Chapter 39 Wesley #2
Yesterday, Madison offered me an alternative outcome I hadn’t dared hope for.
I always assumed that when I told Mac and Dimitri the truth about my beginning, it wouldn’t matter because the ending had already been written.
I always assumed it would drive us apart, which wouldn’t matter because the job would be finished.
It would hurt, but ending up sad and alone would be no more than what I deserved.
But yesterday, I showed her the deepest, ugliest, most shameful parts of me, and she showed me acceptance. Perhaps it’s not too much to hope that they might do the same.
My heart thuds hard and heavy in my chest, and an odd flipping sensation forms behind my navel. It’s time to come clean.
“I’ve been keeping something from you all.”
The silence of the room is palpable. There’s an expectation in the air—a nervous energy as they wait for my story after such an ominous lead in.
I try to start, only to have the words fail me.
“It’s difficult to know where to begin,” I say ruefully, wishing suddenly I hadn’t set the tone so dramatically.
Suddenly, I feel Madison’s hand in mine. I look down at it, then smile gratefully at her. She’s doing for me what I did for her—anchoring me. Giving me something to hold onto.
Boosted by her support, I begin. Having told the story once already, the words flow more easily this time. No one speaks until I get to the end. Until I get to the part where I reveal how I assembled our trio.
“Wait, so the General never…” Mac realizes with a hard edge to his voice. “It was you who recruited us. Not him.”
I nod.
“Why?” Mac asks, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I knew I needed a team to help maintain my position in the forum and help me take down the General when the time came. I wanted to keep the team small and tight—one person to handle the digital and research, one to be the feet on the ground, and one to offer support from afar. I found Mac’s name first in a data breach of some confidential government files. ”
“What files?” he asks, voice low.
“Files that made me think you might be amenable to returning to a life of violence on your own terms,” I reply vaguely.
His eyes narrow, and I know he knows what’s going unsaid. But I’m not about to air his dirty laundry in front of everyone. Those files with the Army therapist were meant to stay locked away and redacted.
“I wasn’t responsible for the leak. And I burned every trace,” I tell him seriously.
Scowling, he nods, a reticent gratitude for allowing his deepest shame to remain buried until he’s ready to face it. Lord knows I put my own off for long enough—now is the time for my reckoning, not his.
“I got Dimitri’s name from someone in the hitman forum—likely someone from his old Bratva. They were looking for him. He had the right skill set and temperament to be the man on the ground, and once I learned about why he had to flee Russia… well, I took a chance. And I’m very glad I did.”
The silence that follows grinds me down. Eleanor is staring at Mac, face full of concern, and he rubs his eyes harshly. Nicole and Dimitri are solemn, but Nicole is also holding Dimitri’s hand under the table like Madison is holding mine.
“I kept your names off the General’s radar. You’ve never worked for him—you’ve been working for me all along. And perhaps I should have told you earlier, but… I couldn’t tell you.”
“You could’ve,” Mac counters. The hurt on his face breaks my heart.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Not if you make it complicated,” he snorts.
“Why pretend it’s not complicated?” I return. When he stubbornly sets his jaw, I know he’s refusing to understand. I sigh. “I couldn’t risk the truth getting out—the fewer people who knew, the better.”
“But we’re not just some people. We’re… a team. I thought we were a team.”
“We are,” I insist, voice rising. “Mac, do you remember when we were discussing the complications of trying to find the General when I first realized Madison was one of my spiders? Do you remember how we questioned what role he might play in her life, whether she spoke to him without realizing, if he knew about her internet usage or had put sleepers in her life?” I watch Mac make the connection before I reach my conclusion.
“When you don’t know where the danger comes from, it could be anywhere.
The smartest thing to do is to treat it like it’s everywhere. ”
But Mac still shakes his head. “Then why tell us now?”
“Because we found it,” Madison says.
I nod. “The General is someone at SmarTech, using SmarTech data and resources. So now that I know where my project ended up, I’m going to destroy it.”
“But it’s done some good, right?” Eleanor asks softly, like she’s almost afraid to intervene. “You’ve taken so many bad guys off the streets.”
“Yes,” I agree sadly. “But no one should have that kind of power. Whoever bought it—whoever is controlling the hit list now—has gone completely off script. They targeted Madison, and journalists and other people who don’t actively cause harm.
It went from a way to balance the scales to a weapon in the wrong hands.
That’s why it never should have existed. ”
Dimitri speaks up for the first time. “This is…” he blows a long breath out through his nose, his brows lowering further as if the release of oxygen is pulling them down. “Unexpected.”
“I know I kept it—”
“Not that,” he cuts in. “Well, yes, the fact that you kept important information from us is irritating. But if you had told me the truth at the beginning, I would not have joined you. If you had told me earlier, I probably would not have stayed on the team. And I would not wish for my life to have turned out differently.” His eyes cut to Nicole and soften.
“Regret is pointless when you are happy in the present.”
“Google doc,” Mac says faintly, his own eyes cutting towards Eleanor. She reaches for his hand.
“If anything, it is a relief,” Dimitri continues thoughtfully.
“What?” Mac demands, his ire rising again as he directs it across the table.
Dimitri lifts a brow. “I would rather work for a man I know and trust instead of this anonymous General. Wesley kept this secret from us, da, but he had a reason. Just as I have reasons for my secrets, and you have reasons for yours.”
Mac crosses his arms, leaning forward onto the table on his elbows.
“Does it really matter that we never worked for that svo lach’—that we were always contractors through Wesley?” Dimitri wonders in that relentlessly straightforward way of his. “The jobs were done. The money was paid. The choices we made about the targets were our own.”
“Of course it doesn’t matter,” Mac fires back through his teeth. He hangs his head for a second, then turns to me. “It… it just kinda sucks that you thought you couldn’t tell us.”
“Not through any fault of your own,” I promise.
“But you have to understand… the only people who knew anything about this were dead—were killed because of what they knew. I had no idea who was responsible, or where they might be, or what they might know about me and the two of you… I thought the truth might get us all killed, so it was safer to keep the secret until I knew what I was up against.”
With every point, some of the lines of tension in Mac’s face iron out. By the end of it, he’s sitting upright and wearing a look more akin to compassion.
“That must have made you feel so alone,” Eleanor says softly.
Her heart is so damn big that it tugs a smile to my lips. “Sometimes,” I admit. Then I glance sideways at Madison. “But sometimes strangers on the internet have a way of making you feel much less alone.”
She lets out a choked laugh.
“All right,” Mac says, scrubbing his face with his palm. “Fine. I get it. I’m… well, I’m not not mad, but I understand why you did what you did.”
I nod, knowing that’s the best I can hope for at present. He’ll come around.
“So you’re telling us now because you found the guy? You know who the General is?” Mac asks.
“We know where to start. Who to target.”
Mac tosses his fork and shoves his plate away. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s fuckin’ go.”