Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
It made sense that the child he didn’t share actual DNA with was the most reasonable of all of his kids. Tasha sat next to her mother, insisting on being a part of this “let’s save the twins from themselves” session.
Tash was ever the dutiful daughter. She’d gotten excellent grades in high school, gone to college and earned her degree in management, and come home to help run the family company. Tasha Taggart was the office manager for McKay-Taggart, and one day she would likely run the place when he retired. Many, many years from now.
Because his sons didn’t give a damn about security and business, and his twins would be dead because they couldn’t stay away from the spy game.
“I’ll do the cleanup on this one myself,” he vowed. “It’ll be fun.”
If Drake was worried, he didn’t show it. He sat back in his big comfy chair that went with the oak desk covered in paperwork and pictures of his family. Drake had a wife and two kids who looked really sweet but would one day likely break their father’s heart by refusing to listen to him. It’s what kids seemed to do. “Ian, I know you won’t believe this, but I was going to call and set up a meeting in Dallas. You didn’t have to come all this way to threaten to disembowel me. I would have come to you. I always meant to talk to you about this.”
“About the fact that you’re forcing my baby girls to work for you?”
The two women behind him snorted at exactly the same time and proved that sometimes nurture was stronger than nature.
Drake sighed, though it was an oddly patient sound. “Ian, you know that’s not true. I did not recruit Kala and Kenzie. Have they talked to you about how they came to the Agency?”
He didn’t want to listen to Drake. He wanted to pummel his face and get him to promise that his twins would never be put in danger again.
Except he knew damn well they would find it.
Ian growled and started to pace again. “They don’t tell me anything.”
“Probably because you lose your shit, babe,” Charlie pointed out.
She was so fucking pretty sitting there in slacks and a silk shirt and those heels that made her legs look a mile long. And she was right. He had been known to perhaps overreact slightly to news that his girls had placed themselves in danger.
It was easier with Seth. Seth just wanted to play his guitar and write sappy-ass love songs. The worst danger Seth was in was from the obvious diseases he would catch from the bars he played in. And Travis had really rebelled. It made Ian a little sick to his stomach. His youngest son was…a bit of bile rose up…in law school.
Damn it. They were all supposed to go to college and then come back to McKay-Taggart and work under him where he could watch over all of them and make sure they were safe and…
Fuck all. They’d successfully raised five kids who wanted their own damn lives and would fight for it. Even him.
Again. Charlie’s fault.
“All right. Tell me.”
Drake sat up, a smile on his face. “We were working with MI6, tracking a potential threat in London.”
Ian snapped his fingers and pointed his wife’s way. “I told you we shouldn’t let them leave the country. We should have hidden their passports. We should have never allowed them to have passports.”
Charlie’s eyes rolled. “And my point is made. You know they would have just forged them. Lou learned how to do that a long time ago.”
“Boomer’s daughter is a bad influence.” She wasn’t. He was fairly certain Lou’s friendship had saved Kala from time to time, but the kid had a genius-level IQ, and there wasn’t anything she couldn’t learn to do and quickly. Lou could build anything, including a false persona.
“Lou is wonderful and you know it,” Tash corrected. “Kala’s the bad influence.”
“Anyway, we were having trouble catching this guy.” Drake proceeded, obviously understanding that a Taggart family discussion could derail the world. “It was a time-sensitive case because we had intelligence stating he was planning something for the following week, and he potentially had gotten his hands on bioweapons.”
Ian’s stomach took a deep dive. “They were supposed to be spending a year abroad.”
“Well, what they did was find our terrorist and bring him in. Kala showed up at Scotland Yard dragging in the suspect. She got arrested herself because the police weren’t sure what was going on. She knew the section head of MI6’s name and his phone number.”
Ian groaned. “Fuck me. She’s lucky they didn’t interrogate her in some foreign country that doesn’t follow the Geneva Convention.”
“Oh, it’s worse. Or better.” Drake’s lips quirked up. “At some point during her time with the police she managed to switch places with her sister. We still don’t know how they did it. The detective left her alone in the interrogation room for less than twenty minutes, and it’s a damn secure location. But somehow she did it. When they walked back in she was wearing different clothes, explained that she was Kenzie Taggart and demanded to talk to…me.”