Alpha One (Shadow Agents 1)

Her father had never talked about the crash. She’d been seventeen when she went searching for the truth herself.

“After he died, I took my stepfather’s name.” His fingers were still tight around her. “My mom had remarried another man. Greg Quinn. Greg...was good. He tried to help us.”

Her heartbeat wouldn’t slow down. “The reports... The police said a minor was in the car.” They’d told her...the teenager had been the one to call for help. When they’d arrived on scene, he’d been fighting to free her mother.

Logan?

He would have been what then, fourteen?

“I went by Paul back then,” he said. “Logan’s my middle name.”

All these years...he’d kept this secret?

“I was arguing with him,” Logan told her, his voice slipping back into that emotionless tone that she hated. “He wasn’t paying attention. I was arguing, he was drunk...”

“And my mother died.”

A slow nod. He released her and stepped back. “If I’d been stronger, I never would have let him in that truck. If I hadn’t been yelling at him, maybe he would have seen her car coming.... I could have saved her, but I didn’t.”

Her face felt too hot. Her hands too cold. “My father knew.”

“Yes.”

Another secret. More lies.

Juliana held his gaze. “You asked me to run away with you. You said you wanted us to start a life together.” Kids. A house. “And all that time...”

“I wanted to be with you more than I ever wanted anything else in my life.” Now emotion cracked through his words. “Your father investigated me, found out who I was. The son of a killer.”

He was more than that.

“He was going to tell you. He told me to leave, or he’d—”

“And that made you just walk away? His threat?” She wasn’t buying that line. Time to try another one.

But he gave a hard shake of his head. “No, I left because he was right. You deserved more than me. My father was right, too, you know... In a lot of ways, I am just like him.” He lifted his hands, stared at his fingers. “I was made to kill.”

“Maybe you were made to protect.” She was tired of this bull. “You don’t have to be like him. Be your own person! You didn’t have to leave me alone—”

“You looked at me like I was a hero. I never wanted you to look at me...the way you are right now.”

She stepped back. “You should have told me from the beginning.” Everything could have been different between them. No secrets. No lies. “You just left me!”

Juliana took another fast step away from him.

“I came back.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Six months,” he said, jerking a rough hand through his hair. “I’d joined the navy. Tried to forget you. I couldn’t.”

“You didn’t come back for me.” The lies were too much. Why couldn’t he ever tell her the truth?

“You weren’t alone.”

Juliana blinked.

“You called him Thomas. He was blond, rich, driving a Porsche and holding you too close.”