Until Death Do We Part (Sex and Vows 1)

Swinging my rifle back towards the hotel, I swallowed the lump in my throat at the sight of shattered glass and bullet-ridden walls. There was no sign of Alex or Sai, and I could only hope my husband had made it out of the room alive and uninjured. Not only because I loved him, but so he could explain to me what the hell he’d been doing there in the first place!

With swift motions, I broke my rifle down and packed it up. As I headed for the door, I yanked the ear piece out, dropped it on the ground, and smashed it with my heel. Pulling a secured satellite phone out of my pocket, I dialed the only number stored in it and waited for my boss to answer as I raced down the stairwell. The elevator would be faster, but I’d only disabled the cameras on the stairs since it was my planned route. The last thing I needed was to run into security when I needed to get my ass out of this building and down the street.

“Status?”

“Mission incomplete,” I answered.

Stunned silence filled the line for a moment. In all my years with the agency, I’d never answered this question in the negative before. “Explain.”

“There was another shooter. An amateur, using a laser scope.”

“Were you able to eliminate the competition?”

“Yes, sir. That situation has been neutralized,” I confirmed.

“And the target?”

“Fled the scene. I’m in pursuit.” I hesitated, unsure how I wanted to explain that Heron hadn’t been alone when he’d left.

“Is there anything else I need to know, Scarlett?”

Heaving out a deep breath as I reached the ground floor and headed for the exit, I considered everything I knew about my husband. Puzzle pieces fell into place, and the most likely explanation came to mind. “Is the Special Operations Group aware of the situation with the target?”

“Yes, why?”

“I think there was an agent with the target, attempting a retrieval, when the shots were fired.”

“I’m sure they’d like to have a conversation with him. Did you recognize the agent?” he asked.

Did I recognize him as an agent? No.

Did I recognize him as the man I adored, and who I planned to have a baby with in the very near future? Yes.

“I’d hate to be put in a position where I have to disavow all knowledge of you because you’ve withheld information which might help me protect you and the mission,” he prodded, irritation clear in his tone.

“Would your access let you run facial recognition software using a photo in comparison to the agents in the Special Operations Group?”

“Of course it would,” he snarled. “Did you take the time to snap a picture of the guy when you should have been eliminating your target?”

“No, sir. The picture I want you to use is one of my husband.”

“Well, shit, girl. That would be one hell of a turn of events.” My boss’s voice softened. He was well aware of Alex’s place in my life and had advised me to have the agency run a thorough background check on him before we married. Clearly, the report I’d been provided with had excluded quite a bit of important information . “I’ll have an answer for you within ten minutes. But regardless of the answer, I need you to do your job Scarlett.”

“Understood, sir,” I bit out, disconnecting the call and hopping into the car I’d been using during this mission. Revving the engine, I exited the alley where I’d been parked and headed towards the hotel, three blocks away. As soon as I rounded the corner, I caught sight of a white van idling at the curb. My target was being shoved into the passenger seat. Ignoring the red light in front of me, I blasted the intersection to the blare of horns from angry drivers who had the right of way. The sound drew the man in black’s attention as he circled the van for the driver’s side. He turned to look over his shoulder, and I was struck anew by recognition. The way he moved, the shape of his face, his height. This man had to be Alex.

I raced through another intersection, the last one separating me from the van, while it peeled away from the curb. Tires screeching, the driver made a quick getaway with me right on his rear bumper. He tried to evade me, but I stayed glued to him, even as several police cars passed us as they raced towards the hotel.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” I chanted, unused to waiting instead of acting. But I wasn’t about to do anything that could cause the driver of the van harm if it might be Alex. Watching the vehicle weave in and out of traffic, I couldn’t help but be impressed with the driver’s skills—much the same as I had been the first time Alex had driven the Aston Martin I’d given him as a present. Although only four and a half minutes had passed, it felt like forever when my sat phone rang.

“Is he an agent?”

“Yes, Scarlett. It would appear like attracts like in the case of your marriage, because Alex is part of the Special Operations Group, where he goes by the code name Justice.”

“Justice,” I repeated, part of me wanting to laugh at the nickname which fit my husband so well, while the other side of me wanted to howl in frustration. Then it hit me, “Wait, the Justice everybody is always talking about? The one who is able to break anyone?”

“Yes.”

This was too much to comprehend all at once. Justice was a fucking legend in The Company. And apparently, I was married to him. Now what did that say about my ability to read people?

“Snap out of it, Scarlett. You still have a mission to complete, one which is at direct odds with the orders your husband has most likely received. Can I trust you to get the job done or do I need to send someone else in?”

“You can trust me, sir.” I wasn’t sure if my answer was truthful, but it was the only one I was willing to give. There was no way in hell I’d allow another assassin from my division anywhere in the vicinity of Alex. “I’ll handle it.” One way or another.

Disconnecting the call, I dropped the sat phone on the passenger seat and dug in the center console for my personal cell. With a quick swipe across the screen, it powered up.

“Call Alex.”

Following my voice command, the call went through and I waited as the line rang on the other end. Once. Twice. At the third ring, I figured he was going to let it go straight to voicemail—understandable since he was in the middle of a high speed chase on the streets of Rome with an unwilling passenger in the van. Then on the fourth ring, he picked up.

“Hey, baby. I’m kind of in the middle of something. Is everything okay?”

Oh, he was in the middle of something all right.

“Hey, stud. I was wondering if you’d like to meet up in Rome instead of Fiji. It’s been a little while since we’ve visited there.”

For pleasure at least, I wasn’t about to count any of my post-mission debriefings there. Who knew how often he’d been there for the same reason over the last four years? Now that I thought about it, if Rome was his station in Europe too, I was kind of surprised we’d never run into each other unexpectedly during a mission before now, since we’d both been out of the country simultaneously a ridiculous number of times over the years. And he didn’t know I was in the car following him, yet. I was curious to see how he’d try to talk his way out of this one. Yeah, even though I’d been lying to him just as long and in the same way, I still wanted to fuck with him a bit because I was a little hurt. It wasn’t exactly fair, but the feelings were there just the same. Who knew I could be such a girl?

“I don’t know, baby. I was looking forward to seeing you in nothing but your tiny white bikini.”

The van swerved to the right, and there was a muffled grunt in the background, followed by a growled curse from Alex.

“What was that, Alex? We must have a bad connection because I couldn’t hear you clearly.”

“Nothing, baby. Just some asshole who had something to say about you in a bikini. Don’t worry, I shut him up.”