Rudd still didn’t understand why they had been brought together like this. The one thing CONTROL had most definitely accomplished with this awkward, impromptu social gathering was to drive home the fact that he wouldn’t miss any of them when this was over. Maybe that had been a part of their intention. If so—mission accomplished. He hoped to never see any of them again after this trip.

Rudd had the same thought again, ten minutes later, after he’d backed their loaded SUV out of the garage and stopped at the bottom of the driveway. He pressed the garage remote and took Jolene’s hand, watching the bay door slowly close on the home they had shared for close to three decades. If his instinct about this upcoming mission proved correct, this would be the last time he looked at their house. Oddly, he wasn’t sad. He felt more relieved than anything. A little excited, even.

“I’m ready to move on from this place,” he said. “All of it, if that’s what they intend.”

She squeezed his hand. “Me too. Just promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“I get to kill Gray.”

“Only if CONTROL orders it,” said Rudd, kissing her cheek.

“Of course,” she said. “I’m not a psychopath.”

They both chuckled a little. That was one of the many things he loved about Jolene. Her sense of humor. Of course, she was a psychopath. They all were. How could they not be—and still do this cold-blooded work for all these years?

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 10

Devin dropped his toothbrush in the stainless-steel cup next to the bathroom sink and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like shit, to put it mildly. The past ten days had taken an unexpected physical toll on him. He’d expected the emotional wipeout, which he understood would knock him down a few notches physically. But this was something entirely different. He felt as he had when he’d woken up the morning after his first marathon. Every marathon, for that matter. Utterly spent and fatigued to the bone.

The sleeplessness had to be a big part of why he felt as though he could take a twenty-four-hour nap. It hadn’t been the stare-at-the-ceiling-all-night variety. That would have been too easy. He’d drifted in and out all night, thinking he’d never fallen asleep, his brain racing to make sense of the facts one moment and wrapping itself around some vaguely connected reality the next. Nine straight nights of this, with no end in sight.