67. GRAYSON
67
GRAYSON
“It’s funny how we think we know exactly what we would do in someone else’s shoes until we’re in them ourselves.” I slumped against the wall, the cool, rough texture of the stone seeping through my shirt. The great room of my brother’s house enveloped me like a false sanctuary.
The rich, smoky aroma of peated scotch filled my nostrils as I lifted the crystal tumbler to my lips as I stood with my brothers while Luna and Ivy talked in another area of the house. After explaining Vosch’s threats to everyone, we’d all fled to the relative safety of Hunter’s house—including Ivy’s mother and grandmother. But a bitter voice in my head whispered that nowhere was truly safe anymore. Not until Vosch got what he wanted.
“Before Vosch gave me this ultimatum”—I massaged my throbbing temple—“there was no question in my mind that I would ever leak intelligence to a mass murderer. And I had told myself there was no excuse for Daniel to have complied, no matter the threats he faced. But now that it’s my family on the line…” I shook my head.
How dare I long to be absolved of my sins while condemning my old mentor for his. Daniel had taken things much too far, but where, exactly, was that line? How far did he go before he no longer resembled the moral person he once was?
Where was the line when someone was no longer worthy of forgiveness?
The biggest question was, how would I not cross it while keeping my family safe?
“How could I have not seen this coming?” I wondered angrily.
Hunter put a hand on my shoulder. “No one would have.”
But his words rang hollow.
“Daniel warned me Vosch wouldn’t let us go.”
I should have anticipated Vosch’s next move, should have protected them better. Now, my failures, my sins, had come home to settle their tab, and my family would pay the price. The room fell into suffocating silence, a sinister fog seeming to permeate the very air.
“What did he ask you to do, exactly?” Jace asked.
“He gave me a test,” I replied. “An assignment to gain intelligence to help him.”
“What kind of intelligence?” Hunter asked.
“He wants to know the emergency protocol for an active threat on an “L” train.”
Translation: what safety protocols were in place should someone target an “L” train full of passengers. By having that information, someone could circumvent those safety protocols and ensure mass casualties.
My brothers exchanged a look.
“Setting up mass casualty events is part of his MO to drain emergency resources of law enforcement,” I explained. “As for asking me for the protocols, I can only assume the test serves two purposes. First, to see if I comply. If I were to bring him anything, the only way he’d know if I was actually working with him rather than against him is if he can cross-reference the information to validate it.”
A log popped in the fireplace.
“And the second?” Jace pressed.
This second part was speculation, a theory strung together based on Vosch’s past and the CIA’s intel.
“They think he’s planning something big,” I admitted. “A large shipment of mass weapons into our city, and in order to do that without interference from law enforcement, he’ll create a distraction.”
A distraction. That’s what innocent lives were to him.
“Jesus.”
“And if I don’t comply and give him that intel,” I continued—intel that could cost who knew how many lives—“he’ll kill you all.”
“But you think he already has this intelligence?” Hunter clarified.
“I think he has at least part of it. How else would he be able to corroborate whether or not I’m cooperating?”
“And if you provide it to him…” Jace started.
“Innocent civilians will be in danger. Kids ride the “L” train, too,” I said. “That would just be the beginning.”
“You can’t give it to him,” Hunter said, as if I needed that to be clarified.
“I’m aware,” I said, harsher than I meant to. But, goddammit, my nerves were absolutely frayed.
“We can beef up security,” Hunter assured.
“They could be breached again. You would have to get lucky twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Vosch’s men would just have to get lucky once to get to you.”
My brothers stared at me with a mixture of disbelief and despair. I thought back to when we were kids, playing cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys on the front lawn, pretending to shoot or arrest each other. To think those little boys were about to go on a journey of trauma and grief, each one branching out into their own path of coping with it. I joined the CIA to make the world a better place.
I never intended for the dangers that I signed up for to come back to my family.
“It can’t end like this,” I snapped. “After everything we’ve gone through, it cannot fucking end like this.” I threw my glass into the fireplace, watching the flames consume it like the rage engulfing my heart.
“Maybe the CIA will pick up Vosch before…” Bryson’s words trailed off, so I wasn’t sure what he was about to say.
Before I commit treason against my country to save my family? Before I become the very monster I’ve spent my life trying to fight? Or Before I refuse to help him and he kills everyone I love?
Maybe I could understand now why Daniel ended everything. The part of him that was still good, that cared about his family, saw the cancer he had brought into their lives.
Daniel’s family…
My spine stiffened, my eyes darting around the room as my mind assembled vital pieces of a puzzle. And as it came together, my heart droned in my ears with the melody of hope.
“Vosch didn’t do anything to Daniel’s family,” I realized.
This had occurred to me when I’d confronted Daniel, but in the midst of everything else going on, the fact had receded to the back burner of my brain. A seemingly insignificant fact since its purpose was to understand why Daniel had been willing to die. But now…
Now, that fact jumped front and center with a spotlight on it.
“Because he complied,” Jace said.
“No, I mean after Daniel died. I just talked to Seth on my way over here, and Daniel’s family is alive and well.”
My brothers exchanged a look.
“I’m not following,” Bryson said.
I began pacing, faster and faster as a plan took shape in my mind.
“The threat to his family was to keep Daniel compliant,” I said. “But once Daniel was dead, Vosch had nothing to gain by killing them. If anything, it might risk him or someone on his payroll getting caught.”
“Daniel’s family is probably under CIA protection right now.”
“There’s been no attempts on their life. Not one.”
“It doesn’t mean there won’t be.”
It was a fair point. But the more I thought about it, the more my instincts screamed that I was on to something. Rather than spending his time seeking revenge against Daniel by targeting his family, Vosch spent his time tracking down a new operative. Vosch was an opportunist. He had plans and needed help with those plans, and that’s what he really cared about.
More than revenge against a dead man.
And with that, my new plan had taken shape.