by Talty, Jen
“But she’ll be alive.”
Riggs grabbed Jasper by the wrist. “I pulled out of a building once near dead. I don’t plan on doing it again. So, don’t get yourself killed.”
“Yes, sir.” Jasper stuffed his phone in his back pocket. Sucking in a deep breath, he headed down the hallway, key to Ashley’s room in hand. His pulse beat out of control as adrenaline pumped into his blood stream. Missions weren’t supposed to be personal, making it easier to his job.
This would be the hardest mission of his life.
He swiped the card and pushed back the door. For a second the room spun when his eyes caught a glimpse of Ashley bound on the bed, her face pale and her eyes wide with a combination of rage and horror.
“Are you okay?” he asked, ignoring the woman sitting on the chair with her feet up on the bed waving a gun in his direction.
“Define okay,” Ashley said behind a tight lip.
“Spunky one,” his mother said. “I think she’s out of your league.”
“Way out of it,” he said, stepping into the room, his hands on his hips. “You look well, Mother.”
“You really think it’s a good idea to antagonize me by calling me that? You know how much I hate it.”
“I’d rather not call you at all but seems someone told you I didn’t die that day.” He cocked his head. “How long have you known?”
“Imagine my surprise when I get an anonymous package yesterday with all sorts of information on one Jasper Miles. Such an Americanized name. The least you could have done was honor your Mexican heritage. Oh wait, that’s right. Your father wasn’t Mexican. My biggest mistake.” She shook her head. “At first, I was impressed. I mean, my son, a hero for his country.”
“Who sent it?” Jasper asked. He knew the answer, but he wanted his mother to confirm it and she never acted on anonymous information.
She dealt in facts.
That’s how she stayed alive and out of jail for so long.”
A red laser beamed through the window, landing dead center on Ashley.
His mother smiled. “You thought I’d come alone?”
“I know you better than that,” he said. He focused on the angle of the light. The roof. Exactly a place he’d put a man. Jasper stepped in front of the beam. They would have to go through him to get to her.
Riggs, and whatever team he could assemble, would be able to take him out. Now, the question was how many more and where, exactly.
“Step away from the window,” his mother said waving her gun. “I’ll shoot her myself.”
He stepped aside. The red dot hit Ashley’s chest again.
“I want to know who gave me up,” he said, glaring at the woman who gave birth to him, though he often wondered if blood actually flowed through her body.
“Why is it so important to you?”
“Because after I make sure you’re hauled off in handcuffs, I’m going to—”
His mother laughed that same sinister laugh that haunted his dreams. A lot of servicemen’s nightmares were mirages of what happened in the field. But not Jasper’s. Late at night, when he let his guard down, his mother visited his mind, reminding him she’d always have a hold over him.
“I’ve avoided cuffs the first time you tried to set me up.”
She was the master of deflection, and he wasn’t going to feed into her game. “Tell me who informed you I was still alive.”
“Derek, if you must know.” She waved her gun aimlessly in the air. “Dumb ass, but he delivered as promised.”
“Mother fucker,” Ashley muttered, her gaze narrowing as she stared at Jasper, her eyes filled with the kind of wrath that made even the strongest of men shake. “I’m going to kill him myself.”
“Really?” his mother mused. “This I’d like to see. Perhaps I misjudged your girlfriend.”
“I’m not his girlfriend.” Ashley’s voice took on such a dark tone, it made Jasper shiver. “He means nothing to me. Just eye candy for the weekend.”
“You should have picked someone else to fuck, dear. Because I don’t care what you are to each other,” his mother said.
“I wouldn’t underestimate her,” Jasper said, controlling his breathing, making sure to keep it even, holding his pulse at a certain range. “Or me.”
His mother frowned. “I did that once, and I had to make sure the bullets tore through your flesh, not mine.”
Jasper inched forward, sitting on the edge of the bed, resting his hand on Ashley’s foot. His mother seemed amused by the gesture.
“Tell me, Mother, when did you find out I’d been informing the FBI of your dealings?” The longer he kept her talking, the better. All Riggs needed was time and Jasper would give him as much as he could.
“Three days before the raid. When I found out, for a second, I was shocked. How could my boy betray his own mother? But my real mistake was thinking I could make you into a real man.” His mother dropped her feet and shifted to the bed, the gun in her hand touching Ashley’s leg. The red dot was still on the center of her chest.
Ashley jerked her body.
“You think a man is someone who has no heart. Someone who is willing to kill because they are told, no other reason,” he said.
“Isn’t that what you turned out to be? First, a trained killer for our government and then some stupid special operations for the state police. Only you get to ride your high horse, believing what you do is for the greater good.”
He winced as his mother ran the gun up and down Ashley’s leg. He made eye contact, wishing he could convey everything would be alright.
But Ashley glared.
“Let her go, and I’ll come home.”
His mother leaned back on the bed, raising the gun to Ashley’s temple. “Home? You think I want you to come back to me? Silly boy. You’re as dead to me as when I thought I buried you. I just want you to suffer.”
“Take me home, make me work for you, then you could watch me suffer every day.”
“I might do that, after I kill this one. You’re quite smitten with her.”
“Not really,” he said, swallowing the lie raising up in his throat. “Just a one night stand. I just met her.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the laser had disappeared for a second, but then reappeared.
And it was off center.
“How do you feel about what he just said, Ashley?”
“Fine. It was a mutual arrangement, and now that you’ve enlightened me on who he really is, I’d say the fling just ended. I don’t need this kind of drama in my life. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just be on my way.”
His mother raised a brow. “Feisty girl. I like that.”
Slowly, the red dot moved from Ashley’s chest to her arm.
Taking a chance that was some kind of signal that the man on the roof had been taken out by one of the good guys, he stood, making sure he covered the window with his body. He held his breath, waiting for shattered glass, but nothing.
The cavalry must have arrived.
“Are you trying to get yourself shot? Because that won’t save your girlfriend.” His mother slipped from the bed. Her gun no longer pointed at Ashley, but at the ceiling.
Mistake number two.
The first was thinking he’d ever let her fuck with him again.
He turned to face his mother, hoping she’d stand directly in front of him. He towered over her five-foot-nine frame. Something that surprised him as he remembered her being larger than life. He’d been seventeen the last time he’d seen her and not fully a man, but now he could reach out and snap her neck in seconds.
He played out the vision in his head like a movie in slow motion.
“I should thank you for one thing,” he said, shifting his stance. If his calculations were correct, if the bullet passed through his mother’s body, it could hit Ashley in the leg. Not a great option, but better than either one of them getting killed.
“And what’s that?”
“The ability to us
e another person as a human shield.” He jumped two feet to his right and three seconds later, the glass shattered, and a bullet tore through his mother’s shoulder, tossing the gun to the floor.
“Fucking ungrateful little shit,” his mother said, crawling on the floor, reaching for the gun with her good arm, but he stepped on her hand.
He kicked the gun away and pushed his mother to her back, straddling her body. “I’m going to enjoy watching the life slowly fade in your eyes.” He took both his hands and wrapped them around his mother’s neck, squeezing slowly.
She grabbed his forearms, struggling under his weight.
When he increased the pressure, she gagged.
“Do it,” she whispered. “Be the man I raised you to be and kill me. Right here. Right now. In cold blood.” She smiled. “Do it, Marcus. I know you’re capable.”
His vision blurred. Every muscle tensed with the pain of his childhood. All the shame and anger that came with being Renee Nuniez’s son.
“Jasper, stop,” Ashley’s voice rang soft and sweet, reminding him who he really was.
He leaned forward. “You’re not worth it,” he whispered, releasing his grip just as Riggs stormed through the door with three other men, all pointing guns and yelling.
Jasper pushed back, letting one of the men in suits, who indicated he was FBI, deal with his mother.
The next few moments ticked by in slow motion. He heard the agent read his mother her rights. He watched Ashley’s father carefully cut off her restraints and hold her in a tender hug. It was like he stepped out of himself and observed from a distance, like he wasn’t even there.
He slipped into the hallway and leaned against the wall, rubbing his temples. The world was going to know he was actually Marcus Nuniez, not Jasper Miles. Just like when he was a teenager, everyone would look at him differently. People would once again fear him, instead of respect him. If recognized in public, women would cross the street and men would stare him down, mentally killing him on the spot.
He’d lived that life for seventeen years.
“Jasper?” a man in a dark suit with a pen and paper asked.
“Yes,” he answered, though he thought about correcting him, saying his name was Marcus. God, he hated that name. Made him sick to his stomach just to think it.
“We need to get your official statement.”
“Al right.” He glanced into the room. Ashley sat next to her father while another man in a suit spoke to her. His mother had been cuffed, but the medics had been called to deal with her shoulder wound.
She glared at him. “Don’t you dare think this is over, Marcus.”
“Fuck off, Mother,” he muttered, pushing from the wall. “Let’s go downstairs for my statement, okay?”
“Sure thing,” the man said.
Jasper followed him down the staircase, the burn in his knee reminding him he no longer had a place to hide.
Now he needed to get out from under what he knew would be a public shit storm. He could see the headlines now: Marcus Nuniez alive and well.
Maybe he could find work in the private sector, going on missions overseas, where no one knew him, or his mother.
And far away from Ashley.
10
Ashley wrapped herself in the blanket her father offered in his room. She couldn’t stand being in the room where Jasper’s mother had spilled her blood on the carpet, ruining the intimate moments she’d shared with Jasper only an hour before.
“Where is he?” she asked her father as she stared at her phone. Jasper hadn’t answered a single message since he stepped out to give his statement. She’d wanted to go to him right away, but her father needed to know she was okay too and since Jasper backed off a little, she figured he needed space.
But it had been two hours, and Jasper was nowhere to be found.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure he’ll be in touch soon,” her father said, handing her a cup of hot tea. “There might not be any love lost between him and his mom, but she was still his mother, and we have no idea the hell he lived in as a boy.”
She shivered, imagining what being raised by a monster would have been like. The entire time she’d been held captive, she stared at Jasper. His face contorted with pain. His eyes gave way to the deep wounds his mother had left. It amazed Ashley that Jasper turned out to be such a kind and caring man. Even with fingers curled around his mother’s neck, she knew he’d never be able to kill her. In that moment, Ashley saw the young man wanting justice for everything that woman did to him
And others.
Jasper was everything a man should be, and she was too blind to see it from the beginning.
She’d make up for it in the future.
If he’d return her damned text.
“I’m going to call him again,” she said.
“It’s three in the morning.” Her father sat behind the desk, swiveling his chair, literally twirling his thumbs, like he always did when he was forced to be patient. Something her father didn’t do well.
Neither did she. “Fine. I’ll text him.”
Ashley: Please let me know you’re okay. I’m worried about you.
This time a bubble appeared on her phone. Her heart fluttered. She wasn’t sure if she was excited he might respond or scared to death. The feelings she had for him were stronger than she expected. She wanted to lust after him, not care for him, but if she were being honest with herself, she’d started to care for him the first week he’d been under her care.
Jasper: I’m okay.
Ashley: Where are you?
She tapped her finger on the back of the phone, waiting for his response.
Nothing.
Ashley: I need to see you.
Now she sounded desperate.
She let out a long breath, willing him to tell her his location. She closed her eyes. “Come on, Jasper.”
“Why don’t you climb in bed and try to get some sleep,” he father said softly. “He’ll call you when he’s ready.”
“He texted me he’s okay, but now he won’t tell me where he is, and I know him, Dad. Better than I thought. He feels alone. I saw that on his face when he walked out of the hotel room to give his statement. He needs to know he’s not alone.”
Her father nodded. “Don’t push too hard.”
“Now you sound like Mother.”
“I married your mother because she’s smarter than me, so maybe some of it is rubbing off.”
Ashley’s lips curved up in small smile, but at the same time her heart tumbled into a pit of hell. She’d had a loving childhood, one filled with hugs and kisses. Jasper’s childhood consisted of abuse and terror.
Her phone buzzed.
Jasper: I’m at the beach.
Ashley: Don’t you dare move. I’ll be right there.
She jumped from the bed, splashing her tea everywhere, but she didn’t care. “I’ll call you in a bit.”
“Ashley,” her father said.
She glanced over her shoulder, her hand gripping the handle. “Yes?”
“I like this one. I think he’s a keeper.”
“Good, because if I have anything to say about it, he’s going to be sticking around for a long time.”
* * *
Jasper wondered if he would have texted had his mother not tried to escape, which forced the FBI to put a bullet in her head.
He stared at the bottle of whiskey he’d snagged from the bar. He’d taken it with the intention of getting about as drunk as a man could get, hoping to expel the memories of what it was like to be Marcus Nuniez.
Yet he had no remorse for his mother’s death. She knew they’d shoot to kill if they had to, and she made her choice. Besides, she probably would have gotten the death penalty anyway.
He raised the dark, rich liquid to his lips, but couldn’t bring himself to indulge. No amount of alcohol was going to change what happened. Leaning back on his elbows, listening to the waves crash on the sand, he stared at the stars.
The FBI had
gone looking for Derek, only to have found him hanging from the light fixture. An apparent suicide.
But Jasper knew his mother most likely had him murdered.
He had no idea how many of her men she’d brought with her, but the Feds had captured five in total. None of them were talking much, but they would. They always talked if it meant they could cut a deal.
The FBI had told him his name would be kept out of everything. No one, but a handful of people would know who he was, and they would do their best to keep it that way.
Jasper could only hope his mother’s pride had remained the size of Texas, and she’d told no one of her son’s betrayal. Her mission had been to take him out. Put him six feet under for real this time.
He took in a deep breath, expecting the smell of salt to tickle his nose, but instead he got a good whiff of a fresh tropical soap.
Ashley.
He turned his head and there she was, strolling down the beach, her sandals in her hand and the moon at her back, shining down on her raven hair as it framed her face in the slight breeze.
“Hey,” he said as she sat down beside him. He’d planned on renting a car and leaving Jupiter, Florida without saying goodbye. Then he walked passed the bar and decided getting drunk was a better. By the time he made it to the beach, all he could think about was Ashley. She’d wormed her way into his heart, and she wasn’t letting go.
And he didn’t need twelve texts to tell him that.
“You’ve had me worried.” She tucked her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs.
“I know. I’m sorry. I needed a little time to think.”
She touched the bottle of whiskey with her big toe. “Think or drink?”
He let out a little laugh. “I wanted to numb everything I was feeling, only after the first sip, I realized that meant I’d be dulling everything I felt for you and even if I was going to walk away, I wanted to hold on to that.”
