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considered it, but the CIA could not lay that sin on his door now. “I sense you question my subtlety.”
    “But not your thirst for revenge.”
    He had officially had enough of this game. He shifted in his seat, inching closer so she wouldn’t miss a word. “You closed up Spectrum, not me. I had nothing to do with that business decision.”
    “We disbanded the cover for reasons that are none of your concern.” She trailed a finger around the rim of her glass. “But someone, I’m thinking you, is going a step further and taking out the people who worked under it.”
    Jarrett glanced at Wade. Jarrett read the same thoughts bouncing around in his head in his second-in-command’s eyes. Either they were being played or the CIA had not pulled the trigger on Spectrum’s operatives. According to Becca and everything Jarrett had figured out on his own, someone had, which raised a lot of questions. None of which he planned to ask Natalie.
    “There’s no need for me to do anything. I was cleared of the trumped-up drug charges and your bosses assured me Spectrum would no longer be a problem, which is clearly the case.” But Jarrett trusted the CIA’s promises as far as he could drop-kick Wade. Danger lurked and Jarrett never dropped his guard.
    “I find it hard to believe you wouldn’t seek revenge on the people who destroyed your reputation.” A smile curled at the edges of Natalie’s lips. “After all, a woman, an operative, one of Spectrum’s team, slipped into your life and bed and made herself at home in your world. That has to eat away at a man like you.”
    This was a dangerous game. Natalie sat right next to him, poking at still-gaping wounds and not understanding her peril or how the fury over Becca’s betrayal still raged in his brain until it wiped out every reasonable thought.
    He masked all of those ricocheting emotions under a tone of bland disinterest when he spoke again. “I’ll ask again. Why are you really here, Natalie?”
    “Becca.”
    “What about her?” On cue, the alarm on his phone went off. A simple code of four short buzzes followed by a second round. When Wade jerked and reached for the phone in his pocket, Jarrett knew he’d gotten the message, too.
    That meant one thing—Becca was wandering around upstairs, stepping exactly where she shouldn’t be. She’d either breached the doorway to his bedroom or private office. Either option cast doubt on her “someone is trying to kill me” claims.
    Wade glanced in the direction of the back hall and raised an eyebrow. Jarrett shook his head. He didn’t want anyone seeing Becca naked but him, though she could be dressed and scaling a wall to the outside by now for all he knew.
    Still, she’d come to the club for a reason. Maybe she found what she wanted or planted something new to screw him over. Either way, the damage was done. Rushing up there wouldn’t fix it, regardless of how much he itched to do it. His sole focus switched to getting Natalie out the door so he could get upstairs faster.
    When his gaze clashed with hers again, the intensity of her anger nearly swamped him.
    “Do you have somewhere more important to be?” Natalie’s chill had morphed into an icy drip in her voice.
    “Actually, yes.”
    Her annoying smirk of satisfaction wavered. “You’re telling me you don’t care about the information I have on your former lover?”
    “The key word is ‘former.’ I stopped caring about Becca a long time ago.” He refused to let that be a lie. Even ignored the way Wade’s eyebrow lifted.
    Natalie finished her drink and dropped the glass against the bar with a thud. “I don’t believe you.”
    “I don’t care.” That much was true. He never cared what anyone at the CIA or with the police, or even Spectrum, thought about him. He’d abdicated a small portion of control in order to stay out of prison, sure. He laid the blame for that on Becca, but he was no one’s bitch. No one’s.
    “Then I guess you don’t mind