Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Jesse tossed his Stetson inside his gray Dodge Ram and shut the door before turning to face A.J. on the driveway. He took a deep breath and willed his voice to remain steady despite the adrenaline coursing through his body after ending his third call of the day with Thatcher. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Had he accepted the job? Yes and no. He told Thatcher he’d handle the problem but that he’d be acting independently from the Agency. No longer would he take kill orders without participating in the intelligence-gathering process. Not that Thatcher had the target package put together for him anyway. The only information he currently had was the target’s name and motivation.
This had been the first time Thatcher had ever come to Jesse without the mark’s location. And Jesse would need Falcon’s help.
“I gathered as much.” A.J. set his back to the side of his truck and folded his arms. They’d been best friends for as long as Jesse could remember, but would that friendship come to a crashing end tonight? “This have anything to do with Ella and Paris?”
Jesse stood before him, leaving enough space between them so that if A.J. came at him swinging, he’d have a chance to duck. Or maybe I let him hit me?
Thankfully, they were too far from the main house for anyone to hear. And they were a good few hundred yards away from the ranch hands’ bunkhouse too.
Jesse swept his gaze left and right, searching for anyone outside, but from the looks of it, they were alone. “She can’t go to Paris. But that’s not what I have to tell you.”
“Can’t, huh?” A.J.’s question was steeped in suspicion. The man could sense this was more than Jesse being possessive of Ella.
“You know that big secret you’ve been keeping from everyone? That you didn’t really retire as a SEAL, and you run clandestine ops for POTUS?” Jesse let go of an uneasy breath, and A.J. straightened, his body going ramrod straight now. This was the first time Jesse confessed he knew the secret A.J. hadn’t revealed. “I’ve kept a secret myself.”
A.J. took a slow step forward, his eyes pinned to Jesse’s face. Clearly stunned Jesse knew his secret and most likely nervous about whatever Jesse was about to share.
“From the time I got out of the Army up until July of last year, well, I worked for the CIA.” God, this was not how he planned to spill this news to his best friend. Actually, he’d never anticipated telling A.J. his secret, like he assumed A.J. hadn’t planned on telling him his. “But not in the typical sense. I wasn’t an agent or an officer.”
“I’m sorry?” A.J. tilted his head, a confused look on his face, like Jesse had just spoken Klingon or something. “You’re going to have to spell this out for me. Because I’m sure I didn’t hear you right.”
Jesse massaged the knot lodged between his neck and shoulder. “The CIA only used me for specific assignments. That’s why I’d come and go from here.” The words he was avoiding were stuck in his throat. Because, in all honesty, he felt sick whenever he stopped to think about who he’d been. What he’d done.
“Were you working with DO or SAD?” A.J. sputtered the acronyms for the two elite clandestine arms within the Agency—Directorate of Operations and the Special Activities Division.
“Neither. Well, I guess you could say I was sort of part of SAD. But I wasn’t with Ground Branch.”
Ground Branch consisted of former special operators that handled sensitive operations and protective services for the Agency. The tragedy in Benghazi? Ground Branch boots had been on the ground that day.
The truth of it was, Jesse was more like a CIA ghost. A few top-secret clearance levels above the others in that division.
A.J. closed the space between them and set a hand to Jesse’s chest as realization hit. “All that stuff Savanna was talking about the day you fought off those men in her place back in October. How you killed that guy in a heartbeat. She said you had moves like John Wick . I know you’re a good fighter, but I thought she was exaggerating.” A.J. dropped his hand from Jesse’s chest and took a step back. “You’re a fucking hitman? An assassin?”
Jesse cursed under his breath, hating the way those words sounded coming from his best friend, especially when they were drenched in disappointment. “Surely you know the CIA has people like . . .” Me. “I’m not that guy anymore. Like I said, I quit last year. I was in for a little less than five years.”
“Five years of contract killing is still five years of killing,” A.J. said in a low, steady tone. “I don’t understand why. How.” The look in his eyes damn near shredded Jesse.
His best friend served as a mirror right about now. The expression cutting across his face was exactly how Jesse felt whenever he eyed his own reflection. Unworthy of . . . Ella. Extremely un-fucking-worthy of that woman with a pure heart.
It’s not like A.J. didn’t take out the trash in his line of work. He cut down enemies as well. But Jesse’s sole purpose had been to end a life, and he doubted A.J.’s missions were centered around a kill shot. Or coming up with creative ways to disguise a murder as an accidental death and so on.
“It’s not like I was killing politicians or helping with regime changes, if that’s what you think I did. Not saying that doesn’t happen, but I only accepted certain jobs.”
“Accepted certain . . .” A.J. dropped his words, clearly unable to stomach the conversation. “I have to take lives in my line of work, but your one-and-only objective was to . . .” Another unfinished line of thought he seemed unable to work through.
“I’m not proud of it. But when the CIA recruited me, I was in a really bad place . And they made me feel like?—”
“Like you were needed? That you could make a difference?” A.J.’s tone was laced with sarcasm. “Assassin,” he whispered in disbelief and turned his gaze toward the bunkhouse. Surprised he, a Tier One operator, had read Jesse so wrong. “Fuck, Jesse. Why are you telling me now?”
Jesse expected to be punched in the face any second, and he’d let his best friend (a friendship probably about to end) pummel him to his heart’s content. “My old boss paid me a visit today. Demanded I take one last job. I initially thought it was just because he heard I was working with Falcon, and that’s why he wanted me back. But then I opened the target package he left behind.”
A.J. swiveled his way in the space of a heartbeat. “Target package,” he practically breathed out. “All this time, I thought you were making furniture, but you’ve been killing people.” His hands converted to fists at his sides, his jaw set in an angry line. “Who’s the target? What does the spook want you to do?”
Jesse lifted his gaze to the cloudless evening sky streaked with purple and dark blue, the stars not visible yet even though the sun had set. The property was lit up well enough to see the foreboding expression on A.J.’s face. Jesse needed to suck it up and get on with it. There were no words to make the next bit of truth any easier to hear, and Jesse owed it to his friend to look him in the eyes when he broke the news.
“Tell me,” A.J. barked.
“Almost eighteen months ago, I was sent to Sofia. The Bulgarians asked our government to handle a problem for them. They’d learned a Serbian there with diplomatic immunity was running a criminal enterprise. In return for the Agency’s help, they offered the CIA some intelligence they’d stumbled upon about a terrorist they knew the U.S. was trying to track down. Tit for tat kind of thing. Happens all the time with the Agency,” Jesse quickly explained, dreading the moment when he reached the part that’d have A.J.’s head exploding. And punching him the way Jesse had torn apart the wall in his workshop earlier.
“What went wrong?” A.J. asked, obviously aware there was yet another shoe to drop.
Jesse scratched his jaw, the scruff he’d let grow for weeks rough beneath his palm. “The hit went down a week before Ella was to marry Brian. I may have been a little off my game. Distracted,” he admitted, not for the first time, though he’d never said the words aloud. “I hit my target as planned, but what I didn’t know until this morning because I quit after that day is that he didn’t die.” Jesse’s heart thudded furiously. “The day of the hit, his men had rushed him away. His people must have bypassed normal medical help and taken him off the grid. Most likely in a coma.”
“Let me guess, he woke up,” A.J. grumbled.
“I don’t know when or for sure what happened, but it’d stand to reason that’s why he’d lain low. He’d been, well, asleep.”
“Get to the part that’s going to make me lose my mind,” A.J. gritted out.
Jesse dragged his palm over his cheek a few times, thinking back to the day of the shooting. He’d been perched behind his rifle, waiting to take the shot, and all he could think about was Ella and her future husband. “When I shot my mark, another shot rang out, killing the man’s wife. There was a second shooter.”
“Please don’t tell me that this conversation is going to somehow connect to my fucking sister.” A.J. lunged toward Jesse, an angry, menacing look pointed his way.
Just get this over with. “The Bulgarians used us to take this guy out, and for whatever reason, they wanted the wife dead, too, but they knew the Agency would refuse that hit,” Jesse explained what Thatcher had told him. “But they had a second shooter there at the same time. Most likely to make it look like I killed them both. Of course, they denied this when the CIA pressed.”
Jesse had watched that woman take a bullet to the head. Maybe the Bulgarians figured she was guilty by association, but from the little info he was given, she hadn’t been involved in her husband’s crimes. That wasn’t for Jesse to decide, and he’d never take the life of a woman. Especially not a mother, which she was.
Whether Ella had walked down that aisle with Brian or not, Jesse had decided he was done after that day. He couldn’t do the job anymore. The bullet that killed that woman may not have been his, but he still felt responsible somehow.
“Last week, the Bulgarians advised the Agency they had a leak, and some of their files had been hacked six months ago. Specifically, the files surrounding my mark, Zoran Mestrovi?. As well as the details of the deal made with the Agency.”
“I assume your name wasn’t in the Bulgarians’ file or the fact that there’d been a second shooter responsible for the wife’s death?” A.J. took a small step back, his hands going to his hips as he seemed to try and work through the problem.
“No, my identity was never revealed. But if Zoran is the one responsible for the hack, then he’ll most likely think whoever shot him also killed his wife based on their file.”
A.J. grunted. “Why do I get the feeling there’s more?”
“The reason Bulgarian Intelligence finally informed the CIA about any of this is that Zoran showed his face on CCTV footage two weeks ago in Bulgaria. Shortly afterward, two Bulgarian agents who’d been assigned to gather intel on Zoran before the hit last year were brutally murdered.” Jesse paused, wishing he didn’t have to share the next part. “Based on the report, the agents’ wives were killed first. Zoran wanted the men to watch their wives murdered as payback.”
“Fuck.” A.J. grimaced. “Would those agents have known of your identity if he interrogated them beforehand?”
“No. Definitely not. I’m not sure if Zoran’s capable of IDing me, but I’d rather get to him and finish the job instead of waiting around to find out. Zoran’s had that file for six months, and he only just took out those men.” He paused. “Zoran’s patient and barbaric. One of the agents only got married sixteen days ago. It’s like this asshole waited until both agents were married so he could?—”
“Go Hammurabi’s Code on them? An eye for an eye,” A.J. growled out in shock.
Jesse dipped his chin to his chest, letting go of a deep breath as he waited for A.J. to understand what this meant. Everyone in town knew how deeply Jesse cared about Ella Hawkins, and if Zoran ever IDed Jesse, it’d take the bastard all of five minutes to choose his target for payback.
A.J. abruptly snatched hold of Jesse’s shirt with one hand and pulled his other arm back, ready to strike. “You shouldn’t have kept this from me. You put my family in danger. My sister. Maybe your father is?—”
“Right about me?” Jesse lifted his gaze. “I’m trouble.”
A.J.’s face muscles went lax, but he didn’t lower his arm. His hand remained clenched in a fist in preparation as he stared into Jesse’s eyes.
“Why do you think I’ve done my best to stay away from your sister all these years?” Jesse rasped, his voice shaking. “I was broken before I joined the CIA, and then I became dangerous because of the Agency.” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “But I need to find this guy and finish the job before he has a chance to get to Ella. I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to her. And there’s still the possibility he’s yet to ID me.” That felt like a lie. In Jesse’s gut, he knew this son of a bitch had already secured his name or would soon. But he’d be damned if he’d let Ella die because of his sins.
Jesse opened his eyes when the punch never came. A.J. had released him and was now tearing his hands through his hair. “You won’t be handling a damn thing. She’s my sister. I’ll talk to POTUS. My people will take care of the situation. You’ve done enough.” He started to walk away, but Jesse hurried to catch up with him, matching his angry strides.
“I have to do this. This is my mess. My problem. Not yours and?—”
“You made it my problem when you fell for my damn sister!” A.J. whirled around and fisted Jesse’s shirt with both hands this time. “I will kill you with my bare hands if something happens to Ella. Do you understand me? You might be like blood to me. But I will fuckin’ kill you.”
“You won’t have to kill me,” Jesse returned in a low voice. “I’ll do it my?—”
“What in God’s name is going on out here?” Jesse spotted his sister hurrying their way and Ella not far behind her.
A.J. focused back on Jesse. “We need to talk to Chris and Griffin. Fill them in,” was all he said before shoving at Jesse’s chest when he deserved a hell of a lot more than that. “What have you told Ella?”
Jesse shook his head. “I only told her she can’t go to Paris.”
“Don’t say anything,” he hissed. “Not yet.” A.J. turned and blew past Rory, then paused near his sister for one second before continuing toward the house.
Jesse bowed his head and tried to figure out how he was going to convince A.J. he had to back off and let Jesse and Falcon handle this.
And Jesse would personally plant the final blow into Zoran’s skull.
Rory stopped before him a second later. “I reckon that was about a lot more than Paris.”
Paris. How would they convince Ella to turn down her dream opportunity because he’d been a hitman once upon a time ago?
And unlike A.J., he knew Ella would swing, and that woman sure as hell wouldn’t miss.