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PROLOGUE hurting just to love you
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Langley, Virginia October 2003
THERE WASN'T A SHRED OF DOUBT IN THE WORLD THAT ANITA LEVINE LOVED HER JOB. Being an IMF Agent made her happier than she's ever been in her entire life. It made all her dreams of chasing the bad guys like in the action movies she grew up watching with her father every Friday night come true. But no matter how much she loved to save lives and make the world a better place, her childhood dream came at a cost.
Her hands were dripping with the amount of people she was forced to kill in order to successfully complete her missions, and although Anita always tried to reassure herself that those people didn't deserve to live with the things they had done — or the things they planned to do before she had gotten in their way — it didn't make sleeping at night any easier for her.
Anita was plagued by death every time she laid down and closed her eyes. She saw the faces of every man and woman she had killed in her dreams almost every single night. Their ghosts haunted her, and she knew that she would most likely take them to her own grave.
This morning was no different than any other.
Her skin was slick with a thin layer of sweat and her brows twitched, incoherent mumbles tumbling from her lips and echoing throughout her empty apartment. She could hear gunfire, and there were images of blood and bodies flashing behind her closed eyelids. But when she heard a knock on her front door, it was as though someone had flipped a lightswitch.
Anita jolted awake at the sound and upon instinct, reached for the loaded pistol hidden beneath her pillow. She breathed for a moment, listening for the sound again to make sure she wasn't just hearing things, and when she heard it again, she threw the blanket off her body and made her way down the hall toward the front door.
She looked through the peephole and her heart leapt in her chest at the sight of him standing out in the hallway.
Anita set her gun down before unlocking and opening the door, greeting him with a smile as their eyes met. "Ethan," she said. "What are you doing here?"
