Merciless (Option Zero 1)

“Sounds good.”

* * *

Jules watched Ash leave. Having done the same thing many times herself, she easily recognized his excuse to work for what it was. He needed to get away. They’d been talking about losing his friend and a fellow OZ operative. Were the wounds still too fresh to talk about them, or was there more to Nick Hawthorne’s story?

Kate had briefly mentioned Hawke not long after OZ lost him, but she’d known few of the details. Just that Nick Hawthorne and his wife, Olivia Gates, both OZ operatives, had been on an op together. The mission had ended badly, with Hawke dead and Olivia leaving OZ. Whatever had happened was obviously still painful for Ash.

It was becoming apparent that Ash and his OZ team had almost as many secrets as she did.

As she cleaned up their breakfast dishes, she thought about the decision she’d come to last night. She was going to tell Ash everything. She owed him the truth. Yes, her reasons for not being truthful at first had been valid, but as she had worked with Ash and his team this week, she had realized something: If she was going to trust these people with her life and expect their trust in return, then she needed to be honest about her reasons for being here.

Kate had believed that once he learned what Turner was trying to do, Ash would go after her full force.

Having gotten to know Ash, Jules disagreed. He was too levelheaded to do anything rash, so she no longer had a reason to keep secrets. She trusted Ash to do the right thing.

What that would do to their working relationship remained to be seen. Though she would love to stay at OZ, he would probably tell her to leave. She wouldn’t blame him for that. Trust came hard for people who had been betrayed. Learning she had lied about her past would be hard to forgive. Finding out why she’d lied would be even more so.

On a personal level, she didn’t want to leave him, ever. These few weeks with Ash had been almost dreamlike. The spark of attraction she’d felt at their first meeting had grown into a wildfire. She’d liked and admired Asher Drake long before she met him, and now that she’d gotten to know him, she knew without a doubt that she was in love with him. How it had happened…why it had happened was inexplicable. She only knew that if he told her to leave, her heart would break into thousands of pieces.

She couldn’t let that stop her. Ash deserved the truth.

Now that she had made that decision, she wanted to get it done. Come clean with everything. But she couldn’t, not yet. The mission to capture Lang had been in the works for months. It was much too important to let personal issues get in the way now. She and the OZ team had built up trust this week. Throwing a wrench into that trust at this point could cause major issues. She couldn’t take the risk.

When the op was over, she’d tell Ash everything, and then if he wanted her to, she’d tell the team together or individually. However he preferred. And since the mission was scheduled to begin four days from now, she would use any free time to come up with the right way to tell her story.

She headed toward Ash’s office, thinking about the words she’d need to explain things. Confessing that she had fooled Turner into believing she would get intel on Ash to ruin him wouldn’t be exactly easy, but she believed she could make him understand before he threw her out the door. The other part, the part where she told him who she really was and why she felt indebted to him, would be one of the hardest conversations she’d ever had—maybe even more difficult than telling him of her parents’ murders and her abduction by a serial killer named John Leland Clark.

Chapter Thirty-One

They worked through the day into early evening, reviewing the differing scenarios and making alternative plans in case things went awry. Ash always enjoyed coordinating an op. The best planning had to allow for human error and the FUBAR factor, but when it all came together and worked perfectly, there was nothing like the rush.

The gleam in Jules’s eyes matched his own enthusiasm. She had made some excellent suggestions and offered some insight into Omar’s thinking that he hadn’t considered.

“So you think Omar is intimidated by Humphrey?”

“I do. When we were at his house, he did everything he could to try to impress you. From showing you his home, to the meal he had prepared for us. And when he announced his special guest, his excitement was more than being able to pull off a surprise. I think he wanted to please you.”

“That’s a keen observation. Makes me wonder how Humphrey can use it to his advantage.”

“Perhaps he can suggest that, as a special favor, Elsa could attend the auction as well. She’s already going to the gala. Seems only fair she get to see the other part, too.”

Ash grinned, seeing through her ruse. “You worried about me, Stone?”

“You’ll be surrounded by some of the most evil people on earth. Any one of them wouldn’t blink an eye to kill you if given the slightest hint that you’re not who you say you are. Having me right there with you, watching your back, keeping eyes and ears open to any nuances, would be helpful.”

She had a point. “I’ll see how Humphrey can work that into the conversation.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late. I’d better head home.”

“Why don’t you stay for dinner? I’ll cook this time. You can clean up.”

r /> He had to admit that going back to an empty house and eating alone held no appeal.

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

He told himself having dinner with her was nothing. They were two grown adults who needed to eat. They could keep discussing the upcoming mission. It would be a working dinner, nothing more.

Ash set the table and then, at her request, sat down and let her work. Jules cooked the way she did everything else, with efficiency and imagination. He watched, intrigued, as she sprinkled different spices with what seemed like liberal abandon into a skillet, then added cream, some kind of shredded cheese, and a couple more surprising ingredients. He had no idea what she was making, but by the time she set the meal on the table, the fragrance was almost overwhelming, and he was starving.

Ash attacked the meal like a ravenous lion and didn’t look up for several minutes. Once he did, he couldn’t contain his awe. “What is this?”