Out of the Shadows Read online

  “Let’s take a walk,” he said, drawing me to my feet. We left everyone else behind as he took my hand and led me down the beach. The moon was high in the sky, its pale light illuminating our path.

  After a little ways, the noise of the party faded away and Devon pulled me into his arms. “Was your wedding day everything you hoped it’d be?” he asked.

  “You mean our wedding day,” I said, sliding my arms around his waist. “It was beautiful. But it was the man I married that made it everything I’d hoped it’d be. Not the setting.”

  His eyes searched mine, and it felt like he was more open and vulnerable at this moment than I’d ever seen him.

  “You mean everything to me,” he said. “I want you to know that. No matter what happens.”

  That dimmed my mood. “What do you mean?” I asked. “What’s going to happen?” I’d survived the virus and sickness. What else was going to work against us?

  “You know I still need to go to London and finish this mission,” he said gently. “That hasn’t changed.”

  My stomach clenched. “Let’s just run away,” I said, taking his hands tightly in mine. “We can leave, go somewhere Vega won’t find us . . .”

  But Devon was already shaking his head. “I won’t do that. Not with you. We won’t spend our lives running and always looking over our shoulder. I have to finish this.” The ocean breeze stirred my hair and he brushed some stray tendrils back from my face. “And I want you to stay here.”

  I stared at him. “What? What do you mean?”

  “It will be dangerous. I can have Beau protect you while I’m gone.”

  “What exactly did those vows mean to you, Devon? For better, for worse, and all that? Were they just words? Because I don’t want to stay behind and wait to hear that my husband didn’t make it. You don’t have to take me everywhere with you, but don’t leave me on another continent, for goodness sake.”

  He studied me, brushing my hair back again, his fingers caressing my ear and jaw. His brow was furrowed and I held my breath. I’d gone with him before on his missions. I didn’t want to be left behind. Not now. Not when we were supposed to be in this together.

  “All right,” he said at last. “But I will leave you somewhere safe over there, and you mustn’t argue.”

  “I won’t. I swear.”

  He pulled me close and pressed his lips to my forehead. I nestled in his arms, inhaling deeply of his cologne mixed with the scent of the ocean.

  “I saw a hammock back there, I believe,” he said. “Care to join me?”

  “I’ll go wherever you lead.”

  Getting into the hammock was easier said than done, and I was laughing so hard by the time we both got settled, my stomach hurt. It had nearly dumped Devon on the ground, and then when I’d climbed in and he’d followed, it nearly sent both of us tumbling. He was laughing, too, as we both cautiously maneuvered until we were in each other’s arms.

  “The stars are out,” I said, looking up at the night sky.

  “They wouldn’t dare not shine brightly, on tonight of all nights,” he said. “I’d have to lodge a formal complaint.”

  “With who?” I asked, smiling at his playfulness.

  “With God, of course.” He snorted, as though it were obvious. “I would have several issues to take up with him, actually, but we’d start with the stars.”

  “Like what issues?” I asked, curious.

  Devon got quiet, his hand tightening on my shoulder. I waited, wondering why he’d grown thoughtful.

  “I’d like to know how someone as good as you had something so awful happen to you.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t view myself as particularly good, at least not any better than the next person. As for the “something awful,” Devon had been through as much if not more than me. He wasn’t the only one who had a few issues to take up with The Almighty.

  “Did you ever think you’d be married again?” I asked.

  “Never. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to meet someone again, much less fall in love enough to risk it.”

  “Me, neither.”

  Devon glanced down at me, frowning. “How could you possibly believe you wouldn’t be married?”

  I shrugged. “I just never thought I’d find anyone who’d be able to help me overcome my past.” I smiled at him. “Then I met you.”

  “Not the whirlwind romance of every girl’s fantasies, though, was I?” His tone was wry and tinged with regret.

  “It wasn’t a usual type of romance, but I’d like to think I’m not a usual kind of girl,” I said.

  “In that, you are correct.”

  We stayed there in companionable silence for a while, gazing up at the night sky and listening to the sound of the ocean. At last, Devon said, “Shall we check on our party, darling?”

  “Sure.” It was our wedding, after all. We should probably go see the guests . . . whom we didn’t know from Adam.

  It took some maneuvering, but we managed to escape the hammock without mishap, and I arranged my dress and hair. Devon had undone his bowtie and the top couple of buttons of his tuxedo shirt. He looked like he could step into a men’s fashion magazine, and just the small amount of exposed skin at his throat was enough to draw my eye and send my pulse skittering.

  The guests were enjoying the music, dancing, and champagne without us, half the party inside the small but resplendent ballroom complete with chandelier. The other half were still outside amongst the burning tiki torches.

  Devon snagged a couple of champagne flutes from a passing waiter and handed me one.

  “Is it my turn to dance with the bride?”

  I squealed in surprised delight to see Beau striding toward us. He gave me a tight hug.

  “Congratulations,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “How did you know?”

  “I told him we’d arrived,” Devon said with a sigh. “Though I’d hoped he’d at least give us the night.” The last part sounded like a reprimand.

  “Hey man, I totally would’ve, but we’ve got intel on Vega and a source we need you to verify.”

  “What kind of source?”

  “A former Shadow agent. Popped back up on the grid unexpectedly, so we grabbed them.”

  Devon’s eyes narrowed. “Where are they now?”

  “We have them at a secure facility, not far from here. But I hate to wait. MI6 is itching to get their hands on her and we can delay them for only so long.”

  Wait a second . . . her? Had Beau said it was a woman?

  “Then let’s go,” Devon said. Tipping up his champagne flute, he drained it.

  “Let me go change first,” I said. I wasn’t saying that every dress I wore with Devon got ruined, I just wanted to be cautious.

  “There’s no sense in you going,” he said. “You can stay here.”

  I gave him a look. “It’s the CIA. How dangerous could it be? Plus, it’s my wedding night and I’d prefer not to spend it alone.”

  “Woman’s got a point,” Beau said, and Devon fixed him with a glare.

  “Fine.” Devon’s response was curt, but I didn’t care. I was going.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’d changed into dark denim shorts and a thin, ivory lace tank with spaghetti straps. Not exactly what I thought I’d be wearing on my wedding night, but hey, at least it was lace.

  Beau was waiting out front of the hotel inside a car. Devon opened the door and I slid in the backseat. He got in the front with Beau. I leaned up between them, bracing my arms on the seats.

  “So who is this former agent?” I asked. “And I thought no one left the Shadow?” I vividly remembered Vega having Clive murdered right in front of me, just to prove that very point.

  “Her name is Alexa,” Devon answered. “She’s the only female agent the Shadow’s ever recruited.”

  “And she’s lethal,” Beau piped in. “No one who’s ever taken a contract to terminate her has ever returned. After the sixth one turned
up floating facedown in the Seine, minus the rest of his body, Vega couldn’t find anyone else who’d take the job.”

  “That’s not precisely true,” Devon said.

  I looked at him. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

  He looked slightly abashed. “I was intrigued by the challenge,” he said with a shrug. “And at the time, thought she was a danger to the Shadow and Vega. I had no qualms about terminating her.”

  “So what happened?” I asked. “Because obviously you both are still alive.”

  “I caught up to her in a back-alley watering hole in Singapore,” he said. “She knew I was coming, of course, was waiting for me. Just not in the manner I expected.”

  “Do tell.” A female spy? I was both jealous and intrigued.

  “She was at the bar, drinking,” Devon said. “And had been there for a while. I sat down beside her. I had her bang to rights anyway. She wasn’t getting away. But as a former agent, I thought she deserved the respect of my introducing myself.”

  “So what happened?” Both Beau and I were caught up in the tale, as he was hanging on every word, too.

  “She knew who I was. Said she knew Vega would send me at some point, and that she’d been waiting for me.”

  “Waiting for you . . . but why?” I asked.

  “Yes, intriguing, is it not? I ordered a drink and asked her. That’s when she told me that Vega was hiding more than I knew, that she was manipulating me, and that if I didn’t get out, I’d regret it. ‘She’ll never let you go, Devon,’ she said. I thought she was being overly dramatic, of course. Now, in hindsight, I realize she was quite serious. Though how she determined this, I never found out.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, she had staged a backup fracas. It broke out shortly after I sat down and she managed to lose me in the chaos. The last thing she said to me was that she pitied me too much to kill me. But to tell Vega that if she ever saw me again, I wouldn’t be allowed to return.”

  “And then what?”

  “I related to Vega what had happened,” Devon said. “To my surprise, she neglected to pursue Alexa. I thought it odd at the time, but chalked it up to her deciding to give Alexa a chance to repent and come back into the fold.”

  “But she never did,” I said.

  “No, she didn’t.”

  I mulled all this over as we drove, picturing it inside my head. Devon, outwitted by this woman. And it seemed she knew more about Vega and Devon than she’d said outright.

  I was pulled from my reverie by Beau parking the car. I glanced around, confused. We were in the heart of Duvall Street, party central for Key West, and nighttime revelers swarmed the sidewalks.

  “This is where you put her?” I asked as we got out of the car.

  Beau flashed a grin. “Easiest place to hide something is right out in the open.”

  Bemused, I followed him and Devon as we walked about a block, past bars and vendors hawking tourist trinkets made in China. My attention was caught by a beautiful two-story white home that looked like it had been converted into a bar. It was obviously old, with vines and heavy trees draping the front and side. But Beau didn’t lead us inside, instead going down another block and into a little side alley.

  A sign declared the establishment upstairs to be “Adam & Eve,” and attire was optional. He headed right for the stairs.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Not a lot of tourists come up here,” he tossed over his shoulder. “And if they do, they don’t stay long.”

  Good lord, I bet not. Attire optional? That sounded vaguely nauseating. And germy. And I wasn’t wrong.

  There was a four-man band playing covers of old seventies and eighties tunes, plus about two dozen customers who had taken the sign at its word. They were all as naked as the day they were born.

  No wait, a few of the women wore pasties and thongs, though not the ones that should have.

  “Oh my,” I breathed, my eyes wide as I took in the scene. I winced at the sight of bare bottoms on barstools and chairs.

  “This way,” Beau said.

  Devon took my hand, dragging me with them as I goggled like the naïve farm girl from Kansas that I was.

  In the corner was a door, which Beau had to enter a code to get through. Once the door closed behind us, I realized it was no ordinary door, because it blocked the noise from the bar entirely. Beau flipped on the lights and the dimness was replaced with bright fluorescent illumination.

  We followed Beau across the small space to another door, where he entered another code, then leaned down for it to scan his eye. Only then did it open. He held the door for us.

  I’d never been in a secret CIA holding facility before, and I was watching avidly as he went through these security protocols. We were in a very narrow hallway that opened into a larger room than I’d expected. The only thing it held was a cell, and inside the cell was a woman.

  She was sitting with her knees up on a bed that looked too comfortable to be inside a cell, and she looked too calm for a woman being held against her will, glancing up at us with an almost bored expression. But she perked up when she saw Devon, her body stiffening and her eyes narrowing.

  “Well, I didn’t expect Vega’s lapdog to walk through that door,” she said dryly.

  “Nice to see you, too, Alexa,” Devon replied. Beau stepped aside so Devon could approach the bars. I held back, too, watching.

  “Are you here to kill me?” she asked. “The Americans don’t have the balls for it.” She sent Beau a scornful smile.

  “That could be arranged,” Devon said.

  “Except if you kill me, then you’ll never find out the truth about a lot of things I think you’ll care about very much.”

  She looked quite smug and self-assured as she said this. I had trouble reconciling this petite blonde as a cold-blooded killer and spy. She was tiny and delicate, like a porcelain doll, but her eyes were cold and her tone bitter.

  “The ‘don’t kill me, I know important things’ cliché,” Devon mocked. “Honestly, Alexa. I expected something better.”

  Her smirk faded at this and I saw her swallow. The first betrayal of any kind of disquiet or fear I’d seen. Her eyes flashed quickly to Devon’s hands, as though expecting him to pull a weapon at any moment.

  “Then try this,” she said. “Your parents didn’t die in that bombing because they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were sent there to be murdered.”

  Those words landed with the force of a small bomb, and I didn’t know which of the three of us was more shocked.

  For a moment, Devon didn’t move, as though he were processing Alexa’s statement. Then he was striding forward and grabbed the bars of the cell. It happened so fast, it startled me and I jumped. It must’ve had the same effect on Alexa because she flinched before she could stop herself.

  “Tell me what you’re talking about,” Devon demanded, his voice like ice. “How could you possibly know anything about my parents?”

  “I’ll be glad to, but not from in here.”

  Devon glanced at Beau, who didn’t look happy.

  “I’m not authorized to let her go, Devon,” he said. “She’ll disappear on us and we’ll never find her again.”

  “The only reason you found me in the first place was because I wanted to be found,” Alexa interjected.

  “Bullshit,” Beau retorted.

  She shrugged, which just seemed to irritate him more.

  “Perhaps we can trade,” Devon said. “You want Vega taken down. Alexa may be the one who can help me do it. But I need her.”

  “He most certainly does.”

  Devon didn’t reply to Alexa’s comment, his gaze on Beau. They stared at one another for a moment.

  “I’m going to be in deep shit,” Beau said.

  “Not if I hand you Vega on a silver platter.”

  Beau glanced at Alexa, who was watching their interplay with interest. He let out a sigh.

  “Fine. But if my ass ends up i
n a sling, you’d better come riding to my rescue.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Devon turned back to Alexa. “You are not free to leave. If you try, I will stop you. The agreement is you come with me, help me find Vega’s weakness, and destroy her and the Shadow. If you do this, you’ll have earned your freedom. If you flee and don’t honor your agreement, I will hunt you down. Only I won’t turn you over to the Americans, because the Russians want you, too.”

  Alexa paled slightly.

  Devon’s lips twisted. “Yes, I see you’re quite aware of what you may have done to upset the Russians. And exactly what they’ll do if you’re handed over to them.”

  “I won’t run,” Alexa said. “I told you, I’m here of my own accord.”

  “What-the-fuck-ever,” Beau mumbled under his breath.

  “Good,” Devon spoke over him, ignoring how pissed off Beau was obviously getting at Alexa.

  Beau unlocked the cell and Alexa rolled to her feet. She moved with a lithe grace, like a cat, and I could see then how dangerous she might be.

  “So who’s she?” Alexa asked Devon, nodding toward me as though I couldn’t hear perfectly well what she was saying.

  “This is Ivy,” Devon said. “And as of a few hours ago, my wife.”

  Alex’s gaze swiveled from me to Devon and she grinned. “Seriously? You got married again? Good for you.” Her smile turned grim. “Better make sure Vega doesn’t find out. She’ll kill her like she did Kira.”

  I was surprised she knew about that, as was Devon, because his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “I just found out she had Kira murdered,” Devon said. “How is it that you already know?”

  “I made it my business to know exactly for whom I was working. Something you should have done a long time ago.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Beau interrupted. “Before the people watching the security cameras figure out exactly what I’m doing.”

  He hustled us back out the way we’d come. I kept my eyes averted from the naked-as-jaybirds partiers in the bar, though I saw Alexa glancing curiously over at them as we passed by.

  “I can have a transport to Gitmo waiting in the harbor by morning,” Beau said. “We’ll catch that, then a military flight to London from there.”