Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
It was a good guess.
“Tell me, Colonel, how is it that you found your way to my doorstep? I know my men didn’t give me up. They’re too scared of me.”
“You—or your people—made a grab for Suwan’s cryptocurrency. Owen created a worm and hid it where no one would think to look. All I had to do was sit back and wait for the money to move.”
“How clever of dear little Owen,” she said, ice in her voice.
“But you knew Suwan was cutting you out, hence your comment about him being a thief.”
“I did. Yes.”
I took a deep breath. “I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years, but no one’s ever made it personal like you did.”
She smiled ruefully. “Other people have looked, I’m sure. Trying to strike back at you through your family only to find there is none.”
“Yes.”
“And the men you call friends, they’re all as lethal as you. No chance to hurt you through them.”
“No,” I agreed.
“The only way to hurt you was through Owen Moss,” she said flatly, a faint smile twisting her lips. “He is the only place you’re vulnerable.”
“No one knew about him.”
“Yes, Colonel, I’m aware.”
“How did you?”
“You’re a smart man. It will come to you.”
I leaned forward, staring at her. “Have we met before this?”
She shook her head. “I knew of you, but no. Our paths never crossed.”
“Please, tell me who you are.”
Her smile was bittersweet. “I knew Ronan.”
She knew…
It was like rewinding a tape in my head.
I’d been asked to recount the story the other day from the beginning. Why were Ronan and Sara killed? Why was Owen kidnapped? What was the nexus of it all, the impetus for the decimation of that family?
All the air left my body at once.
Her expression didn’t change. She didn’t gloat or smile. She was resigned.
“It was you,” I barely got out.
She nodded. “It was me.”
“You slept with Ronan.”
“I did. I recorded our encounters and—”
“He said it was only once,” I said defensively, still angry, it seemed, that he’d betrayed his marriage vows. I felt stupid for showing her it could hurt me.
She scoffed. “He was addicted to me, Colonel, and the heroin helped.”
I could only stare.
“He’d been injured so often. He was in constant pain.”
It was the same for many operatives I knew.
“The agency, as you know, doesn’t allow prolonged narcotic use. It’s considered a weakness. One can be dismissed for that.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“He had no alternative but to turn to the next thing that would help.”
Lots of people moved from oxycodone to heroin. I wasn’t naive.
“When Ronan tumbled into my trap, my husband and I couldn’t believe our luck. A well-connected CIA agent who wanted to fuck and get high,” she explained without a trace of emotion. “It was too good to be true. I funneled information to my husband that kept our Irish deal in play. We brokered that together. We were moving up, both of us Blue Lanterns with the 14K at the time.”
Blue Lanterns were the uninitiated members of the triad, equivalent to mafia associates. She and her husband had wanted more, and from what she was saying, had been close to getting there.
“But then,” she said, and finally, I could hear some real emotion, real pain, “my husband, the fool, grew jealous. It was ridiculous, but still, he wanted me to stop. And Ronan”—she scoffed—“suddenly he had a crisis of conscience. Not about his wife. Never about her, never about us screwing, but about his government. He was worried about betraying his oath,” she said, the disgust clear in her voice. “I saw you that night. I was watching when you entered his home, and later, when I called, he said he couldn’t see me ever again. He was turning himself in, confessing all he knew, including everything about me and my husband and the dead policeman in Ireland.”
Ronan had believed he was talking to someone just as compromised as he was. He never saw her as his enemy but as an addiction he couldn’t quit.
“Ronan forced our hand.”
I nodded.
“We were in jeopardy. Everything could have been lost, including our lives. He would be killed, so would I, but for me it would’ve been the brothel first.”
“So you killed Ronan.” It was all such a waste.
“I did. I was furious. I tried to take his head off but couldn’t quite manage it. I left my knife so the triad would know it was me.”
“And Sara, his wife?”
“My husband…he couldn’t cut her throat. He watched her all day. Couldn’t put a bullet in her, couldn’t take her head. She was a woman, after all, a mother. He found a better way, he said, quicker. She’d never know what happened.”
The pieces of the puzzle all of a sudden fit together.
“The bomb.”
She nodded.
“That was messy. Lots of casualties.”
“Yes. He’d never used C-4 before and had no idea how much to use.”