“Jacob,” he says again. “I’m so fucking sorry. If we had known he’d do that—”
My hands are no longer in cuffs, and I pound them on the table, making the picture of Blue jump. “Where the fuck were you? I texted you! You were not supposed to send in the fucking SWAT team! The original plan was always discreet!”
“Jacob,” he says again, this time with more force. “We got another text. I took that to mean it was urgent. We agreed on one text. And you sent another one.”
“I didn’t! Blue—Zoey, that girl we had—she sent the text when she stole my phone!”
He puts his hands in the air. “I didn’t know, Jake. I didn’t know. I thought you were in danger. It’s been four years without contact. And I was in Nebraska, prepping a new recruit. I was hours away, I’m sorry. I swear, we didn’t know it was going down until the last second and we just had to react the only way we could. I’m sorry.”
I stand up and grab my photo of Blue. “I need to get out of here. Now.”
“Jake,” he says, standing up with me, a hand reaching out for my shoulder. “You know we have to debrief. You know this, OK?”
“My house! They’re in my house, going through all our shit. I need to—”
“We already saw all the footage, Jake. We know what’s been going on.”
“I want it all back!” I reach out, like I’m gonna choke the life out of Jackson. But I stop when he puts his hands up to block me.
And then he steps forward, tentatively reaching. “Jake,” he says. “You’re Jake. Not Ark. You’re Jake. My brother. We’re still brothers. I’m still here.”
I let him pull me into a hug, but I don’t hug him back.
All I see is JD’s head exploding.
Everything hurts. My mistakes. My body. My heart.
“You’re Jake,” he repeats. Like he needs to remind me of who I really am. Why I was really in Denver in the first place. “You’re Jake and I’m Jax. And we got them, brother. We got those traffickers and we’re gonna make them pay for what happened to Michael. You made that happen, Jake. You. Four years undercover. Four years and it paid off because you stuck to the plan.”
I take a deep breath and my mind spins with the memories. Blue and JD. The three of us in the tub coming to terms. The three of us last night, breaking all the promises. Memories of abandoned Christmas trees and all the broken promises will haunt me for the rest of my life.
But then I picture our little brother, Michael. Where he came from. What he went through before our father took him in. How they ended his life once they found out he was still alive and no longer a controlled asset.
Sixteen years ago an assassin walked into our house and when he walked out, our little brother was dead. What kind of person kills a seven-year-old boy?
We knew who they were. My father was FBI. My uncles were FBI. And I lied to Blue about my dream job too. I never wanted to be a SEAL. I wanted to be FBI.
But I’m a fuck-up. I left Brooklyn and went to Miami when I was eighteen on a clue that the people responsible for Michael’s death were based there.
I did exactly what Blue did when she went looking for her friend. Infiltrate and conquer from within.
Only I wasn’t looking for a story. I was looking for revenge.
I killed a lot of people in Miami and the only reason I didn’t go to jail was because of some huge shake-up in the underground organization responsible for the assassin hired to kill my foster brother. So many FBI were implicated in that bust, I was swept under the table.
But I left Miami with two things. A clue about some child traffickers that led me to Denver. And enough money to start a sting operation in the porn business so we could repeat what I did in Miami. Infiltrate and conquer. Jackson was already in the FBI when the shit went down four years ago. He was rising fast, thanks to our family connections, so we started this job looking for the scumbags responsible for Michael’s death.
But what I found was JD. And Ray.
Ray knew there was a shake-up in Miami and that’s why I had to leave. He knew I killed people. He knew I was in something big. But everyone who knew me was dead by the time I bailed, so who could he ask? Who was left to point their finger and say, That’s Jacob Barlow and he’s a rat?
No one.
That’s not how Denver will end, that’s for sure.
“And we got another lead too.”
Jax is still talking. A reminder of what we’re up against. Crime pays, I know that now. It pays too well for it to ever go away. We’re never going to find the people who killed Michael, even if we do find the assassin.
Because these criminals are no one and everyone all at the same time.
“A girl. She escaped ten years ago and she got out. But she knows things, Jake. She knows more than anyone we’ve ever had access to before. You hear me? She knows all the things, and that’s who I was prepping in Nebraska.”
I calm down a little. Because maybe. Just maybe—
“We’re raiding homes in ten states right now. We’ve already found the records for the Denver sting, Jake—”
“We got them all? The parents who bought the kids too?”
“We’ve got hundreds of names. We’ll find the one you’re looking for.”
And this puts one shattered piece of my heart back together. It’s a small piece. Just a little sliver of hope. Hope that I can still do right by JD. Fix him. And that JD will finally be free of his mistake.
I hug my brother.
“We’ll find her,” Jax repeats. “I promise.”
Two Years Later
The bookstore is full of people, a fact that has had my stomach fluttering for hours. I don’t like attention and I hate crowds.
My publicist can read my mind these days, because she places a hand on my arm. “Zoey, you’re gonna be so great.” She gives me a warm smile and I give her a weak one back.