Chapter 21 JACQUES
I grabbed the comms from the faraday bag.
There was an instant connection. Runa screamed at me.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Her shrill voice was somewhat welcome.
I’d been convinced the comms was tracked—it didn’t take much convincing actually, I sort of already knew.
“I’ve been checking this line daily. I’ve had news. And I don’t have to keep this secret.”
“Donovan is here,” I said.
I sat on the edge of the bed, the only quiet space in the entire place.
I didn’t know what to call it—an apartment?
Surely it was more of an underground cave.
Donovan was in the kitchen with Artemis and Ezra, discussing his case.
I had to get confirmation of information from another source, a more trusted one. Runa.
“And what’s he said?” she asked.
“You tell me.”
She scoffed. “You know, when I see you next, I’m going to hit you so hard.”
“He told me Mercy dropped Nexovex as a client.”
“Not just them, Victor Pemberton too.” I didn’t think she could hide her excitement even if she tried. “He brought in a lot of business for the agency. She’s also been out of the office for weeks. I have no idea what she’s doing, or where she’s gone, but there’s a lot of rumors.”
“I’m not one to gossip, Runa,” I said with a smirk, unable to stop itself forming on my face. “But Donovan didn’t mention that. Apparently, he got an in person visit from her, wherever he was staying.”
“I’m not surprised she brought him out of that one year retirement,” she said. “But what I am surprised by is that she sent him after you. I’ve been trying to keep up with the news. They’re not doing you any favors.”
“At least Ezra’s name is out of the papers,” I said. “That’s all that really matters right now.” Runa was sighing as if she knew something “Go on, tell me.”
“I don’t see this ending well. I’ve never known you to be close to anyone. Part of me is wondering if this is all going to end badly.”
“I don’t want to hear that, but I’m glad you feel free enough to express your opinion.
” That Sanctum therapy had been doing wonders for my anger, but this was coming from Runa, and her lack of optimism on the situation had angered me.
“I love Ezra. I’ll do anything to make sure he’s safe.
And if you want to help, you should, but if you can’t, then I’m not going to keep you any longer. ”
“I’ll help you, obviously. I’m just wondering if this is going to be a situation that you can both come out of,” she said. “The news says you kidnapped him, and everyone is going to hate you for it. The world isn’t safe right now for you, Reaper. The people are coming for your blood.”
The smirk stayed on my face. This wasn’t the first time I’d been told that.
It probably wouldn’t be the last either.
“They’ve got an old mugshot, and nobody is going to come close to me.
They keep frightening people with the number of people I’ve killed, and calling me the Reaper.
It’s just overplayed, acting like I’m the boogeyman. ”
“For what it’s worth, we know you’re not, but the media is powerful, and to say Ezra won’t turn on you when he realizes how many people hate you is a huge unknown,” she said.
This must’ve been everything she’d had on her mind for a while, because what had happened to the supportive person she was when she gave me directions and helped me?
“I’m not being mean on purpose, there’s just so much we don’t know about him. ”
“You’ve been looking into him?” I asked.
Ezra came into the room, as if he’d been listening from the door. He shook his head at me.
“Only child, went to Whitespire, so he’s well educated. He probably knows the billionaires. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was in on it. I’m trying to do my due diligence since Mercy let the Pemberton family go. If this was all him and not them, she deserves to know.”
“Speaking of the media, you might’ve been the one brainwashed,” I said, pulling the comms from my ear. A fizzle settled across my skin. I couldn’t trust anyone now.
“What’s going on?” Ezra asked.
* * *
The small underground apartment was cramped.
The bedroom was ours, but Donovan and Artemis had taken up all of the living room space.
It was even more cramped when the Bianchi brothers came over, which was often followed up with alcohol, and laughing about how they’d each met their partners—Ezra had been right, Kalen had worked for the FBI.
As we got closer to the hearing, there was electricity in the air.
We’d made grand plans, acting like we were transporting the president themselves.
We needed to think like that, to be on our A game.
It was the four of us—or three, since I wasn’t arming Ezra—as we went against the world.
I’d organized several large black SUVs to drive from Boston to New York City.
The plan was to spread out in them. I’d stick with Ezra, and Donovan and Artemis would take individual cars.
We’d all be connected through close-range two-way radios.
Ezra had a suit, it wasn’t anything fancy.
He didn’t feel too comfortable dressing up for it.
He had wanted to just wear sweats, because that’s what we’d become used to together.
I was in all black, alongside Donovan and Artemis.
We were really doing our best to look like secret service—and we were a little bit out of practice.
It was a four-hour drive using the I-90 westbound. There was a lot of time for shit to go down, but we were prepared for everything. Five black SUVs almost all in a line, dodging and weaving between cars, each one acting like they had Ezra on board and wanted to get to the courthouse.
In the back seat of the undisclosed SUV, Ezra laid his head on my lap, breathing heavily, in through the nose, out through the mouth. I stroked my fingers through his hair, reassuring him everything was going to be okay.
“Keep asking me questions,” he said, pulling Mr. Thimble out from against his chest. “I need to keep my mind prepared.”
I grabbed the manila folder tucked behind him on the seat. There were a lot of questions. We’d gone over many of them before, but there was no assurances he would be asked any of them. “Who did you report the crime to?”
“I went to the New York State Inspector General’s office in—” He let out a whimper. “Albany.”
“How long after discovering the information did it take you to visit them?”
Another big inhale. “I had to collect evidence first.”
“So, it wasn’t immediately?” I said, and it pained me to give him harsh rebuttals. “There was time between when you found out and when you reported the findings?”
“I had to make sure the evidence wasn’t going to be destroyed,” he grumbled, squeezing Mr. Thimble harder.
“And how did you do that?”
His jaw clenched, tickling me as he continued to lay his head on my lap. “I discovered that every file was uploaded to the company server. Since my job allowed me access to the R&D data banks, I could see the information that was buried or taken out and destroyed from the paper files.”
“And how did you know to look for it?” I asked.
Ezra turned his head to look at me. He was crinkling up his suit.
“When we received complaints about a product, it triggered an investigation, and that investigation was my department. My job was to analyze risks, prepare reports, and recommend ways forward to correct the risks. Since—” He blinked and I could see tears in his eyes.
“Since I discovered that Nexovex buried information about products on the market, I couldn’t go to anyone in the company.
I didn’t know who to trust. And—and someone came to my house, someone I thought was a friend, they tried to kill me. ”
I shook my head. “It was perfect, up until that point. You can’t tell people that. There was no police report. It was cleaned away.”
“Then how else can I tell them people were trying to kill me?” he asked.
Since I’d never been in a court room or questioned about that stuff, I really didn’t know. I’d been before a jury of people before, but not for something this serious. We continued the rest of the drive talking through some more of the questions.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” he asked, now seated and slumped against my shoulder, his head resting on me.
“I’m not sure, kitten. We’ll ask your team when we get there.”
His team were meeting us at the courthouse.
We were set to arrive in the back, and I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the car.
I knew the moment I did, I would be arrested.
Victor Pemberton and his team had been paying for the ads that pushed my face and the narrative that I was a highly wanted criminal—and they weren’t far wrong.
Ezra knew what I’d done, the lives I’d taken, and he was okay with it.
That was all that mattered, and all I cared about.
As we got closer, the static of the radio crackled. “We’re all clear,” Donovan said.
“No signs of anyone. But there are an awful lot of officers around.”
“What does that mean?” Ezra whispered, wrapping his entire body almost around my arm. “I don’t wanna go. Please, I want to stay with you. Please.”
I also didn’t want to leave him. The idea that anything could happen in that court room . . . I didn’t want to leave him for even a second. I grabbed the radio. “Can someone prepare an officer’s uniform for me? My size. Large.”
Runa came through. “I’ll have it couriered over. And I’ve still got your back.” She’d organized a lot of this from Sanctum, but it pained me to know she wasn’t in full belief of this relationship—or of my ability to have a meaningful relationship that wasn’t going to end in pain and agony.
Ezra clenched around me tighter. “You’re gonna come with me?”
I looked around the inside of the car. The driver was one of Sanctum’s workers, dressed in their signature pale blue shirt—almost blending right in, and always so quiet.
Sometimes eerily. There was space in here where I could change, and hopefully manage to be outside where I could be with Ezra when I was needed the most. “I’m gonna try,” I told him.
“No, I will.” It had been months since I’d been really out in the field, and it was strange now, considering this was a job.
I was strapped with a gun, and the target was Victor Pemberton—but I wasn’t going to kill him, he deserved to rot.
* * *
There were reporters everywhere, waiting at each of the SUVs, trying to see who was inside.
The big case going on in the courthouse hadn’t been kept secret.
It seemed in my lack of wanting to watch the news, or even acknowledge the world outside, I’d managed to overlook how people would react, and they were animals.
Ruthless, trying their hardest to get exclusive photos, names, anything they could get their hands on.
Our car evaded most of it by going in a different direction.
We stopped at a traffic signal, and someone approached the driver’s side.
It was the person delivering the clothes I’d asked for.
Ezra’s heart was practically in his mouth.
He was taking deep breaths, each one of them louder than the last.
“This is all going to be okay,” I told him. I could be sure of that now.
The second time we stopped, I was switching shirts and placing the police officer epaulettes in place, hoping nobody would see that I was a higher rank than I’d potentially dressed for.
But that second stop was when Ezra’s legal team and the eye-rolling Riley climbed in—they were still helping me get over my bad PR.
“I don’t want to see you,” they said.
Lena and Dillon were the lawyers. Between the three of them, they had the legal knowledge and expertise to help, and since we were finally meeting, they had a lot to exchange now in person rather than through letters or calls. I could already feel Ezra’s relief.
“I do not approve of whatever it is you’re doing,” Riley said.
Lena didn’t even glance at me, hiding her eyes with her hand. “If I’m pulled before a jury to testify to this, I can’t say what I’m seeing.”
Dillon laughed. “Good idea.”
They were on the seats while I was kneeling on the open floor, buttoning up the shirt and checking myself in the rear-view mirror to make sure I had everything on.
The SUV was somewhat like a limo in the sense it had a row of seating along the back and an open space in the center where a pull-out table or mini-bar could be.
“There’s someone waiting inside when we get there,” Lena said.
“Who?” I asked, but nobody except Riley would look at me, and they were just grinning like a fool.
“This might actually work,” they said. “Where did you get this from? Can I touch it?”
“Sure,” I said. “And you have your resources, and so do I.”
They rubbed at the shirt material between their finger and thumb then laughed. “Damn, this is high quality shit.”
“Riley, show Ezra your breathing technique again so he can get through his time on the stand,” Dillon said.
Lena continued to shield her eyes as she faced my direction. “I thought you had friends with you. The people inside are wanting your friends as well.”
That didn’t sound suspicious at all. I looked Lena over in her blue power suit. “I’ll radio them.”
“Good,” she said. “The people in there have offered to bankroll this entire thing.”
My gut reaction didn’t like that at all. “Mhm.” I picked the radio up and called for Artemis and Donovan’s attention. “You know any rich fools who’d try bankrolling this operation?”
Their shared laughter came through in tinny echoes.
“Maya Chen,” Donovan said, and that name had all their ears pricked.
“There’s someone else in there too,” Lena said.
The radio nearly combusted as they both came through again at the same time. “Her benefactor.”
“Who?” I turned to them as they only partially turned to me.
“Nina Ashford-Furst,” Dillon said.
Artemis came through alone this time, a screech almost. “Ashford!”