Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes #1)(59)

Holy shit. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. She clenched her hands into fists. Her arm ached.

Fuck.

This was real.

“Hey. Hey, this way.” Rand grasped her shoulder and tugged her out of the flow of foot traffic, down a lesser-traveled street.

They didn’t speak. Every time she opened her mouth, there were more people around. They walked for a good fifteen minutes before they found a small courtyard between buildings with a fountain and benches. Rand led her to the fountain and perched on the edge. She watched him appearing to admire the scenery for a few moments. The only go-ahead signal she got was a slight dip of his chin.

“What the hell, Rand?” She kept her voice low and gripped the edge of the fountain, staring at the way the cobblestones under their feet fit together.

She’d always seen her path as one brick in front of the next, building a road forward. Progress. Peace. A better future. Now she didn’t know what to think.

“Andy’s—”

“Is that his name?” She glanced up at Rand.

“Yeah.”

“He doesn’t have the right to be judge, jury, and executioner.”

“Not by normal thinking, but who could Wei face for justice?”

“Murdering a man can’t be called justice. Can it?” Sarah was beginning to question her view of right and wrong. What Wei did, it was wrong. But was killing him right? Or was that adding another wrong to the pile?

“Think about it.” Rand leaned forward, peering up at her. “Who do you think killed the man at the hotel, hmm? If we go forward with this plan, if we do what they want us to, chances are we will run up against Wei. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have Andy at our back than not. The way I see it, this ensures we have one of the best guys with us. If it comes down to getting you out or holding off Wei, Andy takes care of Wei. I take care of you. No part of me is going to try to capture that man, anyway. We’re just…not standing in Andy’s way.”

“Why does Andy want him dead?” Sarah had never hated anyone that much.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t want to know all the details.” Rand grimaced. “There were kids involved. Andy gets…protective when children and innocent bystanders are hurt.”

“Oh.” Sarah swallowed and stared at Rand. She wasn’t surprised at the extent of Wei’s evil. She’d heard the rumors of the silent killer since she started working for the company, but was she ready to be one of those who cast the lot, choosing that man’s death? “And you’re okay with this?”

Rand opened and closed his mouth.

She studied his face, the lines appearing, disappearing, the internal war he was waging playing out on his features.

“They’ve asked you to kill for them, haven’t they?” Her hands went so ice-cold, the stone under her palms didn’t even register.

“Why do you think they wanted to recruit me in the first place?” He stared out at nothing.

Matt and Rand had been two peas in a pod. Where one went, so did the other. Rand had disappeared so soon after Matt’s first surgery, when they took the dead part of his arm, that… Had things been different, would it be Matt and Rand out in the field doing this stuff?

She licked her lips, staring at the frown lines bracketing his mouth. “Matt…?”

“It was time to re-up or get out. We hadn’t had the time yet to do the paperwork before the accident. I couldn’t go back and face what was left of the others so, I got out. Next thing I know, there’s a knock on my door.”

“Why us?”

“Dunno.”

“They told me my job allowed me the kind of freedom to travel, come and go, that would be suspicious of someone else. But…why me? Why you? I never really thought they wanted Emily after my panic died down. Would they have wanted Matt, too?” The scary thing was, even in the first few years of her brother’s marriage, she wasn’t sure if he’d have said no if the company came calling. It was a motivational job offer, to say the least.

“My best guess is we fit a profile. Everyone fits a damn profile.”

“How am I supposed to sign off on the death of a man? How are you okay with it?”

“I’ve met guys like Wei. They will kill anyone, do anything. People like you make the world a little brighter. People like Wei make it a little darker.”

“And Andy?”

“He’s a crazy bastard. Shit.” Rand shook his head. “I imagine Wei has something to do with a job that went sideways for Andy a while ago. We all have that one job we wish had gone…I don’t know. Better. Different. I get the idea that a lot of people died and maybe Wei was involved or responsible.”

“Why Andy? Why did you go to him? He’s crazy.”

“Because he’s batshit crazy, but in his moral code, we’re the good guys. Helping us means saving kids, women, innocents.”

The greater good.

That was what Charlie had talked about to her when she hadn’t been able to wrap her head around something he said. Sometimes one person had to die so many others could live. The cost of a few lives versus the many. In this scenario, that meant sacrificing Wei, a terrible person, to save everyone was acceptable. Sarah had always known these decisions were happening outside of her knowledge, but now she was directly involved. The ethical struggle was one she’d been able to avoid until now. She knew that was what Charlie or Irene would tell her, but Sarah didn’t know if she could do it. If she could agree. She’d signed up to protect people, not just Americans, but others, too. Agreeing to this meant that there were some lives that shouldn’t be saved.