top secret #21 (Patreon)

top secret

synopsis: sleepless nights and dangerous missions don't mean much when your life is on the line every shift. except when a single mistake lands you in the bed of a certain asshole and in the sights of another. untangling the conspiracy of a murdered CEO becomes a lot harder when you're tangled between the two men at the center of it, forced to choose between your fellow agent and your target. from fake dating to falling in love, how far are you willing to go to unravel the truth? and who will be there to pick up the pieces of what's left?

content: angst + plot, spy au, mutual pining, betrayal, trust issues, trauma, reader is really going through it, really just more suffering, tension, heartbreak

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X was running out of options. Time, too. His fingers anxiously tapping his leg underneath the table of another meeting. 

“I still think she’s compromised.” 

Shit. 

Every single time he thought things couldn’t get worse, they somehow managed to anyway. 

The director was watching him, waiting for his reaction to his fellow agent’s accusation towards you, but he remained as neutral as he could – even if his brow twitched at the assertion. 

“She’s-” 

“Bait,” the director interrupted his defense, nonchalantly leaning back in her chair at the head of the boardroom. 

He’d known it, but it had been easier to ignore when no one actually said it out loud. Their only use for you was to lure their target back out. 

If that idiot had any sense, he’d be on a private jet to some foreign country or already landed by now. But he knew first-hand how stupid you could make someone. 

He’d be lying if he said there weren’t moments where he was tempted to throw you over his shoulder and get you the hell out of here. Not that he’d make it past the personal security detail they’d assigned to you. Or that half the agents here wouldn’t be alerted if he managed to cut out the new trackers they put in your arm while you were under. 

He wondered if he made the right decision bringing you back. If he had actually saved you from the fate he feared at all, or doomed you to a worse one. 

What good did intentions matter if it ended in you being discarded? 

“He’s going to turn himself in,” the director spoke. Her certainty was sort of terrifying. Talking like a prophet, like all the cards had been drawn and dealt, and they were all just playing out previously decided roles. 

“His lawyers are trying to threaten defamation-” 

“I’m aware,” she haughtily huffed, casting a cold glance to the junior agent who brought it up before her icy eyes settled back on him. “He’ll make an appearance soon, and we need to have everything in order for that moment.” 

X automatically didn’t like the way she said it. 

Some sixth sense prickling as he picked up the strange tone she took, how she carefully enunciated her words as a somber feeling settled over the table. 

“There’s law enforcement agents stationed at every entrance and exit already,” he heard himself say, his throat constricting around nothing as a few lines crinkled by her frigid stare.

“Arresting him isn’t my concern,” she bluntly said, as if she hadn’t made you stand in front of a hundred cameras and claim you’d been kidnapped just to get a warrant for him. 

Sure, they hadn’t managed to uncover the original information they wanted. You had successfully blocked them there, stopped them from getting any evidence over the death of his father, shielded all the girls he managed to save. 

But you had given them different ammunition to reach the same goal, hadn’t you? Getting him locked up so his company would be surrendered to the board members who hired them.  

He blinked, trying to discern what else she could want. 

“Our orders have changed,” she calmly added.

He wished he didn’t know what that meant. 

“I need him eliminated.” 

His stomach fell through the floor. 

Truthfully, he pulled the trigger on someone before. Knew what it felt like to actually take a life – and had done plenty of awful things before to keep blood from staining your hands.

A sick voice in the back of his head told him he should be a little thankful. 

The only other man you had feelings for was going to be out of the picture soon. 

He’d get to wipe your tears away and comfort you. Hold you in his arms and soothe you through it, lie to himself that it didn’t matter what the price to be paid was if you stayed safe. 

Before this, before you and your incessant need to do whatever you thought was right, he might have been able to do it himself. 

To not blink through it either, unbroken by it – but you had changed everything. 

How was he supposed to let this happen and still look you in the eye? 

“There’s a fundraiser Friday evening for violence against women,” she announced, a brow slowly arching up as she hummed. He hated the eerie feeling she could somehow read his mind, that she was mocking his silent hesitation. “I’m going to put out a public statement saying she’ll be giving a speech there. He’ll show up.” 

She didn’t say it, but the undertone was obvious – he was going to come back for you. 

Using the news to pull the strings, to puppeteer all of you into the proper places as she continued to offer instructions, explaining that individual emails would be sent out that afternoon with further directions and the address. 

You weren’t going to be pleased with your role.

They would give you a reason, and you would still do it, regardless of your feelings. 

But for all your skills, you weren’t that great at disguising your misery. 

You barely held it together for the news stations. He wasn’t sure how well you’d take the news that you had to go to an event and slander a man who had done far more to protect women than any of the people in this room. 

Especially when you’d be dooming him by doing it. 

“What if he doesn’t?” X asked, managing his facial expression – even though he had the sneaking suspicion that she saw through it anyway. 

“He will,” she insisted.

How did it feel to be all-knowing? Practically omnipresent with all the security cameras and agents crawling everywhere, feeding her information. 

Someone else was asking a question, if they expected their target to try blending in with the guests or sneaking through the staff. 

“My main concern is that he is taken out by the end of the event,” she casually said, tilting her head to the side. “Preferably discreetly.” 

As much as X used to hate him, it was that somber look on his face at that shitty motel that stuck in his head. How badly he wanted to save you too. 

Y deserved better. 

More than a painful death at a party, a crude mockery of everything he spent his life fighting for.

But X wasn’t willing to trade your life for his.

He just hoped the idiot was smart enough to stay away. To defy what the director had already decided on and just move on without you. 

Selfishly holding out hope that he wasn’t in love with you too. 

“We’ll have wired earpieces so communication will not be an issue,” the director continued, drawing his attention back to her, his jaw tensing as he tried to picture what your place in this would be. “Everyone will be on the lookout, but I feel like we should have one person solely focused on our task.” 

As if it was simply picking up food or folding laundry. Not killing someone. 

He was considering offering to stand guard for you instead. To stay by your side, already trying to come up with his own plan to protect you. If the worst came to pass, he didn’t want you to see it.

He doubted you would be able to forgive him for allowing it. You had told him to fix this. To do something. 

What if all he could do was keep you out of the line of fire? 

But then the director’s eyes shifted to his, a cruel smirk curling up on her cherry red lips. 

“You can do it, can’t you?” 

♡

It was embarrassing how much you missed Y. 

Sitting cross-legged on your bed, waiting for a dark-eyed man to return while you daydreamed about one with blue eyes. 

Haunted by never-ending questions of where he was and what he was doing, what he was thinking, if his brain was as filled with you as yours was with him. 

Everything felt unfinished. 

Your feelings for him hanging onto nothing, rotting and ripping through you as rotated through the same handful of memories of him. How were you supposed to accept that he was gone for good when your body refused to believe you wouldn’t see him again? 

You shouldn't want him back. 

Shouldn’t linger on him when all you could do for him was hope that he was hours away in a foreign country you’d never be able to flee to. 

You were under the same thumb you’d told him you didn’t want anything to do with. 

Being propped up and pulled around like a doll, dragged from room-to-room while people spoke for you. 

You weren’t deluded enough to think you were getting your job back. Not really. 

Even if they were vaguely treating you like an employee, or a protected witness, you still hadn’t managed to convince yourself you were anything other than a prisoner. 

But the few moments of freedom you’d gotten with him was worth the price of betrayal you were paying now. 

The door swung open, your eyes snapping up to see your apparently frazzled partner. His dark stare was distracted, not quite landing on you as he walked over to where your handful of belongings here were. 

“You’re coming home with me,” he muttered, shoving your stuff in a bag you hadn’t noticed slung over his shoulder as you watched him wordlessly. 

It wasn’t like you had much to take. 

You never ended up finding out what happened to the stuff you took to the house you had been sharing with him. 

There didn’t feel like much point in asking. 

You didn’t really feel like that person anymore. 

Disillusioned by who you became and disappointed at how far you were from who you wanted to be. 

“I thought-” 

“I’m taking you there,” he insisted, and there was that awful sinking feeling that something was wrong again. Another thing out of your control happening here, sure that he must have said or done something to get them to let you leave. 

“You look-”He cut you a quick scowl, and you shut up, lips pressing together as you tried to figure out what was safe to say.

“Is everything okay?” You asked instead, however redundant it came out. 

“Yeah,” he answered, as if he didn’t sound all strained and strange. 

You said nothing again. Sitting there and staring as he packed your new life up again, ready to pluck you from your prison cell and put you in a new one. 

“There’s going to be a fundraiser in a couple days,” he muttered, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he studied the bag in his hand. “They want you to give a speech on what he did to you.” 

Oh. 

Right. 

You were supposed to be a victim on display. 

A ‘no’ nearly left your lips. But you weren’t allowed to say that, right? 

“Are they going to write it?” You asked instead, a lump forming in your throat as he slowly nodded. 

Maybe that was why they were letting you go with him. Ensuring you would be on your best behavior, reminding you of how grateful you should be for them instead of simply petulant and pouting. 

“Someone else will be with you during it,” he muttered, and you gawked at him. 

It was childish, against everything you’d fought for, but you wanted him there. You didn’t know when he’d become such a crutch for you, but you weren’t sure you could do it without him. 

You already lost everything. 

Was it so wrong to itch for some support? 

“But-” 

“I don’t have a choice in it,” he interrupted you again. 

Neither of you did. 

“It’s just a speech?” You asked, holding your breath as you tried to figure out what the motive here was. What they were really trying to accomplish. Was it something meant to break you? To make you nice and small for them to push down in their pocket?

“Yeah,” he nodded. 

It should’ve made you feel better. 

But there was just a gnawing anxiety eating away at your stomach, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you tried to tell yourself that it would be fine. 

“Don’t make that face,” he requested, and you missed the days you’d been able to carefully measure each reaction, where it was so easy to hide behind masks and make-believe that you were actually making a positive difference.

You tried to soften for him. 

To remind yourself that he was on your side. 

He could save you. And you wanted to think he would save Y too. 

“It’s hard not to be scared,” you admitted, your voice wavering as you chose words vague enough to not be called into question. Where someone might assume you were talking about the man who ‘kidnapped’ you and not the current company keeping you captive. 

“Do you trust me?” X asked, his usually calm voice colder than you were used to. 

Did you? 

Trust was so fickle. You wanted to. Desperately aching to believe someone here still had your back. 

“Yes,” you swallowed hard, not sure if it was the truth. 

“You don’t want to work here anymore, right?” He asked, and you felt like it was a trick. Like the room was going to be flooded with knock-out gas or a bright red laser dot was going to appear on your chest if you answered wrong. 

But given what you just said about trust, you forced yourself to answer softly, “No, I don’t.” 

You wanted out again. 

Of course, you’d probably be on a watch list for the rest of your life, surveilled in secret no matter where you went or what you did. But you didn’t want to keep doing their dirty deeds. Letting them tell you what to do or who to do it too. 

Hadn’t you wasted enough on them? Lost enough? 

X walked over, getting down on his knees by your bed, his attractive face contorted with something you were struggling to name. 

Conflicted with whatever they ordered him to do? 

The director wasn’t a gracious woman. Generosity wasn’t in her nature. So what deal had he made to get her to not just let you leave with him, but to free you? 

“This is all you have to do for them,” he firmly spoke, taking your hand and squeezing it. “Then you’re done.” 

You breathed his name, struggling to accept it. 

“Done?” You echoed, hoping that he just meant with the job and not just like, with life. 

It wasn’t totally out-of-the-question for them to just…discard someone once they weren’t useful. 

And if they couldn’t utilize you to snag the man they really wanted, what good were you?

“I’m going to protect you,” he promised. “Whatever it costs.”  

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a/n: btw guys hoping to have unnamed extra updated this week <3333