by Wendy Byrne
But the guilt at his misplaced trust that almost cost his brother his life was something that never left Jake's mind. While Max brushed it off as part of the mission, Jake had never been able to forget that night.
"We left Petrovich because I screwed up." He blurted the words out before he had a chance to check himself.
Her head shot up and she looked him in the eye. She had a puzzled expression on her face. "Are you saying he threw you out?"
Jake shook his head as the memories tumbled through. "The three of us usually worked together. We were a good team. Petrovich knew that. My brother Max was the expert. Never tell him this, but he's a genius. His mind can analyze situations in a snap and come up with a plan."
"But—"
He held a finger to her lips to stop anything she might say. Now that he'd decided to spill his guts, he didn't want her or anyone else stopping him. "We were to take out this guy, and his main bodyguard was a woman. I'd befriended her a couple of weeks before we actually decided to make the hit."
"In other words, you worked your charms on her."
He cringed. "I thought I had this woman wrapped around my finger and figured getting in to take care of the mark would be easy. Except I wasn't as clever as I thought. She had me pegged from the get-go. Max almost died because of my stupidity. We were stranded on a mountainside. Max was bleeding to death, all while assassins sent by Petrovich were trying to kill us. But we knew the area well and found caves, groupings of trees to hide out in. We nearly lost Sabrina when someone came after her while we were going down the mountain. She's quick on her feet, and the guy ended up going over the side."
"Sounds horrifying."
He shook his head. "You have no idea." Jake pushed away thoughts of how close he'd come to losing both his brother and sister.
Memories tunneled through his mind as he laid his arm across her shoulder and pulled her in closer. When would he know he was good enough? Would he ever be confident in his decisions?
"You couldn't have—" Once again he put a finger to her lips. He didn't want her explanations to soothe him. Nothing could smooth over the fact that he'd been cocky, and his brother had almost paid the price.
"While I was working her, she was working me. And I never knew it."
"What are you trying to say?" She worried her lip and stared into his eyes.
"I'm not sure. I only know that every time I think I'm being charming and working an angle, it comes back to bite me." He blew out a breath. "I'll never forgive myself for trusting I'd be able to tell the difference between a lie and the truth."
"We've had similar experiences."
"I can't help but think that wasn't some coincidence."
"What do you mean?" She rubbed her hand along his arm.
"I was handpicked by someone from the CIA who hired The Alliance to take this case. Evidently, I was first on their list."
"Do you know why?"
Jake clenched his jaw and nodded. "I believe the woman in that photo with Alex is the same woman who double-crossed me in Istanbul. I was there shortly after you left. So the question is why."
"No wonder you acted so odd when I showed the picture to you. We're connected, but we didn't know it until now."
Most folks would never believe he had a chasm inside that housed insecurities too numerous to mention. Then again, most folks hadn't lived his life. Hadn't seen what he'd seen. Hadn't done what he'd done.
It was all about playing the part of Jacov Shaw, tactical agent extraordinaire at The Alliance. He'd fooled a lot of people for a long time with his swagger, but somehow she saw through him.
The idea she hadn't been fooled cut him to the quick. Why could she see his frailties so easily when he still couldn't decide whether or not she was telling the truth?
He kissed her because it felt right. "Could you email me those photos you took in Istanbul, and I'll forward them on to The Alliance to see if they can make sense of anything?"
"Did you take any photos when you were there? Maybe we can match them up and figure out what's going on."
"Jennings has what I took. I'll have him do some comparisons."
She nodded as she got up from the couch. "After this whole revelation, I need to take a shower and cry my eyes out in private. Don't want you to think I'm a wuss or anything." With a weak smile, she did what she needed to do and walked into the bathroom.
He called Jennings. "Did you get any facial recognition on the photo I scanned?" He couldn't be a hundred percent positive, but it sure looked like Cleo, which fell into the no-way-in-hell-this-is-a-coincidence category. First the Istanbul connection and now this?
"We're getting a Russian journalist by the name of Marta Kasparaski. Rumor has it she's a Russian agent. Don't know for sure." Jennings hesitated for a second. "That looks like Alex Cromier with her."
"Exactly. There's some belief he might be involved with her. Who knows what their relationship is. Compare that photo to the one I took of Cleo. If they're one and the same, that can only mean that Alex hired The Alliance and wanted to screw both me and Tessa."
"Except Alex is supposed to be dead. The whole thing sounds a little far-fetched, don't you think?"
"Hell yeah, but somehow it all fits together. The mysterious CIA person who isn't forthcoming with information. The numerous attempts on Tessa's life for some unknown reason." Maybe to hope Jake failed, sealing his downward spiral. "This latest wrinkle only adds to the mystery. Also sending you some files Tessa took in Istanbul. I want to see if any of the market photos shows Cleo or matches up with the ones I took."
"What are you thinking?"
"The whole double agent thing doesn't feel right. Nothing's adding up. That dickwad Alex wanted to bring her down." Jake tried to separate his feelings about her from the objectivity of the assignment, but it was difficult. He liked her. Of course his brother would insist it was because he was fickle, prone to getting sucked in by a beautiful woman and being lured into a trap nine times out of ten. But this felt all kinds of wrong.
"I need specifics, Jake, not feelings."
He forced himself to focus. "For one, she's committed to the CIA, thinks of them as family. At least, she did until very recently. I find it difficult to believe she'd cross them." He didn't want to tell him about what Tessa had revealed. "Tessa and I were in Istanbul a couple of weeks apart. It's within the realm of possibilities that this whole thing circles together."
"One thing at a time, Jake. Let's face it, we deal with the most cunning of agents all the time—sometimes it's hard to find their tell. It might be only for a fraction of a second that their façade breaks, but that's when we know. This woman might be someone who only looked like Cleo."
"Tessa's shaken, scared to her bone about the situation, and confused. I'm telling you, she's innocent of everything they're accusing her of."
Jennings sucked in a breath. "That photo you sent me from Aaron's is legit, Jake. And worse, that Cayman Island bank account with Tessa Graham's name on it is worth a million dollars."
"What?" Just when he'd convinced himself he'd finally conquered his fears, he'd been thrown a curve ball.
"We did a test on the photo and our experts are ninety-nine percent sure it's a legitimate photo. As for the bank thing, I can send you a video of her opening the account. It sure as hell looks like Tessa Graham."
He gulped back the clog of disgust in his throat. Being wrong again was not something he'd wanted or aspired to repeat. The one percent error margin was a pipe dream. Intellectually he knew that but couldn't help but harboring the thought that maybe this time he could count on his instincts to lead him in the right direction.
"What about Alex? Any confirmation from a reliable source one way or another? We both think he's alive. He's got to be the double agent, not Tessa. Maybe he's the one that hired The Alliance." He sounded like he felt—that he was grasping at straws.
"We?" Jennings made his point in one simple word. "Everyone has verified that the video was credible. There's n
o body because that's the way those whackos do things." His breath rattled out. "Keep her safe until they schedule a drop-off time."
This was effed up. But he wasn't going to give up. He couldn't. After all this, he needed to prove he was right about her. First he might have to convince himself.
"Jake, I know you've had a rough time of it lately. I—"
"Save the lecture, Jennings. I'll keep you posted." He hung up right as Tessa came out of the bathroom.
She was wearing a white fluffy robe and had puffy red eyes. He got up to pour her a glass of wine. She sipped at the wine and avoided eye contact. He needed to know for sure. If Alex really was dead, she was better at this game than he could have imagined. He had to know. Somehow he had to get to the truth or get her to break.
This would not go well.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tessa didn't like the look on Jake's face. She'd been around him enough to know it meant trouble. But before she could figure out what was bothering him, she spotted an envelope lying in the middle of the floor and picked it up. "What's this?" His name was written across the front. "This isn't part of the file we found, is it?"
He shook his head. "It's mine."
"It looks like a thank-you note. Did you do something nice for somebody for a change?" She tried for a little humor to erase that vacant look in his eye.
He sighed. She could see him doing an internal debate. "I haven't read it, but it's more likely an eff-you not a thank-you." His words piqued her interest more than she'd expected. "A client I was sent to retrieve died on my watch. The woman I know as Cleo, the same woman who I believe was in the picture with Alex, set me up and set the dead guy up as well. It doesn't matter what the note says. You can't change dead." He pointed to the envelope as if it carried a disease. "That's a note the widow sent to me."
She rushed toward him, unable to stop the tears burning in her eyes. The pain emanating from him came to her in waves. His eyes had suddenly lost their mischievous sparkle as his gaze avoided hers. She could only guess what he was going through on the inside. She sucked him into a hug. He was so tough, yet so vulnerable deep down inside. "I'm so sorry. I've been there myself and know all about the second-guessing that goes along with it. There's no worse feeling in the world."
Jake stared at her as if he were shocked by her confession. "I can't get myself to open it." He rubbed his hands down his face. "All I remember is seeing a picture of his wife and three kids tacked up to the wall by his dead body."
"Somebody wanted you to be unnerved. Hell, you don't even know if those were his kids. Or his wife. Either way, it doesn't matter." She ripped at the envelope, determined to set him free. Fear of the unknown was so much worse than fear of the known.
"Don't—"
She held up her hand when he reached for the envelope. "No, Jake. You need to hear this. It's so much better than allowing it to eat you alive. Believe me, it will help you move on."
He glared. "What if I don't want to know? Who are you to decide? That's my personal business." His words meant to stop her weren't working.
Ignoring him, she opened up the letter and began to read out loud. "Dear Jake, I want to thank you for all you tried to do for my husband, Trevor. He knew the risks going into the area, and I'm sad that he had to pay the price. Family was important to him, but not as important as doing what he loved. I have confidence you did your best to help him, but it was all too late."
"Damn it, you need to stop." Jake had a pleading look in his eyes.
"You're not the bad guy. You didn't kill that man. She knows it. Your boss knows it. The only one who doesn't know that is you."
"I do not want to talk about this." He folded his arms across his chest and glared.
"Fine." She sat next to him on the couch. "Can we talk about this Cleo woman? She's the one we need to pick apart and find out more about. None of this is coincidence. We both know that now. But which came first? Alex's hook-up with her or her targeting you?"
"Not sure at this point. Let's assume she's a Russian agent."
"The guys at the warehouse spoke Russian, so that fits. The guys in Afghanistan spoke Russian, assuming my faulty memory isn't as bad as I imagined…"
She trailed off as she realized the potential implication. Further confirmation that Alex was behind what was happening to her. Too crazy to even contemplate. Too much evidence to not believe.
Jake examined the photo once again. "I can't say one hundred percent, but that woman sure as hell looks like Cleo."
"That would mean they conspired together to take us down. There's got to be a connection."
"Maybe you were the bonus. Cleo didn't want to kill me then, even though she could have. She wanted to make me suffer. And somehow knew exactly how to do it."
"Helping me is suffering?" She didn't know where he was going with this.
"Something in my head keeps tying her back to Petrovich. Maybe it's guilt over what I did back then." She could tell he wanted to say more, but instead he emitted a sigh. "Let's think this through. Jennings believes that the video of Alex is legit and he's dead. If he's right, how does that figure in?"
"Alex is alive. It's the only thing that makes sense. If he set me up so perfectly, and he's dead, why am I still in danger? Why are people after me asking for information I don't have, never had, and never will have. None of it makes a lick of sense. Tell me the truth. Do you think Alex is alive or are you humoring me?" For some inexplicable reason she needed to know he believed her.
"There's enough to make me believe it's a possibility."
"That's a politically correct statement if I ever heard one."
"I'm not an expert in videos, but something about it seems staged. It's not the usual 'terrorist kills an American' kind of thing. For some reason I keep thinking, why didn't they behead him? It sounds morbid, but they like a flashy display. That kind of stuff plays better on YouTube with the bloodthirsty crowd. Still, they take him out with one shot, no brain matter scattered across the screen, and bang, the chair flips back from the force of it. But how do you make that niggling doubt into something tangible?"
She suppressed the spring of hope bubbling up inside her. She needed him to believe her. If he did, then maybe there was a chance she wasn't going crazy.
* * *
Jake was an asshole. A prime asshole. Instead of being honest with her, he'd slept with her. Geez, could he stoop any lower? Confronting her with what he'd been told had been on his agenda, but somehow he couldn't.
The close confines of the safe house left very little room for privacy, so Jake turned on the shower before emailing Jennings on his phone. Some things are not adding up. Is Reddog the person that hired me? I need to know ASAP
The idea of throwing her to the wolves made him practically break out in a rash.
It felt wrong on so many levels that he couldn't even begin to count them. But what was the alternative? And could he trust his instincts on this?
It didn't take long for the response to come back.
Our information confirms what we already suspected. Reddog was Alex's father. He died over three years ago in an explosion during an op for the CIA. Any message she said came from him is a lie. She set up both Alex and Eli. Probably killed Nick as well. We need your confirmation. Can you make her confess? They've scheduled you to drop her off at the warehouse at 52nd and Front Street.
They wanted him to what? The idea stung his chest. He fingered his phone with the picture of her holding the gun to Eli's head. The backdrop of the Afghan countryside in the distance. He ignored the possibility and focused on the other loose end he had. Triple-check on the possibility that Alex Cromier is still alive. Whoever was in his house came after us and tried to kill us. Somebody is lying.
Are you sure it isn't her? All the evidence and the information is in my earlier email.
That was the million-dollar question. One he hadn't quite figured out yet, which was the only reason he agreed to go along with Jennings' crazy plan. Sort of.
* * *
He'd brought his phone with him when he went to take a shower. There was only one reason he would want to do that. Tessa had sensed a change in him yesterday, but he didn't say anything. Which could only mean one thing. Now she knew it wasn't her imagination. Why was she always so foolish to get sucked into the whim of a man each and every time? First it was the father she never knew, who'd abandoned her mother. Then a string of imperfect boyfriends who always turned out to be losers, then Alex and Nick. Now Jake.
Somehow that hurt the most. After everything that had happened between them, he should trust her more than he did. Shouldn't he? It would be better for her to break out on her own and take her chances.
This whole fiasco involved Alex. She'd finally come to terms with the fact he'd royally screwed her over. There wasn't even a smidgen of doubt in her mind. After she learned about Alex's father, she knew it would only be the beginning.
She opened his computer and got into Jake's email with ease. First she checked the inbox and found a picture of her holding a gun to Eli's head. What the hell? She'd never…oh wait…they were practicing what to do in case of a takeover…oh my God, Alex had encouraged her to play the part of the enemy. Somebody took that as factual? Next she spotted records of an account in the Cayman Islands with her name and over a million dollars in it. The icing on the cake was an email where his boss had asked him to turn her over to the CIA, sent a few minutes ago. Get her to confess. She wiped the tears that had burst from her eyes.
While she itched to confront him, that would never work with a man like Jake. He'd tried to charm her. God knew he'd already been successful in doing the exact same thing from the get-go.
How they ended up in bed together the first time, Tessa couldn't really say. It was like something had been simmering beneath the surface since day one. Still, she couldn't say she was sorry. She couldn't say she was pleased, either. Sex had a way of altering things.
