I have a bad feeling I fucked up.
Madeline, Julian. The empty estate. I shouldn’t have given in to Madeline’s demands to meet Sasha tonight. I should’ve waited until the house was full. Even one child in there would’ve been better than none.
How will Sasha trust me when everything she saw tonight pointed to Company? And I have to admit, looking at it with Sasha’s eyes, that’s exactly how it appears. She has no idea what Madeline has been doing all these years.
Fucked. Up.
“So,” Sasha says as the car pulls away to begin the hour-long drive back to the airport. “Did you find me some underwear?”
My laugh bursts out. I look over at this girl who surprises me at every turn. She is brave and smart. She is funny and real. She is the only woman I’ve ever been obsessed with. “I didn’t,” I say, controlling my smile as best I can. “My mission was a complete failure.”
She stares at me, and then scoots closer, wrapping her hands around my bicep. She leans her head on my shoulder and I have the purest moment of happiness because of this small gesture. “Well, Agent Jax, that’s OK. I only put them on to impress you. I’m a commando girl.”
I smile into the darkness of the car’s backseat.
“And I’m sorry I was such a childish bitch back there, but that woman… she’s bad.”
“Why do you think that? This is not the general consensus, Sasha. And I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just need to understand where that impression comes from.”
Sasha shrugs against my coat. God, I love this moment. I love having her trust me. Cling to me. “The estate and grounds remind me of the house in Santa Barbara. The one where all those Company people died because I brought a legion of fucked-up people there to get revenge. The one where Nick made me leave without him. Get on that boat with Merc and James and Harper and never look back.”
I know she warned me about talking about this stuff earlier, but I can’t help it. I need to know everything about her and if she’s in a chatty mood I’m not gonna pass this chance up. “He was your promise, wasn’t he?”
“He was,” she sighs. And then she’s silent. This goes on for so long I start wondering if she’s asleep. But then she says, “I know it’s stupid. I mean, I get that. I’ve had ten years to come to the realization that having an arranged marriage is not the ideal. But it’s all I knew. He started coming around when I was almost eleven and he was fifteen—”
“Why?” The peaceful moment I was just having is gone. Nick, man, he does that to me. And the last thing I want to talk about with Sasha is that asshole. But I promised her. I told her I’d show her what I had. So this reveal is gonna come crashing down sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.
“My father was an arms dealer for the Company. He used to be an assassin trainer too. Which is why I was trained to kill as a small child when my place in the Company was supposed to be like any other girl’s. Brainwashing, torture, and servitude. But he changed my future by teaching me to kill. It kept me alive, it made me brave, and it got me through.”
“So Nick was there to buy guns and he decided he wanted to marry you when you were ten?”
“No.” She laughs. “No. He was chosen for me by… his father, I guess. And my father too, since it takes two to make a deal.”
The word deal hangs in the air. As many times as I’ve heard about the deals, it has never become normal. No amount of conditioning will ever make me think that bartering your daughters off in the name of global corruption is normal.
“So Nick was coming around for about a year and we became friends.”
“So he was sixteen and you were going on twelve.”
“Yeah, I guess so. That’s when he told me the Company was in trouble. My father was in trouble. And Nick was my promise.”
“Did it make you happy? To have him as a promise.” I dread the answer, but I already know what she’ll say.
“God, I don’t even have words. I felt like the most special girl in the world. The Admiral chose me to marry his son. Back then, I didn’t know what they did with the mothers who refused to obey the Company brainwashing. James told me they kill them when I was thirteen. Just before we brought the whole thing down. ”
“And what did you think of Nick? Did you think he’d save your daughters from the fate you barely escaped? That you’d never be bound by those same rules if you just kept fighting?”
“It didn’t sink in.” She sits up a little and turns her head so she can look me in the face. “I heard the words coming out of James’ mouth, but it didn’t sink in. It took so many years for that concept to become reality for me.”
I nod slowly as I study her face. She is so pretty. And she doesn’t need makeup to be that way, either. Her skin is fair, with just a hint of color in her cheeks. Her eyes are a deep blue. Like I’m looking at the sky when thunderstorms are approaching. “She’s too Company for you.”
Sasha nods, instinctively knowing I switched the conversation back to Madeline. “Families don’t organize. Companies organize. Governments organize. Madeline is Company, even if she’s not.”
“I get it.” And I do. I can’t blame this girl for her first impression. She’s far more worldly than she seems.
“And…” Her words trail off and I wait a few seconds to see if she will pick her thought back up.
“And?” I finally ask.
“I have a lot of things hidden in my head, Jax. I’d like to tell you about them all, I really would. You have no idea how bad I want to be unburdened. I want to spill every secret I ever had. But…”
“But you don’t trust me yet.”
“Right. I’d be very stupid to trust you. You took me to that woman. You’ve been kinda pressuring me to join the FBI and help you hunt down Nick. And even though I have no idea how I feel about Nick these days, I do know I’m not ready to turn him in.”
“Fair enough. You’ve more than lived up to your end of the bargain today. So I think I owe you. I’d like to show you, though. So can you be patient?”
“Sure.” It comes out with a long breath of air. Like she’s exhausted.
“You should sleep. I’ll wake you when we get to the airport.”
I get silence again, but a few minutes later she’s breathing heavy as she begins to drift off. And I have to hand it to her. She says she doesn’t trust me, but if falling asleep cuddled up to my arm is not trust, what must it feel like to have her completely?
Nick is an idiot.
But I can’t fault him for it. If he had realized Sasha’s true worth—aside from killing and secret information—she’d still be his. She’d probably be dead because of it too.
My hatred for him dims a little. I will never like that man. Ever. But he left Sasha for a reason, I think. He left her because she was too good for him. She was pure and he was corrupt. I have a feeling that leaving her behind was as purposeful a move as any of the others he’s made throughout the years.
But why?
Does he love her? Is she the missing woman? She can’t be. Sasha freely admits she has not heard from or talked to him in a decade and I believe her.
So who is the woman who lured him back to the States six years ago? Sasha would’ve been just graduating high school. Her passport shows she was in New Zealand with her family that summer after graduation. So if he didn’t come to see her, then who?
This mystery has plagued me for years. Why does one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals leave Central America and come back to the US when he’s got a powerful position in a Honduran gang to protect him at home?
Why risk it?
For the job?
No. It can’t be that simple. Nothing about this guy is simple.
Did he lie to Sasha? Was he really her promise? Because Julian has said some interesting things over the years about his lost promise. It’s convenient that Sasha’s father and Nick’s, the only two men who could substantiate the claim he made, are both dead.
I ponder this until we reach the airport. And by that time, Sasha is sleeping so deeply, she doesn’t even wake up when I pick her up in my arms and walk her up the stairs. I take her to the back of the plane and place her on the bed. “Sasha,” I whisper softly in her ear.
“Hmmm?” she moans back.
“Let’s take off your coat.”
“Mmmm.” She moves just enough for me to get her coat off, and then she turns over and falls back asleep with her hands bunching the pillow up to her face.
I stand there and smile down at her. Just smile. She’s so fucking adorable. And I’m starting to regret that rash decision to have sex with her in the car. You only get one first time. This one was pretty good as far as first times go. But still… I should’ve waited. Made it more romantic and less primal.
I lean down and kiss her on the head and then I walk out, leaving the lights off so she can get some rest. I go all the way up front to the business end of the plane and take a seat at the table.
“Drink, sir?” Essie asks.
“Sure. Brandy, if you’ve got it. You the only one on staff tonight?”
“No, the other girls are chatting in the galley. But if you want them, I can get them.”
“No, let them chat. I’ve got everything I need and I can use the quiet time.”
“Very good, sir,” she says, placing a snifter with two fingers of brandy in front of me on the table. “Just call if you need anything.”
I need a lot of things. But nothing Essie can help with. So I won’t be calling for her. I just drink my brandy and think about Sasha. I think about picking her up again and carrying her to the car that will be waiting for us when we land. I hope she doesn’t wake up.
Mostly because I want to carry her again. I loved that feeling. Her soft body against my hard one. But also because I’m not taking her home. And when she figures that out, she’s gonna be pissed.