You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(15)

He’d heard her yelling at him. He’d heard her telling him to get down.

What the f*ck was he supposed to believe?

He couldn’t help himself. His arms tightened around her.

Tag’s eyes closed and there was no way to miss how his fists clenched. “You know I don’t think you’re stupid, right?”

He knew it on an intellectual level. “Sure.”

Taggart ran a frustrated hand through his head. “Damn it, Jesse. I think everyone’s a dumbass. Ask Adam.”

“He’s an *,” Adam agreed. “He’s kind of a bully, but the dumb kind who pays really well and watches your back when you need it. I still f*cking hate him. And love him. At the end of the day, he’s my brother. My brother whose shampoo I will change for Nair when he expects it least.”

Tag sighed and ignored Adam. “My point is, you don’t get to do what you did. Goddamn it, Jesse, you practically begged her to shoot you.”

“And she didn’t.” She’d yelled something at him. She’d run from her room and he hadn’t noticed a gun in her hand. He’d glimpsed her before Simon had used his massive British body to tackle him down to the concrete.

“Well, we had broken into her room by then,” Alex pointed out. “She used her placement on the balcony to get away from us.”

Who did she work for? His brain worked overtime, but he could really only come up with one person. She would want to get away so she didn’t have to admit why she was here. He couldn’t imagine Phoebe working for The Collective. She wasn’t the type to do something bad for a mere paycheck. He’d watched her babysit. When she picked up Carys or Tristan, she glowed in a way a woman who was doing it for underlying reasons never could. She kissed and loved those babies. She sang to them and held them close and when she thought no one could hear her, she prayed for one of her own. He’d caught her walking out of Aidan O’Donnell’s room with tears in her eyes. It was always there, that deep well of pain he understood so well.

She didn’t work for a paycheck. She worked for a cause.

“She works for Ten.” He smoothed back her hair and noticed the blood on her shins. Her skirt had hiked up and he saw gashes on her knees and the lower part of her legs. “Think about it for a second and it makes sense. He’s always hated me. She tried to run? Is that why her knees are banged up?”

Tag’s eyes flared. “No. Ten wouldn’t.”

Alex sat back. “I don’t know. It kind of makes sense.”

“If Phoebe belongs to him, then he’s hidden it from Chelsea,” Simon pointed out. “Though honestly, the fact that we imbedded Chelsea with his group should lend a certain credence to him putting a spy in ours. Think about it. She’s smart. She’s American and educated and we can’t break her cover. That means some serious backing.”

Jesse knew truth when it struck him in the forehead. Phoebe moved again. This time she jerked like she was having a bad dream. He cuddled her close, trying to calm her. “She’s Agency. You can’t hurt her, Tag.”

A certain peace fell over him. Tag couldn’t shoot her and dump her body somewhere. Jesse didn’t doubt for a second if he found out she was a Collective agent who could hurt them all that Tag would do exactly that. Tag could pull the trigger and not feel a moment’s regret when it came to protecting his crew. But if Phoebe was Agency, she had a level of protection around her.

“Why the f*ck would Ten imbed a long-term operative?” Tag let his head fall back, his eyes closing in obvious weariness.

“Me. He wanted to watch me.” There was no real reason to watch Taggart, and Phoebe hadn’t honed in on anyone except Jesse. “He wanted to see if they turned me. No one believes I made it out whole. I didn’t.”

“You’re not a traitor,” Simon said as he turned on to the freeway. He would drive for a while before heading to the office again. “The Army cleared you.”

“The Army got rid of me. An honorable discharge on the basis of mental capacity doesn’t mean they believed me. It means they didn’t want to deal with me anymore.”

“Jesse, no one here believes you had anything to do with the deaths of the members of your unit. No one,” Alex said in a fervent voice.

He looked down at Phoebe. She sighed as she nuzzled his neck. Now she got affectionate. Story of his life. “She does and so does Tennessee Smith. Hell, so much of those months are a jumble in my head, I don’t even know.”

Part of his torture had been using hallucinogenic drugs that put him into a dreamlike state. When he would wake up, his chief tormentor would try to convince him he’d done all manner of hideous crimes. He’d woken up next to a girl one morning, her throat cut and her eyes open.

Only through working with Kai Ferguson had he come to accept that he hadn’t killed her. Through hypnosis therapy he’d been able to remember the truth. She’d been dead when they’d placed her in the room. Somewhere in the daze of drugs they’d given him, he’d been able to remember the door opening.

This is a gift for you, my dog.

He felt the edges of his vision start to go dim, the way it always did when he had an episode.

“Jesse?”

Phoebe’s voice brought him back from the edge. He took a deep breath and let go. He wasn’t going to freak out. He didn’t have to listen to that voice. He could listen to his own. Calm. Patient. He could be the man he wanted to be. “Yes, sweetheart?”