Covertly Strong (The Strong Series Book 1) (8 page)

This is the last letter I will send you. I guess this is goodbye…

Love,

Sloan

June 1
st
, 2000

Meli,

It’s been two years since I first laid eyes on your gorgeous face. And it’s been six months since I last spoke to you, received a letter from you…

I honestly don’t know which is worse…the nightmares I have while I’m asleep or the thoughts of you that bombard me while I’m awake. Ripping my heart out of my chest would be less painful than this.
I’ve come to the pathetic realization that having a broken heart is like having broken ribs. On the outside, everyone thinks I’m fine, but on the inside, every fucking breath hurts.

I know the distance that separates us is tough. The infrequent phone calls and letters make it hard to stay together, but I just wish I knew what the final breaking point was for you.

I think that’s what makes this so fucking hard. The unknown. The uncertainty that comes along with never hearing what made you stop calling and writing. I respect your reasons and I’m sure my family’s last-minute move to L.A. didn’t help matters, but I just wish I could have heard your voice one more time. I wish that I could have actually said goodbye.

Sometimes I find myself feeling like you gave up on me…on us.

But then I remind myself that sometimes giving up doesn’t always mean you’re weak. Maybe it means that you were strong enough to let go. And I could never deny the strength you possess inside you.

Fuck, I just wish I knew when this pain would end.

When will you no longer be a recurrent thought for me?

I feel like you’re still ingrained in every goddamn cell in my body.

I even looked up how long it takes for the body to replace every single cell of the human body with new ones. Seven years was the answer I got. Seven fucking years. Apparently, that’s how long it will take for my heart to be brand new. Seven fucking years and maybe I’ll be over this hurt. Seven fucking years and maybe the unwavering ache that eats at me every single day will be gone.

Seven years…

It only took a second for you to yell out to me that day at Diamond Head Beach, and in an instant, you changed my life. But now I’m faced with…seven years. I try to tell myself that this time frame will work, that in seven years I won’t feel like this, but I know it’s not true.

I know that the only time I’ll get over you is when forever comes.

It will literally take me forever to say goodbye to you.

Even six months later, I still find myself thinking about you, about us, about all of the moments we spent together. I look back on those times and it makes it impossible for me to hate you. I’m incapable of feeling anything but love for you. I guess you really know how much you love someone when you can’t even bring yourself to hate them for breaking your heart.

Honestly, I think hating you would be easier…but I just can’t do it.

I only want you to be happy, to have a good life, to continue to be the girl I adore more than anyone else in this world. Keep your sass and feistiness. Keep marching to your own tune and being the girl who made me understand what it means to truly live.

Just find your happiness, Meli.

My heart is still yours.

Nix

P.S. This still isn’t goodbye for me. I know it should be, but I just can’t say it.

I’m still going to end with…see you soon.

LIFE IS JUST ONE, ENDLESS sweeping curve with an infinite amount of turning points.

The life-altering turns, the unexpected points—they are not what define a person; they simply assist in final decisions and the shaping of the future.

Sloan Walker knows better than anyone else that life can throw some hellish curveballs.

There are two poignant moments in her life where unforeseen events have quite literally knocked her on her ass. She has experienced unimaginable loss three times. The first time was when she lost her first love. The second and third time occurred at the very same moment, and they were the most tragic, devastating losses of her life. Not many people can say that they experienced love, heartache, and unthinkable loss all before the age of twenty.

No longer a youthful, free-spirited girl, she is a woman—a thirty-two-year-old woman who has changed with time. A woman who has learned a lifetime’s worth of wisdom through the life circumstances that have shaped her. She is older, wiser, and undeniably stronger than the young, naïve girl she once was. Some may even consider her harder, less optimistic, less carefree. But who could blame her for changing into someone who no longer allows her mind to be filled with daydreams and thoughts of happily ever after?

She was faced with adversity and made a decision to live a life most people couldn’t even fathom. Her future, her priorities—her entire focus—revolve around her career. She’s given up normalcy. She’s given up her true identity. Her reality—
her career
—is filled with secrets, covert missions, and a life that isn’t really hers.

Her current life isn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination. She’s given up on the idea of living in any type of ‘normal’ capacity. White picket fences and lovely dreams of blue-eyed babies are not an option. She probably won’t walk down the aisle in a white dress and long, lace veil to marry the man of her dreams.

But she will do everything in her power to protect her country.

The late Katherine Graham once said
,
“We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't.”

Katherine Graham was a very wise woman.

There are things that normal Americans do not need to know—truths that are better left unsaid and secrets that should never be revealed. It is better to be ignorant to the everyday perils that threaten the well-being of their nation than to actually know the truth.

And in Sloan’s opinion, the truth is fucking scary
. The world we live in today is not safe. We are faced with some of the most despicable, underhanded, evil human beings that have ever lived. Our continuous, never-ending war on terror is evidence of this. Our nation is being threatened daily, and the American people are not as safe as they think they are.

She knows all of these unfortunate truths because she’s seen the terrorizations with her own eyes. She’s uncovered the secrets. She’s witnessed the dirty, wicked things international criminals are capable of. The terrorists, the drug lords, the fanatically misled groups of people that continue to threaten the welfare and security of the red-white-and-blue. She does this job because of them. She will strive to discover deadly information that will provide her nation with the means of keeping Americans out of harm’s way. That is her goal. Her priority. And for the past ten years, it has been her reason for living.

She is well aware of the risks and rewards.

Her life is the risk. Keeping her country safe is the reward.

Only a select few are aware of the true nature of her job. Her personal identity is nonexistent. Since she’s been working under the agent name L-55, her cover has never been revealed, and her focus, tenacity, intelligence, and unwavering strength are four of the biggest reasons why this has never occurred.

Sloan understands that she is a loner—a mere outsider to the real world that bustles and thrives around her—and for the past decade, she has been at peace with that.

But what happens if life steps in again and throws another hellish curveball her way?

And what if serendipity lends a hand to shake up the present?

SLOAN IS HIGHLY INTELLIGENT AND undoubtedly determined when any obstacles or challenges are set in her way. This is what makes her great at what she
really
does. Her actual strengths—her strong points—are from a purely mathematical, linguistic, and computer analytic standpoint. She’s assisted in developing some of the most high-tech computer software that has dramatically aided the United States.

Her real job—her ultimate priority over anything and everything—is her association with the CIA. L-55 is her agent name. This CIA appointed name has meaning. L stands for Lady and 55 is in relation to her ongoing assignment on Project 55. She signed on with the US Central Intelligence Agency at the age of twenty-one after completing a two-year internship with them as an undergraduate student at Georgetown University.

Her internship had nothing to do with Clandestine Affairs. Its primary focus was developing computer software that would keep surveillance networks highly secure. The CIA was immediately impressed with her. Her knowledge and capability of being able to develop software as well as hack into just about any computer system in the world sold them. The fact that she’s fluent in both English and Spanish, and inherited her mother’s Spanish genetics, was icing on the CIA-approved cake. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin tone, and bilingual abilities have permitted her to fly under the radar when working in Spanish-speaking countries to uncover top-secret intelligence information.

Sloan’s undergraduate college major was engineering with a dual degree in computer analytics. She achieved this goal, but after graduation, she began a life she never even knew existed. She went from being a young girl with aspirations of becoming an engineer to a woman who had stepped into a role to protect her country in a top-secret capacity. The ultimate plan was established the moment she put the pen to the paper and signed her life away. It was decided that she would continue on to med school to provide the perfect cover, the perfect identity. And that’s exactly what she did.

Under the name of Dr. Felicia Santora, she graduated from Harvard Medical School four years after being employed by the CIA and completed a plastic surgery residency in record time. Most surgical residencies specializing in plastics take between five and six years—she finished hers in three. Yes, she is skilled, but her connections are what essentially helped speed the process along. Despite the accelerated pace she completed her residency, she is still highly capable and irrefutably competent in her surgical skills. Everyone around her believes that Dr. Felicia Santora is her real name and that her life’s primary focus is medicine, but surgery isn’t her passion; it merely provides a means to an end—the perfect cover. And only a select few know the truth.