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sp; “I’m willing to accept that. Would you be?”
What? Was she seriously going to turn this into some kind of lesson? “No, Bridget. I wouldn’t. But I would never do what you did. I would never choose to betray you.”
Bridget looked down at Justice’s raised finger, then over at Sandesh. She shook her head. “You did betray me, us. If you hadn’t, Sandesh wouldn’t know about our operation.”
Bridget stared at Sandesh. For his part, he stood at military attention, silent as he watched the family falling apart before his eyes. “Everyone makes mistakes. But only a chosen few are given a second chance. Cooper loved y—”
“No, Bridget! You don’t get to talk to me about love or mistakes. What I did, what I revealed, came from being backed into a corner. Something that happened when I tried to rescue a girl. Someone who never would’ve been saved if not for the League. What you did almost got me killed, and you did it because you no longer believe in the League.”
Bridget’s chin lowered the slightest bit. It was the only sign in her straight-backed, light-me-on-fire-and-I-won’t-blink posture that let Justice know she might have struck pay dirt. And she wanted pay dirt. She wanted Bridget to feel something. All that equanimity shouldn’t mean she couldn’t be properly punished. Or hurt. Like she’d hurt Justice.
Bridget lifted her head. “You’re wrong. I never stopped believing in the League. It was the League that stopped doing what it was designed to do. It was founded to rescue people. Ask yourself, are the kids here rescued? Or are they warped warriors being trained to break the law?”
“Warped? The laws are warped. The laws don’t work. Or haven’t you watched the news? Men everywhere see us as evil. They see our normal emotions as something that need to be repressed. And apparently you do too. We can’t all suck up the pain, Bridge. We can’t all cut ourselves off from the world.”
“I do none of those things.” Bridget seemed pissed now. She breathed slow and carefully. “I pay attention. I look for opportunities to advance our cause. I do this without violence. And it works. Mostly.”
Mostly? What a joke. “Bridget, the ‘mostly’ is what we’re worried about. The girls like Cee and Juliette and that little Russian kid. They need us to fight for them. Do you think that men are going to suddenly stand up for us? Do you think…?”
She stopped. She couldn’t finish. Men had stood up. Men like Sandesh, who had kept her secret, gone to find Coop, and now stood beside her while she railed. Men like Tony and Leland. And men raised in a world far away from the League. Like Gracie’s John. Like Dada’s Juan.
Bridget stared at her knowingly. “It could work. Not just a band of sisters, but all of us, together. Men and women working to change the laws or see them enforced.”
“You want us to give up covert ops to concentrate on lobbying? And what about in other countries? If we’d done what you wanted, Bridget, a twelve-year-old girl would, at this very moment, be a victim of the man I killed. But she’s free and safe. And you are wrong. So get out. You’re wasting my time. I need to plan another soul-fracturing murder that will set free women in need of rescue.”
Bridget wavered. Her eyes swept over to Momma. Her shoulders finally slumped. “I’m sorry for my lies.”
She walked to the door and opened it. A member of Mantua Home Internal Security, Eugie, stood there. She would isolate Bridget and keep her from any more of her bullshit. Until things were clear with the FBI, until they could find a way to M-erase her that eradicated League information but allowed her to keep family memories.
Sandesh walked over to Justice. He put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
He wiped moisture from her cheek. “Are you sure?”
She swallowed, felt it overwhelm her, and broke down. He took her into his warm embrace, hugged her close, and held her until she had no more tears, no more strength, no more energy for rage.
Chapter 59
Standing in the doorway between his walk-in closet and his essentials-only bedroom, Sandesh undid his bow tie. It looked like crap.
Damn. He was nervous. He hated the idea of using Justice’s party to publicly sneak off with her.
It wasn’t a bad idea. He just wasn’t into making that kind of spectacle. The party would be filled with feds and people and paparazzi. He and Justice getting hot and heavy on the dance floor and sneaking off together would start a lot of press and rumors. Fortunately, not one of them would suspect that they’d really run off to Mexico to kill a human-trafficker.
He turned his head. “Don’t eat in my bed.”
Sprawled out across Sandesh’s gray comforter, Victor dug into the bag of Lay’s salt and vinegar chips. “Chill, dude. You want the information or not?”
Beautiful. Tied it wrong again. “Yeah. What did you find out?”
Victor shoved a handful of chips into his mouth, chewed. He shrugged. “On Mukta. Basically, what you’d expect. Attacked with acid, then adopted by two aid workers, a wealthy lesbian couple. They trained her in the art of business. She’s got a shit ton of degrees. Maybe she got interested in all that science when she was a kid. She had a couple of serious surgeries on her face. That’s where she met her right-hand man, Leland.”
“Really? She met him in the hospital? Was he sick?”
“No. Had a younger sister with leukemia. She was at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia when Mukta was there having one of her surgeries. Leland and Mukta met then.”
“The sister?”
“She survived. Gotta love CHOP. Anyway, fast-forward a couple dozen years. Sister marries. Has a kid. Has a couple of domestic disturbances on record. Nothing major. Then one day, she up and goes missing. The police suspect the husband. No proof. The husband takes the kid and disappears.”
Sandesh moved into the bedroom. “This guy killed Leland’s sister? What happened to the man? What happened to the kid?”
Victor dusted crumbs from his shirt, which fell all over Sandesh’s bed. “Well, this is where it gets interesting. The father disappeared with the kid, but he resurfaced six years later when he reported his son, then eleven, missing. The kid had run away from home. Six months after that, the father is dead. Suicide. Apparently, his conscience had gotten the better of him. In his suicide note, he admitted to abusing his son and killing his wife. He told the police where to find the sister’s-slash-wife’s body. Later, the kid was found and adopted. By the Parish family.”
Sandesh felt goose bumps down to his toes. “Tony? Tony was the kid. But Justice told me she was responsible for his adoption. She’d found him in an alley.”
Victor stopped with a chip midway to his mouth. “Why lie about it to her?”
He wasn’t sure. But this was the kind of shit that made him crazy. Did Tony know that Leland was his uncle? “Maybe because he was the first boy. They probably figured he’d be accepted even less if people knew he was related to Leland. They’re big into unity.”
Victor stuck the chip into his mouth. “They’re big into something.”
Sandesh met his eyes, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Meaning?”
“The records on the father’s suicide suggested he had been in a fight earlier that day. Apparently, there were bruises all over his body.”
Sandesh froze. He knew exactly what Victor suggested. Maybe the reason the family had lied about Tony was because they didn’t want to be associated with the death of the father. Could be right. And he didn’t feel right telling Victor otherwise. He was his partner and as much in this as Sandesh, though he knew little. “So what do you think?”
“Yeah.” Victor reached into the bag. “Well, I think the Parish family is into some strange shit. And I have to wonder how long it will take the FBI to start piecing it together. After the attack two weeks ago, they’re still investigating the school, right?”
“Yep.”
“Does this ha
ve anything to do with why you were chased from Zaatari?”
Sandesh waited a moment before responding. “Do you really want in on this?”
“No. No I don’t. Do you?”
Sandesh detected a splinter of annoyance in Victor’s voice. Couldn’t be helped. He was crossing all kinds of lines here.
Victor crunched down on another chip. “Why you going to this party?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Forget the fact that there were bombs dropped on the place not too long ago. And that the students flooded out faster than water from a broken damn. Getting caught up with these people endangers the IPT. The mission.”
Sandesh shook his head. “What I’m doing is necessary to keep the mission safe.”
Victor put the Lay’s bag on the nightstand. “It’s not worth the money, man. Walk away. Learn whatever the fuck you needed to learn. Get back to letting go of the bad shit and back to making some good shit happen.”
The tie was as good as it was going to get. Sandesh pulled on his tuxedo jacket. He ran a hand through his hair and disregarded the judgmental look on Victor’s face. “Look, Justice is the good shit. And her family…most of her family are the good guys.”
“Is this love or business?”
Both. And more. “I’ve got to go.”
“Sure. Hurry along. Chase after that chick like a groupie tailing a tour bus. But you better hope that bus isn’t lined with explosives. Because this kind of stuff gets a guy killed.”
* * *
The night doorman held open the front door as Sandesh exited his building. “Good evening, Mr. Ross. Your limo has arrived.”
“Thanks, Al.” Normally, he would’ve driven himself, but Mukta had insisted on sending a car. And she’d made a good point. He didn’t want his own car hanging out on campus while he and Justice flew to Mexico.
Sandesh skirted construction tape—they were always doing some construction here—to get to the limo.
He introduced himself to the driver, slipped inside the car, and closed the door.
The driver walked around the car and got in. Sandesh eyeballed the guy behind the partition. A limo driver who trusted his passenger to shut his own door? It was a new day in America.
