by Juno Rushdan
42
Gray Box Headquarters, Northern Virginia
Monday, July 8, 4:56 p.m. EDT
The sickened expression on Willow’s face was tattooed on Gideon’s mind. How she’d rushed to the bathroom—no doubt puking up her guts—and stayed inside until Maddox told her the interrogation was done wouldn’t leave him.
Worse, he’d seen fear in her eyes. Fear of him and what he was capable of when push came to shove.
Better for her to have seen firsthand the misery and wretchedness permeating his job, his life. His soul.
The rest of the flight had been tense. He’d kept his distance on the other end of the plane, with Castle and Ares. Neither busted his balls about Willow, keeping the conversation to straight-up shop talk about how to rescue the sister and maximize their chance to capture Daedalus for interrogation. Once they’d landed, they’d moved rapid-fire into separate vehicles and headed to the Gray Box.
The cars screeched to a halt in front of the grand gray building, and they all poured out onto the concrete under the glare of the sun.
Willow ran around to the steps leading to the entrance. “Gideon, I need to talk to you.”
“Not now.” If he had it his way, they’d bypass this conversation and simply return to the way things were before they went on the run—as if that were possible. “I’ve got to gear up.”
She threw herself in front of him and wrangled him to a standstill, her small hands fierce and tight on his arms. “It’s important. Please.”
Reece clasped his shoulder. “We’ll get the gear. You can take ten minutes, man.”
Ten? Hell, Gideon didn’t want to take one. He was in no rush to tear out his own heart by having the conversation with her.
“I’ll wait for you in the lobby,” Maddox said to Willow. “You shouldn’t be alone until we have Amanda in custody.”
Gideon spun on his heel and stalked off to the far end of the parking lot, not stopping until he was under the canopy of trees and surrounded by hedges.
Willow hustled alongside him, and when he came to a halt, she faced him with a shaky smile. The warmth emanating from her hit him with the explosive force of shrapnel, but the look in her eyes nearly made him double over from the vicious weakness softening him.
“You’re safe,” he said with a reflexive coldness that startled even him. “My assignment is done. What do you want?”
She recoiled, the tentative smile slipping from her face. Everything inside him locked with regret. “I wanted to talk to you about what happened on the plane.” Willow reached for him.
He struggled against the electric pull to be near her, like trying to fight gravity, and shuffled backward. His fingers flexed with a gut-wrenching ache to touch her, to be touched by her, but he had to be strong and do the right thing.
“What you saw,” he said, “that’s what I do. It’s who I am. Sorry I sickened you. Frightened you.”
“I’ve read about the things you’ve done, interrogating people at CIA black sites. But I got sick because I’ve never seen anything like that before. I wasn’t prepared. Gideon, I wasn’t afraid of you. I was afraid for you.”
What the hell? He was the monster who served in the shadows, snuffing out lives in the darkness. Others feared him, not for him.
“I saw how taxing your job is, how much you sacrifice for it.” Pure love poured off her. “It must be so hard not to lose yourself amid such horror. To remember that it’s okay to relax, to let light in, to heal from the scars it must leave on the inside.”
No one ever worried about him, but she did. Having a front-row seat to see exactly what he was capable of hadn’t terrified her, hadn’t sent her running to find normal.
Not only did he have to protect her from him, he had to protect her from herself. She wasn’t thinking straight. No sane woman would choose him or still think of him as a hero after what he’d done on the plane.
If she did, her head needed to be examined. Kelli had been smart to want to bail.
“I can’t do this,” he said, his lungs constricting.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I didn’t want you to think my feelings have changed after what I saw. This isn’t the time or place for this discussion. I just wanted you to know. Maybe I can stay with you for a few days while I figure out where I’m going to live, and we can sort through things.”
“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck to ease the discomfort crawling over him. “My place is a hot mess.” I’m a hot mess. “You wouldn’t be happy.” Not in the long run. “I don’t have the capacity…the room for your…” Softness. Tenderness. Love. “Stuff.”
“Everything burned down. I don’t have any stuff.”
She was a real expert at painting him into corners. Why couldn’t she make this easier?
“I know you have to go,” she said. “Tonight, we can talk about us.”
“There is no us.” He strained to maintain his composure despite the battle raging inside. He was fighting for the selfless side to win. On the boat, he’d almost believed in happiness that endured, in a future where he wasn’t alone. Almost.
But what he’d had to do on the plane made him face the bitter truth, reminded him of how ugly he had to be for good to triumph over evil, and his fragile illusion of hope burst like a soap bubble.
“Why can’t there be an us?” Her voice was raw with emotion. “I need to hear you say it.”
“Say what? That I’m only good at fucking and killing? That you’d be better off without me? Trust me, you don’t want this.”
Wasting the best years of her life worrying every time he went on assignment if he’d come back injured, in a body bag, or at all. Growing to resent him for the things he couldn’t give.
“You don’t have to be good at caring about someone. Either you do, or you don’t.” She drummed her fingers against her thigh, the color rising in her cheeks. “Don’t make excuses. I can handle the truth. Just tell me.”
“What do you need to hear?”
“That we don’t fit. That I’m not the right type of woman for you.” Her chin angled up in a challenge, and something hard as steel ran through her. “That you could never be with someone like me in the real world.”
Unbearable pressure roiled through him, deep beneath the cold-wash front he presented. “Go inside and clear your name, Willow.”
“Don’t be a coward.” Ugly fury punched through her tone. “Say it.”
The air shifted, tension distending between them. How long could ten minutes last?
“Say it.” She shoved him.
He had to do it quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid or slicing a jugular.
“We don’t fit.”
She flinched like he’d slapped her. Agony rippled across her face.
Liar. He was a liar, and uttering such a horrible untruth ate at his gut.
Fate was cruel to put this incredible person in his path, his starling. He didn’t choose this life—it chose him. Sometimes, he hated that life. Right now, no question, it hated him right back.
“Go inside,” he begged. “I need to clear my head so I can do my job.”
In a blur, she fled from his field of sight.
A sinkhole opened in his chest. The pain rising in him was worse than anything he’d ever endured physically. For a moment, he couldn’t move.
For her own good. For the best.
Best for her.
He stormed toward the building. It was better to end it before things between them got any deeper. Turbulence inside him spun and swelled. Then it slammed against the wall of his chest and he couldn’t breathe.
Staggering to a stop, he leaned against his Jeep. Kelli’s Jeep. He pressed his fists on the hood, and their last argument before his Daedalus mission came roaring back to him.
“You can’t keep making choices for me, Gideon!” Ke
lli said.
She’d complained about driving the old Toyota, even though the sedan would’ve lasted forever. Surprising her with a new car should’ve made her happy. Right? Wrong. Again.
“A tiny sports car isn’t practical.” He dropped onto the sofa. “You’d get stuck in the snow and wouldn’t stand a chance in a car accident. You’ll thank me for the Jeep come winter.”
She threw the car keys at his head, and he ducked. “I’ll never thank you for making decisions for me. For taking away the life I wanted to live.”
“Are we talking about a car?”
“Yes! And no!” She marched around the living room like a crazy person. Mental diagnosis: perpetual infuriation. “You were a quarterback with a killer arm who could outrun receivers! You could’ve been a first-round draft pick instead of third, if you’d wanted it. You were supposed to go pro. Who turns down a multimillion-dollar contract to work for the CIA?”
This again? For years, it was always between them, like cancer. “You swore going pro didn’t matter.”
Her cheeks flamed red. “There were other options besides this.” She flung her hands out. “You could’ve been an anchor. A coach at a big school. Something. You never even told me you applied to the Agency.”
He stormed to the kitchen. The situation demanded a drink. Belgian or microbrew?
Of course, she followed him. The woman had to dig into every argument with fangs and talons until she drew blood. “You announced you were leaving for the academy. You informed me we’d live in the Beltway. In the same disrespectful manner you bought that Jeep.”
How in the hell did she turn a gift into a sign of disrespect?
“Listen”—he pointed a finger—“I wasn’t used to being in it with someone, discussing everything. I needed to go through my own process when I applied to the Agency.”
She folded her arms. “You’re still not used to it. You keep everything to yourself. Disappear for days at a time for work. Come home banged up, no explanation. And when you’re here, you might as well not be. You don’t share anything.”
He took a hefty swill of beer. “Let’s get counseling.”
“Two years after I ask, you suddenly want to try counseling? So you can throw on your QB smile, charm your way through the sessions, and paint me as a nagging bitch?”
He set the beer on the counter since he couldn’t enjoy it and sat in the dining room to ride out the latest wave of batshit insanity. “What do you want from me?” He threw his hands in the air. “I’ll return the Jeep. Buy whatever you want.”
“You don’t get it.” Fury gleamed in her eyes. “If you love someone, you don’t make decisions for them. Even when you think it’s best. Being with you is like living with a ghost—a damn dead person—who controls everything.”
“I have an hour commute each way because you wanted to live in the city. I had no say in paint colors, furnishings, where my clothes are hung. I’m a visitor in your house, but I pay the mortgage. And the last time we fucked, you didn’t complain about me acting like a dead guy.”
Her upper lip curled in disdain. “Unreal.”
“You said the same thing after your third climax.”
“Ugh!” She snatched the beer bottle from the counter and launched it at his head.
With a deft swipe, he caught it, but frothy ale splashed on the floor.
Battening down his emotions with glacial ice, he leveled her with a glance. “Throwing my beer is crossing the line.” The good stuff was his one luxury, and the shit was pricey.
“Your beer? That’s crossing the line?” Sighing, she shook her head, disgust on her face.
He wished he could do or say the right thing to fix this.
Something dawned in her eyes, some aha moment that twisted her expression into a look of fear. “I don’t know who you are at all, do I? I can’t believe I married you.”
The comment sliced through him. “But you did marry me. For better or worse. So let’s put the past behind us. Start fresh. Get to know me better. Ask me anything nonwork-related.”
“That’s the crux of our problem, Gideon. Your work and whatever the hell it is you do for the CIA.”
He was no longer with the Agency, but he couldn’t tell her about the Gray Box.
“For some people, what you do is what you are. For you, it goes deeper. The CIA is like this mistress that you love more than me, the only one you share your secrets with. I’ll never truly know you, never get in, unless you tell me everything.”
Kelli had been right all along. Regret and anger and frustration boiled over inside him. Gideon slammed his fists on the hood, pounding the Jeep until his side ached, wanting to yell.
And to his shame, wanting to cry.
“Hey, Reaper!” Reece’s voice cut through the blinding haze of raw emotion.
Gideon stopped beating the car and hauled in heavy breaths.
“You all right, man?” Reece asked.
Would he ever be all right again? “Fine. I’m fine.”
Reece shook his head with a woeful look. “It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to rage. I did a lot of both after my divorce. Still do. But right now, save your energy. You’re going to need it.”
Gideon nodded, needing to lock down all this messy stuff Willow brought spewing to the surface. This weakness. For Christ’s sake, she’d brought Reaper to the cusp of blubbering like a baby. Not to mention had him thinking about himself in the third person.
Reece handed him a black duffel. “Gear up in the car. We’ll sort through the rest later.”
There was no sorting through how he’d demolished Willow. No sorting through how the miracle of her wanting to be with him felt like a mistake.
Gideon took the bag, resigned to his place in the world. Monsters didn’t get happily-ever-after, even if they worked for the good guys. He hopped in the SUV. “Let’s go do what we do best.”
He stared at the Jeep as they pulled out of the lot, his heart crumbling to ashes. He’d been too dense to understand Kelli’s perspective, to learn the lessons she’d tried to teach him.
Here he was, screwing up. Again. He loved Willow—and God, wasn’t this the perfect way and time to figure it out—but hadn’t given her the respect to let her choose, one way or the other, what she wanted for herself.
He didn’t have time to fix it. Going out with his brain fuzzy and his heart conflicted was a surefire way to come back in a body bag, and right now, his only concern had to be saving Laurel and bagging Daedalus for real.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he cleared the zone—of Willow, mistakes, love—leaving nothing but the steady beat rapping away in his head.
43
Gray Box Headquarters, Northern Virginia
Monday, July 8, 6:00 p.m. EDT
This was Sanborn’s Benedict Arnold?
Spotless personnel file. No red flags. The one person who knew the inner workings of black ops firsthand from experience and was the supervisor of analysis, privy to all current operations.
Through his suspended state of disbelief, the sting of betrayal still set his teeth on edge.
Desperate times called for him to do something unprecedented. In violation of protocol, he allowed topside security to enter the sub-facility. Sanborn didn’t want Maddox or Daniel to be the ones to restrain Amanda. Too many messy emotional ties with those two.
Sanborn had ordered topside to haul Judas into Interrogation Room 1 with a Glock pointed at the back of her head and handcuff her. No explanation, not a word spoken to her.
He wanted her to squirm. He wanted her sweating bullets.
Now, thirty minutes later, he sat across the table from Amanda, studying her as she stared at the printouts of the damning evidence Willow had unearthed.
“Is it you?” Sanborn asked. “Are you Daedalus’s insider?”
She didn’t have a leg to stand
on, and if she tried, there wasn’t anything she could say to convince him that she wasn’t guilty. But he was curious to see how she’d respond.
Amanda swallowed hard, her gaze staying lowered. “Yes, it’s me.”
Sanborn had expected feigned indignation, some smooth-tongued explanation. Not for her to take the high road of admission. Although she looked like a trapped animal eager to scurry into a deep, dark hole.
For the life of him, he didn’t understand why. Amanda had been one of the good ones. An idealist with ironclad values willing to sacrifice for the sake of the country. She didn’t have gambling debts, no high-end lifestyle that exceeded her means. She wasn’t a greedy opportunist selling out her country for money and had been dedicated to the Gray Box—to him. Or so it’d seemed. It left him confused and rather vexed, his mind spinning with questions.
“How could you do it?” he asked. “You compromised Maddox on a mission. Endangered her life. I thought you two were as close as sisters. She’s the godmother of your kid, for Christ’s sake.”
A pitiful tear slid down Amanda’s cheek. She looked at the one-way glass, rightfully assuming Maddox was on the other side. “I swear on my life, I never wanted anything to happen to you. I knew someone dangerous was interested in the auction to buy a bioweapon. Once I leaked the information that a Gray Box operative would be there, I thought he’d back off. No sane person would’ve risked the heat and still gone to the auction.”
“You gave that psychopath”—Sanborn stabbed the table with a finger—“Aleksander Novak, her home address.”
“He wasn’t supposed to hurt her.” Amanda faced the glass again. “You’re smart, Maddox. Always prepared. You never let your guard down, not even at home. Rather than him getting the drop on you, I thought for certain you would’ve killed him.”
Did Amanda have any idea how much bigger this was? The magnitude of her actions? All that had been jeopardized?
“You nearly caused a whitewash,” Sanborn said. “You risked the lives of a lot of good operatives. Not just Maddox. All of them trusted you. I trusted you.”
Amanda’s shoulders dropped, and she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. If I could go back, do things differently, I would’ve…” She shook her head as if lost for words, tears falling down her cheeks. “I don’t know. Everything I did was for my son. And I don’t regret saving his life.”
