Mine - HelenKay Dimon Page 0,20
should be about the same. He squinted, lining up the target as he concentrated, then let go.
As the blade hit, she swore under her breath. “Figures.”
She wasn’t a great loser, but that didn’t exactly surprise him either. He guessed she didn’t get all that much practice. “Why join the CIA?”
“To serve my country.” She didn’t miss a beat. Threw out the answer then reached for the hatchet.
No way was he accepting that answer. “Bullshit responses not allowed.”
She glared. He glared back.
She finally broke the stare-off with an eye roll. “There are men who need to be tracked down and killed. Forget the excuses about hard childhoods and not having enough milk when they were babies or being told the truth about Santa too early or whatever ridiculous excuse passes for a reason not to take personal responsibility these days. Some view human destruction as a game, and those men need killing. They have to be stopped.”
The way she said it mirrored how he would have said it. On this, they were on the same page. “And you joined to stop them?”
“Yes.” She held up two fingers and wiggled them in front of his face. “That was two questions, by the way.”
Before she could say anything, she grabbed the hatchet. Performed the same drawn-out routine. Ended with her arm out and in perfect alignment with the target. With the blade embedded in the pseudo-circle she matched her first near-perfect throw with a second one.
She spun around on the heel of her boot and smiled at him. “Why did you leave the Army?”
“I was done being the government’s bitch.”
Her smile fell. “Now who’s giving a bullshit response?”
He held up his hands in fake surrender. “Totally true. I had been trained to track, to hide and to kill. I did my time and was done. Reached my limit and got out rather than re-upping.”
Maybe it sounded like a line, but it wasn’t. Every word rang true. He’d been raised to join the military and serve his country. There wasn’t an alternative plan, according to his father. Forget college or taking a year off. They had a responsibility, and each one of them, one after the other, lived up to it.
His dad died of cancer before Andy ever joined, but the man’s stern discipline and unbending belief system had rubbed off on all of them by then. It took Gabe years to break free from his father’s oppressive mental hold. Watching him push Andy to the point of cracking with all those “be a real man” comments finally did it.
“How many people have you killed?” she asked, without a trace of judgment.
Still, no fucking way was he answering that one. A number flashed in his mind and he had no intention of sharing it. “It’s not your turn.”
He took off for the target and slid the hatchet out. He barely made it back to the line before turning and letting the hatchet fly. Didn’t even look to see if it hit the circle before he started with his next question. “Who taught you that some men need killing?”
She hesitated as she stared at the handle sticking out from the target. A few seconds passed, then she looked at him again. “My father, but I’m guessing you knew that.”
There might be things she could hide, but not this. Her file outlined some pretty awful family secrets. He didn’t know all the details, but he knew enough. Enough to know her father killed her mother and that he should kick his own ass for asking the question in the first place.
She nodded. “Right, that’s what I thought.”
“Natalie.”
“Technically, that was your three.” She brushed her hands against her jeans and bent down to retrieve her gloves. Slid them on, one at a time, before heading for the steps.
He called out to her. “You have one more chance.”
She didn’t even bother to look around before she hit the door and opened it. “I’m suddenly not in the mood for games.”
Yeah, neither was he.
SIX
Silence might be golden but it was slowly driving Natalie nuts. She’d grown accustomed to the bustle of the office and being on call twenty-four hours a day. Going from being needed and vital to an operation to sitting in a cabin staring at a wall made her want to claw her way through it.
Sure, she had to be on guard in case anyone came after her. Even though she now saw the futility of running from Gabe and his assistance, she wasn’t the type to