Page 30 of Tracking Safety

It had been a church very much like this one—the same quality of light, the same smell of old wood and candle wax, the same hush. He’d stood at the front and watched Jenna come down the aisle. He’d thought he was the luckiest man alive and that whatever happened from that day forward he’d never forget watching her walk toward him.

For many years, he’d thought of that moment as the happiest day of his life.

He looked at Jenna now, sitting an arm’s length away on this pew with her hands folded in her lap and a small bandage above her eyebrow.

He no longer knew what to do with that memory. He didn’t know whether it still counted. Whether happiness that had been built on something incomplete—on a woman who’d kept pieces of herself locked away from the beginning—was the kind of happiness that held up under scrutiny.

He didn’t have an answer for that.

Jenna stared at the cross at the front of the church. Whatever she was thinking about, Luke couldn’t read it, and he’d spent more than a decade learning to read her. That, more than anything, told him how much he didn’t know.

He couldn’t imagine what she was about to say. He couldn’t imagine any explanation that would rearrange the past two years into something that made sense.

But Jenna was here, and Luke was here, and their children had asked questions at the dinner table that he hadn’t been able to answer.

Whatever was true, he deserved to hear it.

He folded his arms and waited.

Finally, Jenna drew in a long, slow breath. “I guess I should start at the beginning.”

Jenna licked her lips, knowing she just needed to get this conversation over with.

“My real name isn’t Jenna. It’s Ellie. Ellie Johnson was the name I grew up with.” She paused. “Then I got married and became Ellie Barone.”

Luke’s eyes widened with surprise, but he said nothing.

“I grew up in Chicago,” she continued. “I was twenty-one my path crossed with Roderick. He was charming and attentive, and I knew I’d never met anyone like him before. I didn’t know then what that meant.”

She looked again at the cross at the front of the church and prayed for strength to continue. This wasn’t a story she wanted to tell, but it was her story.

“We got married less than a year later. For a while I was happy. Then I started noticing things. Late nights. Phone calls he’d take in the other room. Associates who made my skin crawl.” She paused. “There was one man always around in those days. Sutter. Roderick’s driver, his shadow—the one who handled everything for Roderick. He always put me on edge.”

“Sounds terrifying.”

She nodded slowly. “It was. I told myself I was overthinking things. But eventually I found out the truth. Roderick wasn’t who he said he was. He was born into a crime family—the Barones. They were known for many things including extortion, money laundering, and . . . contract killing.”

Luke went still beside her.

“Before I could figure out what to do with that information, an FBI agent cornered me in an elevator at work.” She could still feel the lurch of the car stopping between floors, still feel the surge of fear she’d experienced. “He told me they’d been investigating the Barone family and that I could be charged as an accessory if I didn’t cooperate with them.”

A frown flicked at his lips. “In other words, he backed you into a corner.”

“I suppose you could say he used whatever leverage he could to make me see things his way. I was terrified, and I had no good options. So I agreed to help them. I became an informant. I fed them information for months until they had enough to build a case.”

“Was Roderick the head of the organization?”

She shook her head. “Not at first. His father, Vito, was. But Vito got dementia. Before the FBI could pursue any charges against him, he moved to somewhere in South America and disappeared.”

“What happened then?”

“Then . . .” She paused. “Then I finally collected enough evidence to send Roderick to prison. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. The whole organization seemed to collapse.”

The candle flame at the front of the church wavered then steadied.

“Once the trial was over, I had to disappear. That was the deal. I’d start a new life and go into hiding. We knew there were still people in the Barone organization who’d come after me when they learned about my betrayal.”

“You went into witness protection . . .” Luke muttered.