Page 59 of Shadow

“Was he abusive?”

“You know he was.”

He waved the half-eaten slice at her. “Then you understand why. He hurt you, Liv. Yeah, it makes me jealous that he got to have a taste of you. That you fucking married him. But the worst part of all of that is that he fucking hurt you.”

She winced at all the f-bombs he was dropping in a food court filled with families. There were at least a half dozen small children in earshot.

She reached out and touched his arm again. “OK. I get that. I’m sorry I said yes to him then.”

He smiled, then looked down at his watch. “We better hurry if you’re going to make your next session, baby.”

As they were cleaning up their plates, Ripley’s phone rang. He held up a hand and stepped away as he pressed it to his ear.

She watched as he dragged a hand through his hair, then his shoulders squared, and he was on high alert. She’d seen that look before. Was he being called away? Maybe he wasn’t done with his service like he said. Was there any way to be sure a person was done with black ops?

When he came back to the table, she could tell something was wrong.

“Olivia, baby, I’m sorry, but I have to go take care of something for a few hours.”

She shoved the tray of trash at him as old feelings of resentment bubbled up. She tried to squash them and put on a happy face. That was the ‘good partner,’ thing to do. But past wounds and all of her annoyance with him today wouldn’t let her, and she heard herself say, “Of course you do. Nothing’s changed. I thought you were done with the secretive trips. I’ll find my own way back to D.C. since I’m sure whatever you have to take care of will turn into six months instead of a few hours.”

Chapter 17

RIPLEYstaredafterOliviaas she walked away, then glanced down at his phone. She was right. The way he told her he needed to leave was exactly how he used to tell her he was getting on a plane for another mission—if he even told her at all. But that’s not what this was. At least he hoped not.

The phone call had been because he never responded to the email this morning telling him to cut contact with Olivia. The man on the phone wouldn’t tell him why, only that it had to do with one of his previous assignments. It was urgent, and they needed him to either get on a secure line or go to a secure location and answer some questions. So, he was heading to a local safehouse for a chat with the CIA, or maybe the NSA—it was sometimes hard to tell where orders were coming from—and chats like these always took hours.

Olivia wouldn’t understand if he tried to explain it to her. Not when she was already pissed at him. So, he let her walk away. But he alerted the shadow team she still didn’t know about to keep an eye on her. He didn’t trust Mario.

On his way out to the rideshare pickup point, he stopped and made a small purchase in the casino gift shop. Then he pulled out his phone and called an Uber to take him to the safehouse.

When he got there, he found four men in paramilitary gear. Something wasn’t right.

“Gentlemen,” he acknowledged as he stepped out of the car.

“Cannon Ripley?”

He nodded, and they ushered him up the driveway. “We believe one of your aliases has been compromised and the targets of that operation have learned your real identity. We need to get you into protective custody right away.”

He held up his hand. “No. Not happening. If they want to come for me, let them come. I would like the details of which alias was connected to me, though. Is this why you wanted me to cut contact with Olivia?”

The men looked at each other and back to Ripley.

“We can’t give you all the details, but yes. You need to get to safety.”

He folded his arms. There was no way he was leaving Olivia again. It wasn’t happening.

“You need to hear me loud and clear. I’m not going anywhere with you. Now tell me which alias.”

One man stepped away and held a phone to his ear. When he came back, he held the phone out to Ripley.

“Tell me what’s going on,” he demanded of whoever was on the other end, not bothering with pleasantries.

“Ripley, it’s Brian Doran. What’s this about you not going into protective custody with my men?”

“Doran, what the hell is going on?” He did his best to keep from clenching his fists and making an ugly face in front of the men. Brian Doran was the man who forced him out. And while he was glad to be home with Olivia, he was still no fan of this man. His corruption knew no bounds.

“What’s going on is that you need to get your ass into a safe place now. We have reason to believe you’re being actively hunted.”

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