“Come on in, Jake. Just sit down and relax.”
My brother is… gone. This guy, I have no idea who he is. He makes his way across the safe house Max keeps in the Denver suburbs and collapses into a chair. He’s been chain-smoking since I picked him up at the Federal Center.
I wish I could make it better but I don’t have any words. So I just take a seat in the chair opposite him and lean back to wait him out.
He takes a long drag on his cigarette and blows the smoke into the room. It took me all day to secure his release and convince the entire fucking FBI satellite office that he is absolutely not under arrest. I don’t care how many dead bodies they found in his apartment.
“I hate my life,” he finally says after we’ve been sitting in the depressing room for ten minutes. “I hate my fucking life.”
“I’m sorry, man. I am. I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t answer when you called. I’m in the middle of recruiting this girl, Jake. She’s Company, man. She’s the Zero everyone was talking about years ago. I have her at the safe house in Nebraska.”
“Fuck that girl.” And then he drags his tired eyes up to mine and snarls, “Fuck you too.”
“Look,” I say, “I get it. You lost someone—”
His look alone is enough to cut me off. But he doesn’t stop there. “Lost someone? That’s what you’re calling this? Did we just lose Michael when Nick Tate came into our house and shot him in the head?”
I have nothing for that. But I have to try. If I don’t, he’s gonna walk out of here and never talk to me again. And I can’t let Nick Tate take away this brother too. He took Michael, he can’t have Jake. “No,” I say. “No. But listen to me, Jake. Everything we’ve been working for is in reach right now. I’ve got this girl ready to give up everything she knows.”
“Bullshit,” he says, looking up through the hair hanging across his face. “Bull-fucking-shit. If she’s Company, she’s the one playing you.”
“You don’t know her.”
“I know her well enough to know she can lie. She can kill. How much more do I need to know?”
“She’s not like that, man. I swear to God, we’re so fucking close to the win. She was Nick Tate’s promise.”
These words finally get his full attention. “Bullshit.”
I sigh and shrug my shoulders. “She was. And she was there that night it all went down in Santa Barbara. The night Nick got away, he used her too, Jake. He used her to do his dirty work and then he left her behind. She’s only twenty-four. She was only thirteen when that shit went down. And she’s assimilated really well into post-Company life.”
“There is no such thing and you know it.” He takes another long drag on his cigarette and blows some rings out of habit. “You never walk away from the Company. Just look at Nick. That motherfucker has been running shit since the day he walked out. All they do is reorganize, Jax. That’s all they do. We lost, man. We lost Michael and…”
He can’t say the other names. There are too many dead friends from the first time we tried to infiltrate the Company back in Miami several years ago. That ended the same way. Him in custody and Max and me saving his ass. And I really don’t want to play this card, especially after he lost two people last night. But I have no choice. “You made a deal with me, Jake. You made a deal and that’s why you’re not rotting in federal prison right now. So let’s make a new deal.”
“Fuck you,” he yells, standing up. His fists and jaw are clenching in unison. “I gave up four fucking years of my life for what? Those people they arrested last night weren’t Company. The whole thing was a bust. And I lost again.” He stresses the word. Hard.
He knows I can’t argue about that. He’s the one who takes the fall. It’s been that way since he made his choice to ditch the FBI and work alone. “It doesn’t matter. You got a lot of bad people off the streets of Denver, brother. You did your job and now you’re done.”
“Yeah,” he says, walking over to the terrace door and sliding it open. “I’m done.” He turns back to me, the cold wind from outside blowing past his face and catching his hair. “I’m out of here. You can do whatever you want with that Company girl, but I’m officially retired. I want everything you promised back in that interrogation room. Everything. I want that kid I told you about who went missing four years ago and I want my name erased from all the police reports they’re writing today. I’m not taking the fall for this, Jax. I won’t do it.”
“Hey, I said it’s done. And it is. It might take time to get the kid—”
“Fuck you and your time.” His eyes blaze as he walks back into the cold room. “And I want access to everything you took out of my apartment.”
“That’s FBI evidence, Jake. You know this.”
He sweeps his arm across an end table and shit goes flying. A lamp crashes against the wall and shatters, a plant lands on the coffee table, the dirt spilling out all over it. “Get it back!” he roars. “Get it back or I will turn your ass in. I will tell them, Jax. I will tell them everything we’ve been doing. I’m not even fucking around.”
I let out a long sigh. “I’ll get it back. I will. But I have to work on this case. I have to get back to that girl in Nebraska. Like today. I can’t leave her alone for too long.”
“Put a babysitter on her.”
“I will. I mean, I have. My street partner is watching her Kansas house right now, but my partner’s not one of us, so she doesn’t know about the Nebraska safe house. So if this girl walks out on me, there’s no one there to follow her. It’s a critical moment, Jake. Nick Tate is in the picture. He’s probably making a move right now. So I need to get back to Nebraska and work this shit out.”
Jake walks back to the chair, takes a seat, and pulls out another smoke. He draws in deep as he lights it, and then blows it out into the room already thick with haze. “I just lost everything.”
“It wasn’t yours to lose.” It’s a low blow, but someone’s gotta say it, and since Max isn’t here, I’m the only one who can.
“I don’t know how to get past this, Jake. You have no idea what was happening in my life the past few months.”
“I have some idea.”
He shoots me a look.
“And I’m not judging, OK? I’m not. But do you really want to throw away twelve years of waiting and planning so you can mourn?” I wait for an answer but he stays silent. “Or do you want me to get the fuck out of here and go find Tate? Because this is the decision, Jake. Nick Tate’s time is up. But that guy is like a cat. He’s got spare lives tucked away in hell. So it’s possible he gets to Sasha first and turns on the charm. We both know what an accomplished liar he was when we were kids. Just imagine how good he is at this game by now.”
“Sasha?” he sneers. “You’re on a first-name basis now?”
But I stay silent. He can’t know how conflicted she makes me. He can’t know.
Another drag, more smoke, and then finally a sigh that says I give up. “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing.”
He shoots me a sidelong look that says, Try again.
But I’m not lying. “You’re done, brother. It’s over. You’re free. Full pardon for all that shit that happened in Miami and no responsibility for what happened last night. I got the girl, she’s gonna help me, we’ll get Tate, and you just have to stay out of the way.”
“I want to go talk to my boss in Denver, Jax. I need to talk to Ray and figure this shit out. I need to know what I should do next.”
“No. No fucking way. The FBI is all over that motherfucker. You can leave town, hell, you can leave the country for all I care. But you’re staying the fuck away from that case. You do not talk to anyone about anything we had going. You don’t know that those guys last night weren’t Company. You have no clue. So we’re handing it over to FBI, I’m going back to get Sasha so she can tell me where I can find Nick, and you’re gonna…”
He shakes his head. “I’m gonna what?”
“Recover. You just go recover.”
“Get over it, then?”
“Dude, I get it. You lost your friends—”
“I lost two fucking lovers!” He yells it. His words echo off the high ceilings. But at least he finally admitted it. “I want Nick Tate dead. Do you understand me? I know he’s behind this. I know he’s pulling all the strings like some kind of twisted puppetmaster. He just took everything from me, Jax. Everything. And he’s gonna take everything from you next.”
Fuck. Up until yesterday I didn’t have much left for him to take. But now I have Sasha. And like it or not, she’s officially his. So this threat from my brother hits me hard. A lot harder than he knows. But I have to keep him contained. I have to keep Jake out of this or he might lose his shit and start killing people. This whole case might end up like Miami.
So I keep my calm. I keep my fear for Sasha tucked away. And I give him good, solid, rational advice. “I know. I get it. But we took an oath to Max Barlow and that oath said we’re professionals, Jake. So you have to be a professional this time. Leave town. Spend money. Be patient. And I promise you, I will get enough revenge for both of us. I swear on Michael’s life.”
Jake scrubs his hands down his face and breathes deep as he considers my offer. “I trust you, Jax,” he finally says. “I do. So I’ll wait it out.” He takes his hands away from his face, revealing bloodshot eyes filled with pain and heartbreak. “I know you’ll make it right. You have to make it right.”
I swallow hard and nod my head. “I will.” I stare him in the eyes and say it again, and again, and again until he believes me. “I will. I will. I will.”
Now I have two promises—kill Nick for Jake and keep him alive for Sasha.
The only question left is… which of them do I keep?