Chapter 35
JUDAH
“Look who’s back!” Simmons said, slapping me on the shoulder as he strolled out of a conference room with a shit-eating grin on his face. He took a long pull from the paper coffee cup in his hand. Droplets of coffee stained his crisp white button-up.
Begrudgingly, I peeled my eyes away from my computer screen.
I missed the days when mountains of paperwork meant a literal stack of paper on my desk. Now it was just endless digital tasks that didn’t give me a sense of accomplishment after finishing one and dropping it onto the pile of completed work.
“How was the briefing?” I asked, even though I didn’t fucking care. The lights over my desk were giving me a headache, but I either had to make the attempt to reintegrate into polite society or get written up. I just wanted to do my busywork and go home.
Home was supposed to be my brand-new apartment because Judah Greear hadn’t existed for years. Home was supposed to be the musty mattress and dusty bedframe I had pulled out of a storage unit after years of unuse while I lived in my undercover apartment.
The reality? Home was a woman I hadn’t laid eyes on in twelve weeks. A woman I was deeply, undeniably, and unforgettably in love with.
“Same ol’, same ol’. Team selection for a new op got kicked off with a reminder to not break your cover for a girl.” His grin was smug as he punched my shoulder. “Thanks for that, by the way,” he tacked on as he strolled off.
I turned my attention back to the computer screen as the rest of the conference room emptied out. It was only ten in the morning, and I had already hit my quota for pleasantries.
I missed undercover work, especially when being an asshole was just part of the job.
I had spent twelve weeks on lockdown due to an internal affairs investigation that nearly drove me to my breaking point. Calling in the “Office of Professional Responsibility” to deal with me would have been laughable had it not been infuriating.
For three months, they wouldn’t tell me anything about Amelia.
I had no access to technology. No way to contact her or Cole.
I couldn’t even watch the fucking news. I was put on ice—completely restricted from contact with the outside world or with anyone in the bureau.
Not that I wanted to talk to anyone in it anyway.
I had seen other FBI agents go through misconduct investigations. None of the investigations I had been privy to lasted as long as mine had or had as many restrictions on the agent.
No phone.
No computer.
No letters.
No TV.
Not even a fucking carrier pigeon.
I was to stay in the provided housing, with the exception of traveling to and from meetings, where I was asked the same questions over and over again for months. Other than that, all I could do was sit.
The only thing worse than being put in time-out was being cleared to come back only to be buried under endless menial tasks that were usually handled by our civilian administrators.
I was being punished.
The one thing that gave me a modicum of comfort throughout those twelve weeks was knowing that Amelia was a fucking genius who could take care of herself—and that Cole was still keeping an eye on her.
The moment I was cleared by the Office of Respectable Bullshit, my parents were the first people I called.
After all, I hadn’t talked to them in a few months.
They knew the basics of my job with the FBI and knew that me going dark for weeks on end wasn’t out of the ordinary.
But they did watch the news, which meant I had a lot of explaining to do.
It’s not every day that your son is on America’s Most Wanted list.
Cole was the second person I called.
Where is she? Is she okay?
Those were the first words out of my mouth.
Not “hey, how’s it going?”
Not “thanks for saving my ass.”
I needed to know if she was alive. Second to that, I needed to figure out if she ever wanted to speak to me again.
That was the other thing I learned after rejoining society: my chain of command had miraculously decided to wrap up the years-long investigation into the Valentine organization that was supposed to have been six months max.
While I was on the run, they swept in, made arrests, and tied it up with a shiny fucking bow.
Funny how they couldn’t have done that before, no matter how many times I asked to be pulled out.
For a damn year, I had tried to convince them that we had enough evidence for the Department of Justice to have ironclad cases.
I was meticulous with my reports. I went above and beyond to collect financial records and record incriminating phone calls and security footage.
I gave them notice any time large-scale trafficking and drug operations were actionable for tactical teams to swoop in and make arrests.
I delivered countless people I was ordered to kill to the Federal Marshals so they could be put into witness protection and testify against Valentine instead of taking a long nap in a shallow grave.
Some of them turned up dead anyway.
No matter how much I pushed to end the operation, my higher-ups insisted they still needed a man on the inside.
But why? Before I went AWOL, I hadn’t gathered new information in nearly eleven months.
My phone buzzed with a text, drawing my attention away from the report I was typing up.
Cole
Here.
Thank God. I needed a break before I threw my computer out the window and let it fall thirty floors down to the sidewalk. Maybe some fresh air would help, though there was a stark difference between Appalachian air and Manhattan air.
I logged out, pocketed my phone, left my suit jacket behind, and headed to the elevator.
My dress shoes squeaked as I walked down the pristine corridor. I missed my boots.
Cole was waiting in the courtyard in front of the Javits Building. The fact that he was head and shoulders taller than the average person, wore a burly, unkempt beard, and still dressed in tactical gear like we were in the Teams made him easy to spot.
He turned to face me as I strode out of the building. I caught my reflection in the polarized lenses of his sunglasses. All buttoned-up, combed over, and fucking respectable.
I hated it.
“Look at y—”
“Shut up,” I groused at Cole as I crossed the plaza.
“Still saying no to working in the private sector?” Cole asked. “Because I don’t have to wear shoes like that.”
He was lying.
Cole wore dress shoes and suits all the time, especially when his client was some fancy-pants one-percenter who needed protection and his unique skill set.
“Are the Marshals still saying no?” I asked.
His sigh of defeat was a clear answer.
I swore under my breath and pinched the bridge of my nose as I tried to regroup. “She needs to be put in witness protection. Both of them do.”
Cole raised his hands in surrender. “I agree. But the requirements are what they are, and the Feds aren’t bending the rules after the circus you caused, even if you’re one of their own.”
I swore and kicked at a stray piece of gravel.
Cole put his hands up to stave off my ire. “But I’ve got guys on a constant rotation to keep an eye on her.”
“Thank you,” I said as I braced my hands on the back of an empty bench and tried to mentally work through the problem.
When I had been cleared by internal affairs and called Cole, he gave me a brief rundown of what had happened after the FBI pulled me out of Las Vegas.
Amelia had also been arrested in Las Vegas, questioned, and then released from FBI custody and left to find her way back home. Since Valentine and most of his associates had been arrested back in New Jersey, they deemed that she didn’t need protection.
The U.S. Marshals agreed.
Just the thought of her alone in Las Vegas made my blood boil.
According to Cole, the FBI had kept the backpack she had on her person, along with a few grand in chips, as evidence for the investigation into me, but the bag had just been a decoy.
She’d outsmarted them by stashing the rest of her cash, chips, and our supplies in the other bag that she hid in the resort.
My girl was a fucking badass.
Of course, she told all of this to Cole, who she called from my burner phone after leaving FBI custody, going back to the casino, retrieving the real bag from where she’d hidden it, and winning the rest of the money for Joel’s freedom.
She didn’t know that Valentine was behind bars.
Then again, she was smart to stick to the plan.
Valentine struck enough fear into his soldiers that they’d keep doing his bidding rather than getting out while they could.
He didn’t run his organization like a business.
He ran it like a cult. Valentine was their god.
I was so proud of her. She did it. She got the money. She beat the house and the FBI. Most importantly, she got out.
Cole pulled strings with a pilot friend of his and had Amelia flown up to Rhode Island, where he had been keeping Joel Hawthorne hidden away. They’d spent the rest of the summer together before she went back to Connecticut to start the next school year.
It took everything in me not to break protocol and go see her. But the last thing I wanted to do was to screw up my “professional responsibilities” investigation or get arrested.
That was the other thing Cole had mentioned when we caught up after my investigation—Amelia was pissed.
I huffed as I turned and sidled up to him. “They might have arrested Valentine and a few of the higher-ups, but they didn’t get everyone. The timeline of the arrests doesn’t match up.”
Cole crossed his arms. “Are you certain that the guys you saw on the train were his associates? I’m just saying—you were tired. You were stressed. Your mind could have been playing tricks on you.”
“I worked with both of them every single day for years. I know what and who I saw.”
“Did you tell that to the big guys up there?” he asked as he tipped his head toward the Javits Building.
“No.”
“Why not?”
I glanced around the plaza to see who was nearby, then lowered my voice. “I think there’s a leak.”
Cole lifted a thick eyebrow. “You said that a while ago. Are you sure?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense—why I was kept under for so long.
I tried to wrap up the investigation when the first six months was up.
Then again at a year. And every six months after that.
I tried to get extracted a month before Amelia showed up, but Valentine got tipped off and tightened things up.
He never told me who it was or what spooked him.
” I crossed my arms and matched his posture.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two guys from his inner circle happened to be halfway across the country when Valentine got arrested. ”
“So you think the guys you saw on the train are getting information from the Feds?”
“Right before things went sideways, one of them told me that Valentine had him doing a job across state lines.”
“And that’s not normal?”
“No.” I kept my voice quiet. “He rarely had anyone but me do that shit—which worked out well for the investigation and getting people I was supposed to kill over to the Marshals. Valentine preferred dealing within the state of New Jersey rather than making shit federal. That’s why it’s been so hard to pin him down for decades, until I went undercover in the organization. ”
Cole stroked his beard. “And if he had someone else doing jobs across state lines, it’s because he didn’t want you to be the one to have that information.”
I let out a dry laugh under my breath. “Except the guy didn’t keep his mouth shut and told me every detail.”
I glanced up at the gleaming building that sat on the southern tip of Manhattan. It was so fucking loud here. I missed the mountains.
I missed Amelia.
“You gonna run it up the chain to see what’s what?”
I shook my head. “Not right now. Not until I know for certain if there’s a leak.”
“What about the girl? You talked to her yet?”
My gut churned and ached at the thought of Amelia. I had been keeping tabs on her, but I hadn’t made contact yet. I hadn’t been allowed to during my hearings, and even now that I was cleared to return to fucking desk duty, I knew I was still being watched.
So I had left her alone. Cole and his team were looking out for Amelia and her brother. There was no imminent threat.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that our ordeal was far from over.
I wasn’t scared of John Valentine or any of the men who worked for him.
But Amelia? I was scared shitless of her.