Facing Reality

Chapter 7

    We were sitting outside watching the sunrise the next morning, each drinking a cup of coffee, when I finally felt the courage to finish my story. "Pietro was a known arms dealer, but the CIA headquarters thought there was more to him than just weapons. They wanted information on him."

    Luke turned toward me, silently acknowledging the strength it took to continue felling my story.

    "I took the assignment. There was no way I was going to pass up the first assignment I had been offered in a whole year." I shook my head and leaned forward to place it in the palms of my hands. "It was the biggest mistake I could have ever made. I should have left it to someone with more experience. I was too excited to prove myself, too eager to get back into the field. Desk duty had been wearing me down, giving me too much time to think over what had happened with that serial killer.

    "But I took the assignment. I took it and flew out to Chicago the very next day. Pietro was rumored to have been staying in a casino close by a private airstrip. I posed as a pilot, got a job to Pietro's private plane, and spent two years flying him around."

    Luke stared at me in shock. "Two years?"

    I dipped my head in a half nod. "Two years," I confirmed. "Two years of trying to gather information. Two years of keeping a record of every place we traveled to. I never once contacted the CIA, because I couldn't risk it. I had a emergency phone number in case anything went really bad. I also had an email with all the information I had been collecting on it. It had a timer which I had to reset every three days. If I didn't reset it, it would be sent straight to headquarters.

    "Four months into the second year, one of his men attacked me, accusing me of not being loyal. He had two other men with him who sat back and watched as he beat me up. I was barely conscious when he stopped, but I was awake enough to hear him tell his buddies to kill me." I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood. "I shot all three of them. One of the sidekicks survived and quickly spread rumors about me which surprisingly earned me quite a bit of respect among Pietro's followers. I should have known not to let the rumors continue.

    "By the time month five had come around, everyone thought I was some sort of cold hearted ex-military soldier. Pietro heard the rumors and confronted me about them. There was no way I was going to deny them, because I was sure that, if I did, I would be dead. He believed me."

    I stopped, staring at my hands and frowning. "Could... could we maybe go inside and get some more coffee?"

    Luke smiled understandingly. "Of course." I followed him into his house and sat at the kitchen island while he filled my cup up with liquid energy.

    "He asked me to kill a CIA agent."

    Luke froze. His eyes slowly came up to study me, but I kept mine firmly glued to the counter top.

    "I even knew the man Pietro asked me to kill. He was one of the agents who had been sent in later on to keep an eye on me. I learned afterward that the CIA headquarters didn't trust me as much as I thought they did. They sent the man in to make sure my assignment wouldn't turn out the same way as my last one had.

    "At first, I was terrified. How would I pull off faking the agent's death? Or how could I tell Pietro I couldn't kill him? I was in over my head, but I couldn't bail out now. I didn't have enough information to bail out. I would be the laughing stock of the CIA if I left.

    "So I did the only thing I could think of. I loaded my gun with rubbed bullets and shot the agent while I drove by his post. The CIA weren't sure how to handle the situation, but they were smart enough to fake the agent's death and put him into witness protection.

    "That's when everything became a real mess. No one at the agency outside of those who helped the agent had been told about the faked death. They thought that I had really killed him. They thought that I had... turned against them, that Pietro had somehow got into my head. Part of the story that circulated through the agency was that I had told Pietro about the agent, that I had sold him out to Pietro as a way to gain his trust." I swallowed hard, blinking back tears. The pain was still as fresh as if it had all happened the day before. "Someone put a bounty out for me, but it only increased Pietro's trust and interest in me. The CIA had put a thousand dollars on my head, how could I not be loyal to Pietro? How could I not be one of them?"

    I looked up at Luke, silent tears tracing down my cheeks. "How could they have thought that? How could have my coworkers turned against me like that? Even the girl who sat beside me while I was on desk duty said that I was angry and wanted revenge for being taken out of the field. They never for a moment thought I was innocent. No one doubted that I had turned. No one except for the police chief who had brought me up and my field operator. They both tried to convince everyone the stories were wrong. I was still on their side." I shook my head slowly. "They were arrested for conspiracy."

    "Didn't the people who knew what happened try to stop all this?" Luke asked, disgust in his eyes.

    I laughed humorlessly. "That's the thing, they encouraged it. They told me after that they thought it would help me get into Pietro's good graces. So, I was stuck playing Pietro's lapdog with a bounty on my head and the CIA out to get me. I had two attempts on my life by other agents who had happened on me while they were on the field."

    I could see Luke's jaw working. He was seriously pissed.

    "Then I had enough information to put Pietro away for life. I sent it in, and the real story came out. A group of agents and police officers were sent to me to help take Pietro down. At some point, I got separated from the group, but I was cocky. I wanted to show them that I could take him down myself." I flinched as I remember what had happened next. "I thought he would be in his office like he always was. What I didn't know was the door was rigged with a bomb. The police chief told me to get out, because nothing seemed right about how the arrest was going down. I ignored him. I wish so badly that I hadn't.

    "I got to Pietro's office and tried to open the door. I triggered the bomb trying to get into the office and got a side full of shrapnel. I'm honestly not sure how I survived it, much less how I managed to get up and continue in the search.

    "I lost a pint of blood by the time I found Pietro. He was dead, having committed suicide after realizing he was trapped." I hesitated. "I don't remember much of what happened after that. I remember waking up in a cabin with a nurse looking after me. I was told I was in witness protection, but, a day or two later, some of Pietro's men who hadn't been taken down found us. I barely escaped with my life."

    "And that's when you knew someone had betrayed you," Luke finished for me.

    I gave him a small smile. "Yeah. That's when I left and cut off all contact with the CIA."

    Luke grabbed my hands and pressed his lips to each set of knuckles. "I know I've said this before, but you are the bravest person I know."

    I felt a lightness in my chest hearing his words. It was then, and only then, that I realized I couldn't scared him off. He knew I had killed people. He knew I was being hunted. But that didn't matter to him.

    I got up and walked around the kitchen island to stand in front of him and pull him into a hug. "Thank you," I whispered into his hair.

    "No, thank you. You trusted me enough to tell me your story. I know how hard that can be, and it isn't something I will take for granted. Your trust means more to me than you can possible know. So, thank you."

    I relaxed in his arms and let tears of relief build up in my eyes and spill down my face. I couldn't have asked for a more understanding, compassionate, and wonderful person than Luke Gage.