Free Badass: Deadly Target (Complete): Military Romantic Suspense by Leslie Johnson, Elle Dawson

to a bank in South America. Nothing more.
    “What does all this mean, Jax?” she asks and I look down into those storm gray eyes again. If she’s a spy, she’s the best one I’ve ever encountered. But, dammit, I don’t want her to be. I want her to be the innocent she appears.
    I keep my voice calm. I’d been conditioned about suppressing my feelings and presenting a cool front during my training. “I think there was a lot more to your mother than you were aware of, Mia.” I gently remove the box from her grip and place it by my side. No way am I letting her anywhere near it now.
    “Tell me everything about her.”
    “Everything? You can’t be serious.”
    My eyebrows shoot up. “I’ve never been more serious. And considering I saved your life earlier, I think you owe me a little honesty.”
    “If I had known you were going to hold it over my head, I would have asked you to keep your saving to yourself,” she says, then sighs dramatically. “I have a lot on my mind right now and you’re only making things more difficult.” She tucks her hair behind her ear.
    Is that her “tell?” Does she tuck her hair behind her ear when she’s nervous? She’s clearly nervous now. How can I use that to my advantage?
    I suppress my own heavy sigh, deciding to take another direction. I can’t press her too hard. “Fine, that’s just fine. No problem. Why don’t you do a brain dump on me then?”
    She wrinkles her nose. “What’s that mean?”
    I stand back up, go to the window then back to the door to look out. “Unload everything that’s going on in your brain.” I grin at her, trying to lighten the mood. “Nothing dirty.” She scowls and I go on, “Just … start talking and dump it out. I might be able to help you make sense of it. Maybe we can piece things together.”
    She chews on her bottom lip and I look away, walking back to the window to recon the area. I can tell she’s still struggling to decide whether she can trust me, just as I’m stepping lightly with her. The situation reminds me of navigating a minefield. One misstep and the whole thing blows up. I need to handle her with care while also taking one step at a time.
    Finally, she nods. “Okay, but there’s not much to tell.”
    “Even the smallest thing can be important.”
    “Well, Mom was in the Army, but that was long ago,” Mia revealed.
    I stop my pacing and turn to her. She didn’t think this important? That her mother was in the military? I stay silent, letting her speak.
    “I thought she retired years ago, before I was born,” she continues. “We lived off her pension.”
    “Your father?” I ask, trying to be delicate.
    She lifts a shoulder and pushes her hair behind her ear again. I watch her closely. “I never knew him. She wouldn’t talk about him and I stopped asking because she would always look so sad.”
    She laughs and leans her head back on the wall behind her.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “Nothing. Just remembering how I used to make up stories about him in my head. One time he’d be a movie star she’d met and fallen in love with, but was tragically killed in an accident. Another time he would be a secret agent, watching me from afar but not daring to reveal himself. That sort of thing.”
    If she’s being honest — and that’s a big if — her instincts as a child might have been stronger than she could have imagined. I mull this over. Playing a hunch, I ask, “Did you move around a lot as a kid?”
    She looks up at me, her eyes wide. “We did. All the time. I went to, like, a dozen different elementary schools. We didn’t settle in California until I started high school.”
    “That was how long ago?”
    “Eleven, twelve years. My freshman year.”
    “And you think she retired at that point and you settled here in Sacramento?”
    She nods. “Yeah. After that, she was just, you know, Mom.”
    “What types of games did you two play when you were little?”
    Her face crumples and I immediately regret