Page 141 of Hushed

He laughed. “I have enough that you don’t need to worry about finances and you can just focus on doing the kind of work you love.”

“How did you come to be so loaded?”

Gage sighed. “That’s a story.”

Kenzie laughed. “I guessed that much. Will you tell me sometime?”

He pushed his plate aside and took a long drink from his bottle of water.

“The story I’ve been told is that my biological mother and father left me at a fire station when I was somewhere between two and three with only the clothes on my back.”

Kenzie fought the urge to gasp at his candid retelling of his childhood. She couldn’t imagine anyone abandoning a child that way.

“They never found out who my parents were, or what my given name was. After a few years of bouncing me around different foster homes, I ended up living with a wealthy businessman and his family until I signed up for the marines.”

He tilted his head back as if trying to recall specific details. “Bill and Jana Allard. They weren’t abusive, but they were distant. I stayed until I was old enough to go into the military. It was a natural fit for me, and eventually, I was tapped by the NSA for a one-time operation that eventually turned into a lifetime career.”

Kenzie smiled. “Your work is scary, but it connected you to Reggie and therefore me, so I’m glad that’s how it turned out.

Gage squeezed her hand. “Not long after my first undercover mission overseas, Bill died. I never called him dad or anything like that. He was always Mr. Allard until I turned eighteen, and then he let me call him Bill.”

Kenzie lifted an eyebrow at that but didn’t interrupt.

“Bill’s wife had died several years before, and their one biological daughter left home and wanted nothing to do with them or the family business. It took a few years for me to understand why. I got called into the old man’s office by his lawyer just a few days after he died, and was informed that he’d left everything to me, with instructions that the business was to be liquidated, and that money added to my fortune.”

Kenzie opened her mouth, but Gage held up his hand to indicate there was more.

“Among Bill’s belongings, were several documents related to me. My parents did not abandon me like I thought. For lack of a better term, they sold me to Bill because they couldn’t make ends meet and were facing prison time for a number of crimes of necessity.”

Kenzie gasped, but a hand over her mouth to keep from saying anything when he clearly had more to tell her.

“Bill specialized in finding children and placing them in homes where they would be trained to be soldiers and operatives. It turns out that I had been groomed for the job I thought I’d picked for myself.”

He fell silent, and Kenzie sat back still in shock. “That story is so wild it’s almost unbelievable. How did finding out the truth affect you?”

His brows knitted together as he contemplated the question. “For the first few years, I acted like it didn’t affect me at all, and I just kept doing what I was doing as if I didn’t have money. But when I realized it was time for me to get the hell out of Texas, I got transferred to D.C. By that time I was already in the kinkcommunity, and I realized I could use the money to fund the kind of life and community I wanted to build around myself.”

“Have you ever told any of your friends this?”

Gage shook his head. “Not even Reggie. I tried to quit, but found out that the government had no intention of letting me do anything of the sort for at least another decade, so I put everything into becoming the best operative they’d ever seen. If I became invaluable, I would have some leverage.”

“Thank you for sharing,” she murmured when they grew silent again.

As they were finishing their food, Samuel strode into the room and added a chair to their table.

“Your brother is a pain in the ass, Kenzie,” he said, snagging an unopened bottle of water from the middle of the table.

Kenzie laughed. “I don’t disagree. But it’s hard not to love him.”

“You have to say that. You’re family.”

“Maybe. How is he?”

“He’ll be fine. But we have to get him back out there quickly or the powers that be are not going to be happy.”

Kenzie felt sick at the idea of sending her brother back into harm’s way, but according to what Gage and Samuel were telling her, this was the best course of action to make sure he stayed alive and out of prison.

“What do we do now?” she asked, reaching for Gage’s hand.

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