by Tijan
6:00 am
My phone started buzzing.
Brooke glanced over from the passenger side of the truck. “Is that your roommates?”
I silenced it, then moved and pressed a pre-programmed message back before turning it off. “Yeah. They’ll just think I went to the gym. I have a few hours before telling them I decided to stay for a slow swim or an hour massage. It’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” She was so twitchy. The panic never left her.
I nodded. “I’m sure.”
She breathed easier and nodded, her head drooping. “Good. Thank God.”
She had told me she was running from her brother.
She had told me we needed to go somewhere with a train station.
She had told me even I couldn’t know where she’d end up.
She had told me the private detective she’d hired to find me only told her.
She had told me that same PI was killed the day before in a car accident.
She had told me that car accident, which might not have been an accident, had nothing to do with me.
She had told me all that to reassure me I was still safe.
At six-thirty that morning, I’d helped her disappear, while she’d lied to me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Present day
Cool hands touched the inside of my wrist.
I opened my eyes, lifting my head.
Jonah sat on the side of my bed, two fingers curved around my wrist while he gazed at his watch.
The rest of the night flooded back to me.
Kai had spoken the truth. He had broken me. The thought of giving up Brooke, telling him what I knew, was too much. So I went back to my training, and what happened next would give me nightmares for a long time.
It wasn’t anything physical. It was emotional. I could see Kai, see Tanner and Jonah when they came into the room, but I was lost in the back of my mind. A different force was in charge of my body, and the only thing I could think about was not giving up my assignment.
Kai stopped pushing, but it hadn’t mattered.
For an entire night I’d sat in my room in an almost catatonic state. I was awake, but could only repeat the vow I’d taken when I became a 411 Hider.
Tanner was outraged.
Jonah was concerned, taking my vitals and watching me as if I were his patient, and Kai was quiet. At first.
Then there’d been yelling, fighting, and Jonah had shouted at both of them to get out of my room.
“What time is it?” My throat burned, as if I’d been in the desert for thirty-six hours. I could only croak, that was it.
Jonah’s head whipped up from his watch. “Holy shit.” He let go of my pulse, immediately feeling my forehead with the back of his palm. “Riley? You’re back?”
I nodded, and the movement made me want to vomit. I had a lot of that going on lately. “Yeah. It’s me. I’m back.”
“You scared us, and it’s almost seven in the morning. I’ve been monitoring you all night.”
I was grateful he didn’t interrogate me then and there. He did a full assessment, checking my breathing, pulse, blood pressure. He checked my reflexes. He even pinched my skin for hydration. At the end of it, he stepped back, his stethoscope around his neck. His hands found his hips, and he frowned. “You’re fine.”
My head felt like it was splitting open. I rubbed at it, grimacing. “Could do with a painkiller for this up here, but yeah, I’m fine otherwise.” I couldn’t say the same for my mental status.
Even I was scared about what had happened to me.
I’d heard about operatives breaking down in the field, but it’d never happened to me. And I wasn’t even sure if that was the same thing. Either way, it didn’t sit right with me. I needed to be mentally strong at all times, not breaking and letting a stranger emerge in my place. Fucking weird, that’s what it was.
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Of course.”
He waited to make sure I was steady on my feet. I wavered a bit as I stood, but my balance kicked in as I walked for the bathroom. I heard him gathering his bag and supplies, then the door clicking shut softly behind him a moment later.
I sagged against the door.
I did have to go to the bathroom, but I needed a moment to collect myself.
Holy. Shit.
I’d scared myself.
What happened? Was that normal? Was that going to happen again?
I didn’t want to think about it, but it was pressing on me.
My hands began to shake again, and I ran them down my legs, taking deep, calming breaths to ease out the trembling. It didn’t work, but fuck it—I never wanted to be like that again. Ever.
I was finishing up in the bathroom, washing my hands, when the main door opened again.
My bathroom door shoved open and Kai stood there, glowering at me.
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t wait. He took two steps in, his hands slid into my hair, and he cupped my head. He stood close, intimately close, his eyes peering down at me. Searching. Questioning. As if my mental whatever-it-was had betrayed him.
“Are you okay?” he asked again, still gruff, but quieter. His chest rose up, jerking, and it held a second before lowering.
He wasn’t mad at me. I felt it then. He was scared for me.
That realization opened a floodgate inside of me. I crumbled before I knew it, and I closed my eyes, tears slipping down my face as I leaned into his chest.
“No.” I sobbed.
He cursed and lifted me in the air. He cradled me against his chest, walking back out to the bedroom. Sitting on the edge of my bed, he held me as if I were a child, pressed my head to his chest, and tightened his hold on me.
I tried not to completely collapse. But I did.
Kai was the enemy, or I’d thought he was. Now I didn’t know.
I didn’t know what was going on with me.
I didn’t know if I should’ve helped Brooke as much as I had.
I didn’t know anything, and I really didn’t know why I just wanted to curl up in his arms and never leave again.
“No.” I pulled back.
I could never go there, do that. Ever.
He didn’t respond, but he did let me go and stand up. His hand ran through his hair, and he tipped his head up and turned slightly to face away from me.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
I answered him truthfully. “I broke. You broke me.”
He glanced at me. “How?” His eyes were sharp.
I shrugged, sighing. “I don’t know.”
But I did. I felt it swirling inside me, and for some reason, I heard myself saying, “Protecting whoever I hide is a part of me. It’s ingrained in me. I cannot break that vow. I was that vow. My mother is a vow. Do you get that?”
His nostrils flared, but that was his only response. His head hung low.
“I didn’t hide her, but I did help her.”
He lifted his gaze, and I swear, he stopped breathing. He went so still.
I couldn’t look at him, not with what I was about to say, because this would destroy a part of me.
“It’s exactly how you said. My roommates went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep, and Brooke found me. She showed up at my door, drenched. It’d been raining that night. I gave her a ride to a train station three hours away. I hugged her, gave her papers for a new identity, and that’s it. When I said I don’t know where she is, I don’t. She mentioned meeting someone, but I watched her get on a train.”
“Where was that train going?”
“It was going to Winnipeg.”
“You drove her to Edmonton?”
I nodded. “I took back roads. The kind that wouldn’t have gas stations with security cameras.”
“She’s not in Edmonton. I had people check that place. They combed everywhere.”
He began to pace, his head down, rubbing his forehead. His shoulders bunched tight, his shirt stretchi
ng over them.
“If she got off the train, there would’ve been video footage of her somewhere,” he said, mostly to himself.
There wouldn’t have been. Not if she moved the way I told her to move, head down, new hairstyle. New clothes. A hood or scarf or a hat to cover her face as much as possible. She needed to stick to far corners, move as little as possible. Use cash. And the other piece of information, the fake passport I gave her.
“You have to tell me where you think she is.”
“That’s all I know.”
“You’re lying. I can see it on your face. I know how to read you by now, very well. Please, Riley. No agenda here. No calculation. I’m not manipulating, threatening, nothing. I’m asking as an older brother. The longer she stays away from me, the more likely an enemy will find her. If she’s with Levi, they will be found. His family probably knows by now he was turning evidence on them. They’ll be out in full force too.”
There was a nagging.
If she was with him, and he was working with the government… But no.
Or could they have?
“What?” He saw. He knew.
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I frowned. “I mean, it can’t…”
“What?”
“Just…” I still couldn’t quite grasp it. “I know you have men in the FBI. Can you see if there’s actually an active investigation into the Barnes family? Not where they’re just taking what information they can get from him before deciding to open a case against them?”
His eyebrows lowered. He was deep in thought. “You think if there is, the government is hiding him.”
“Which means they’re hiding her.”
“If they’re together,” he added.
No, the pieces were falling into place.
“Why would she go to you to hide if the US government was hiding her as well?” he asked.
This was not good. So not good.
“To either further hide her tracks or because they don’t know they’re hiding her.”
Kai sank down on the bed next to me. Bending over, his elbows rested on his knees and he caught his head in his hands.
“Shit,” he breathed.
My heart tugged. I didn’t want it to, but it did.
“Call whoever you have in the FBI,” I said softly. “Don’t ask for her. Ask about him.”
He didn’t move at first. Silence filled the room for a few seconds, and then he reached over. His hand grabbed mine and squeezed, just for a moment, before he stood.
When he walked out, his shoulders seemed to sag in disappointment, and he looked as if he’d aged ten years.
He left through the bedroom. I heard the main door closing as he stepped out into the hallway.
A second later, I heard the soft tread of footsteps over the carpet.
I hadn’t moved.
The door hadn’t been open before Kai shut it. Whoever was coming toward me had been in the wing the whole time. They’d overheard everything.
Tanner stood in the doorway. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Yeah. Neither could I.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Tanner and Jonah kept me company for the day.
No Kai.
They didn’t talk about him, and I didn’t ask. We acted like we were friends having a movie marathon. They ordered pizza—or had someone make it. It just showed up, carried in on trays with anything I wanted to drink.
Tanner had a beer, and Jonah was drinking a green probiotic drink. I’d had one earlier as well. I kept to my tea for the rest of the evening. All day long, no matter what we did, I felt unbalanced. My hands weren’t steady, and I knew it was because I’d given Brooke up.
I had broken my oath as a 411 operative. Would I be able to continue working with the Network? They would’ve understood. Hell, Brooke wasn’t even an official client, but she was my client. She had been my person to help, and I’d given her up. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t told Kai where to find her. I’d assisted him in getting closer to her.
After the fourth movie, Tanner grabbed the remote and turned it off. “No more.” He dropped it on the coffee table and sat back, his arms hugging a pillow over his chest. He burrowed into the couch, his ass toward me and his head in the corner.
“I’m fucking tired, and no more superheroes,” he said, his voice muffled. “I’m superheroed out.”
Jonah yawned, stretching his arms on the other side of me. The couch was ridiculously big, with thick, plump cushions, so I barely registered he was there.
Jonah groaned, standing up. “What time is it? I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
Tanner snorted, still in that corner. “So says the real-life superhero. Give it up, little bro. You’re going to be bouncing off the walls by tomorrow, wanting to go off and rescue people.” He rolled over to sneer at his brother. “Save lives and shit.”
Jonah frowned, another idle yawn coming over his face. “You sound pissed about that. Why you pissed?” His eyebrow went up. “I’ve saved your ass a few times.”
He had?
I looked over Tanner, trying to see any scars.
Tanner rolled his eyes, sitting upright and rubbing a hand through his hair. “I’m giving you shit because Brooke ain’t here to do it for me. That’s what she does. She looks out for you, checks in with you, and gives you enough shit so your head don’t get all swollen up from being the saint in this family.”
Tanner sounded irritated.
Jonah grunted, grinning. “Yeah, right. She doesn’t give me shit. I’m the brother she adores. She gives you shit so your head doesn’t pop off and float away.” Laughing to himself, he grabbed the beer bottles on the coffee table and the paper plates with leftover crusts.
He took them into my kitchenette area. I had a small sink, a mini fridge, a small microwave, and a coffee machine. All I really needed was a kettle for some tea, but I was growing a taste for coffee since being with the Bennett family.
As Jonah put the trash into the garbage can, a pillow whipped past my head and hit him square in the back.
Tanner growled, “Stop being perfect. We have staff to do that shit.”
Jonah’s mouth opened, his frown deepening. He finished putting the trash away. “You drunk, Tanner? You can be a dick at times, sober or not.”
Tanner laughed, rolling over to stretch out on the sectional. His face smashed into the cushions once again. “Damn straight I’m a dick. And you know what? I would be more of a dick if Kai weren’t so, so, whatever he is.”
Jonah came over to pick up more of the trash.
I stood to help him.
“No, no. Sit.” He waved me back down. “We came in here and made a mess.”
“See!” Tanner barked. He flung a hand up. “He’s being perfect. It’s annoying.”
“You’re annoying.” Jonah put down the paper plates and went over to his brother.
Tanner didn’t know he was there until Jonah grabbed one of his legs and yanked.
Tanner’s entire body came off the couch. Jonah kept pulling, sweeping him clear over the coffee table. All the garbage went with him, and Jonah finished with a yank so Tanner went sailing, almost to the wall.
“What the fuck?!” Tanner was up, charging his brother.
Jonah braced himself.
Tanner hit him in the chest. His arms wrapped around Jonah’s waist, and planting his feet, he body-slammed him to the floor.
Jonah twisted out from under him, tucking a leg around Tanner’s and flipping them over.
Tanner wasn’t to be outdone. The two of them wrestled all the way to the main door, and after a bit, I started to hear their laughter.
“Check!” Tanner slammed Jonah back into the wall.
Both were panting and sweaty now, their faces red, but their smiles relaxed me.
“Ah!” Jonah laughed. “Get off me. You win.”
Tanner relaxed, and Jonah shoved his arms off, kicking him the rest of way.
Tanner laughed too, falli
ng back to collapse on the floor, his arms spread out. “Fuck.” He was breathing hard. “That was fun. We haven’t done that forever.”
Jonah scooted up, his back resting against the door and a lopsided grin on his face.
“Yeah.” He was still panting. “I work out, but forgot how damn heavy you are.”
Tanner rolled over and whacked him on the leg with the back of his hand. “Shut it, little brother, or I’ll kick your ass all over again.”
“Yeah, right.” Jonah shoved at Tanner’s leg. “You used up all your juice in that match. I’d take round two.”
“Fuck that.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you!” Tanner bolted to a sitting position, pointing at Jonah.
Both paused, staring at each other, then began laughing again.
“We’re fucked up,” Jonah said, shaking his head.
Tanner grunted, falling back down. “Speak for yourself. I’m a stud. I’m not fucked up. I do the fucking up.”
I coughed where I’d been sitting on the couch, watching. I’d loved it. I knew I had a stupid grin on my face. This was something I hadn’t had growing up. Blade, Carol, and I weren’t like this.
I’d once thought of them as family, but seeing Jonah and Tanner—no, Carol and Blade were friends. Co-workers. Not family. I didn’t have this with them. If Brooke had been here, she would’ve been in the middle of it or laughing and shouting from the sides. Hell, she might’ve been coaching Jonah.
Another cough ripped up through my chest, and both of them snapped to attention. They got to their feet, coming over.
I waved them off, covering my mouth, and turned away from them. “No, no. I’m fine.” Cough. “Really.” Another cough. “I’m done.” Two more coughs. “Now, I am. Really.”
Nope. Lying.
I couldn’t stop until Tanner had left the room, and Jonah went for his bag. He brought it over along with a glass of water. I took a sip, and it helped ease the coughs. He pulled out a cough drop and gave it to me. I eased back against the couch, my chest feeling weak.
“That sucks. I’m sorry.” I waved toward where they’d been. “I didn’t want to interrupt that.”
Jonah shook his head, pulling out his stethoscope and kneeling beside me.
