“Like you were needed? That you could make a difference?” A.J.’s tone was laced with sarcasm. “Assassin,” he whispered in disbelief and turned his gaze toward the bunkhouse. Surprised he, a Tier One operator, had read Jesse so wrong. “Fuck, Jesse. Why are you telling me now?”
Jesse expected to be punched in the face any second, and he’d let his best friend (a friendship probably about to end) pummel him to his heart’s content. “My old boss paid me a visit today. Demanded I take one last job. I initially thought it was just because he heard I was working with Falcon, and that’s why he wanted me back. But then I opened the target package he left behind.”
A.J. swiveled his way in the space of a heartbeat. “Target package,” he practically breathed out. “All this time, I thought you were making furniture, but you’ve been killing people.” His hands converted to fists at his sides, his jaw set in an angry line. “Who’s the target? What does the spook want you to do?”
Jesse lifted his gaze to the cloudless evening sky streaked with purple and dark blue, the stars not visible yet even though the sun had set. The property was lit up well enough to see the foreboding expression on A.J.’s face. Jesse needed to suck it up and get on with it. There were no words to make the next bit of truth any easier to hear, and Jesse owed it to his friend to look him in the eyes when he broke the news.
“Tell me,” A.J. barked.
“Almost eighteen months ago, I was sent to Sofia. The Bulgarians asked our government to handle a problem for them. They’d learned a Serbian there with diplomatic immunity was running a criminal enterprise. In return for the Agency’s help, they offered the CIA some intelligence they’d stumbled upon about a terrorist they knew the U.S. was trying to track down. Tit for tat kind of thing. Happens all the time with the Agency,” Jesse quickly explained, dreading the moment when he reached the part that’d have A.J.’s head exploding. And punching him the way Jesse had torn apart the wall in his workshop earlier.
“What went wrong?” A.J. asked, obviously aware there was yet another shoe to drop.
Jesse scratched his jaw, the scruff he’d let grow for weeks rough beneath his palm. “The hit went down a week before Ella was to marry Brian. I may have been a little off my game. Distracted,” he admitted, not for the first time, though he’d never said the words aloud. “I hit my target as planned, but what I didn’t know until this morning because I quit after that day is that he didn’t die.” Jesse’s heart thudded furiously. “The day of the hit, his men had rushed him away. His people must have bypassed normal medical help and taken him off the grid. Most likely in a coma.”
“Let me guess, he woke up,” A.J. grumbled.
“I don’t know when or for sure what happened, but it’d stand to reason that’s why he’d lain low. He’d been, well, asleep.”
“Get to the part that’s going to make me lose my mind,” A.J. gritted out.
Jesse dragged his palm over his cheek a few times, thinking back to the day of the shooting. He’d been perched behind his rifle, waiting to take the shot, and all he could think about was Ella and her future husband. “When I shot my mark, another shot rang out, killing the man’s wife. There was a second shooter.”
“Please don’t tell me that this conversation is going to somehow connect to my fucking sister.” A.J. lunged toward Jesse, an angry, menacing look pointed his way.
Just get this over with. “The Bulgarians used us to take this guy out, and for whatever reason, they wanted the wife dead, too, but they knew the Agency would refuse that hit,” Jesse explained what Thatcher had told him. “But they had a second shooter there at the same time. Most likely to make it look like I killed them both. Of course, they denied this when the CIA pressed.”
Jesse had watched that woman take a bullet to the head. Maybe the Bulgarians figured she was guilty by association, but from the little info he was given, she hadn’t been involved in her husband’s crimes. That wasn’t for Jesse to decide, and he’d never take the life of a woman. Especially not a mother, which she was.
Whether Ella had walked down that aisle with Brian or not, Jesse had decided he was done after that day. He couldn’t do the job anymore. The bullet that killed that woman may not have been his, but he still felt responsible somehow.
“Last week, the Bulgarians advised the Agency they had a leak, and some of their files had been hacked six months ago. Specifically, the files surrounding my mark, Zoran Mestrović. As well as the details of the deal made with the Agency.”
“I assume your name wasn’t in the Bulgarians’ file or the fact that there’d been a second shooter responsible for the wife’s death?” A.J. took a small step back, his hands going to his hips as he seemed to try and work through the problem.
“No, my identity was never revealed. But if Zoran is the one responsible for the hack, then he’ll most likely think whoever shot him also killed his wife based on their file.”
A.J. grunted. “Why do I get the feeling there’s more?”
“The reason Bulgarian Intelligence finally informed the CIA about any of this is that Zoran showed his face on CCTV footage two weeks ago in Bulgaria. Shortly afterward, two Bulgarian agents who’d been assigned to gather intel on Zoran before the hit last year were brutally murdered.” Jesse paused, wishing he didn’t have to share the next part. “Based on the report, the agents’ wives were killed first. Zoran wanted the men to watch their wives murdered as payback.”
“Fuck.” A.J. grimaced. “Would those agents have known of your identity if he interrogated them beforehand?”
“No. Definitely not. I’m not sure if Zoran’s capable of IDing me, but I’d rather get to him and finish the job instead of waiting around to find out. Zoran’s had that file for six months, and he only just took out those men.” He paused. “Zoran’s patient and barbaric. One of the agents only got married sixteen days ago. It’s like this asshole waited until both agents were married so he could—”
“Go Hammurabi’s Code on them? An eye for an eye,” A.J. growled out in shock.
Jesse dipped his chin to his chest, letting go of a deep breath as he waited for A.J. to understand what this meant. Everyone in town knew how deeply Jesse cared about Ella Hawkins, and if Zoran ever IDed Jesse, it’d take the bastard all of five minutes to choose his target for payback.
A.J. abruptly snatched hold of Jesse’s shirt with one hand and pulled his other arm back, ready to strike. “You shouldn’t have kept this from me. You put my family in danger. My sister. Maybe your father is—”
“Right about me?” Jesse lifted his gaze. “I’m trouble.”
A.J.’s face muscles went lax, but he didn’t lower his arm. His hand remained clenched in a fist in preparation as he stared into Jesse’s eyes.
“Why do you think I’ve done my best to stay away from your sister all these years?” Jesse rasped, his voice shaking. “I was broken before I joined the CIA, and then I became dangerous because of the Agency.” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “But I need to find this guy and finish the job before he has a chance to get to Ella. I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to her. And there’s still the possibility he’s yet to ID me.” That felt like a lie. In Jesse’s gut, he knew this son of a bitch had already secured his name or would soon. But he’d be damned if he’d let Ella die because of his sins.