Still wary, I went to the fridge and grabbed a cold water bottle. I sat at the old wood table, the same place I’d once searched through design schematics, looking for the man who sat beside me. That was how it had always been for me, searching desperately for the answer I already knew.
Ian slid a plate of steaming food in front of me, then set another place for himself.
“Orange juice?” he asked.
My life was surreal. “No thanks, but I’ll take some coffee if there’s any left.”
He poured me a mug. “Milk?”
“Yes, please.”
Though when I got my coffee, all I could do was stare at it. All I could do was stare at the beautiful meal in front of me and the beautiful table and wonder how the hell I’d gotten here.
“How was your run?”
I tilted my head, thinking of Brody. Thinking of quitting. “Refreshing.”
“Good. Now tell me what’s bothering you.”
“Am I so obvious?”
“Not really. But I’m good at reading people.”
Yes, he was. It was probably how he’d managed to pull this off, playing people off each other. Showing them what they wanted to see. And that was what bothered me now.
“How do I know this is real?”
“Why, does it seem like a dream? Maybe you’re still tied up in my lair, floating through subspace and dreaming of coffee.”
He had the most evil sense of humor. A smile played at my lips.
“How do I know you are real?” I asked, and this time he didn’t make a joke. He understood what I meant. The FBI Agent or the Most Wanted picture. The light or the dark.
“I realize you may not believe me, but I have always been real around you. Except for what I did for my job, every word I ever spoke to you was the truth.”
The same as it had been in captivity, I remembered.
He took a swallow of coffee as if fortifying himself. “The truth is, I spent most of my life not knowing who I was. I didn’t want to be my father, but I knew I’d never fit in as a law enforcement officer either. Everything I did felt like a part to play, like I was going through life trying on different masks.”
Like the stage. Maybe that was why the plays had always stuck with me, not only for their content. The prospect of living different lives, of being different people. But if these personas were only masks we wore, then we could discard them. We would be more vulnerable that way. Exposed. Free.
“Do you know who you are now?” I asked softly.
He leveled me with a look so intense and so open that I felt the impact in my gut. “I know I don’t want to be Carlos Laguardia anymore. I’ve been taking it apart, his legacy. It’s not a quick or painless process. If I had walked away, the vultures would have snapped up the pieces. The only way to be sure it’s really gone is to break it myself.”
I remembered Brody telling me about the recent upheaval within the organization. This is our best chance to bring them down, he’d said. Except Hennessey was already doing it, from the inside. He’d done more than abdicate the throne; he was dismantling a criminal empire. It was the same thing he’d been tasked to do as an FBI agent, but the rigid laws and procedures could never have reached deep within the organization. Only he could do that.
“And Ian Hennessey?” I asked.
“Retiring. I’ve worked enough to get a little pension coming.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you gave everything up? All of Carlos’s money?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never been a fan of parties or mansions. Islands, though, those I can get behind. I always thought I’d end up living on one. Just get away from it all.”
My nose scrunched in distaste. “I hope you’re not planning on me joining you.”
His eyes lit with amusement. “You aren’t a fan of the beach?”
“The setting is fine. It’s the seclusion that would drive me crazy. I’m a little bit of a loner, but I still like to see people every once in a while.”
“There are people on a private island. Someone has to sweep the seaweed off the sand.”
I snorted. “I don’t think the FBI pension covers buying an island.”
“I have a few investments put away,” he admitted. When I was quiet, he quirked a brow. “Anything else?”
So many questions. And not enough courage to hear the answers. However, there was one interesting fact about Ian Hennessey I already suspected…
Just thinking about it brought a sly smile to my lips. “And you have a foot fetish.”
A slight flush tinged his cheeks and the tops of his ears. God, that was adorable. Someone this evil had no right to look adorable. He’d committed crimes against humanity, but he was shy about this.
“Perhaps,” he said.
I almost rolled my eyes. “Perhaps? So when you beat the soles of my feet and then kissed them later, you were on the fence about it?”
The look he sent me was dire—and all warning. No follow through. The man had a thing for feet, for sure.
“Okay, so, it shouldn’t really matter if I…” Beneath the table, I touched my toes to his ankle. And then slid upward, along his denim-clad shin. “If I do this. You don’t care, right?”