It’ll kill me eventually. One of these days it will all become too much, and I long for those days. I crave the day I’m strong enough to do what I’ve been building toward for such a long time.
Today isn’t that day, and a spark of hope sets my skin on fire when my phone rings.
CIRCUS MONKEYlights up the screen, but instead of answering it immediately, I debate whether or not I should. Letting it go to a voicemail that hasn’t been set up is only punishing myself. Knowing Alan, if I don’t answer, he’ll refuse and do the same when I call him right back.
“Yes,” I snap into the phone after the call connects.
“There’s a problem.”
My eyes squeeze closed as I pinch the bridge of my nose. With a federal agency with way too much oversight, there’s always a problem, always red tape, always a lag in info and movement in my line of work. It’s fucking dangerous, and the bigwigs in DC don’t give a fuck that someone’s life could be hanging in the balance. They need to make sure their bases are covered; their I’s are dotted and their T’s are crossed.
“What is it this time?” I mutter. “A Senator’s daughter? A mistress of a congressman?”
Silence fills the line, and although it’s not like Alan to leave me fucking hanging for nearly two weeks, I still can’t stop the annoyance that’s threatening to take over.
“I hate it when you waste my fucking time,” I snap. “If you can’t—”
“There’s been an inquiry into Costa Rica.”
My jaw snaps closed. “What did you tell them?”
“Nothing.”
Of fucking course he didn’t say anything. The man would never go to bat for someone on his team. If there’s even a hint that his job is at risk, he’d throw his own mother under the bus.
“What kind of questions are they asking?”
“They’re asking for everything. I’ve been evasive, but they’re giving you two options.”
My hand is shaking so badly that I have to press the speaker button on my cell phone and put it on the bed to continue.
“Which trip?”
“What do you mean?”
“Which trip to Costa Rica are they asking about?”
“Not this last one,” he says, and it’s all it takes.
This last trip to Costa Rica was bad, but that was because of the traffickers. The trip to Costa Rica, the one right after El Salvador, I was a different person. I didn’t follow protocol, which is always hard for me because the captors are never operating under a code either, but I was even less concerned then. The pain and abuse I saw hit me differently. I knew I shouldn’t have been back to work so soon after going to Cerberus for help with Thumper. I wasn’t in the mood to play victim, to feed my demons. I was angry, livid that there were people in the world who thought they had every right to hurt those weaker than them.
It was a fucking blood bath. One Alan didn’t even bat an eye at helping me cover up. Horrific things go on all the time in Central America. It didn’t take much for it to look like a battle between cartels. No man in that house was left alive. I didn’t take the time to sort out who was who. There was only one reason those men were there, and that was to take, to use up, to hurt.
The women who were set free thought I was their savior. No one knew I was an FBI agent. They thanked me and disbursed from that house.
I never thought it would creep back up and bite me in the ass, even after discovering that one of the men visiting just happened to be the son of a tech millionaire from California. He was just as guilty as the man who put a bag on my head and dragged me off the street two weeks prior. I saw what that man did to one of the younger girls there.
His father made it look like he was there for business, but I doubt his dad knew he was forcing a sixteen-year-old to suck his cock. I paid extra attention to that one. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still hear him begging for his life, offering me every penny of his father’s wealth if I let him live.
“What do they know?”
“I haven’t told them anything. I don’t remember any details other than what was in the report. You know me. Too busy to focus on much.”
Translation—I’m not putting my ass on the line for you.
“What are my options?”
“You can either come in for the inquiry or don’t.”