Jacob Read online

  “Sergio, you can’t…” The line went dead. “Sergio? Sergio!”

  Goddamn it! Jacob had to get to Lee before Sergio’s men did. Having studied the man’s life the past week, he knew exactly where he’d be and broke into a sprint toward the city’s business district.

  Funny how one meal with a complete stranger had him wanting to be a better man. He wanted to be the man Lee Lamont saw when he looked at Jacob with those large coffee-brown eyes with just a hint of green. For as long as he lived, he’d never forget those eyes.

  He hoped he made it in time to see those eyes again.

  As he approached Lee’s building, voices from the alley caught his attention. He slowed and peeked around the corner, immediately recognizing the two men who’d cornered the target. Shit. They already found him. No way had Sergio just sent them. They must have already been here. Yet another troubling fact to add to the growing list of things not adding up about this hit.

  Lee had a metal briefcase clutched to his chest. “Who are you?” he asked in a frantic voice. “What do you want?”

  “It’s very simple,” Freddie, one of Sergio’s goons who usually followed Jacob around like a shadow, spoke up. He shuffled toward Lee, his bum right knee forcing him to favor his left. “You give us the briefcase, we kill you quickly.”

  “If you don’t,” Luigi, a young Italian with some sort of familial connection to Sergio, jumped in. “We’ll take it from you in pieces.”

  Freddie looked at him. “That’s not right. You won’t take the case from him in pieces. You’ll cut him to pieces before taking the case.”

  Luigi nodded. He always did struggle with American slang, which Jacob had found amusing on previous jobs. Too bad he’d have to kill the kid for going after Lee.

  “You’ll have to pry it from my dead body.” Lee pushed himself tighter into the corner. His eyes were wide, shining with fear, yet he didn’t cower. He didn’t shrink and cry as did most of the targets when they’d realized death was imminent.

  “That’s the idea,” Freddie said with a sneer and nodded at Luigi, who used the butt of his pistol to knock Lee to the ground. Freddie raised his gun and settled his finger on the trigger.

  No. No! Jacob bolted into action, the sound of the first shot like the start of a race. He had to get to Lee. He had to save him. Lee was already on the ground, blood pooling around him. Please God. Please don’t let me be too late.

  Freddie spun around as Jacob lunged. Another shot rang out. He heard the rapport of the gun a split-second before the searing pain hit as a bullet ripped through his midsection. As he dropped, he brought up his gun and fired. His aim was off and the shot went wild. He fired again, this time narrowly missing Freddie, just as he slammed into the pavement, the impact causing him to see stars.

  He instinctively curled into the fetal position to protect his torso as the white-hot pain tore through him. He fought against the pain that threatened his consciousness, the gun shaking in his hand as he lifted it.

  Freddie easily kicked it away. “Well, well, well. Looks like we won’t have to go looking for him after all.” He squared the gun on Jacob’s head.

  “We’re supposed to bring him back alive,” Luigi pointed out.

  “Check on the target. Make sure he’s dead.”

  “But—” he stopped when Freddie pointed the gun at him. “Sì.”

  Freddie knelt next to Jacob. “Looks like you got yourself in a bit of a pickle, my friend. Gut shots are a terrible way to die. Slow. Painful. Did you know that as we speak, your stomach acids are pouring into your system and literally digesting you like a meal. We are, after all, made of meat, are we not? If that doesn’t kill you, the sepsis surely will.” He stood. “Luigi, get the case.”

  “Sì.”

  Jacob pulled his backup pistol from the ankle holster and blinked hard as he aimed for the man with the briefcase.

  And fired.

  “Allen.”

  Jacob trembled as he struggled to hold the phone to his ear. It was the only number he still knew by heart. TREX numbers didn’t save—by design. All agents had to memorize the numbers they needed to call. He used to know every single number and secondary number for the men in his unit. Since he hadn’t had to call them in over a year, he’d forgotten all but one.

  His ex-CO.

  “Hello?” Allen didn’t sound happy to be woken up at almost one in the morning. Jacob tried to stand, but everything tilted. He lost his balance and fell against the building before sliding down. “Who is this?”

  Jacob drew in a shaky breath and held it. The blood—so much blood—had already started to dry on his hands, his clothes. With as much as he ran his fingers through his hair, it was probably crusted with it.

  “Burns?” he asked softly. “Is that you?”

  How the hell did he figure it out? Jacob hadn’t said a damn word. Then again, how many knew the number for one of the top-ranking agents in TREX? “S-Spence?”

  “Jacob,” he hurried out. “What is it? What’s wrong? What happened?”

  He dropped his head and fought against the fatigue, the sheer exhaustion, threatening to take over. He rested his forehead against the back of his blood-crusted hand. “I just… I…”

  “Tell me what is going on, agent. That’s an order, goddamn it.”

  Having his CO bark at him in his classic style jolted enough adrenaline into Jacob’s system for him to open his eyes. “I think I need help.”

  “What happened?” He softened his tone. “Talk to me. Jacob?”

  He sniffed sharply to pull himself together. As he attempted to admit to what he’d done, he broke, the pain, the emotions too much to hold back. Shame burned behind his eyes and ran down his cheeks. After everything, his change of heart, his vow to protect Lee Lamont, he still ended up covered in blood, a smoking gun in his hand. He still ended up taking another man’s life.

  “Please tell me you aren’t part of the report of shots fired in Seattle’s Central Business District.”

  “Wish I could.” He winced, the pain in his gut so intense his vision faded.

  “Ah, hell.” He sighed and hesitated before asking, “How many dead?”

  “Two.”

  “Any still breathing?”

  Squeezing his eyes shut against the image that’ll forever be burned into his brain of Lee Lamont lying there in a pool of blood, he shook his head. He was too late, damn it. He was too late. “One, maybe.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Here.” Next to one of the men who’d been sent to clean up after Jacob. Luigi lay face down next to a dumpster. Freddie had crawled off. Judging by the amount of blood he’d already lost, he wouldn’t get far.

  “Did you call 9-1-1?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded and drew in another shaky breath. It was getting harder and harder to breathe.

  “Shit. You should have called me, first. Authorities can’t find you there. Shit. This is bad.”

  “I know. Help me.” Everything grew dark.

  “Are you hit?”

  “Gut shot.”

  “Damn it, agent. When I get my hands on you, I’m going to wring your neck.”

  “S-Spence.” Jacob had nothing left. He’d spent every last ounce of energy staying alert enough to call 9-1-1 and report gunshots, begging for them to send an ambulance for Lee. He had minutes before he lost consciousness. If that. He felt no pain, which he knew from experience wasn’t a good sign. He’d been shot before. That time hurt like hell. This time, everything was numb. And cold. And dark.

  “I already remotely activated the alert on your phone. We’ll take care of the authorities this time, but you and I need to have a little chat about your life choices since your hiatus from TREX, agent. Brace yourself. You’re about to have several agents in Kevspa join you in that alley.”

  As promised, agents in head-to-toe black spandex with Kevlar woven into the fabric surrounded him. He vaguely heard a familiar voice say something about smoking him hard if he recovered.
>
  If he recovered.

  5

  Jacob stared out the window, counting the drops of rain sliding down the pane, wishing he had the power to trail off into oblivion like the water. To sneak away, never to be seen again.

  If only he hadn’t made that call. TREX had stepped in, all right. They’d taken care of him just enough to ship him off to a giant ranch house dubbed the Farm, where he’d spent the next several weeks recovering from the gut shot that should have killed him.

  Residents came and went. Others came and never left. With each one, Jacob kept his distance. After what’d happened with his last unit, how not a single one of the men he’d thought were his brothers so much as acknowledged him now, he didn’t want to let anyone in, only to have them forget him, too. It was losing his family all over again.

  So here he’d sit and stare out the window, counting the drops of rain, until he figured out his next move.

  “Walsh!” Maria—the only female at the Farm at present—yelled in her high-pitched voice that grated on his nerves. “Tell Martin to stop being such a baby.”

  “Tell him your damn self,” Walsh fired back from another room. “You’re a grown woman. Quit acting like a damn baby.”

  “You heard him,” she sang haughtily. “Stop being such a baby, little brother. I barely touched you.”

  “You left a welt. Besides, he called you a baby, not me.” Martin, Maria’s little brother, towered over the petite blonde by almost a foot. The two bickered constantly, annoying the shit out of everyone in the house, including Jacob. They both acted like unruly teens, not two adults in their mid-twenties.

  Something hit his foot, drawing his gaze. A ball.

  “A little help?”

  Jacob ignored the request and returned his attention to the rain-soaked window. Adults didn’t play ball. Or cry to the resident director like he was the den mom. These weren’t adults. These were whiny kids with nowhere else to go.

  “I’ll get it.” A tiny teen with a tiny voice rushed over, grabbed the ball, and tossed it. It went way over even Martin’s head. “Shit. Sorry.”

  “Way to go, Kyle,” Maria ridiculed. At least the kid wasn’t too scared to come near Jacob and retrieve the toy, unlike the rest of them.

  Kyle stood next to him and tilted his head as he stared. He wasn’t much taller standing than Jacob was sitting. He thought TREX’s internship program only recruited from colleges. Was the agency so desperate they now recruited from high schools, too? Hell, judging by the size of this kid, he probably came from middle school.

  Jacob ignored him for as long as he could before swinging his attention to the kid. “Can I help you?”

  “Not yet.”

  Odd response. He studied the kid, wondering what his story was. His eyes were distant, like he was lost in something other than the question, and he wouldn’t meet Jacob’s gaze. It reminded him of his little brother. Timothy had been diagnosed with high-functioning autism his first year in school. Smart as a whip and the best sense of humor, he never let his disability hold him back. Jacob had made sure no one treated him any different.

  He had the overwhelming urge to do the same now. “What’s your name?”

  “Kyle, and you’re Burns.”

  “Jacob,” he corrected. He’d had enough of referring to everyone by their last names. His old unit. So many other agents at TREX. Calling them by their last names avoided confusion, kept them all unique in case some shared the same first name. No one shared the same first name at the Farm.

  Kyle jumped his gaze to him before dropping it again. “Jacob.”

  “Why are you standing right there?”

  He shrugged. “No reason.”

  Jacob glanced over his shoulder, at Maria and Martin launching a plastic ball at each other like they were trying to draw blood. A guy who dressed like a beach bum walked by, narrowly dodging a direct hit, and disappeared behind the swinging door into the kitchen. He reappeared with a beer, gave Jacob a single head nod, and left the house.

  “That’s Reynolds,” Kyle announced. He bounced his gaze up and down. “Barrett.”

  He didn’t care. Jacob wouldn’t be here long enough to learn names. As soon as he figured out his next move, he’d be out of here. With nothing left to say, he returned to the window and went back to counting raindrops.

  Kyle disappeared, which suited Jacob just fine. He didn’t need the kid hanging around, reminding him of his little brother.

  A scraping of wood against wood caught his attention. Kyle dragged a chair across the floor and set it next to Jacob, facing the window. He then sat and, after mirroring Jacob’s stance, stared intently at the rain.

  They sat there for the next half hour, not saying a word, yet connecting on another level. They were both unhappy in their current situation. No one understood them. No one got them, the emptiness that was as much a part of them as flesh and bones. But they did. They got each other. Jacob didn’t know how. He just knew.

  They exchanged looks, confirming the connection. It was the strangest thing. But, just like that, the kid reversed a decision Jacob had made the minute he’d stepped foot on the Farm. Maybe he’d stick around, if for no other reason than to make sure Kyle had at least one person here who got him.

  Again, without a word, Kyle disappeared. He reappeared a few minutes later with two ice cream cones, wrappers torn down just enough to get to the good stuff but not uncover the cone. He handed one to Jacob and sat back down to get started on the treat.

  He hadn’t had one of these since he was a kid and eagerly got to work on consuming it, the taste hurling him back to when he was just a kid, playing in a backyard full of flowers. His mom loved flowers. She had a whole garden and used to water them daily. He’d race outside and beg her to spray him. When she would, he’d giggle wildly and dance in the mist. They’d then go inside and eat an ice cream cone just like the one he now had half gone.

  “Can we do this every day?” Kyle expertly consumed the cone, not missing a single drop.

  Jacob nodded and took a bite of the cone, catching the pieces that broke off before they fell. He popped them into his mouth. “As long as there’s ice cream.”

  “As long as there’s ice cream,” Kyle repeated with a nod.

  The next few days were the same routine. Jacob sat in the chair, staring at the rain and trying not to think about the night he’d been dropped at the Farm. TREX had taken his phone when he arrived, which was probably for the best. It had stopped him from making any more calls, like the one that landed him here, staring out a window and eating ice cream with a kid.

  “Your turn,” Jacob said when the silence was too much. If he didn’t have something to distract him, he’d sink into the hole of regret he’d dug for himself over the bad choices he’d made leading up to this point in his life.

  “Flux capacitor.” Kyle’s challenge broke him of his troubling thoughts.

  He grinned. “Back to the Future. I didn’t even have to try with that one.”

  “Fine.” Kyle scrunched his face for several seconds as he thought of another item completely made up in a movie. One said the item, the other had to guess the movie. “Your turn.”

  “Com link.”

  Kyle nodded. “Star Trek.” He looked at Jacob. “Too easy.”

  “You’re right.” He finished his cone and licked the remnants from his lips. “Your turn.”

  “Kyle!” Walsh barked. “Time to get off your keester.”

  “Unfair,” he whined and stood.

  “You too, Burns.”

  Jacob straightened as Kyle stopped and tilted his head. He then waved to follow him. “Come on, Jacob. I’ll show you the gym.”

  Slowly, he pushed himself off the chair, careful not to anger his wound. It may have been a month, but it still hurt like hell. What kind of shape was he in to do a damn thing?

  He couldn’t keep up with Kyle as the kid sprinted out the backdoor and down to the giant barn converted into a workout facility. It wasn’t like th
e one at HQ, but then again, the Farm wasn’t anything like TREX’s headquarters. HQ was five stories below ground. The Farm, well, wasn’t. It sat on acres of rolling hills tucked away in the Cascade Mountain Range.

  By the time he opened the door to the barn, he was winded, a dull throb reminding him he’d been shot less than a month ago. He pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside, taking his time studying the equipment and residents using said equipment. Barrett Reynolds, the beer-drinking beach bum, stood in front of the mirror, admiring himself as he curled dumbbells.

  Maria and Martin were snapping each other with towels. Of course. It took Walsh barking at them before they scrambled to separate corners. Another man, one Jacob hadn’t seen before, hung by his ankles and lifted himself up, crunching. He finished and pulled himself off the bar, dropping to his feet. He caught Jacob staring. Instead of taking offense, he wrapped a towel around his neck and offered his hand. “Evan McKoy.”

  McKoy? He knew several with the same last name. Judging by those intense blue eyes and dark hair, he’d bet this one was somehow related to the rest of the litter of McKoys associated with TREX. “Jacob Burns.”

  Kyle inserted himself between them. “He’s my friend.”

  “He can have more than one friend, squirt.” The man ruffled Kyle’s hair, which annoyed the kid. He didn’t like to be touched.

  “Kyle. Whiteboard.” Walsh approached. “Show me what you got.”

  He bounced to the board and immediately started scribbling equations Jacob had never seen, which didn’t mean much. He knew addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. If his life depended on it, he’d break out the fractions.

  “That’s his superpower,” Walsh commented when he caught Jacob eyeing the board. “Kyle came to us through a therapy group the special director’s kid goes to. He’s got autism.”

  “The director’s kid? Or Kyle?”

  “It’s a therapy group for kids with autism. You tell me.”

  He deserved that. “What’s that he’s writing?”