“I’ll survive,” was all that she could come up with to say. But the thoughts kept turning in her brain. “At least, I hope I will.”
Jake’s jaw tightened. “You will.”
“Sure, that’s the hope,” Verity said, letting her gaze wander over the sweeping landscape passing outside her window. “But how can we know anything for certain?”
“Because I won’t let it happen,” he said. His voice was as hard and sharp as steel.
Verity nodded. It wasn’t an unexpected answer. She knew how seriously Jake took his responsibilities. Now that she was by his side he saw it as his duty to protect her, and she didn’t doubt for a second that he would do anything within his power to keep her safe.
But shit happened.
Shit like her own brother shooting at her.
Verity didn’t believe for a second that Roman knew she was the one sitting in the passenger seat of the truck that he was firing at, but that didn’t make his actions any better. If anything, it made them worse.
Because no matter how much she wanted to believe otherwise, Verity couldn’t convince herself that this was the first time her brother had been willing to threaten the life of an innocent person.
Suddenly, she was glad all of her dark emotions were locked safely away for the moment, because she couldn’t imagine anything more heinous.
Verity never thought that she held any illusions about her brother. She knew he was no saint, but she’d never for a second believed that he was capable of something so cold-hearted. She was truly shocked.
But Jake wasn’t. In fact, nothing that Roman had done so far had surprised him.
Why was that?
Verity bit into her lower lip as she turned toward Jake. She knew that she wasn’t going to like what he had to say, but that was just too damned bad.
“What did Roman do to make you hate him?” she asked before her courage ran out.
Jake’s spine stiffened at the sudden question. He twisted his fists over the crest of the steering wheel, his knuckles growing white. “I already told you. You don’t want to know.”
“You’re right,” Verity said. “I don’t, but now I deserve to know.”
He gave a stiff shake of his head. “This isn’t the time.”
“When will it be? When Roman empties another assault rifle in my general direction?” she asked honestly. “I know you think you’re helping me, Jake, but you can’t keep me safe from this.”
“It’s my job to protect you, Verity.”
“From bullets. Not from heartache.” She reached out and wrapped her hand around the curve of his arm. She felt the muscles tense beneath her touch. “Besides, I’m pretty sure I just learned the truth about Roman. All I want now is the whole story.”
Jake stared ahead. His lips pressed together tight. After a second, he nodded, and took the next off ramp. He silently drove them down mile after mile of road. Verity was just about to ask him where he was going when she spotted a small lake in the distance. A few minutes later, Jake pulled into the empty parking lot along the shoreline. He threw the truck into park and immediately got out.
Verity couldn’t help but notice that this time he kept the engine running.
She followed a few seconds behind and found him leaning against the grill. He didn’t look over at her as she took the spot right next to him, close enough that his arm barely brushed against hers. His eyes stayed steady, gazing across the calm, blue water.
At first he didn’t say a word, and Verity didn’t press him. Deep down, she knew he would.
“The first time I met your brother we were stationed together outside Kandahar,” he finally said after a long minute had passed. “Our units coordinated on a couple missions clearing extremists out of nearby villages. It didn’t take long before there was tension between the two teams.”
“Was that unusual?”
“It wasn’t unheard of,” Jake said. “Each Special Forces unit has its own unique reputation. We’d heard rumors about Roman’s unit long before we’d arrived, just like I’m sure they’d heard talk about us.”
“What kind of talk?” she asked, surprised to find herself just as curious about Jake’s past as her brother’s.
“Some people called us the Sinner Saints because we weren’t afraid to do whatever was necessary to save as many lives as we could.”
Verity felt a tiny smile tug on the corners of her mouth. That sounded about right.
“And Roman’s?”
“Your brother’s unit had a different reputation. There had been some whispers that their captain had labeled some innocent civilians as militants in order to seize their possessions.”
Verity swallowed down hard. “And you believed it?”
“Not at first,” Jake said, shaking his head slowly. “I’ve had enough experience with rumors to give people the benefit of the doubt. But one day I followed your brother into a house during a sweep and found him cleaning the place out.”
“And you confronted him,” Verity said. It wasn’t a question. She might have only met Jake a few days ago, but apparently that was all it took. He wasn’t exactly a man of secrets.
“Yep,” he said. “He said he was just following orders. I said that wasn’t an excuse. Things got pretty heated. And then they got physical.”
Verity winced. She’d seen firsthand what happened to people when Jake got physical.
“Things didn’t get any better when our captains got involved,” Jake went on. “I think they went at each other harder than Roman and I did.”
“What happened after that?”
“Not much,” Jake said simply. “Carter went to his superiors with what we’d seen but John Silas, Roman’s captain, was a clever guy. The brass could never find any evidence of wrongdoing. Now I know it’s because they were smuggling everything back to the States.”
“What else do you think they were stealing besides art?” Verity asked.
She knew she wasn’t going to like the answer when Jake hesitated.
“There’s only one other thing that’s worth smuggling out of Afghanistan,” he finally said.
Verity closed her eyes and shook her head.
No.
She knew Roman was no saint, but still she refused to believe it. At least, she tried not to. But deep down, there was no denying it. She knew it was true.
Like Jake had said, the operation back at the farmhouse was too big to be for a few pieces of stolen art. There were too many people. Too many guns. Only one kind of business demanded that level of firepower.
“Heroin,” Verity whispered.
Jake’s chest rose and fell with a long, slow breath, but he didn’t contradict her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. And the devil of it was, she could hear in his voice that he truly was.
Verity felt a crack in the glass cage starting to radiate out.
Now it was her turn to silently stare out over the lake while she collected her thoughts.
“So, what does this mean?” she asked after another minute.
For the first time since they’d stepped out of the truck, Jake turned toward her.
“It means it’s over. I’m calling the whole assignment off.” Jake looked at her as if he half-expected her to fight his decision, but Verity only nodded. He was right. This had spiraled out of control. She’d flown out here to recover some stolen art, not bust up a drug ring.
“What will happen to the art?” she asked.
“The second I’ve loaded you onto the next plane out of San Francisco, I’ll put in a call to the DEA and FBI. If the stash is still at the farmhouse, they’ll take care of it through official channels.”
Verity felt her heart sink. Official channels. That meant it would be years, maybe even decades, before anything they found made it back to Kabul, and that was the best-case scenario. It was far more likely that every piece the feds recovered would get hopelessly tangled in red tape until they were lost in a secret warehouse.
“And Roman?”
Jake’s whole body visibly tightened.
“You can’t save him from this, Verity,” he said. “If your brother is involved in drug trafficking, he’s going to have to pay for his crimes.”
Verity let out a slow breath. Rationally, she understood, but her heart was gripped with guilt. She’d been holding out hope that she could help him…the way he’d helped her so many times when they were kids.
But this wasn’t a tussle with the bully at a new school. It wasn’t one of their resentful aunts taking her to task for accidentally breaking one of her porcelain figurines. This had turned into a matter of life and death, and right now Verity had to come to terms with the fact that Roman was probably safer behind bars than with the gun wielding criminals he was holing up with now.
Verity pivoted against the hood of the truck, so that she faced Jake head on. She looked up into his honey brown eyes.
“And you?” she asked.
Jake’s brows pulled together. He obviously hadn’t expected that question.
“What about me?”
“What are you going to do?”
He shrugged, but the line of his shoulders remained stiff. “I’ll work with the authorities to bring Silas’ operation down.”
Well, that was a given, but it wasn’t what she meant. She leaned in a little closer.
“And after that?” she asked.
Jake shook his head.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Please tell me that after all this is over you’re not going to skulk back off to some dive bar in the middle of nowhere.”
His eyes narrowed. “Would it matter if I did?”
Verity thought for a moment about telling him to forget about it, to ignore her words, but she quickly tossed the impulse aside.
This might be the last few hours she had with him. Chances were once she was back in Michigan she’d never see him again. Verity knew she’d always regret it if she never told him the truth.
Verity nodded. “It would matter to me.”
Jake inched closer. His eyes started to burn with an emotion she couldn’t quite put her finger on. His chest was almost flush up against hers, but Verity didn’t scoot back. Though she did have to tilt back her head to keep her eyes on his.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because it breaks my heart to think of you wasting the rest of your life just because you can’t shake off the guilt of something that wasn’t even your fault.”
“You weren’t there,” he said. “You can’t know that.”
“Fair enough. But I know you. And after everything I’ve seen, I know for a fact that you’d never willingly let harm come to someone in your care.” Verity reached out and placed her open palm on the center of his chest. “You’re so much more than just a fighter, Jake Thorne. You’re a good man. And we need more people like you out in the world, not hidden away.”
Jake’s stare became almost unbearably intense. Her hand began to shake against his chest. She started to pull it back, but his hand covered it before she could, pressing even harder against him.
Verity’s face began to burn. Jake lifted his free hand and traced the curve of her cheek with the side of his finger. It was an intimate move.
Every bit as intimate as the feel of the steady pound of his heart underneath her palm.
More cracks shot through the glass. She was definitely feeling something now. Only, she wasn’t so sure that she wanted to hold it back anymore. Not when it promised to be as passionate as the hunger shining in his eyes.
Jake pulled his gaze away from hers long enough to glance down at her lips.
Verity sucked in a breath.
For a moment, it felt like the world slowed down just for the two of them. Suddenly, Verity was aware of everything—the warm sun on her skin, the scent of the dry grass in the wind, the lap of the waves against the pebbled shore.
The faraway roar of car engines.
Jake must have heard them too. His eyes were no longer on her. All of his attention was firmly focused on the opposite shore, where Verity could just make out a couple of black sedans driving.
“Hold that thought,” Jake said, letting her go. He turned suddenly and headed back to the driver’s side of the truck.
Hold what thought? The one where, for a brief second, she’d dared to believe that the man she had a massive crush on was about to kiss her senseless on the shore of a lake?
Yeah, she was fine holding on to that one as long as she needed to.
A moment later, Jake came back with the binoculars he’d used at the farmhouse. He trained them on one of the cars. And then the other.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
“What is it?” Verity asked as tension slowly started to creep up her spine.
Jake slowly lowered his arms. His expression had gone as hard as stone. “We need to go.”
“Why? What’s going on?” she demanded. There was something that he wasn’t telling her.
Jake stared down at the binoculars in his hand as if debating with himself how much to tell her. After a long second, he handed them over.
“Look in that car over there and tell me what you see,” he said, pointing to the black car that was just cresting the hill.
Verity held the eyepiece up to her face.
“Three guys,” she said, as the passengers came into focus. “All of them wearing red bandanas.”
“Norteños,” Jake said. “They run the Central Valley drug trade.”
Verity swallowed down past the lump that was quickly growing in her throat. “And you don’t think they’re just out here to enjoy the sunshine?”
“I doubt it,” Jake said. “And so will you when you see who’s riding shotgun in the other car.”
Verity scanned the road until she found the second sedan. She had to wait until the car came around the bend before she could get a good look inside the passenger side window.
Then all the air left her lungs in a rush.
“Roman,” she said. She let the binoculars fall and turned to Jake. “Do you think he saw me back at the house?”
Do you think that he knew it was me he was shooting at?
That was the real question…and the one she couldn’t bring herself to ask.
“More likely he put it together once he heard it was me that kicked his friend down the hillside,” Jake said.
“So why the hell is he the one out here now?”
“Only two reasons I can think of,” Jake said, his voice hard. “Either he doesn’t trust anyone else to capture you, or he wants to be the one to put the bullet in you himself.”
A chill swept up Verity’s spine. On any other day she would have laughed off the suggestion that Roman would ever want to kill her, but today wasn’t like any day she’d ever known.
“Do you think they’ve spotted us?” she asked, cursing the quiver that had snuck into her voice.
“If they had they’d already be hightailing it over here,” Jake said. “But we shouldn’t stick around until they do.”
Verity gave a shaky nod. “Good idea.”
She didn’t waste any time hopping back inside the truck. Jake slowly backed up and headed back to the main road that had brought them in, taking care not to gun the engine, or kick up too much dust.
A familiar silence fell over the cab of Jake’s truck as they made their way back down the road that brought them in. She retook her usual position of staring out the window at the passing scenery. The only difference was now not a single thought that tumbled through her mind brought her a lick of solace.
She’d failed on every conceivable level. She wasn’t going to save the art. There was no way she could help her brother. Hell, Fate had even stepped in to make sure she blew her one chance to be thoroughly kissed.
Jake must have sensed her despair, because about a half mile down the road he clasped his hand around her knee.
“I’m so sorry it had to end this way, Verity,” he said, sounding heartbre
akingly sincere.
“I know,” she said, fighting back the tears and giving her bravest smile. “At least, things can’t get any worse, right?”
Chapter Seven
Verity, what the holy hell is going on? Are you all right? Screw that. Are you even still alive?
Verity’s brows pulled together as she looked down at Cheryl’s text.
She was ashamed to admit that she’d been caught off guard when the familiar alarm on her phone had sounded. After everything that had happened she hadn’t devoted a single thought to her friend all day. Apparently, it had been more than a minor oversight.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t had the time to check in. Since spotting her brother at the lake, Jake had figured that Silas’ men had followed the truck long enough to know they were headed south, and decided that it was safer to take the long way back to San Francisco. That meant heading back north for a while before cutting west on back roads.
And he wasn’t kidding. It was the long way. They’d been at it for a couple of hours now, and she guessed they still had a couple more to go. That was fine. There was no rush. Someone back at Macmillan Security had been kind enough to book her on the first flight back to Detroit but it didn’t take off until late that evening.
Until then, Verity figured that she’d just sit back and soak up what little time she had left with Jake until she flew out of his life forever.
Of course, that was before she’d seen Cheryl’s text.
I’m alive she wrote back.
It only took a few seconds for the reply to come back.
Oh thank God.
Why? What’s going on?
I was hoping you were going to tell me. The police are here. They’re all over your office. Looks like they’re clearing the place out.
The air left Verity’s lungs all at once, like someone had punched her square in the gut. This couldn’t be happening. It had to be a mistake. It had to be.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jake turn towards her.
Jake: The Sinner Saints #3 Page 8