Page 95 of Fearless

“I think I might have an idea.”

They looked up to see Xavier standing at the door, an unusually grim look in his eyes.

“What is it?” Sean asked. “You know what happened?”

“Maybe. Maggie, one of the women who was serving as a maid, said something happened a few days before Serena sent the message for us to come. She said when Kingsley came back from his event, he was infuriated, like a wild man. He pulled a gun. She said everyone thought he was going to shoot Serena. Smith, the house manager of Kingsley’s compound, stepped in front of her, I guess to protect her. Kingsley shot him in the head.”

Sean closed his eyes. And there was the reason for the massive pain she was enduring. It was not only the loss of someone she’d wanted to save, but the guilty knowledge that he had died protecting her.

“Maggie said Serena went berserk. Said she flew at Kingsley, knocked him to the ground, and beat the spit out of him. Broke his nose, blackened both eyes, and almost choked him to death before they could get her off him.”

“That’s why she was in a cell,” Jazz said softly.

Sean knew his wife. She would blame herself for Smith’s death, despite the fact that Kingsley was a sociopathic murderer. She would see it as her responsibility to protect everyone in that house, and instead, Smith had died protecting her.

Serena’s compassionate heart was one of her greatest strengths, but it came at a cost. She took everything on her shoulders and often felt responsible for things out of her control. Additionally, if Smith had been the one who’d given her the intel, she’d likely had a special connection with him.

“She’s not mentioned anything about it,” Sean said. “I’ll ask⁠—”

“Okay, hold on, everyone,” Ash said. Rising from his chair, his eyes roamed the room, meeting everyone’s gaze before settling on Sean. “Serena’s only been here a few hours, and we’ve not even had an official intake briefing from her. As hard as it is, stop seeing her as your wife, Sean. And we all need to stop seeing her as our friend. She’s an OZ operative returning from an undercover assignment who needs to be debriefed about the mission she’s just completed.”

Sean’s heart said absolutely not. Serena needed rest and tender support from those she loved. There would be plenty of time later to grill her on the details of the operation. His head had a different opinion, agreeing with Ash. If she were any other operative, they would have already completed an initial interview and then scheduled a fuller one a few hours later.

As hard as it was for them to see her as an operative, Serena deserved the respect that went with being treated as a professional agent of OZ. She had just returned from a successful operation. She wouldn’t want to be treated differently from any other operative.

“You’re right, Ash.” He glanced around the room. “Who’s going to do the interview?”

Before anyone could answer, Ash said, “Jules is here. I’ve asked her to conduct it.”

“Why Jules?” Eve asked. “We’re all well-versed in interrogations.”

Jules Drake appeared at the door. “Because I have a friendship with Serena, while the rest of you, with the exception of Sean, see her as a sister.”

Tall and slender, with strawberry-blond hair and a gentle smile, she was a breath of fresh air in the darkness they all felt. Ash was right. Jules would have the compassion, along with the discipline, to ask the tough questions.

While everyone else greeted Jules, Sean couldn’t resist going back to check on Serena. The silence coming from her room told him she’d ended the call with her parents. He hoped she was sleeping, but when he opened the door, his heart turned over at the lost expression on her face.

“Hey,” he said softly.

Her expression shifted to guarded in an instant, confirming his fears. Whatever she was hiding, she wasn’t going to share it with him. Whatever had happened in that house had hurt her deeply, and the fact that they’d known where she was and hadn’t come for her gouged a hole in his heart.

No matter what it took, he swore he would make it up to her. Problem was, he had so much to make up for already. Would she even give him a chance?

Chapter Forty

OZ Headquarters

Montana

“You’re sure you’re ready for this?” Jules asked.

Serena huffed out a small, frustrated laugh as she nodded. “For the third time, Jules, I promise I’m ready.”

Everyone was tiptoeing around her feelings, and while she knew they were doing it out of love, she was getting tired of being treated like a victim. Yes, she’d been through an ordeal, but she was an OZ operative. This might’ve been her first solo undercover mission but she knew the drill. Debriefs were never fun, but they were necessary. She was a professional—this was part of the job. She could do this. She would do this.

They were already more than a day late in conducting the interview. Not long after she’d talked to her parents, she had fallen into the deepest sleep she’d had in months. When she’d woken, she had discovered she was on a plane headed to Montana.

Rather than returning to her house, she had slept in one of the comfy rooms at headquarters. Even though it wasn’t her own bed, just being back at HQ made a huge difference to her psyche. She felt a level of comfort and security that had been missing since her abduction. Sean had been beside her all night, and just being able to reach out and touch him in the middle of the night was incredibly soothing.