DECEIT (B723) by Hazel Grace (ebook reader for surface pro .TXT) 📕

“I know this isn’t…” She sighs. “Listen, I told you before, we’re family. I know you didn’t choose me, but I care about you. I would never in a million—“

“I’m going to go smoke,” I convey, jerking my head to the elevators behind me. It’s the only excuse I can come up with for her to let me go and shut up. “I’ll be back.”

She seems to relax and nods, following me with those magnificent browns. “Okay, I’ll be here.”

Awesome. 

Because I lied. 

I don’t go back.

I go home.

Stormi gave birth to a beautiful baby girl with dark curls and chunky little cheeks. They named her Briar Grey and she’s everything a set of parents could ask for.

Happiness radiated off all of us as a group but, again, Bishop wasn’t there to celebrate and Marty noticed.

It took a small deal to calm him down, but I covered and said he wasn’t feeling too well.

I’ve been spending as much time with Marty and Stormi, taking shifts to make sure they get some sleep and help do minor things around the house.

For the most part, Briar is on a two-hour schedule with wanting to eat and she hates being bundled up, enjoying her feet poking from the bottom of her blanket.

Stormi is the calmer of the two—shocker—when Briar cries, Marty is like a rocket to check and assume something is always wrong.

After two weeks, he’s beginning to get the hang of it. Usually, he is quick to learn but with Briar, he’s meticulous and doubtful that he will do something reprehensible or worse.

Bishop drops by to see Briar when I’m not there, but my visits are becoming far and in between because Alexander and I have been busy planning our own nest. And I’m overwhelmed and nervous. Marty is rubbing off on me.

“Emmy!” Alexander’s voice ricochets out in my living room.

“Over here!” I hear him start towards me on the hardwood floors and to the second bedroom that I plan on making the nursery. “Be careful coming in, I have shit everywhere.”

“Do you ever stop?” I glance over to see his shoulder propped along the doorway, arms crossed as he watches me folding baby clothes that we’ve bought already.

He doesn’t look angry but exasperated that I can’t seem to chill for five seconds.

I shrug against his scolding and the sexy navy suit he’s wearing. “All I can think about is paint colors and how I don’t want them to be pastel. I want something…I don’t know. I thought maybe coming in here would help inspire me.”

“Did it help?”

I wrinkle my nose and pick up another onesie, carefully folding it into its new place. “No.”

“Babe, we still have time.” Alexander moves, striding over boxes and bags. “Did you eat?”

“Um…yeah, some time ago.”

Hours ago. 

“How about I order something and you chill on the baby stuff tonight.” Long arms wrap around my stomach from behind me and nestle me into Alexander’s body.

“Does that chilling start now or when the food gets here?”

Alexander chuckles and kisses my temple. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

Releasing me, I hear some bags rustle as he makes his way out, but he causes the whole room to halt with his following comment.

“Then can you tell me all there is to know about a man named Chung-Ho Gwan?”

My brows immediately knit as my skin prickles in warning. “What?”

I turn to face him, locating him in the middle of the room with a blank expression on his face.

“You work for the United States government and I’m curious about the protocol for dealing in goods with other countries.”

My brain doesn’t fully compute what the fuck he’s even saying.

It’s not Alexander to make odd and out-of-the-ballpark jokes. Why in the hell would he need to learn about a North Korean man who deals in nuclear weapons, gas bombs, and futuristic warfare?

Red flags slowly begin to wave in my head, and my instincts know better. They see the signs, but they’re coming up with other alternatives and guesses about what he could possibly want to be educated on when it comes to Chung-Ho.

B723 has been hunting him down for well over a decade but Ledger refuses to let us set foot in North Korea. When Wade was President, he sent a Navy SEALs team to extract him from the country for prosecution, but they never returned.

Not many men and women know about Gwan. So my boyfriend bringing up a man that we’ve been half-ass hunting for years and waiting to step foot outside the threshold of his country isn’t normal dinner conversation.

“Gonna need you to be more specific there, Alexander,” I state through my teeth, attempting to sound at ease without the tenseness of my body sinking into my voice.

“I had a meeting with a colleague today.”

“Who?”

“Senator Evans.”

“A politician?” I pull myself and my paranoia back, twisting my voice to sound curious. “Since when do you meet with such company?” Alexander’s darkening gaze falls on the crib that is half-built, seeming to zone out of our conversation, or he’s ignoring me. So I turn it to sound teasing. “Most of them are boring, believe me.”

“I’ll finish that,” he says flatly. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself. There are too many pieces.”

No, there’s not.

“Alrighty.” I compose myself not to rip the onesie in half that I have in my hands.

“What did you want to eat?” He flicks his focus back to me, finding me standing there as patiently as I can. “Lemme guess, you wanna finish your work?”

I nod, and he smiles. The one that used to make me blush because it’s so perfect and nearly unfair to most of the population.

Alexander extends his arms for me to walk into them, and I comply even though I don’t want to.

Something is telling me to not take this lightly.

Chung-Ho Gwan is not a name passed around the dinner table. He’s allusive, dangerous, and not on many people’s radar.

“We’ll eat and finish tonight, deal?”

“Sounds good.”

“And we can talk over dinner.”

And we’re back…

“Why are you holding me