Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“How are you holding up?” Adriana asked Knox over her cell phone. Knox had startled her awake with his call at three in the morning, but she’d hid her sleepy voice the best she could so he didn’t feel bad about waking her.
“I hate not being with the team,” he grumbled.
She dropped her eyes closed at the gritty texture of his tone—the pain there. “They needed you to stay back for a reason, right? Help with the case. Plus, it’s good you’re with Jessica. She’s pregnant and shouldn’t be alone.”
A crackling came over the line from a deep breath. “This is my fight, too. I should be with them. We can’t lose someone else.”
“‘Someone else’?” She sat upright with open eyes. “Who’d you lose? And why don’t I know about it?”
These were the parts of his life he’d kept from her as if he needed to protect her from the truth. To prevent her from worrying even more than she already did when he was working.
Her insides hurt. Everything hurt.
And she wanted to weep for him. Weep about a loss that must’ve shredded him.
Her stomach dropped as she traveled back to the past—to the moment he may have been referring to.
He’d shown up at her doorstep. His eyes had been bloodshot. Booze on his breath. “Can I crash at your place for a few days?” He’d stumbled into her apartment in D.C., a brown bag in hand, and he’d barely made it to her couch before passing out.
And when he’d woken, he’d grabbed the bottle again.
She’d called out of work sick, afraid to leave his side.
He’d drunk himself into oblivion those few days—barely talking.
The only time she’d seen someone drink himself, practically to death, had been when her father lost her mom.
How had she not realized Knox had lost someone close to him? He’d been drunk before but not that kind of drunk. The kind that’s meant to obliterate the deep, cutting pain of a monumental loss until you gather the strength to deal with it. If you ever do.
“I wasn’t allowed to talk about it,” he said after a few moments of silence. “Still not. But . . . a friend on my team, well, he died.”
She let his words sink in, wondering how many other dark and painful stories he’d held back over the years. Not allowed to talk about it? Whose orders?
“I wish you’d told me so I could’ve helped.” She moved off the bed and went to the window and peeked between the blinds and up at the sky. No stars in sight. Her mother’s star wasn’t visible, and she needed that star right now.
“Marcus died on an operation,” he admitted slowly. “The, uh, details weren’t made public.”
“What kind of operation? I don’t understand.”
Knox had never even shared the names of everyone he’d worked with in the last seven years.
A few had slipped into their conversation here and there.
Jessica. Luke, of course. Wyatt. Liam. It wasn’t until the barbecue she’d met the entire crew.
Well, except for Luke and Eva, who’d been traveling at the time.
“We almost lost Liam last year, too,” he said instead of answering her question, and there was a slight slur to his voice she hadn’t picked up on before.
Lost Liam? Liam was a parent. A husband.
“Jessica, too.”
His words had her stomach shriveling to nothing. Pain darting in crisscross patterns inside of her.
“A lot of close calls, but we can’t lose anyone else.” Emotion broke down his words into practically nothing, and—oh, God—was he crying? “You mind opening up? I probably shouldn’t be drunk in the hall.”
Her heart jumped at his words, and she whirled around and rushed to the door and swung it open.
He was sitting outside her room. A familiar brown bag in one hand and a burner—a cheap flip phone—in the other.
“I’m not your father,” he said as she crouched before him. She held his face between her palms. “I don’t have a drinking—”
“Shhh. I know.” Tears hit her face as she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his. He returned her kiss with a lazy, whiskey-flavored one. “What are you doing here?” she asked when pulling back.
“Jessica decided we should stick close to my dad.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I-I don’t know.” His eyebrows pulled together, and she helped him stand. “I should be with Jessica and working, but Roman’s okay right now. Asleep at the compound.”
Once in the room, she took the bottle and phone from him and set the items on her dresser.
“But I have a bad feeling.” His free hand converted to a fist, and he pressed it to his abdomen.
“Right here, you know?” His eyes were barely open as he spoke, and she guided him to her bed.
“I need to be with the team,” he whispered as she unlaced his black sneakers and pulled them off.
“I need to be with them,” he said again.
“And they need you here to protect your dad. Find who is after him. You’re helping from here,” she tried to remind him. “Your dad needs you, too. Your mom.” Still kneeling before him, she held both his hands between hers. Her lip quivered, her heart breaking for him.
He pulled his hands free from her grasp and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I ever be mad at you?” Hurt for keeping things from me, but not mad.
“I’ve been lying to you for so long.” His hands fell onto the bed at his sides. “I’m so sorry. I was scared if you knew how dangerous my job was you’d be afraid to . . . I’m so damn sorry, Addy. There’s so much I need to tell you and—”
“Stop,” she begged. “If you want to tell me the truth, you’re going to have to do it when you’re sober. I won’t let you do this now. You kept a secret from me for a reason.” She palmed his cheek. “No liquid courage, okay?” It had to be that way.
“I need to get back to Jessica, but maybe I can close my eyes for a second.” He started to shift to his back when he paused. “Damn those PJs of yours,” he murmured before passing out.
The man had been running with barely any sleep since Tuesday. It was no wonder he was out of it right now. Probably more tired than drunk. But, of course, he’d noticed her yellow cami and matching shorts.
She shifted him all the way onto the bed then searched his pants pockets for his room key.
After covering him, she changed and left the room for Jessica’s suite.
“Is Knox with you?” Jessica asked the second she saw Adriana on the other side of the door. “I was in the bathroom changing, and when I came out, he was gone. I’ve been calling his phone, but it’s off. Tried his burner—no answer.”
“He’s asleep on my bed. I wasn’t sure if you knew where he was, so I thought I’d stop by.”
Jessica’s shoulders slumped with relief. “Thank you.” She motioned her inside. “Is he okay?”
“He’s been drinking. I don’t even know where he got the bottle at this time of night, but he’s finally sleeping, and I don’t think he’s slept since the shooting, so . . .”
“Thank you. I’m glad we came here.” She sat at the desk, a similar setup to the hotel back in Charlotte. “I knew he’d feel better if we were near you. He’s not used to being pulled from, um, cases.”
“He’s thinking about Marcus, too.” She sat on the couch and kept her gaze steady on Jessica, noticing the slight twitch to Jessica’s lips at the mention of the name. “He’s worried about Roman.”
Jessica pulled her focus from the screen to Adriana at her words but didn’t speak.
“He didn’t tell me anything, don’t worry.”
Jessica fidgeted with the knot of her ponytail as if not sure what to say.
“He’s sad. It’s been a hell of a week. Maybe you should be asleep, too?”
“I slept in the car on the way here, and right now, I’m monitoring Roman’s live camera feeds. Harper will take over soon when she wakes up.”
“When do the guys meet up with the rest of the team?” Knox had filled her in on everything that’d gone down with Aaron before Luke and the others had flown to Texas. Only, Knox had left out the part about him heading to Atlanta.
“They picked up their gear at our location in Fort Worth around one, so they still have some driving ahead of them.” Jessica brought her face closer to the screen and grabbed her glasses. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Roman?” Adriana stood and rounded the desk to view Jessica’s laptop.
“I’m gonna kill him myself! He left his room, damn it.” She reached for her phone and called someone. “It’s me. Sorry to wake you, but Roman’s on the move. He may be making a run for it.”
“I don’t think so.” Adriana directed Jessica’s focus to the screen. “He’s hovering near that building.”
“Get the guys ready in case things get hot, and Roman needs an extract.” She was probably talking to Harper, but could four Navy SEALs go up against an entire armed militia and without it turning into a bloody mess?
“Should I get Knox?” Adriana asked her once Jessica ended the call.
“No, not unless things turn ugly. There’s nothing he can do right now, anyway, and he’ll lose his mind watching this.” She dialed someone else next.
“Do you hear that?” Adriana crouched and pressed her ear closer to the computer. “Can you isolate the background noise? I think he’s listening to someone talk, but it’s pretty faint.”
“Hang on, Luke.” Jessica set her phone down, placed it on speaker, and began playing around with the sound.
“You getting this?” Roman’s voice came through the screen. “Moving in to see who’s talking.”
“Roman,” Jessica hissed as if he could hear her.
Could he hear her? What the hell kind of technology were they using? “He’s looking through a window now.” Adriana pointed. “Looks like a woman inside. Can we freeze the frame and get an ID?”
“What’s happening?” Luke asked, alarm in his tone. “Tell me something.”
“Roman’s got eyes on someone talking,” Adriana answered while Jessica worked at making the image clearer since they were looking through a window with partially open blinds.
Maybe she should get Knox? He’d be pissed to be kept out of this, but he’d also be useless to them without sleep.
“I have a visual. I recognize her. It’s Darius’s wife, Nina, on the phone,” Jessica said after a moment. “I’m still working on making out the conversation.”
“Roman’s leaving now,” Adriana said, her heart pounding wildly. “Looks like he’s heading back to his cabin.” Now he needed to get there without getting caught. Her hands fisted at her sides as she waited. “He made it!” She briefly hung her head.
“Thank God,” Luke rasped over the line.
“I’m about to play back what I strung together from the recording. It’s gonna be fragmented, but here we go.” Jessica pressed play.
“Ike won’t turn. I trust him,” Nina said. “That wasn’t the . . .” She paused. “If you change the . . . I can . . . you still want Bennett dead, right?” Another long pause. “Terms have changed. You forget that I came to . . . I . . . who you are.”
Shit.
“Keep your hush money,” Nina replied to the caller a few seconds later. “This was never about . . . and if you think I don’t . . .” Quiet filled the line after that.
“That’s all I got,” Jessica said. “I’ll keep playing around with it to see if I can get more.”
“I don’t know what the hell to think,” Luke replied. “Sounds to me like Darius’s wife is the one in charge, not Darius.”
Adriana replayed Nina’s words in her head. “What the hell was she talking about?”
“Sounds like someone tried to buy her silence,” Luke said. “And maybe he convinced her to kill Knox’s dad.”
“Yeah, well, lucky for us, the plan failed.” Jessica stood. “And we’re for damn sure gonna keep it like that.”