You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(32)

He might be dumb but he wasn’t ignorant. Jesse could guess who was potentially tainting McKay-Taggart. Him.

For as long as he’d known about McKay-Taggart, Jesse had understood they worked with the government on some of the worst cases to threaten the homeland. They fought side by side with the Agency to put down double agents, arms dealers, and terrorists.

Had Big Tag given him a job so he could keep an eye on him? Had this all been about watching Jesse Murdoch to make sure he didn’t carry out some nefarious plan? Was that why he was constantly monitored?

Simon sighed a little as he sat down beside him. He adjusted his suit and let his head rest against the chair. “Where’s Tag? I got the message that we were having a briefing.”

Simon was his best friend. He was well aware they made an odd pair—an Oxford educated lawyer turned spy and an Army grunt. When he thought about it that way, it didn’t make a lick of sense. It made a lot more sense that Simon hung out with him to make sure he didn’t f*ck up or suddenly turn terrorist.

That one moment. He still dreamed about it. When he closed his eyes he could feel the Humvee under him, moving across the desert. He could feel his comfort with the people around him, see their faces as they laughed and joked. He could see Alannah smile and give him a little wink as the Humvee bounced. She held her hands up like she was on a roller coaster. It was a private joke between them. In that moment, he’d been happy, content despite all the danger around him. He’d been safe.

And then he wasn’t.

God, he’d give just about anything to get back to that moment before the IED had blown. To that moment before his innocence had been forever lost.

“Jesse?” Simon’s head had come up.

Jesse turned slightly, keeping his voice calm. It was easy since he felt hollow. He wasn’t sure how much emotion he had left inside him. Phoebe had done this to him, though at the end of the day she was just doing her job. But Phoebe had shown him that there was no going back. He would always be under suspicion because he’d survived and they had died. “I got the same text. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

Jesse was used to waiting. When he got an order to be somewhere, he got his ass there and then he waited. He didn’t complain or get restless. He just waited.

How could he change his nature? Because he needed to. He needed to walk away from McKay-Taggart. He wasn’t sure what he would do, but he had some land back in Wyoming and maybe it was time to shut himself off from everyone.

“It’s all right, Jesse. No one blames you for biting that bastard. I just wish you’d taken a bigger chunk out of him.”

He was such a joke. He really was a dog without a leash sometimes. “I think I should hand in my notice.”

Simon’s chair turned. “No.”

Just a flat denial and no explanation. “You don’t get a say in this. I’m going to tell Tag when he comes in. I can be on a plane to Laramie by tonight.”

He didn’t have much to pack. Almost everything he owned had been picked out by Charlotte and the other women. He would grab his duffel and pack his clothes and make arrangements to ship his guns. He had a couple of pictures he wanted to take, but not a lot else.

Simon leaned forward, his eyes going to his cousin who suddenly seemed deeply interested in his punch glass. “We can talk about this later, but don’t think for a second I’ll let you leave.”

Jesse really didn’t care if Malone was listening in, or Deke for that matter. Hell, apparently everyone had been listening to his private humiliations for months. “You don’t get a say.”

“I bloody well do. I’m your partner. This affects me, too. You can’t just quit.”

“Watch me.” He knew he was being stubborn, that he should have just slid his resignation onto Big Tag’s desk and walked out, but somehow he couldn’t leave without having it out with Simon. Everyone else, he could handle. Simon and Phoebe had been his people. God, he thought he’d had people again but he needed to always remember that moment in the Humvee. When he really thought about it, his life had ended there and he was just a walking shell now. It was just that for a moment, he’d felt alive again.

His mind suddenly went back to Jimmy, the new guy. He’d only been in the unit a few weeks when they’d been caught. He remembered how stoic the man had been. He’d just had one request—that whoever survived take his wife a message. Jimmy had been messed up when he’d given Jesse the message and it hadn’t made a lick of sense to him, but he’d promised.

Jesse had failed in that, too. He hadn’t been able to find the wife of the private. He’d f*cked up and gotten the name wrong because no one in Army personnel could tell him anything. Hell, after all the crap he’d been fed, maybe the man had never existed at all.

He kind of deserved what he got.

“Jesse, I will not allow that woman to break you,” Simon hissed his direction. “Do you understand me? She lied. She fooled us all.”

“And what about you? Did you lie, too?” He had to know. Even though he was still going to walk away, he needed to know if Simon had ever been his friend.

“About what?” Simon asked, his voice low.

“He wants to know if you were watching him, too,” Malone said, his eyes grave. “He thinks because my team was monitoring him that maybe you guys were doing the same. You know you aren’t the only one who spent time in a prison over there, Murdoch.”