’re in love with her?” Torres questioned.
I shook my head. “Because Jenkins isn’t willing to die for her.”
“Does it ever cross your mind that dying for someone might not be all it’s cracked up to be?”
“Every single day.” Remorse twisted my stomach.
“That’s not what I meant. One day you’re going to have to let that guilt go.”
“But today is not that day.”
He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Look, talking this shit out with me isn’t going to help. We both already know what you’re going to do.”
I nodded. I’d been protecting Izzy for too long to stop now just because it might be uncomfortable.
Graham passed the hallway and then did a double take. “Hey, boss, there you are.” He waved a piece of paper. “New itinerary.”
Torres and I pushed off the wall, and I took the update from Graham. “Kunduz?” Torres read over my shoulder.
“She added two provinces in the north,” Graham said. “I thought Senator Lauren was focused on the south. That girls’ chess team, right?”
“Right,” I said, scanning over the changes Izzy had obviously made. Something was up.
