Page 77 of Now or Never
“Welp,” Bruce said. “That went well.”
Kenna slid her arm in Jax’s elbow, and they headed across the lobby for the main ballroom. A server passed them with a full tray of champagne glasses, and Jax asked the guy for soda water. She scouted out a good location amid crowd, but not near to anyone who looked chatty.
The last thing they were here to do was mingle with the Croatian ambassador’s guests. Unless any of them happened to be former US soldiers listed as killed in action.
When she’d found the ideal spot, she turned to Amara and Bruce. “One of you needs to tell me whytheyseem to be fine with Amara and Zeyla being in my life but have a huge problem with washed-up ex-CIA officers.” She whispered the last part, so no one overheard.
Bruce smirked. “True enough.”
Kenna waited. Even Jax seemed content to hold out for the answer, in between accepting two glasses of iced fizzy water. Amara sipped from her champagne glass, and Bruce looked longingly at the bar for a second.
“Talk now. Drink after.” She lifted her chin.
He usually wore Hawaiian shirts with enough buttons open at the top to reveal he was well endowed with gray chest hair. Even in winter. Today, he had on a suit that she’d guess was rented, but she couldn’t be sure. His cheeks moved—working his mouth around, trying to decide what to share.
“Bruce, why do they keep telling me to get rid of you?”
He took the bait on that one and ran with it. “Because I’m an asset to your team, obviously.”
“Or something,” Jax quipped.
Kenna ignored both of their attempts to brush off the heaviness of this conversation.Dominatusinsisted Bruce would betray her. They’d repeatedly told her not to trust him. As far as she was concerned, that likely meant she should keep him close. But fear had her pushing him away the past few months, attempting self-preservation in a situation where she had zero control. “You need to tell me, or I’ll think what they are advising might have merit. Enough to ask you to step away.”
Amara shifted to face Bruce. “Just spit it out.”
Kenna shouldn’t be surprised that Amara knew whatever it was. She watched Bruce and realized that she’d always known there were things he was keeping from her. Months ago, he’d been determined to take down the man who had betrayed him.It turned out that guy worked forDominatus. He was dead now, but did Bruce consider that the man’s comeuppance? Or was he using the betrayal as fuel to go after the whole organization now?
Bruce said, “You know who my partner was. How he screwed me over.”
Not the expression she would have used, but he had colorful ways of putting things on occasion.
Kenna nodded. “I know what happened.”
Even if most of it had been while she was a captive, Jax had caught her up. And right now, her husband put his hand on the small of her back. She leaned against him, not just for support in standing up.
“After it all imploded and I was burned and left for dead in England, I was approached by a guy. He had me do some odd jobs for a buddy of his. I needed cash. I had a certain skillset and no paperwork, so it wasn’t like work was easy to come by.” Bruce reached up and scratched his jaw.
A nervous move she hadn’t seen him make often.
“After a while I realized who I was working for,” he continued. “At first, I didn’t want to care. When I asked questions and dug below the surface, I realized I was working forDominatus.Not the same part as my partner. They probably didn’t even know each other existed. But I’d become the thing I hated the most.”
Kenna looked at the ballroom of people milling around, chatting each other up, or dancing to the orchestra’s mellow tunes. Had she brought her family into the lion’s den hoping to stir the nest enough she got some answers, or at least cooperation?
“I got out, but it almost killed me. I hit rock bottom and once I’d crawled out of that hole, I had to rebuild it all from scratch. For years, I lived on almost nothing, moving from place to place and getting paid under the table. Until an old friend reached outon a message board from decades before and told me someone needed my help.”
She could still remember him pulling up outside the empty house she’d been hiding in. The target of aDominatusassassin she had killed. Bruce had walked into the middle of it like the sunshine in that gray British world. Like a piece of home on foreign soil.
Stairns’ former friend had taken her to his home and welcomed her team. He’d treated Maizie with nothing but respect since they met and had become another reason the young woman was learning how to trust the men in her life.
“I meant what I said about you saving me.” Kenna walked to him, opened her arms, and gave Bruce a long overdue hug. “And you have no idea what it meant to me that you dropped everything and showed up to help.”
His arms tightened for a second before he stepped back and let her go. “Wasn’t much to drop. And in the end, it got me my life back.”
“You didn’t know that at the time.” He’d been there to help, not looking for a ticket out.
He tipped his head to the side, conceding her point.
“Why does he have a thing about being my father?” Kenna wasn’t sure why she asked, except that Bruce was much more of a father figure to her than anyone other than Stairns. Both men were mentors, friends, and the kind of man she wished was here to support her the way a dad might.
