Page 29 of Code Name: Tank
“Can you come up? There’s someone here you need to meet.”
Her tone put me on alert. I glanced out my window toward the main house. The lights blazed despite the early evening hour, which seemed odd for Admiral’s and Alice’s typically quiet dinner routine. “Someone new? We just got back.”
“It’s complicated. Just come when you can, okay?”
The line went dead before I could ask more questions. Alice wasn’t one for cryptic phone calls or vague explanations, which meant whatever was happening mattered enough to disrupt the peaceful evening we’d both been looking forward to after our intense day with Money McTiernan.
I grabbed the light jacket I’d just hung up and headed out into the cool evening air. The walk from my camp normally gave me time to decompress, to process the day’s events while listening to the gentle sounds of Canada Lake lapping againstthe shore. Tonight, though, my mind raced with possibilities about who could have arrived so unexpectedly. The timing felt ominous, like the universe was about to upend the fragile peace I’d found here.
As I approached, voices carried through the windows—Tank’s distinctive deep tones, Atticus’ laugh, Admiral’s authoritative cadence, and someone else I couldn’t identify from this distance. The atmosphere seemed different from the casual gatherings we sometimes shared. It had an undercurrent of tension that slowed my steps as I climbed the front porch.
I knocked once before pushing open the front door. “Alice?”
“In here,” she called from the dining room, but the strain in her voice deepened my unease.
I walked through the entry, past the family photos and comfortable furniture that made this house one of my favorites I’d ever been in. The voices grew clearer as I got closer, and my pulse quickened.
When I stepped into the dining room, I absorbed the scene in an instant. Admiral stood near the head of the rustic wood table. Tank sat in his usual chair, a crystal tumbler of what looked like bourbon in his hand, his green eyes focused on whoever was speaking until he saw me and stood. Even in my growing panic, I noticed how the lamplight caught the gold flecks in those eyes and how his broad shoulders filled out his shirt. Atticus looked up from his tablet with his characteristic air of mild curiosity.
And rising from his chair with a familiar and insincere smile was Cory Pierce.
“Hello, Piper.”
The world stopped, and I froze.
My breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat, and for a moment that felt like an eternity, I couldn’t process what I was seeing. It was impossible, surreal, like a nightmare bleeding into reality.
The shock made my knees weak, and I reached for the nearest thing I could hold onto. It had been three years since I’d seen that face. Three years since he’d vanished from our bed before dawn, leaving only a note and a lifetime of questions. After our phone conversation two nights ago, after I’d explicitly told him to stay out of my life, after rejecting his help in the strongest possible terms, Flint had followed through on his threat to “protect” me whether I wanted it or not.
He wore the same look now that had once made me believe he was everything I needed in both a partner and a lover. Tonight, it felt like a slap across the face. After using his charm to convince me to let my guard down, to trust him completely, to fall so deeply in love, his betrayal had nearly destroyed me. He stood there, in my sanctuary, in the place where I’d rebuilt my life and my sense of worth, acting as if his presence was perfectly natural.
As if she’d put two and two together, her sharp mind connecting the dots between my cryptic references to someone from my past and the man now standing in her dining room, Alice stepped protectively closer to me. Her expression showed both recognition and worry as she positioned herself between Flint and me. The gesture was subtle but unmistakable, and I felt a rush of gratitude for her instinctive support.
Tank’s confusion was evident in the way his brow furrowed as he studied my reaction, but I could see his analytical mind working as his gaze moved between me, Alice, and Flint. His eyes found mine across the room. My heart fluttered when our gaze held. He was reading me. Seeing my distress and responding to it in a way that made me want to run straight into his arms.
I struggled to maintain my composure while feeling utterly blindsided by Flint’s presence. This was supposed to be the place where I was Dragon rather than Piper—where I wascompetent and valued and trusted rather than the woman who’d been abandoned by her partner and left to face congressional inquiries alone. The place where I’d been slowly, carefully letting myself hope again. Allowing myself to imagine what it might be like to trust a man like Tank.
Admiral stepped forward, clearly intending to handle the formal introductions. “Dragon, Alice, I’d like you to meet?—”
I cut him off. “Agent Pierce and I have worked together previously.”
Flint’s smile flickered momentarily before he recovered with the same charisma that had once fooled me into believing in him. “Piper and I were partners at the agency,” he said affably as if we were simply colleagues reuniting after a routine assignment. As if we hadn’t shared a bed for two years. As if he hadn’t whispered promises of forever into my ear. As if he hadn’t shattered my heart into pieces so small I was still finding them three years later. “I’m here to help with the investigation—these thefts are connected to an op we worked on a few years ago.”
The casual way he claimed partnership, as if our history was merely a collaboration rather than the devastation he’d left in his wake, made my hands clench into fists at my sides. But I forced myself to remain still, to maintain the facade of composure even as rage and hurt burned through my chest like acid. Even as my heart screamed that Tank was watching, that Tank was seeing me come apart, that any chance I might have had with him was being poisoned by the ghost of my past.
The man I’d given so many mixed signals to set his glass down. “Agent Pierce”—his voice was even, without inflection—“says he worked a previous case involving foreign operatives who steal funds from defense contractors.” There was a subtle edge to his voice that made me wonder if he understood more than he was letting on, including that I’d been on the same investigation.
Admiral looked between us, clearly sensing the undercurrents of tension but not understanding their source. His demeanor showed the careful attention of someone trying to navigate a situation with incomplete information. “The DOJ made special arrangements with Doc and Merrigan Butler so Agent Pierce could assist with our investigation.”
Doc and Merrigan had brought him in? My God. I realized with growing horror that I was trapped. Flint was already here, already briefed, already integrated. I was expected to work with him, to set aside whatever history existed for the sake of national security. To pretend that the man who’d destroyed my ability to trust hadn’t just walked back into my life like he owned it.
And the worst part was that they were right. If Flint truly possessed the intel he’d told me he did, that information would be vital to the case. My broken heart couldn’t outweigh American lives. No matter how much I wanted to run, to hide, to protect the fragile new feelings I’d been nurturing for Tank, whose growing unease was evident in the way he leaned forward, his attention focused on me despite not knowing why this introduction had caused such a dramatic shift in the room’s atmosphere.
When our eyes met, my breath caught. I saw more than worry. It was a fierce protectiveness that he had no right to feel and every right to show. He didn’t know what Flint had done to me, but he could see I was hurting, and that was enough.
The silence stretched on until Alice spoke up. “It’s been a long day, and rather than get into anything more tonight, Admiral and I will call a briefing for tomorrow morning.”
I noticed her rub her belly with one hand, an unconscious gesture that sent a spike of guilt through my anger. Alice was pregnant, exhausted from our day of travel, and now, she was managing the emotional fallout from my past while I fell apart over a man who’d never deserved my tears, in the first place.
