53. Two Become One
SOUNDTRACK: Let it Rain by Kendra Dantes and Pei Pei Chung
~ brIDGET ~
My head spun so badly, and I was so confused, nothing really registered until Jeremy’s team got me back to the parking lot of the park and sat me down in the back of an ambulance they had kept waiting a couple blocks away until they had Cain…
Sam. Until they had Sam .
How the hell had this happened?
I kept running through those memories in my head of when he’d taken me down. Specifically, the moment he tore off that mask and looked down at me… and his fierce eyes were pleading, begging me to understand—
“You did good, Bridget. I gotta say, I thought you were backing out on us. But you came through.” Jeremy stood in front of me in his black, special ops gear, feet shoulder width apart and his arms folded across his chest.
Even with his blonde hair that was just starting to gray, he looked like Captain fucking America. All he was missing was the stars and stripes.
“This is all wrong,” I muttered through my teeth. “He’s the wrong one. He wasn’t the mark—and you didn’t tell me you’d been following me.”
“We weren’t following you, we were following him,” Jeremy said sharply. “The convicted felon who appeared suddenly in your life right when you got squirrely? God, you really do think I’m an idiot.”
“That’s not—”
“I don’t give a shit how you want to frame it in your head, Bridget. But that’s exactly how it happened. When are you going to realize that I’m not going to let you kill yourself?”
I closed my mouth with a snap and fixed my eyes on the cement under his feet, frowning.
The truth was, Cain had appeared in my life right after that night in the bar. But Sam was… two weeks later? Three? I couldn’t quite remember. So had Jeremy really only known about Sam for a week? Or was he hiding the fact that he’d known about Cain since I got drunk that night and started asking for someone to hunt me?
Then it hit me.
Holy shit, Sam was Cain. Had Sam killed Richard?
My blood went cold. “Jeremy?”
“What?”
“Did Sam have anything to do with Richard Fitch’s death? My old chaplain? The other priest—er, preacher?”
Jeremy shook his head. “Not that we can tell. They were hours apart—confirmed—when Richard died. And the Coroner says it was definitely a heart attack. He’d been on medication for a decade.”
Relief washed through me. Then I blinked as a car rolled past with the interior lights on and I caught the briefest glimpse of Sam in the back seat bracketed by a couple of agents, his jaw tight and eyes fixed straight ahead.
I looked at him, pleading for him to see me, to see how sorry I was, how this had never been what I wanted for him. That I’d thought I was catching Cain so he’d have at least a chance of a future…
But, with the bright lights inside the car, Sam couldn’t see me outside in the dark. My chest squeezed. And then went still.
As that car rolled out of the park—slowing only to show credentials and be passed through the cordon Jeremy had placed around it the moment Sam and I disappeared in the forest—everything in my body went quiet. Still.
Dead.
It was an effort to make myself inhale.
Cain was Sam. Sam was Cain.
How was it possible? I’d kissed both of them—how could I have missed… but my mind tracked back to those moments, so few and far between. Cain’s desperate, clawing kiss, Sam’s tenderness—even when he’d gotten desperate he’d held something back.
But which of them was the real him?
Did it even matter? They’d both been lying to me this whole time.
Why? Why would he agree to kill me as Cain, then try to talk me out of it as Sam? Sam had threatened to call the Police! It made no sense! Had this whole thing been a game? Was he somehow connected to my father?
Oh shit.
Oh, shit.
I looked up at Jeremy, who frowned deeper. “What is it?”
“You knew? That Sam was Cain—my stalker? You knew they were the same?”
“I knew you had this fucker following you around, and that for whatever reason, you kept going to see him too. Nice, hiding that little plan, by the way, B. If you think I’m ever trusting another word out of your mouth, you’re fooling yourself.”
“Cut the shit, Jeremy. Did you find any links between him and my dad? Did my father send him? Was this all just one more of his mind-fucks?” Had I been wrong about Cain? Had I caught a true monster after all?
Jeremy stared at me a second, his expression softening a hair.
Adrenaline shoved through my veins. “Tell me.”
“Sam served his time in the same prison, some of it on the same floor. We don’t have proof that they’re associates. Yet. We’re looking into it.”
No. No!
My heel started hopping and Jeremy clocked it right away.
“Leave it alone,” I said, biting my cuticle that kept catching.
“Bridget,” Jeremy said in the tone he got when he was being concerned.
“I said, leave it.”
He sighed. Neither of us spoke while the medics checked me over again, eventually complimenting me on how low my heart rate was.
“…under the circumstances, that’s impressive.”
“Cold as ice,” I muttered, my heel still tapping on the steel step of the ambulance.
Jeremy was on the phone, but with his back to me, I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the sound of all the people nearby, and the running engine of the ambulance.
Two hours later we were at the office and he took me into one of the interview rooms that they used for “clients” who needed psychological assessment.
I’d been in those rooms more times than I could count. They were definitely more comfortable than the police interrogation rooms, but I still wasn’t impressed.
As Jeremy and two of his colleagues offered me a seat on the thick couch, I dropped into it, crossing my legs and arms and staring at him sullenly like I was still sixteen—which was how old I was when we met.
I didn’t realize I was rapidly tapping my heel until Jeremy took his own seat, glanced at my foot, then back up to my eyes.
“He’s not even in this building, Bridget. Relax. You’re going to be fine. We’ve got this.”
No, they didn’t. They didn’t have it all. And neither did I.
I’d done a lot of fucked up shit in my lifetime, but this was the first time I was pretty sure that I screwed over one of the good guys.
God, I hoped it was the first time. And the last.
This wasn’t what I’d been trying to do.
I shook off the dark thoughts as Jeremy started asking me questions that made it very obvious he’d known a lot more than he let on.
I was pissed.
At one point, when another agent asked me about Ronald breaking into my house, I glared at Jeremy. “You knew, and you didn’t stop him?!”
“Val told us what happened, but I thought you invited him,” Jeremy growled, looking just as pissed as I was. “That’s when I started following Priestley and monitoring you more closely.”
But I wasn’t backing down. “You promised I could have my life back! You said after that psycho wanted to suck out my intestines that I could bring them to you when I felt like it. You said you wouldn’t follow me anymore!”
“And I wouldn’t have if you’d kept talking. But dear God, Bridget—talk about toeing the line. You called me in yesterday.”
My stomach twisted up and a wave of nausea washed through me.
I’d been an informant and asset to the FBI since I was twelve years old—the first time they had recorded me talking to my dad’s associate on the phone. At fifteen they’d used me as bait for one of Dad’s henchmen who suddenly showed up in town. And when I was twenty-two, I unwittingly fucked a guy from the mob and ended up getting embroiled in an active investigation.
Jeremy had been thrilled. He’d been my handler since I was sixteen.
But it turned out, when you threw together a reckless disregard for life, borderline antisocial personality disorder, and the freedom that came with all your actions being sanctioned by law enforcement , things could get hairy.
The FBI had always insisted on making me see doctors—the ones who tracked my heart monitors and the check-ups I got twice a year—as well as therapists and behavioral counselors, but I’d never trusted any of them. It was obvious most of them were only checking boxes to make the cash.
Jeremy got mad when I almost died—twice—while in the care of those people. Which was when he forced the Bureau’s hand and made me start seeing Gerald instead.
Gerald was different. Better. But the rest of these people…
I huffed, shaking my head. Life was just one big love-fest around me. Selfless care oozing from every pore…
I ground my teeth as Jeremy launched into the debrief of this operation that I had known nothing about.
“…good news is that you delivered, Bridget. Headquarters were getting nervous, but this is going to remind everyone why we worked with you in the first place.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes piercing. “I’m proud of you.”
I gave a one-shouldered shrug and blinked back tears because I’d been here before.
But this was the first time I’d ever cared.
It had always been a game before. Something I dared myself to do. Something to make life interesting. A thrill to walk the line and see just how close I could get to the Grim Reaper without actually being taken.
The guys I’d taken down before had deserved it. I’d had my fun, with protection to lean on, while doing the world a favor. It was a win-win.
But the last one had turned out to be a fucking serial killer. That had been scary, and something inside me never really recovered. After that, the whole wanna die thing wasn’t a half-joke anymore.
The risk-taking wasn’t just acting out. I had been tempting God.
When I went to the park tonight I’d already called Jeremy in, but I had told him I didn’t know how it was going to go down. I’d known it was possible Cain would reach me first, and I’d die. And… there were times that felt like a relief.
I hadn’t told Jeremy about Cain because right from the beginning it felt like Cain wasn’t for the FBI. He was for me. Because ever since the serial killer, I had been toying with the idea of just going through it. Fantasized about it. Imagined Jeremy coming to pick up my latest predator and arriving just a fraction too late, so they’d kill me before he arrested them.
But this time… this time I had hoped he would stop Cain from becoming one of those monsters. Jeremy was supposed to keep him alive so I could get to know him outside of this masked, mysterious, insane hunt.
That was, if I could ever get him to forgive me.
But now?
Sam?
I’d walked away from Sam to save him from myself, and instead, I was going to be the one to bring him down when I didn’t even want to!
God, I was such a fucking mess.
“...Our only real risk is that we’re open to accusations of entrapment. Priestley has connections, and his lawyer is a shark. But don’t worry, Bridget. We’ll coach you through it. We’ll go over all the transcripts and the reports before Court. Make sure you don’t slip. But for now, don’t answer questions without our lawyers present. Are we clear?”
We were. Except he was wrong.
I had been the one to put myself out there, to tempt him in. And if I’d known it was Sam I was getting, I never would have brought Jeremy in at all. Not even close.
Of course, it turned out Jeremy had brought himself in. I should have known, but fuck.
How had everything gone so wrong?
Then I reminded myself that I had been setting myself up for fun, trying to get around Jeremy. I’d thought I was so clever… Yet, I was too stupid to realize Cain and Sam were the same person.
What a fucking idiot.
My heart thudded slowly, like my blood was too thick.
“He’s not what you think he is,” I said quietly.
Jeremy, who’d been discussing “forward planning” with the other two guys, went quiet and turned to look at me.
“What did you say?” he asked carefully.
“I said… he’s not what you think he is. He’s not a killer. Not like—”
“A convicted voyeur, sexual assault on a woman, and he had a weapon, Bridget. Do not tell me you’re somehow twisting that into innocence?”
“He threw the knife away. I didn’t even ask him to.”
“He’d probably gotten wind that we were there and was just trying to improve his case. He could still suffocate you with his bare hands, after all. He’s a strong guy.”
I glared at him, but he just glared back.
“Do not tell me you were actually convinced by all that spluttering and—”
“He used to be dark—which was when he was convicted. But he’s changed. He’s turned his life around. He’s a good guy.”
“He’s a fucking felon with a record as long as your arm, and he was planning to kill you, Bridget. We pulled his kit—in the bag he carried into the forest, he had night vision goggles, another knife, zip ties, and some scarves I assume were to gag you. His car had duct tape, and—”
“And he had me at knifepoint and did nothing.”
“Because we showed up!” Jeremy protested.
I just stared at him, my head spinning. Now that my heart had slowed down and I wasn’t feeling nervous anymore, all I could do was think back . All the things Cain had said—was Sam right that he’d never actually said he would kill me? I had a strange notion that he was. And he’d bailed on me when I said I wanted to live. I’d thought it was because those were the rules of the game. But now…
“Has he been booked yet?” I asked quietly.
Jeremy shook his head. “We’ve got some questions for him before things get official.”
I wanted to laugh in his face, but I swallowed it back. “I need to talk to him.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not.”
“You said yourself we’re going to lose this on entrapment—”
“No, I said his lawyer is going to try and say that. We’ll fight it.”
“But it’s better if we don’t have to. Let me talk to him. Let me get him to incriminate himself. He pursued me, Jeremy. He knew.” It was all bullshit of course, but I needed Jeremy to give me a chance to talk to Sam, so I could explain. Apologize. Plead for forgiveness.
…The way Cain got soft and started issuing careful instructions when I got winded the first time he took me down…
…the rage he held for Ronald and the way he’d carried me into the bathroom and stripped me so carefully… the aftercare… no wonder he never fucked me. Not once.
…that moment tonight when he had me caught and could have slit my throat, and he tossed the blade. It flashed as it turned over and over before disappearing into the bushes…
His eyes pleading with me… “I was always going to try and convince you not to go that far. I always planned to disappear when you changed your mind—it’s what I do! And I did… when you said you wanted to live, I walked away! But I couldn’t let you go. And you didn’t either and… it wasn’t supposed to be this way, Bridget. I didn’t know you’d come to the church—I wasn’t even supposed to be there! But I can see now, it was meant to be…”
“I’M NOT LEAVING YOU!”
“Bridget!”
I blinked out of the memory of Sam squatting in front of me, begging me to understand, to find Jeremy sitting in the chair across from me, leaning closer, his elbows on his knees, and his fingers twined, watching me warily.
“I’m not putting you back in his hands, Bridget,” he said firmly. “I’m sorry. It’s too risky.”
I wanted to scream. “Are you fucking kidding me—you’ll let me walk into the dark with a serial killer, but talking to a good man in a cell is too risky? That’s bullshit!”
He pointed at me. “I’ve done nothing but run around after you since you were a kid. Protecting you from yourself as much as these assholes. And this whole arrangement was your idea, let’s just remember that!”
“So let me talk to him and—”
“No,” Jeremy snapped. “You’re a loose cannon, Bridget. And it’s getting worse. We’re not doing any more pick ups until you’ve had some… treatment.”
My blood ran cold. “Treatment? You just told me I did good! Now I’m getting punished for doing exactly what I said I would do?!”
“By the bare fucking minimum. The boss won’t know the difference, so we’re clean, thank God. But fuck, Bridget. I’m not an idiot. I know what you were doing. I’m just glad you made the right decision in the end.”
I scoffed. “The right decision—to give you what you want.”
“No, Bridget—to fucking live! You think I put up with any of this shit from my other informants? You think I monitor your dad’s associates just for kicks? No, I do that to keep you safe. But you’re getting more reckless, not less. I’m not going to stand by and watch you get yourself killed when I could have stopped it. We’re done with this. No more. Not until a doctor tells me you can do this without… going dark.”
“That is such bullshit.”
“Yeah, B, such bullshit that I care about what happens to you,” he muttered, picking up his files and phone, slapping them all together, then tucking the stack under his arm as he got out of his chair and started for the door. The other two followed him without a word.
I sighed, muttering curses under my breath as I got to my feet to follow them out, but my head was still spinning with theories on how to convince them to let me see Sam. However Jeremy reached the door and saw me coming and turned to face me.
“Not you, you’re staying here,” he said quietly, moving aside so the other two could get out.
“The fuck I am,” I snapped, hurrying closer. “You are not caging me, Jeremy! I did my job!”
“And we need to make sure you didn’t get even more unhinged in the process.”
“What the—”
“You’re going to stay here, have a cup of decaffeinated coffee, and a chat. If he says you can go home, you can go home. But until then—”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Sit your ass down and breathe, Bridget. Just… fucking breathe for a few minutes,” he muttered, then stalked out, shutting the door too hard behind him.
And I heard it latch and click. Which meant they’d locked me in.
“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” I screamed at the door. I pounded on the door with a fist, screaming at him—throwing curses and rude gestures at the security cameras where I knew they’d be watching. “FUCK YOU! FUCK ALL OF YOU!”
I whirled from the door and started across the room, uncertain what I was going to do, but needing to move.
But then I heard the door click again and I whirled… to find Gerald stepping inside with a folder under his arm and a grim look on his face.
He closed the door—it clicked again, dammit— then looked at me, his expression sad.
My entire body deflated.
Fucking Gerald?
“Seriously?” I hissed.
“I’ll talk to him, Bridget. I’ll tell him that’s not how to handle this kind of—"
“I’m not doing this with you now,” I said, turning on my heel and storming back to the couch.
“Yes, you are,” Gerald sighed. I could hear his footsteps following me, heavy and slow.
“No, I’m not.”
I was pacing the floor between the coffee table and the couch as Gerald took the seat where Jeremy had been a moment before and put his file on the little side table next to it before sitting back and taking a deep breath, then freezing. Then sniffing a couple times, frowning deeply.
“This chair smells like bacon,” he said, pretending to be confused.
Despite myself, I snorted. It had been a joke for a long time. Gerald knew I called Jeremy a pig. But then I straightened my face and glared at him.
“You aren’t funny,” I muttered.
He shrugged, watching me carefully. “I’m just being observant,” he said as he opened the file next to him and pulled out a sheet of paper, then pulled a pen from his pocket and clicked it. “Let’s get started. The sooner we do, the sooner I can get you out of here.”
“I said, I’m not doing this with you right now,” I snapped.
“And I reminded you that you have no choice. Come on, Bridget. You can’t really believe they’ll just let you run loose without an assessment after that.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what they want. This was never—”
“Bridget,” he said quietly, a strange weight in his tone.
I stopped pacing and turned to look at him, folding my arms. “What?”
He sighed. “They won’t let you out of here without my sign off. And I can’t do that unless I’m certain you’re stable enough to be alone without being a risk to yourself.”
My jaw dropped “I’m not fucking suicidal! I just want to die—you said you understood the difference!”
“And I do.”
“Then leave me the fuck alone!”
“Not until we talk about what happened tonight and… and we come up with a plan of action for what you do if you hit crisis. Because… I’m sorry, Bridget, but I’m not seeing a woman in control of her world and empowered by bringing down the bad guy. I’m seeing a woman on the edge, and I’m terrified of where this will take you if something doesn’t change.”
“You’re always fucking terri—”
“Is that how you want to do this, Bridget? You want to make this one more fight we have to have?”
“I wouldn’t be fighting if you and Mr. Pork Chop weren’t holding me against my will!”
“You deal with Jeremy however you want, I’m not here for him. I’m here for you.”
“Well, I am saying I’m fine and let me the fuck out of here.”
“And what if they find out that the guy you fell for is connected to your father? What if he turns out to be a plant, Bridget? Are you going to be fine then?” he asked quietly.
Somewhere deep inside, the glass around my heart went fragile and brittle, and started to crack.
I went still. “You fucking asshole,” I muttered through numb lips.
Gerald shook his head and looked down at his paper sadly, but he didn’t write anything. When he looked back up at me, his eyes were pained. “Bridget, I’m sorry,” he said slowly.
“For what?”
“Because these pricks have never understood what you’re going through. But I do.”
“Bullsh—”
“I’m sorry that it feels like no matter who you trust, they always turn out to have ulterior motives.”
I shook my head and cursed, but that glass around my heart shivered again.
“…Sam served some of his time in the same prison. We don’t have proof that they’re associates yet. We’re looking into it…”
“There are thousands of men in that prison—” I started, knowing how pathetic I sounded. But Gerald wasn’t done.
“I’m sorry that it seems like no matter how hard you try, you always get deceived by the people you care about.”
I flinched.
“I’m not deceiving you, Bridget. But I think Sam was.”
Sam’s eyes, pleading. “…Everything I said was true. All of it—it was real. I changed my life. God changed my life—”
“Stop,” I whispered.
Gerald shook his head, but his expression dropped to misery. “Sweetheart, I am so deeply sorry that Cain—or Sam, or whichever one is his real name—might not turn out to be who you thought he was.”
I hissed a curse and recoiled from that statement, fought it in my mind.
He never fucked me. Not once. Not even when I gave him permission. Not even when I begged!
I was going to talk to Sam. I would find a way to make him answer my questions if it was literally the last thing I did. Because apparently, while I’d been busy falling in love with two different men, they were the same guy. So that meant either both of them loved me… or neither of them did.
And then I realized… I’d brought the law down on a man who was a convicted felon, a Primal Dom, and a preacher who’d turned his life around.
If I’d been any one of those, I would never have forgiven me. Let alone all three.
I did this.
It was me.
That thin wall around my heart caved, the glass shattering and sending shards of glass plunging into my heart so it spasmed and shrieked with pain.
But this time it didn’t stop.
The pain started in my heart, but radiated out. I clutched at my chest.
Gerald watched me, his brows pinching down. “Bridget, what—”
I sucked in a breath and clutched at my chest, and suddenly he came alive.
“Oh, shit, Bridget—is it your heart?!”
I couldn’t talk. I tried. But the pain was so bad… I stumbled forward, throwing my arms up, towards him, trying to grab his shirt, but my hands wouldn’t work properly.
Murmuring reassurance and muttering curses, Gerald caught me and quickly ushered me to the couch, laying me down, and screaming for help as he checked my pulse and—
Pain. Nothing but pain—and a hole in my chest that started sucking the light from my field of vision.
It was an odd sensation… kind of like sinking away from reality. As if I could see and hear what was happening outside my body, but it didn’t touch me.
Somewhere, deep inside, I was vaguely aware that Gerald was bent over me, his face painted in fear and determination, and there were pounding feet and lots of voices.
But then the room got dimmer and those lights flashed on the edges of my vision—except, in a perfect, circular halo this time. All the way around. Not just in the corners.
And as I sank further from Gerald’s quick, efficient movements and instructions, I started to laugh.
Because what fucking irony that on the very same night I found a reason to live, my body would finally betray me?
And they said God didn’t have a sense of humor.