He let out a loud shout. “I would never,” he said. “Ezra’s the most perfect guy I’ve ever met. I would never let a single hair on his pretty little head be hurt. Not by people like you, or by people from Nexovex.”
I looked between the two of them. “I’m going with Jac,” I said. “I’ll come to the hearings, but I don’t like it here.”
“Under the Whistleblower Protection Act, I must be available to help you,” she said.
I nodded. “I wanna speak to my lawyer.”
She sucked on her teeth. “If you let me continue... Your legal counsel was contingent on you being sued for work done at Nexovex. This doesn’t apply. You need new legal counsel.”
“When were you going to tell him?” Jacques asked. “You were just going to drag this whole thing out. Whose team are you even on? His or the billionaires’.”
I looked at her for an answer, but it didn’t come in the way I thought. “I’m on the side of justice, and however that justice is handed out. No court or judge has heard from either side yet.”
“And that’s another reason I’m going with Jac. He’s on my side,” I said.
He shook his head, his upper lip in a snarl almost as he glared at Dina. “Give me your card,” he said, switching the gun between hands and extending the now empty one closest to her. “We’ll call when we’ve got someone to represent him. And you can stop half-assing this entire thing.”
She handed him the card and licked her teeth. “You’ll do the right thing,” she said. “If you leave and don’t contact me, I can’t be too sure there won’t be a manhunt for the both of you. The government doesn’t take the act lightly.”
He nodded and so I nodded, although now I felt foolish. I thought I’d done everything properly. I went to the New York State Inspector General’s office in Albany, made a protected disclosure, was briefed on my responsibilities and how to document. Now, as we were walking out of the room, I realized I’d just been giving them information without actually having any cover for my ass—except for Jacques, who was all over my ass—but he wasn’t a lawyer. Shit, maybe he was... I needed to get to know him better.
9. JACQUES
I obviously wasn’t about to shoot up a little hotel room with an FBI agent in front of me and another behind me—although from the looks of him, he was not prepared for this. The agent let me take Ezra, my little kitten, and he clung to me like a life raft. And that’s exactly what I was right now, because if he stayed any longer, I knew those fucking rich dickwads would be all over the location with their mercs—and fingers crossed they weren’t from Sanctum.
Ezra’s big eyes stared at me the entire time we were in the car leaving the city. He hugged the teddy I’d found for him, which seemed to be the biggest thing he’d been worried about. He’d had tears in his eyes when he thanked me for the seventh time.
“I need to know more about you,” he whispered.
“I’ve never lied to you,” I said. “So just know that everything I’ve said has been the complete truth.”
Runa was in my ear again. “That’s the Reaper I know, although you do lie on occasion.”It was a little jarring, since I’d forgotten she was there after an hour of driving through New York City’s rush-hour traffic—she wasn’t able to help me through it, but I was thankful for all her help regardless, because I didn’t want Mercy finding out.
“I haven’t lied to you, Ezra,” I said, and he looked at me funny.
“Are you speaking to the voice in your head again?” he asked with a big smirk. “I know you said you haven’t, and maybe that’s why I’m worried. Because you’ve—you’ve done a lot of bad things.”
“Kitten,” I said, glancing at him. The roads were a little clearer now, although it was getting dark. “How much of me do you want to know?”
“I guess I’ll leave for this one,” Runa said.
I pulled the comms piece from my ear, and the space it occupied felt strange now. “I’ll tell you absolutely anything. Any question you’ve got, I’ll have an answer for it.”
He wrapped his arm around mine as my hand rested on the gear stick. “Do you like killing people?”
Right out of the gate with that type of question. “Sometimes,” I said. It was the truth and I’d already told him I couldn’t lie. Not to him. “It all depends on who it is, and how I’m able to do it. I prefer to kill with a gun to the head. But if they’re being... difficult, I’ll play with them. I’m a sharpshooter, so I’ll get their feet, their hands, and just put them in a world of pain before I end it all.” My heart raced, revealing this formation to him. “I’m not a bad person, though.”
“And you did that because you got paid, or why?” he continued, almost unfazed by what I’d said.
“Yes, most of the time I got paid, and I got paid well,” I said. “I work hard on making myself a machine, someone whose muscles actually work rather than someone who only performs for a camera.” I smirked at myself, knowing some of the guys in Sanctum where that type—bodybuilders, pretty bodies, but not practical in the slightest.
He snorted a laugh. “Okay, now what about your family?”
“Okay,” I let out, sucking in a big breath. “Family.”
“Yeah, you know I don’t have a relationship with mine,” he said. “So what’s your like?”
“Give me a second on that one,” I said, gritting my teeth. “My family is from New York, Upstate. Not where we’re going, though. Don’t worry. My father was an alcoholic who hit me, my mom died from addiction when I was six, and I have a sister wholives in New Mexico. She’s younger than me. I send her money weekly, it’s like on autopay. She thinks I’m abroad working on big rigs or something.” There was a smile that touched the corners of my lips and I couldn’t help it. “My sister is light and pure. I stood in front of every abusive outburst, and shielded her as much as I could.”
