Chapter 9
NINE
Sleep refused to come. Jaz lay still in the darkness, listening to Kenzie’s soft, even breathing beside him. She’d finally drifted off after her tears had subsided, but his mind wouldn’t shut up.
His hand still rested on her shoulder through the blankets. He should move it, but the small connection anchored him somehow, like a lifesaver keeping him above water in the churning sea of his thoughts.
The hotel room was quiet except for the persistent hum of the air conditioner and the occasional muffled voices of guests passing along the corridor outside. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
Kenzie’s words from earlier replayed in his mind: “There’s no such thing as too far. Not with God.”
He wanted so badly for that to be true. Kenzie was grounded in a faith that seemed beyond his reach.
Jasper, the little boy in his parents’ house, had fully, completely believed in Jesus—the baby in the manger and the Savior on the cross. The King who ascended to heaven to the God who’d given everything for the salvation of mankind.
But that little boy had been gone for a long time.
Maybe Jasper had killed him with his own reckless living.
Do your best, trust God with the rest.
Dad’s advice. But Dad hadn’t known who Jasper really was. He hadn’t known his son would become a liar, a fraud, an accomplice to drug runners. That he’d blow up a yacht with men still aboard and not think twice about it because they were drug dealers and therefore disposable.
Kenzie had killed today, too, but she’d wept for those men. She’d grieved the necessity of it.
Jasper had stopped grieving years ago.
Maybe that was the difference between someone who still had faith and someone who’d lost it. She believed in redemption. He believed in survival, and survival didn’t leave room for God. It also didn’t leave room for joy, for peace, for a life worth living.
He’d lost so much. His life felt unfixable—like Jasper himself. Unredeemable.
But Kenzie had sounded so sure, like it was simple fact:
God doesn’t leave.
If that were true, then Jaz was the one who’d walked away.
Ever since Dad’s death, Jasper had been a runner. Life was simpler that way. Keep everyone who matters at arm’s length. Easier not to let people down when they didn’t expect anything from him.
Ironic that, when he’d finally learned to stay and fulfill his commitments, it was to work for a criminal, and only because if he tried to run, said criminal would hunt him down—or go after those he loved.
All these years, Jaz had found it easier to believe that God had abandoned him. It hurt less than admitting he’d been the one to ruin their relationship. But if Kenzie was right, if God didn’t leave, then Jaz hadn’t just abandoned his family. He’d abandoned his faith. His God.
Slowly, so as not to disturb her, he lifted his hand, then settled onto his back and stared up into darkness, cataloging the lies that made up his existence.
The carefree womanizer. The associate Magras trusted.
The DEA informant, playing both sides. The man who pretended not to care about anything or anyone.
Even tonight, protecting Kenzie, comforting her—was that real? Or just another role he was playing?
He didn’t know. All he knew was that if he made one wrong move, spoke one misplaced word, everything would collapse.
How could God want anything to do with a man like him?
A memory surfaced, one he’d been hiding from for months. Charlotte and her nanny had been kidnapped, and Jaz and Noah had tracked them down. Jaz had put himself on the line, confronting the kidnapper to give Noah the opportunity to save Charlotte.
Jaz had been willing to die to protect his daughter.
A tiny part of him had wanted to. He’d wanted to do something noble with his life, something worthy. And if he died doing it, then he couldn’t mess it up again.
But he wasn’t shot. When it was over, Jaz had called his beautiful curly-haired daughter, wanting desperately to comfort her.
Charlotte had looked at him with those big eyes that were so like his own, and then she’d run straight to Noah and buried herself in his arms like he was her father.
Because he was her father, in every way that mattered.
The image still gutted Jaz, felt like someone was using a dull knife to carve out everything inside him that had any value at all.
He knew it was irrational, but he resented his brother for that, not because Noah loved Charlotte—how could he not? She was special, she was…everything.
He resented his brother because Noah was everything Jaz wasn’t. Good. Stable. Honorable. The kind of man their father had raised them to be.
How could God possibly want a man like Jaz?
He’d been trying to make up for his mistakes for five years.
Turned informant when he realized he’d made a deal with the devil.
Jaz had approached the DEA because the other option had been unthinkable, even for him.
He wasn’t a good guy, not by a long shot, but he wasn’t a drug smuggler.
Charlotte’s mother had been an addict, and look where that had gotten her.
He wasn’t about to contribute to anyone else’s tragedy, not if he could help it.
And he’d thought, fool that he was, that maybe he could fix it. Maybe if he took down enough bad guys, it would make up for becoming one himself.
Did God have scales for these things? Because after five years of trying to balance the ledger, the math still didn’t work out in his favor.
Jaz had been on a five-year solo mission to take down Magras and El Fantasma. Five years of thinking that if he just worked hard enough, sacrificed enough, he could win. And maybe earn his way back.
To what? To whom?
He’d lost everything. He had no real home. No real friends. No real…anything.
Kenzie seemed to think it wasn’t too late for him. She talked about God like He was her best friend, close and accessible.
For her, maybe. But could that be true for someone who’d fallen as far as he had?
There was no redemption for a man like him.
He curled onto his side and begged his mind to shut up. He needed sleep. If they were going to get out of this mess, he needed to play his best game, and God wasn’t in the lineup. Jaz had to play this game alone.
Except Kenzie slept beside him, trusting him. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t deserve it.
He didn’t believe prayer would work anymore, not for him. In stressful situations, like on the boat that day, prayers rose almost against his will. Did God hear them?
Now, Kenzie’s words echoed. There’s no such thing as too far…God didn’t leave you.
If that was true, then why did Jaz feel so alone?
She was probably wrong.
But…but what if she wasn’t?