25. Michael
I consider saying something to Logan about our situation but decide against it. Now isn’t the time to interrupt his focus, and, judging by his rigid demeanor, he won’t be willing to entertain a conversation.
“They should be in here.” Logan looks at the tracker, then points at a building twenty feet in front of us. I know he’s concerned for our team, but there is an air of disappointment in his tone.
Logan has been looking for Piper ever since she shot the senator right in front of us while we all sat around, helpless to lift a finger thanks to the drugs she slipped into our coffee.
This whole situation has to have knocked him down.
The brittle door swings open without putting up a fight, and two heads turn to face us, eyes wide.
They’re alive.
Moving quickly to their sides, we work to release Grey and Eagle so we can get back to our group before the cops show up. I know Logan has a new sense of urgency in getting us out of here, and any involvement by local law enforcement is only going to slow us down.
“Dana?” Grey doesn’t voice the rest of his question. He looks as though he’s deciding if he really wants to know the answer.
They must have heard the gunshot from here.
“She’s alive. Matteo’s dead.” Logan speaks without taking his attention off of their ropes. Grey and Eagle exchange a glance. “We need to get going. We’ll update you on the drive back.”
Eagle looks in my direction, his eyebrows raised. He’s known Logan long enough to sense something isn’t right with his tone. Pinching my lips together, I shake my head, silently telling him to let it go as I release his arms and he leans forward to work on the ties at his ankles.
“There’s a body in the corner.” Eagle lifts his chin to the left, and I turn. Two combat boots stick out from underneath a heavy tarp.
I leave Logan to finish untying Grey as Eagle joins me. The sound of flies buzzing gets louder as soon as he lifts the tarp. The stench of urine is strong, but the smell of death hasn’t fully taken hold, so I’d say he hasn’t been dead longer than a day.
“We need to get a picture for Link to ID.” I instinctively reach for my phone, then add, “Piper said they left our things in the cars.”
Logan shakes his head in frustration at the mention of her name, and Eagle glares at me with wide eyes, silently asking. I roll my eyes and nod once, confirming that I’m talking about that Piper.
I take a long look around the room. Now that the immediate threat is gone, I am more aware of myself. My muscles ache, and a headache is setting in at the base of my skull.
My last recollection before waking up in this place is lying in a field, and I don’t remember how I got here. I still have no idea where here is, nor do I care to ask Logan. His mind is elsewhere.
There is a lot about the last few hours that we’ll all need to process. The look of suspicion on Dana’s face when she realized I must have known Jessa was alive all of this time eats me up inside. My guilt feels oddly balanced out by the growing disappointment I feel toward her for keeping Zane’s files a secret. If only she’d have come clean, we would have done so many things differently. But, then again, we most likely wouldn’t have gotten this far.
Matteo Sparr is dead. We have Dana and Jessa, as well as Zane’s base program, in our possession. Most importantly: we are all walking out of this alive.
“Grizz.” Logan tosses the phone Piper left us onto the floor. “Time to go.”
As we exit, I take my first deep breath since this afternoon. The cool air energizes my lungs as I follow the three of them toward Jack and the women.
When Logan and I ran out of the room to find Grey and Eagle, I never fully took in our surroundings. This place is a lot larger from the outside than I thought it would be, and I wonder what other secrets lie buried within its run-down walls.
Our vehicles come into view along the side of the building, where Piper said they would be, and I find Jack on his stomach beside one of them.
Logan heads into the building we were all held in, followed by Grey and Eagle.
Breaking away from the guys, I walk over to a third vehicle parked by the trees. Two men sit slumped forward in the front seat. The man closest to me has a gunshot wound to his temple, and blood covers the left side of his body. I can’t imagine Matteo would have been stupid enough to come out here on his own, so these must have been his men.
I join Jack at our SUV as he stands up, brushing the dirt off his jacket.
“That one is cleared. They left all of our belongings and our phones in the front seat.” He tilts his head at the other car before continuing, “I have the engine on this one to go. Pop the hood for me?”
I nod, opening the driver’s door and pulling the lever before joining Jack at the front of the vehicle.
Kaley is wrapped up tight in a blanket and propped up against the side of the building. Jessa and Dana huddle together close by under another blanket. They are distracted by each other. Their conversation is low, but it sounds lively.
“How are they?” I catch Jack’s attention, and he steals a glance over his shoulder. “They’re okay. They need to talk.” He reaches around the engine as his voice lowers. “What about Logan?”
“I don’t know, man. There’s a lot for him to deal with.” The wariness in my voice is evident.
Jack nods solemnly at my answer.
“We have a dead body out back. Wrapped in a tarp.”
Jack pauses, then glances at me. “What are you thinking?”
“I think it’s the fourth hitman. Piper said they took care of the last shooter. One gunshot to the head.”
He sits with my answer for a moment before he nods. “Most likely. We should confirm.”
The door opens, and Logan exits the building looking a little more disheveled than before. Jack straightens at my side. He notices the change in his demeanor too.
We watch him pace a few steps away from our group. He runs his hand through his hair before spinning on his heels and making a beeline for the women.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Raising his voice, he squares his attention on the two huddled together, startling them.
Jack rushes over. “Back off, Logan.” He gets in front of Jessa and Dana before Logan reaches them.
“Or what?” he asks Jack before narrowing his attention on Jessa once more. “We gave you a chance, Jessa. I trusted you, and you just let her leave. You have no idea what you’ve done!” Logan yells around Jack. He looks as though he’s about to treat both Jessa and Dana as hostiles. My neck muscles tense at the thought.
Jessa rises to her feet, returning Logan’s ire. “I didn’t just let her leave, Logan. We had an agreement. Besides, if I had tried to untie you, she could have shot me. And if you went after her, she most definitely would have shot you.”
Jack looks like he’s at his limit, so I join him, placing more distance between Logan and the target of his anger.
“You don’t know what she’s done. She’s a murderer; you let a known killer walk away.” Waving his hands, he motions as though Piper disappeared into thin air.
“I know more than you do,” Jessa fires back from over Jack’s shoulder.
“That—” Logan stabs his finger into the air to indicate the helicopter. “She?—”
He’s conflicted. Throwing his arms into the air once more, he asks, “Why does everyone around here assume they know more than I do?”
Logan losing his shit all the way out here is helping no one, and Jack knows it.
He turns his back on Logan to face Jessa.
“Listen, the cars are clear, and it’s getting cold. Jessa, Dana, help Kaley get in, and we’ll join you in a minute.” He points toward the vehicle he just finished clearing.
Jessa looks as though she wants to plead her case some more, but something unspoken passes between them, and her shoulders deflate with a sigh before she tugs on the blanket and leads Dana to the SUV.
Running his hand through his hair, Jack takes a deep breath before turning back to address Logan. “They aren’t our enemies.” He motions to the car, lowering his voice in an attempt to diffuse Logan before he really does detonate out here.
“They’re acting like they are.” Logan sounds like he’s running out of steam, and he paces a couple steps to each side, shaking the anger out of his arms.
“They have no idea about what happened between you and Piper. Remember that, Logan.” Jack leans into Logan’s sight line to get his attention and reason with him.
Logan’s rage simmers as he considers Jack’s words. His eyes flash to the ladies in the car, then back to us, and only Jack and I hold our own under Logan’s glare. Grey and Eagle turn away to grab their gear and start packing up, and they rush to claim the car the girls aren’t sitting in. No doubt they don’t want to be anywhere near the target of Logan’s rage at the moment.
“I’m riding back in that car.” Logan points at the empty vehicle and speaks loud enough to catch the team’s attention. Grey and Eagle stop instantly, exchanging a glance with each other.
I stifle a chuckle. He’s pointing at the car they were headed toward. It’s obvious both men are trying to decide which vehicle is the lesser of two evils now.
The distant sound of sirens carry on the air.
“Let’s deal with the cops first.” Jack pulls out his phone to check the screen. “Remember, we’re out here with no service. We have no way of backing up our clearance, so don’t be dicks.”
I cross my arms and add in a cautious tone, “Logan. We should talk to Jessa and Dana on the way back. Give them more information. They should know why you’re angry. Treating them like our enemy didn’t work last year, and it won’t work now.”
“I’m not on board with giving them anything they can use against us.” Logan is still focused on his hurt, and I’m losing patience.
Grabbing fistfuls of jacket at Logan’s chest, I step him backward, and Jack follows us away from the vehicles until there is enough distance that the women can’t hear us. “That’s enough, Logan. Are you listening to yourself? Those two”—I point behind me to the car Dana and Jessa are in—“have sacrificed more than any of us to take down Matteo and Maxwell. Or have you forgotten the video we all saw? The one where Maxwell raped and tortured Jessa, and that was before he killed her then reluctantly brought her back to life. Jessa died a second time last year trying to end everything, and it was her, Logan—not us, her—who ended Matteo’s life in there to save all of our asses today.” Logan glances over our shoulders to the occupied vehicle. But I’m not done. “And it was Dana who risked her life and fought off a trained hitman while Jack and I were out cold, and she stuck around when she could have run. After everything we’ve done to them, after all of our secrets, they are still trying. They are fucking trying to be a part our team, and you may not want to admit it, but we need them. I mean, they’ve done all of this without our help. Can you imagine what they could get done with our support for once?”
Logan turns his head to the side, weighing my words. Today caught him off guard. After years of searching for answers, Logan had settled into a comfortable void. I know this look; Jack had it last year when Jessa showed up alive after a decade. All of the missing pieces from Logan’s past are starting to bubble up to the surface, and with them comes the raw pain all over again.
“It should have been me,” he mutters, so quietly that Jack misses it.
“What?”
“I needed it to be me who put a bullet in his head.”
Oh shit. While I’m sure he’s upset that Piper has gotten away from him once again, his anger isn’t about that.
“Logan.” His pained eyes meet mine as I lower my voice. “It should have been all of us. He had Jessa’s family killed. He had my father murdered. We are just the tip of the iceberg, and it’s time to let it sink. We need to move past this and come together.”
Logan stays still; he doesn’t fight against my grip. Only his eyes move, taking in the scenery around us as he processes my words. He knows I’m right; he has to. There have been secrets kept on both sides, but it was never to deceive. I’ve come to know Dana better, and her first instinct is to do what she feels is right. Her loyalty is to Jessa first, then to the other people she cares about. There is no doubt in my mind she kept the files from us to keep us safe.
Logan’s deep breath catches my attention.
“I won’t discuss it.” Logan refuses to look either of us in the eye. If you didn’t know him, his answer would sound final. He isn’t one to beat around the bush though. If his answer were no, he would have flat out said it.
Logan isn’t ready to unpack his mental shit. Like Jack and I, he had his own ax to grind with the Sparrs.
He’s giving us the go-ahead to disclose his personal information, but he’s telling us he doesn’t want any part of the conversation for now.
“Understood.” Jack nods once, and I let go of Logan’s person. He straightens his jacket, then leaves us, walking toward the other vehicle.
“I’m getting my phone. I’ll grab a pic of the dead guy.”
We let him go.
He’ll be preoccupied with his demons for a while.
The wail of the siren drifts in and out, making me think the road to this place is filled with twists and turns.
Jack waves to Eagle, who is waiting by his vehicle, and calls him over.
“Yeah, boss.”
“Take Grey, grab a tarp, and secure Matteo’s body. We’ll deal with the cops. Just have him wrapped and ready to go. We’ll drop one side of the back seat and put Matteo’s body with you two and Logan. We’re taking him with us as proof of death.”
Eagle nods before returning to his vehicle. He opens the back of the truck, moves some equipment around, then grabs a tarp and blanket with some ties.
Walking back to the building, he nods at Grey, who turns to follow him without a word.
I take a long look at the vehicle the women are in, then hang my head with a deep sigh.
“Why does it feel like we lost?” I speak low to Jack as he joins me.
We turn our attention to the vehicle the women are in, watching it in silence for a moment.
“Because we did.”
This should have been a group effort. We are on the same side, but we’re not acting like it. No one is, but all of that needs to change, and it starts with me.
“We need to talk to those two.”