Chapter 9
“Do you want to play Would You Rather?” Theo asked.
I turned my attention from trying to catch a glimpse of Washington D.C. from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to Theo driving.
God, he was handsome. With a few days’ worth of stubble on his jaw he was outright gorgeous. My gaze dropped to his right arm resting on the center console down to his hand then to his fingers and my mind cast back to this morning.
Long, thick, beautiful fingers …
“Bridget?”
“Huh?”
“Would You Rather. The game. You give two options and you have to pick which option you’d rather do.”
Oh.
Right.
The game.
We were thirty minutes into our drive, two and a half hours to go.
A game wouldn’t hurt and it would help keep my mind from spiraling out of control thinking about everything Garrett had said.
I still couldn’t believe Mark was blackmailing someone.
No, actually, I could believe it. What I couldn’t believe was that no one else had found that information.
As Garrett had pointed out, Mark thought he was the smartest person in the room, which made him careless.
“Do you think the government knew Mark was blackmailing Kathy Cobbs and that’s why they offered me witness protection?”
“What?”
“Mark’s in prison and he’ll be there a long time. I testified for the government so they’re not after me. Do you think they knew he was blackmailing that woman and that’s why they’re hiding me?”
There was a moment of silence before Theo glanced over at me before he looked back to the road and said, “I never asked, but did they explain the case in its entirety to you?”
I wasn’t sure if I was offended that Theo thought I’d agree to go into witness protection without fully understanding the reasons.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Right, so they explained that the evidence you got for the FBI, which was really the CIA asking the feds to run the case since the deed was being done on US soil—but make no mistake it was the CIA who was behind the whole thing—”
“How do you know that?”
“Trust me, I’m right,” he bit out.
I did trust Theo, but I still wanted to know why his tone went funny when he mentioned the CIA.
“I take it you’re not a fan of the CIA?” I hesitated to ask.
“You could say that.”
I waited for him to say more but he didn’t. And I wasn’t sure pressing the topic while on a road trip was exactly smart so I let it go and told him, “They explained the evidence I gathered was enough for them to get an arrest warrant and my testimony would put Mark in prison and stop the project.”
“And they explained fully that Mark Shillings had investors—some of those investors are not on the up-and-up. They weren’t pleased when Raven collapsed and they’re the type of men who wouldn’t place blame on the man who actually fucked up—though I’d guess Mark won’t be living out his sentence.
They’ll find a way to take him out in prison. ”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “What does ‘not on the up-and-up’ mean?”
“Are you fucking shitting me?” Theo scarily whispered. “Two of Mark’s investors have ties to the mob.”
Wait.
What?
“Are you…” I started then stopped because I didn’t know what to say. “Do you think that’s who’s after me?”
“No. I think Garrett’s on the right track. This has to do with Kathy Cobbs.”
“Are you sure?” I wheezed, finding it hard to breathe.
I had not been told that Mark had ties to the mob.
“It fucks me to have to explain this to you but if an enforcer from the mob found you they wouldn’t have asked what you saw. They would’ve quietly killed you and walked away. Now, someone working for Kathy would want to know what you saw in an effort to ascertain if there was another risk.”
Okay, that made sense but I still didn’t feel any better seeing as I’d just learned that I was offered WITSEC to keep me safe from the freaking mob and not Mark Shillings wanting retribution.
How stupid was I?
“Bridget?” Theo gently called. “They played you. That’s what the CIA does.
They use innocent men and women to get what they need and keep them in the dark while doing it.
On some level that’s necessary for operational security.
But in your case, they flat-out lied so you’d do their bidding, not caring you didn’t fully understand what you were getting yourself into.
Mark poses no real danger to you. It’s the men who funded his startup that are dangerous.
It’s Amani Carver who is dangerous. There’s a risk they’d want to find the person who shut down the operation.
Amani thought he was getting the latest and greatest in new micro-drone technology to assist in his crusade to pillage and conquer and it’s the investors who thought they were coming into a windfall. ”
Great.
A warlord and mobsters.
I wasn’t sure who was scarier.
“I think I want to play Would You Rather now,” I told him and looked out the side window.
“You didn’t—”
“Ask the right questions,” I interrupted.
“Ask for an attorney to represent my interests. No, I didn’t do either of those things.
I was told about the nerve gas and why Mark was so hellbent on getting the proper balance for the battery life to carry a payload and they had me.
They told me about the untold deaths that would occur if Mark finalized Sparrow so I jumped at the chance to stop him.
And they had pictures of what nerve gas does to humans and animals before it kills them.
” I rushed out the last part, not wanting to remember the horrific images of flesh peeling off of children.
“Of course they did,” he seethed. “They weren’t fucking around. You were their only hope. The project was almost complete and they needed an insider who was already trusted. Sending someone in undercover would’ve taken months and they didn’t have that kind of time.”
Theo was right about that. Mark was getting close to solving his battery life problem. The Sparrow’s flight times with a payload were getting better and better with each new prototype he engineered.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“I’ll drop the subject if you tell me you believe me.”
“I believe you.”
I heard Theo sigh and kept staring out the window, seeing nothing but boring office buildings. If D.C. proper could be seen from the Capital Beltway, I’d missed my chance.
“I didn’t get to tell you what I want you to believe.”
“Whatever you want me to believe, I believe. Unless you want to explain to me why you seem to hate the CIA, I think we should play the game.”
There was no hesitation when he told me, “I worked for the CIA before I died. I know what kind of assholes they are because I used to be one of them.”
The way Theo rapped out the words startled a laugh from me. I wasn’t sure if it was the absurdity of the ‘before I died’ statement or if it was the way he said it that made it sound like a throwaway comment—widely used, thus normal—when it absolutely wasn’t.
When I got myself under control I looked over and asked, “How’d you die?”
“Plane crash. You?”
Yeah, this had to be the craziest conversation I’d ever had in my life.
“You don’t know?”
I watched as he shook his head. “I didn’t read the report.”
“Why not?”
Since I was staring at Theo I saw him clench his jaw several times before he relaxed and answered.
“Because I didn’t want to know the lie. I wanted to keep the memory of you real and untarnished.”
His words flowed over me, heating me from the inside out, making my stomach feel funny as my heart thumped in my chest.
“What?” I breathed.
I’d heard him—oh, boy, had I. But I needed verification he’d meant what I thought he did. A man didn’t want to keep the memory of a woman real unless he cared about that woman, right?
“I knew they were taking you away from me and in doing so taking your life. I didn’t want any part in that even if it was for your protection.”
Taking you away from me.
Oh, yeah, he meant what I thought he meant.
“I died in a car accident,” I told him. “As you know, all my family’s gone. So my emergency contact was my friend Brit. She was the one notified. Obviously I don’t know anything beyond that except all of my stuff was disposed of.”
“Brit, the one you went to Lamaze classes with?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Did you get to meet the baby?”
That was sweet.
“Yeah. They had a boy, named him Oscar. Don’t laugh; it’s a family name and she’s sworn to stab the first person who calls him Oscar the Grouch.”
“Right.”
Theo didn’t laugh but he smiled.
“He’d be one now going on two now.”
Then since he was being forthcoming, or maybe because I no longer wanted to think about Brit, Jon, and Oscar and that I’d missed out and would continue to miss out—not to mention the guilt I felt for lying to my friend—I asked, “Will you tell me about your brother?”
Nothing.
No reaction at all, not even the tightening of his jaw. It was like he hadn’t heard me but I knew he had.
“Maybe later,” I mumbled and looked back out the window.
Minutes passed while I watched brake lights in front of us before he finally spoke.
“We were close,” he started and I gave him my attention.
“Brothers. Not half-brothers, not siblings, close like best friends even though I was five years older than him. There had never been a time we weren’t together.
Bronson’s funny, and not in a way where he was trying to impress a bunch of older guys, like doing stupid shit for attention, he’s just funny.
So none of my friends cared when he tagged along.
He’s the only one I told when I applied to work at the CIA. ”
There was another pause. This one wasn’t as long but the silence that lingered felt painful.