Three, Two, One (321)

“That’s it,” I tell him. “Just put the gun—”

“Hands in the air!”

The FBI is everywhere. A SWAT team crashes through the terrace windows. Red laser dots are dancing on Blue, JD, me…

And then it’s over.

JD points the gun at himself.

And he pulls the trigger.

I break down after that. I sit in the FBI interrogation room with my head on the cold metal table, and I break the fuck down.

I see his head exploding all over Blue. I see the horror on her face.

I feel her heart shatter. I feel her knees hit the floor. The pain that must have caused. The bruises she’s probably looking at right now. Bruises I’ll never see because she’s gone. That call from DC was about her, I know it. Her father has surely been informed by now that his daughter is alive.

Good for him. I’m happy she’ll go home. I really am. She needs to get out of this town and do whatever it takes to get her life back.

But my best friend is dead.

His life is over.

And my heart is shattered. Not in two pieces, but three.

I fall asleep like that, my face, wet from grief, on the cold metal table. And when I wake up, Jackson is sitting across from me, a frown on his face.

“Jacob,” he says in a whisper.

I shake my head. I try to remember him the way he used to look when I last saw him, but I can’t quite conjure up the image in my mind. “I haven’t been Jacob in a very long time.”

“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.