30. Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Ashley
S mith and I sit in the living room with me on the couch and him on the coffee table in front of me. “I’m terrified for you with this man, Ashley,” he says. “I need you to listen to me, really listen to me.”
“He left so you could trash talk him. You know that, right? He hates himself. He thinks I should hate him.”
“And you should. You don’t know who he is.”
“Noah. Aaron. The names don’t matter. The man does.”
“You’re right, but his reason for changing names matters,” he argues.
“Yes,” I bite out. “It does. Do you know how he came to be in the CIA?”
“I know how he pissed off Mick.”
“ Do you know how he came to be in the CIA ?” I ask again.
“What story did he tell you, Ashley?”
I grimace. “It’s not a story. It’s the truth. He was an attorney, a public prosecutor. He went after a kingpin in a cartel at all costs and won. Except, he was in danger and the CIA recruited him.”
Now Smith grimaces. “He was a damn assassin for the CIA.”
“I know who he was, who he is. He still is that man. I know he’s killed. I know he can kill. I know.”
“He killed Mick’s wife and two kids.”
“He didn’t know the wife and kids would be there.”
“You believe that shit?” he challenges.
“I do, Smith, and if you gave him a chance, if you got to know him, you would, too.”
“Ashley—”
“You left me in a hellish life alone. Why do you even care, Smith?”
He sucks in a breath and stands up, walking around the coffee table to stand at the fireplace, his back to me, his shoulders tense. “Ashley—”
“It’s okay,” I say, standing up as he turns to face me. “We were friends, not lovers. We weren’t in love, Smith. I couldn’t love anyone but him, and you knew it.”
“I should have changed that.” He steps to the opposite side of the table again. “I regret—”
“Don’t. I’m not the one for you, but I am your friend. Please be mine.”
“Damn it, that’s what I’m trying to be. A good friend and friends don’t always say what you want to hear.”
“Is there nothing in your military career, or even your career with Walker, that you regret?”
He cuts his stare, swallows hard before he looks at me again. “We aren’t talking about me.”
“Why? Why are you different than Aaron?”
“Aaron or Noah?”
“He can’t be Noah. It’s dangerous.”
“And yet he told you his name was Noah. Doesn’t that sound strange?”
“Look him up. Call your people. The Noah story is true.”
“He’s not even in the CIA database,” he snaps.
“Because they’re trying to kill him!” I argue. “Adam told us all that he was setup.”
“Mick is trying to kill him,” he says, ignoring my comments about Adam.
“Mick is in the CIA,” I remind him.
“Mick doesn’t control the higher-ups.”
“You know this how?” I challenge.
“I’ve seen a lot of dirty CIA agents.”
“You were military. You weren’t even CIA.”
“I was a lot of things you don’t know or understand.” He scrubs his jaw. “Want a beer? I damn sure need one.”
He was a lot of things I don’t know ? Smith doesn’t wait for my reply. He turns and walks away. I sit back down and start to replay those moments with Aaron before he left. He doesn’t want me near Smith and yet he called him. I don’t understand. What is this man, Aaron, not Smith, doing to me?
Smith returns and sits down next to me, offering me a cold beer. I take it from him. “What don’t I know?”
“Too much,” he says, slugging back his beer. “And that’s the problem.” He motions to my bottle. “Drink.”
I do. I’m confused and tired, and I just want Aaron to come back. “What if he doesn’t come back? What if that’s why he called you?” I ask, voicing my fears.
“Then he’s a better man than I expect him to be.”
I set my bottle down and turn on him. “Stop. Stop already. I love him. Either tell me why I shouldn’t or stop attacking him.”
He takes another long drink and then sets his beer down and faces me. “You’re being hunted because of him. He should have called me when he knew you were in danger, not come to hell to get you himself.”
“He didn’t trust you to protect me.”
“And yet, here I am, protecting you. And here we are with you living in hell because of him.”
“Obviously, you’ve never been in love, because hell was being without him.”
He inhales and stands up, downing his beer in several long swallows. “I need another.” He glances at me. “You need another yet?” He rounds the island and walks back to the kitchen.
Clearly, I hit a nerve with the love stuff. I pick up my bottle, and I can feel the biting sensation of fear inside me, and it’s not fear for me. It’s fear for Aaron. It’s fear he’ll never come back. I shouldn’t have let him leave. And what about Cole and Lori? What if Mick tries to use my old boss and his wife to get to me.
“Smith?!” I call out, twisting around as he exits the kitchen with another bottle in his hand. “Are we sure Cole and Lori are safe? Is someone watching them to be sure?” I stand up as he steps to the opposite side of the island again. “I have a bad feeling about this,” I add.
“We have a man watching them, but they don’t know it,” he says. “We don’t want to freak them out for nothing.”
His cellphone rings, and he grimaces, setting down his beer, snaking the phone from the front of his jeans, and answering the call immediately. He listens for two seconds and then points at me. “Get down. On your knees.”
I blink, confused, and he’s already around the table, pulling me to the ground with him. “Where?” he asks. “Fuck. Got it.” He disconnects.
“Someone is lurking outside the house, but Blake and Aaron lost visual. We need to stay down while they clear the house.”
My heart is now pounding, and I start to think about the bomb that blew up Mick’s house and killed his family. “Bomb. Aaron used a bomb to try to kill Mick. Could there be a bomb?”
He curses and grabs his phone. “Blake,” he says, and that’s when something blasts through the window, glass flying everywhere. A man in black is standing in front of us, and to my shock, Smith somehow has a gun in his hand and shoots him dead. There’s movement behind us, and we whirl around as another man in black points a gun at us.
There’s another gunshot and the second man in black collapses. Aaron stands there behind him, a gun in his hand. He just saved our lives, but more glass shatters in what feels like all directions and flames erupt everywhere.