I back up, nodding. Understanding. “So, it’s like that.”
He nods once. “It’s like that.”
I examine him a little more closely. Under the dark look of whatever brought him here today, I see subtle differences. Good differences. “I’ll be damned. You’re in love with her.”
This time Jasper actually laughs. It’s a sound I’m not sure I’ve ever heard before. He really has changed.
“It’s a good thing she already knew that or I’d kick your ass for telling her.”
“You sly bastard! Congrats, man!” I pull him in for a dude’s hug and slap him on the back. When I lean away, I can see that what I’m seeing on him is happiness.
And I’m envious as hell.
“Thanks. I wish that was the only reason I was here.”
Right to the point. Just like Jasper.
“Let’s go into the study,” I tell him. I glance at Muse. “Kurt’ll get you something to drink, Muse, but feel free to make yourself at home.”
The grin she gives me tells me that she probably wasn’t planning on sitting this one out. But she nods at me and winks at Jasper, which assures me that she’s okay with it, though.
“This way,” I tell Jasper, starting off back toward the foyer. As I pass the door, I see another car pull up, some anonymous dark blue sedan. “Who the hell is this?”
I feel like I’m asking that too often today. But then I see my other buddy, Tag, get out and start up the drive. I glance back at Jasper. He’s watching me. He doesn’t say a word. But then again, he doesn’t have to. The only reason we’d all be here is the same reason we were all at the Colonel’s safe house.
Reid Sheridan.
The fourth one of us. The one who was killed. The first of us to be betrayed.
I open the door for Tag. He comes in. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He knows why we’re here. This is serious shit. We didn’t dick around on our missions. We took out terrorists. We neutralized threats. We took lives. We assassinated leaders. But for the right reasons. On orders from our government. Not like what happened to Reid. He was targeted. Betrayed. Sold out.
“Don’t you shower anymore, brother?” Tag asks.
I take in his expensive shirt and slacks. “You afraid I’ll wrinkle you, ya pussy?”
We hug and then he and Jasper shake hands before we all three head for the study.
When the door is closed, I lean up against one side of the desk, Tag against the other, and we both face Jasper. He wastes no time. “The Colonel got a name. He found out who’s behind Operation Napalm.”
A name. Finally. The person responsible for the death of Reid. The person responsible for the death of Jasper’s mother. The person responsible for putting our team in the crosshairs.
That’s why I couldn’t reach the Colonel. Seems he was busy uncovering a dirtbag.
“Who? Who is it?”
Jasper glances at Tag and then looks long and hard at me. “Senator Sims.”
Holy. Hell.
No one says anything for a few seconds. We all know who he is. And I guess it makes sense. He knew us. Knew all about us. He would be one of the few people who could manipulate us fairly easily. Mislead us. Set us up.
His committee is the only one that knew about us, the one that authorized our missions. Black Ops shit. High risk. Highly classified. Ugly business. Things that had to be done, things no one else wanted to do.
I’m probably the only one who knows what he’s like in real life, though, Senator Sims. The only one who knows how much of his cutthroat politics bleed into his personal life.
“But why?” Tag asks. His gray eyes are stormy. I remember that look. With Tag, much like with the rest of us, you’re asking for trouble when you mess with the unit. Or anyone he cares about.
“He’s making a run for the White House. Turns out he has skeletons. Several of them. That job we did in Syria, taking out Assad’s second-in-command . . . it wasn’t government sanctioned like the Colonel thought. Sims was just covering his tracks. He’d been brokering arms deals for that asshole for his own personal gain. Made millions. I guess presidential campaigns are expensive. But he had us take him out. Now we’re the only loose threads. We are his last remaining skeletons.”
Tag’s jaw is tight. “So he’s taking us out. Cleaning up the mess.”
“He’s trying.”
“He’s taking out everyone he thinks can be a threat, right down to people we might’ve told. Like family. To someone like him, no one is off limits, but to us . . . to us that’s sacred ground. You don’t go after family. You just don’t. We knew what we were signing up for, but not them. Not them,” Jasper says somberly, his mother having been killed already. Caught in the crossfire and blown up by a mercenary wannabe who knew about Jasper’s past.
The wheels of my stunned brain come to a screeching halt.
Family.
Loved ones.
Cleaning up messes.
Skeletons.
An image of Katie pops into my mind, the one of her face when she saw the Simses at the fight. She knows what they’re capable of. I know what they’re capable of. And after the way I reacted to her at the fight, they now know what she is to me.
“What is it, man? And who’s Katie?” Jasper asks. I didn’t even realize that I’d said her name aloud.
“I think she’s one of his messes, too.”
I know they won’t understand. They don’t know about Katie. They don’t know about what little Sims did to her. Or how that might look for a father if it came out during a bid for the presidency.
My palms start to sweat. It all makes sense now. How could I not have seen it? How could I not have known?
Mother of God.
He’s going to turn his son loose on Katie.
As if on cue, my phone rings. I see the familiar number and my insides clench.
“Katie?”
“Rogan?” she replies. My whole body, even my blood, sags with relief.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I . . . I just . . . I saw something on the Internet.” I try to come up with a plausible response without revealing the truth. “Something about you and Calvin Sims. I was just worried. That’s all.”
There’s a long pause before she responds. “Actually, that’s what I was calling about. I need to talk to you. It’s about what the Senator is trying to do. To you.”
“Stay there. I’m on my way.”
I hang up before she can argue and I look up to two pairs of eyes watching me with varying degrees of fury. After a few seconds, Jasper merely steps out of my way and nods toward the door.
“Let’s go. We’ve got work to do,” he says.
I nod and lead the way. I’ve never looked forward to hurting someone more than I do right now. Not even my shitty father.
FORTY-ONE
Katie
As I leave the studio, I realize that as anxious as I am to get away from work, I’m not very enthusiastic about going home. Work used to be just a job, neither good nor bad. Now it’s the place where I spent the happiest days of my life with Rogan and the most humiliating days of my life after him. And home . . . home used to be my sanctuary. Now it’s just pure hell. The memories of Rogan . . . they chase me. Haunt me. Refuse to give me a moment’s peace. Even to sleep.
Nights are the worst. They’re nearly unbearable. I toss and turn rather than sleep, and everywhere I look, I see and feel Rogan. With perfect clarity, I can picture him asleep on the pillow next to me. With excruciating precision, I can feel his hands on me, his mouth, his body. Oh God! What I wouldn’t give to forget, to just have my memory wiped clean of all traces of Rogan. But there’s no such mercy for a girl like me. He will live on in my head and in my heart until I reach the only escape I’ll ever have from him—death. When blood stops pumping through my veins, maybe then I’ll finally be over him.