Chapter 19 #2
“Yeah, I wasn’t in it,” he stated the obvious. “I was too busy being tortured by Ahmed al-Asiri’s men to make an appearance.”
“al-Asiri?” Natalia frowned, easily recalling the name of her last CIA target. “I don’t…” She cleared her throat when her voice cracked. “Julian, I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I.” Another humorless laugh shook a set of shoulders that appeared broader and more muscular than before.
Everything about him was bulkier now. His shoulders. Arms. Thighs.
But it wasn’t Julian’s impressive build or dangerous-looking scruff that caught Natalia off guard the most. Aside from the fact that this man had obviously fallen way off his rocker since she’d seen him last, Julian’s entire being had changed.
The man who’d always joked—and never, ever took anything serious—oozed a lethal confidence she didn’t recognize in the least. There was also an evil coldness present that wasn’t there before.
It sent a rush of chills down Natalia’s stiffened spine.
“What happened?” she demanded. “H-how did you make it out of there alive?”
A haunted look fell over the former CIA agent as he slowly paced the room.
“I got lucky.” Julian moved back and forth, holding his pistol steady in his hand.
“When I walked into that room and saw that bomb, I thought that was it.” He huffed out a breath.
“I suppose it was, in a way. After all, as far as the world is concerned, that was the day Julian Miller ceased to exist.” His stone-cold gaze turned her way.
“I lost myself because you and Keith chose to turn your backs on me and leave me there to rot.”
Leave him there to—
“You’re wrong!” Natalia shook her head with vigor, ignoring the throbbing headache that had returned. “We tried getting you out. Keith and I…w-we worked for hours trying to dig our way through the stone and other debris to find you. But we couldn’t—”
“Bullshit, you tried!” Spittle flew from his mouth as he yelled. “I was there, remember? I was the one trapped with hardly any air to breathe! I didn’t know how badly I’d been hurt. I thought I was going to die in that hellhole. So don’t tell me you tried!”
“We did try, Julian! You have to believe me. We did all everything we could! But those stones…” Flashes of haunting memories began filling her mind’s eye.
“They were all too big.” Another few tears fell with a blink.
“They were too heavy, and there weren’t any spaces between them that were big enough for me or anyone else to crawl through. ”
“And when exfil came, I suppose you told them to leave you there so you could keep working?”
She nodded. “As a matter of fact, I did. I fought to stay as hard as I could, Julian. I swear, I did. But then—”
“What, Natalia?” The angry man seethed. “Go ahead. Give me one good reason that will excuse you leaving Afghanistan without me.”
“They told me you were dead!” She shouted back. “The team they sent in…at first, they went through all the reasons you couldn’t have made it through an explosion like that alive. And they kept saying it until I—”
“Until you what?”
“Until I finally believed them.” She lifted her watery gaze to his, praying for the words to make him understand. “Two days after we got back to the States, we were told they’d found your remains.”
He grunted. “A nice cover story to keep the wrong people from asking the CIA too many questions.”
“We knew what we were signing up for that very first day at Langley,” she was quick to remind him. “As an agent within the Central Intelligence Agency, you and both understood and accepted that, should we die in the field, our families and friends would most likely never know the truth about how.”
There were many details about a CIA agent’s death that were never revealed to anyone on the outside. In this case, Natalia, Keith, and everyone else who was there that day had also apparently been kept in the dark.
She watched her former best friend closely as he processed what she’d shared. For a moment, it was as if the old Julian had returned.
“I could hear the chopper as it flew in,” he muttered low as a softness she remembered returned to his troubled gaze. “I yelled until my voice was gone, but none of you could hear me.”
“I’m so very sorry, Julian. If I had known…”
“Two days later, a group of al-Asiri’s men found me when they were searching through the rubble,” he continued as if she hadn’t said a word.
“I was taken prisoner and held captive for weeks at their camp. They tortured me, Natalia. Did things to me you couldn’t possibly imagine.
And when I didn’t break after they gave me their worst, al-Asiri himself paid me a visit. ”
Dear God in Heaven, what kind of evil had this poor man been forced to endure?
“What did he do to you, Julian?” She could no longer tell where her new tears began and the others ended.
“He offered me a job.”
Natalia blinked. That wasn’t at all what she’d expected to hear.
“Wait, what?” She frowned. “You were offered a job with the al-Qaeda leader we’d been hunting?”
Julian nodded. “He said if I could withstand his most feared man, I was worth more alive to him than dead.”
Her heart broke, knowing Julian’s only choice was to accept al-Asiri’s offer. Of course, he had. It was either that or be killed.
“That’s how you became involved in the illegal underworld,” she surmised.
Another nod. “And I gotta tell ya. The pay and the perks are a helluva lot nicer than the CIA. Yes, siree, doin’ it this way is a much better deal.
I’ve got access to more money, drugs, weapons, and women than I ever dreamed a schmuck like me would have.
Not to mention the sweet collection of sports cars I’ve got scattered across the globe.
You wouldn’t believe it, Tally Cat. Not even if you saw it with your own eyes. ”
It was almost as if he were trying to convince himself his words were true, rather than convincing her.
“Julian,” she breathed his name softly and moved her head side-to-side. “This isn’t you. You fight for what’s good and right. You risk your life to save those who are innocent, not so you can be the one who hurts them.”
“I’m far from innocent, Natalia. And so are you.
After all, you’re the one who made us go into that building, remember?
If you hadn’t let Keith talk you into it, none of this ever would’ve happened.
But you ignored your gut and listened to him, so this…
” He held his arms out at his sides and grinned. “This is all because of you.”
He’s wrong, darlin’. Jagger’s voice spoke clearly in her mind. We talked about this, remember? What happened to Julian isn’t on you.
Natalia had spent years blaming herself for Julian’s death, and now he was here. In the living flesh. And he was telling her it was all her fault.
I’m so sorry, Julian. More than you’ll ever know.
Guilt assaulted her, and it would be so easy to fall back into old habits. To let the ghosts from the past dictate whether or not she had a future.
If this had all happened a few weeks ago—or hell, even a few days ago—Natalia would most likely accept her execution as fate’s way of righting the world.
A fitting punishment for being derelict in her duty and causing the death—physical or otherwise—of a man she’d once considered her closest friend.
But that was before Jagger had fully entered her life. He’d been there previously, of course, but only in background through work…and the secrecy of her dreams.
Things between them had transpired so quickly. Theirs was the very definition of a whirlwind romance. And yet, in many ways, the love they shared had been forming beneath the surface for the past few years, waiting for the right time to shine.
That time was now, and Natalia wasn’t about to let Julian take it away.
“You want someone to blame for the choice you made to become a criminal?” she challenged back. “Well, I suggest you look in the mirror, Julian. Because the only one you have to blame is yourself.”
“No!” He charged toward her.
With her back to the wall, there was nowhere to go.
“I didn’t choose this, Natalia.” Julian bent down and grabbed her jaw tightly in his fist. “It was either do what al-Asiri said or die. So I chose to live.”
“But you got…away from…al-Asiri!” she growled through the pain of his unforgiving grip. “You’re doing dirty work for…Sanchez, now. And that…is a choice…you made.”
“What the hell was I supposed to do? Come back to the CIA and hope to be welcomed with open arms? Even if they hadn’t already covered up what happened with my supposed death, I’d already done too much bad shit for al-Asiri.
” He shoved her face roughly away. “I murdered people for him, Natalia. Women…” His Adams apple bobbed as he lowed his voice to a deep whisper. “Children.”
Oh, Julian.
“You sold your soul.”
His head moved in a jerky nod. “And since I’m already going to Hell, I figured I may as well take you and Sinclair with me.”
Keith?
Her heart gave a hard kick. “Julian, please tell me you didn’t—”
“Stab him a bunch of times and leave him bleeding out on his living room floor?” He shot her a pointed look. “Okay, fine.” A slight shrug. “I won’t tell you that.”
Please, no.
Keith wasn’t a man Natalia particularly liked, but she’d never have wished him dead.
“You…killed him?”
“Sure did.” A smug smile spread across Julian’s face. “You should’ve seen the guy, Tal. He actually cried, can you believe that? Big, tough, self-described super-agent, Keith Fucknut Sinclair. The man was a blubbering mess of tears and snot as he begged me to let him live.”
When he let out a hysterical laugh, the breath in her lungs hitched in disbelief. As she sat there, Natalia knew she was staring into the eyes of a stranger. Julian may have survived the explosion years ago, but he’d suffered the death of his soul.
“Why now?” Natalia had to know. “It’s been three years, Julian. Why come after us now?”