Page 153 of Protecting You

“Agent Templeton.” Dad had shifted from kind to authoritative. “Let him go.”

Callan moved closer to Robert. “Three. Two. On?—”

“I didn’t know!” The manager’s rough whisper was desperate. “I didn’t know what he was going to do.”

Alyssa gasped, and she wasn’t the only one.

Dad uttered an epithet.

Callan’s knuckles whitened, squeezing harder.

Robert’s eyes widened, the eyes of a man who realized he was about to take his final breath. “I swear.” He had no volume, nothing but scant air.

Grant gripped Callan’s arm. “We need him alive. For now.”

Maybe it was the implied promise, but Callan let up his hold.

Robert crumpled to the floor, sucking lungfuls of air.

Nobody moved to help him.

The marble foyer, the overlarge flower arrangement, the ornate moldings. The foyer was just as it’d been when they’d left an hour earlier.

But everything had changed.

Mom and Alyssa’s sisters must know the truth now. They must know Alyssa and Callan had lied. That it’d all been an elaborate—and useless—ruse.

Summer stood beside them, tall and powerful. Alyssa had secretly admired the tough warrior-woman ever since she’d married Grant. Summer was pregnant, due in a couple of months, but that didn’t make her look vulnerable.

This woman was no less fierce than her husband and Callan.

Callan was breathing hard.

Dad wore a look of utter shock.

Robert was curled in the fetal position.

Nobody spoke, all frozen, waiting to see where the next bomb would land.

And then the bartender from the party stepped into the room on the far side, and Callan’s wild eyes were back. He marched in that direction.

The guy looked like he could handle himself, but he lifted his hands. “I’m with you.”

Dad stepped in front of the man. “He’s FBI. Counterterrorism.”

Callan blinked. “Why? Why are you?—?”

“We’re being investigated.” His gaze flicked to Alyssa. “Both you and me.”

Oh.Oh.

Of course she was. But Dad?

The FBI distrusted them so much that they’d planted an agent at an anniversary party.

Two hours before, that information would have sent Alyssa into a tailspin of terror.

Right now, she was just grateful the FBI was already there. It didn’t matter what happened to her. If she was prosecuted for working with Ghazi… Well, she deserved nothing better.

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