Jaxon

I doubted Violet realized she was shaking. I didn’t know if it was from fear, relief, or a mixture of both, but the woman was trembling. It took all my willpower not to reach my hand over and stop her knee from bouncing. Now that she’d completely dropped the pretense of being in control, I could tell how terrified she was. I wasn’t stupid. There was more she wasn’t telling us. However, it was a start. It would take time, something that was in short supply, before she would tell us the rest.

Or she could just blurt it out and shock the fuck out of me. “I need the guidance chip out of the drone to give to Manuel or he will sell the names to the Russians.”

Eric’s eyes zeroed in on the tears that were now falling down Violet’s cheeks. We’d lost any rational thoughts from him as soon as the Russians were mentioned. He’d been undercover for the CIA in a Russian prison called the Black Dolphin. He was reminded about his time in country any time someone saw his back. It was a mess of scars that crisscrossed from shoulder to shoulder. Russian prison guards had also branded a dolphin into his flesh. It wasn’t pretty. Anything and everything having to do with the Russians was a trigger for him. It was also a reminder that Jasmin and Zane had been taken and tortured as well. Eric had unnecessarily placed the blame of their capture on himself. It wasn’t his fault, yet he still carried the guilt.

The pressure in the cabin changed and an announcement was made by the captain we were on final approach to the airfield. Eric and Jasmin made their way back to their seats while Zane stayed.

“We’ll finish this when we land. I want a lock on Wolf ASAP. We’ll worry about the list after we get them out. What a goddamn cluster fuck. You got anything else you feel like getting off your chest?” he asked Violet.

She shook her head no and looked out the window.

“You better hope to God everything you’ve told us is the truth.” Zane turned and went back to his seat, leaving me alone with a crying Violet.

I was supposed to hate this woman. She was wanted by the US Government on a variety of charges. Some of them were still punishable by death. She admitted she killed a man, though I couldn’t bring myself to condemn her for that; it was self-defense. She’d done the same thing I myself had done dozens of times – only I laid a trap and waited for my prey. The only difference was I was contracted by the government to kill. Though they would deny it and disavow my service if I was caught – but it didn’t make it any less true.

I was a paid assassin, and she was a murderer.

My gut was telling me she honestly believed she was doing the right thing, the lesser of two evils. She’d said it herself – the intel she’d given Timothy was for the greater good. I’d imagine there were hundreds of names on the list of agents. Hundreds of sons and daughters, their lives in Violet’s hands. She’d sacrificed her own freedom and morality to save people she didn’t know. Talk about a fucked up no-win situation.

Her mistake was not finding someone she could trust when Timothy first approached. She could’ve stopped the ball from rolling and Olivia never would’ve been taken. For some reason, I hated this for her.

“Everything is going to work out,” I told her. “Zane’s already working on the next step.”

“How do you know?” She looked at me with tear-filled eyes and for the first time I noticed their color. Brown hued with red. I’d never seen anything like them before. “Jaxon?”

“Sorry. Because I know Z. He’ll check in with his contact and check your story out. When it comes back as factual, he’ll hunt down Manuel Ortega and get the list.”

“You believe me?”

She looked shocked, and I felt bad for having to telling her, “I believe you, but I don’t trust you.”

“I understand.”

“No, Violet, I don’t think you do. I believe you thought you were doing the right thing. But you weren’t. You sold out your country. You may not have benefitted monetarily from it, however, you still did it. I believe there was still personal gain for you – you’re too emotional for this to be about the greater good. Each of us goes into battle knowing we may never come home, every person on the list knew the risk. That’s a choice we make, a sacrifice we hold sacred. You took that honor and shit all over it by negotiating with a terrorist.”

“Timothy would’ve sold the names,” she protested. “They all would’ve died. I saved their lives.”

“No, you didn’t. What you did was get an innocent woman kidnapped and beaten. Then helped a warlord move drugs, weapons, and women. At best, you’ve prolonged the inevitable. Those agents are as good as dead. They were the minute Timothy Clark got his hands on the list. If you think Manuel Ortega hasn’t already dumped the list to the highest bidder you’re naïve. And you’re stupid if you think he’s going to trade you the list for the guidance system of a highly classified SPECOPS drone. He wants them both to sell. He played you.”

“He can’t.”

“He can, and he will. People like Timothy and Manuel? They have no country, they have no morals, and they have no value for human life. You cannot negotiate with someone who has nothing to lose. They don’t care who gets hurt, who dies, who benefits - all they care about is the almighty dollar and power. You’ve lost, Violet.”

She didn’t seem to like my answer when she covered her face and sobbed into her hands.

“This is all my fault.”

She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t entirely right either. Had she come clean sooner, something could’ve been done to get the names back, but they’d been in the wrong hands for too long.

***

The plane landed, and we were met by Faheem. He’d escorted us to the hotel Tex had arranged. Again, he’d set us up nicely. We had a block of rooms on the top floor next to a stairwell exit and the hotel had Western amenities.

Eric and Faheem were out of the room doing a sweep of the hotel. Eric was also setting up an EXFIL plan if the need arose. Jasmin was still pushing Violet and needling her whenever she could. Violet seemed to give up information when she was pushed into a corner or agitated, and there was no one better at pushing buttons than Jasmin. She was a five-foot-nothing hellcat, and when she wanted something there was no stopping her.

Zane’s cellphone rang, and he swiped the screen, answering the call on speaker.

“Zane.”

“I have the rest of the intel you wanted,” Tex answered.

Jasmin fell silent and all eyes turned to Violet.

“Go on.” Zane didn’t bother taking the call off speaker, knowing whatever Tex was about to say was going to make Violet uncomfortable and possibly blow her story out of the water.

“Violet Myers was born Violet Cranston. Her parents were killed in a home invasion. Violet and her twin brother Declan Cranston were put into the system and separated. Dave and Bonnie Myers adopted Violet months after she was placed in foster care.

“Declan didn’t get so lucky. He bounced around from home to home until finally at age ten he was adopted by Bryan and Elizabeth Olson. He joined the Marines at eighteen and his time in service gets muddled shortly thereafter. It took a lot of digging to piece together his service record. Whoever tried to suppress the information did a good job.” Zane remained silent but lifted his brow in acknowledgement. We all knew who had changed Declan’s service record. “Anyway, I picked up his trail when he joined the CIA - Directorate of Operations case officer, now going by, Declan Crenshaw. He served multiple tours in Afghanistan until once again he becomes a ghost. Official records show he died in a skirmish in Kandahar. Only problem is, there’s no record of any battle with casualties on the day in which he died.”

“He’s alive,” Zane surmised.

“Absolutely. One other thing. Violet is right. Manuel Ortega, piece of shit extraordinaire, is all over the darkweb taking bids. He has something he’s eager to sell. I can’t get a lock on him, yet. Any luck tracking the team?”

“Not yet. We’re going hunting.”

“Fuck. Take me off speaker, would you?”

Zane swiped the screen and brought the phone up to his ear as he walked into the adjoining room for privacy.

“So, now we know the who,” I said. “Care to share where Declan is?”

Violet sighed and sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her hands. All subterfuge was gone, leaving a sobbing broken woman. Jasmin’s gaze went from Violet’s crumbling form to me; I was surprised when I saw pity. Fuck. What were we supposed to do with her now? There was no excuse for what she’d done, yet I wanted to console her, help her protect her brother, and justify what she’d done. I couldn’t, could I? Were there allowances for a woman like her?

Standing in a hotel room studying her wasn’t going to give me the answers I needed. The road she needed to travel to find redemption wasn’t my business or my concern. It was for her to find. But I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to make this right for her. Would I have done the same thing if I’d been in her shoes? Fuck no! But could I understand why she had? I was beginning to.