-myfamilypies- Emma Hix - Secret Agent Step Dad... ❲NEWEST❳

“Dad,” she said, letting the word hang between them like a loaded weapon.

“Because, Emma,” he said, pressing the drive into her hand and closing her fingers around it, “I’ve been a liar, a thief, and a ghost for three decades. But I have never, not once, been late for your mother’s book club. That has to count for something.”

She killed the comms. She knew her stepfather. He didn't chase. He cornered. -MyFamilyPies- Emma Hix - Secret Agent Step Dad...

“Because you’re my stepdaughter,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “And because six years ago, when I married your mother, I wasn’t assigned to watch you. I was assigned to retire. You were the first person in twenty years who made me want to keep the fake name.”

“Next family dinner,” he said, “we’re ordering pizza. No more missions on school nights.” “Dad,” she said, letting the word hang between

“Then I have a counter-offer.” His eyes flicked to the stairwell behind her, then back. “The Syndicate is going to kill Control tonight. They already flipped his assistant. The ‘abort’ order wasn’t to save you. It was to strand you here. With me.”

“Go,” he said softly. “I’ll tell them you went left. You go right. And Emma?” That has to count for something

The rain over Vienna was a persistent, gray whisper against the window of Apartment 4B. Emma Hix adjusted the earpiece, a tiny, flesh-colored device that pulsed with a single, low beep.

Mark Hix, secret agent stepdad, looked at her with the same exasperated fondness he’d worn the time she crashed his car at sixteen.

“This one has the real schematics,” he said. “The one in your boot is a decoy laced with a location tracker. Give Control the fake. Let him run. Take this one to the man who sells falafel at the corner of Dizengoff and Ben Yehuda in Tel Aviv. Tell him ‘the accountant sends his regards.’ He’ll get it to the right people. The people who won’t sell it to a dozen different armies.”