“Well Lucas and I have been sober—”
“Is someone doing illegal drugs up there? Lucas has only been sober for a year and—”
“How do you know that?” I blurted out, confused with how he knew that and also that his tone sounded as if he cared.
He cleared his throat. “I know about the people that work for me, Izzy.”
“Well, no one’s doing anything illegal.” I didn’t want anyone getting in trouble with the boss when there was nothing to get in trouble for. “Lucas is fine. He’d call me if he felt he was slipping. But I know parties always trigger—"
Cade pushed away from his laptop and slammed it shut. “Then our team is done with this party.”
“No.” I stopped him and studied his approach. Cade didn’t know this team. Why would he care if Lucas and I were fine or not? “It won’t go over well. Just... I came back here to work. It’s where I feel most comfortable.”
“All you do is work, Izzy.” He rolled his eyes like it was bad.
“You have no idea.” I narrowed my eyes as I thought of something. “Do you watch our office?”
He didn’t deny it. “I watch all my teams.”
“You can’t possibly be taking in all that information while accomplishing what you have in the last year.”
It was well known that he’d stopped nuclear warfare, penetrated enemy systems, and kept adversaries at bay. “I also enjoy working, Izzy. I’m the boss. It’s my job to manage you.”
“Only because you won’t trust people like me to manage some of these employees,” I blurted, knowing it wasn’t the time nor place to get into this. Juda had told me at my six-month review that it’d be at least two years before Cade would consider giving me a higher position, that Cade had written that in my file.
“You’re not ready. You couldn’t even handle a breakup today.” He stated like it was obvious, before waving me toward the door. “I’ll go celebrate just so we don’t have to do this.”
“Do what? Engage in a normal social interaction?” I scoffed as I stomped toward the door and then out into the hall, him following me. One day he was going to have to come up with a different excuse for not promoting me. “Honestly, a year in, and I think I’ve proven I’m not a gamble, even if my boyfriend was a dick and needed a new paint job for his car.”
“Well, you had a misstep once or twice in your first few years working for the government,” he mumbled as we faced off in the darkened hallway. “Let’s not forget about that.”
My twin sister had been taken because our targets identified her as me. I hadn’t been careful enough to make sure she was safe. I wanted to scream in frustration at him bringing that up.
“Technically, I wasn’t even working for you back then. Besides, everything turned out fine.”
“I still had to watch that train wreck.”
I hated that he’d been privy to my undercover work and that not all of it was flawless. But everyone made mistakes when they were starting out. “That was the beginning of my well-decorated career, and Lilah is fine,” I spat.
“No thanks to you.”
My jaw dropped. “You have the audacity to act like I didn’t do what I could—”
“You were a kid trying to make a name for herself and didn’t respect the law, the dangers of the job, or the people you dragged into it.”
He was right. I’d tried to bring down a drug operation pretty much on my own. I had a chip on my shoulder and wanted to prove myself.
It was stupid.
And I knew that.
But I sure wasn’t going to admit as much to him.
“I held my twin sister in my arms while she bled out on my chest. You think I didn’t learn from my inexperience or lack of foresight?” I narrowed my eyes at him. This time he wasn’t the one backing me up against the wall. Instead, I advanced on him, a finger raised. “Don’t ever tell me I don’t respect the people I dragged into the operation. I more than respect them. I love them. Lilah and Dante mean everything to me.”
“I don’t doubt that,” he grumbled like he was insinuating something.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”