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Rafe buried his instinct to tell him the truth. It killed him sometimes, his double life that required him to constantly mislead, omit or deceive. He wished sometimes that he could go back in time and change everything. Then he wouldn’t have to hide who he was, and more importantly, he wouldn’t have to wonder every day when his decisions would blow back and hurt the ones he loved most.
“One day you’ll understand. I promise. But for now, I’d rather have you here with them.”
Noah looked down the table to where Nonna and Lucia were. Rafe wasn’t sure if the kid understood how much trust it took for Rafe to leave someone else watching over his family.
“You’re the only one I trust to take care of them.”
Noah seemed to understand the importance of the statement. He nodded once and looked Rafe directly in the eye. He only knew the bare bones of where Noah had come from, that he’d been bounced between a bunch of foster homes before ending up on the streets. But Rafe knew when a man was worth his word, and Noah looked like he’d just accepted a blood vow.
“I’ll always take care of them. Not just because they’re your family. But because they’re mine too.”
chapter 2
The next day found Rafe looking across a very different table, one that wasn’t half as advanced as the one he’d seen the prior day. It was ironic that ORUS had been originally founded as a shadow organization supporting the US government’s intelligence agencies but somehow had better technology. The tools available to him as one of Orion’s operatives were miles ahead of anything issued to the men around him.
That was the conundrum of being an undercover FBI agent.
“It’s becoming harder and harder to come in without being detected. I don’t think Orion trusts anyone these days.” Rafe sighed.
It was difficult for the men who were his contacts in the FBI to understand the stress of living on both sides of the line. The only one who got it was his prior handler, Agent Granger, but he’d been injured on the job last year. He’d worked undercover for many years.
His current handler, an older agent named Alan Dawkins, regarded him warily. Lately he’d gotten the vibe that they didn’t believe him when he had trouble checking in. The FBI had recruited him young, chosen him specifically, and at first he couldn’t understand why. Then it had become clear. As a young man in his shitty neighborhood, he was a prime candidate for ORUS recruitment. They looked for guys just like him, young men who needed money and honestly didn’t have that much to lose.
Rafe couldn’t pretend that he wouldn’t have been tempted to join ORUS proper if he hadn’t been approached by the FBI first. They offered more than just money; they promised protection. As the man of the house at such a young age, he’d had to quickly lose his scruples and do whatever was necessary to help Nonna make ends meet.
He’d done a few drug runs for a local dealer before he’d seen someone get capped right in front of him. That had been the moment he realized he was unlikely to get out of their neighborhood through any other means than a body bag if he didn’t shape up. He’d managed to get a scholarship to Fordham in the city and work part-time after that. It hadn’t been much, but he slept better at night.
When the FBI had approached him to be an undercover agent, he’d seen it as a chance to make the money that he couldn’t get any other way.
All he’d had to do was say yes when someone from ORUS approached him and then infiltrate one of the most secretive organizations in the world. Simple.
Deadly.
Every day Rafe was aware that he was one slip-up away from being exposed and finding himself on the end of an ORUS-approved hit. But somehow over the past years he’d only risen in the organization until he was one of the most decorated and skilled operatives they had. He had the ear of the leader and more money than he knew what to do with. But the stress had started to catch up with him lately.
He had no idea what it was like to sleep all the way through the night anymore. His family was safe and well provided for, but he couldn’t spend much time with them. They shouldn’t be subjected to his dark moods.
“This is important. There’s been chatter about the Vandergraffs.” Dawkins placed a file on the table between them.
A smoky tendril of dread curled through Rafe. The job that haunted him the most. “I thought that was a closed case.”
“The Vandergraffs will never be a closed case. The father’s death only means that his sons took the reins and they’ve now expanded his criminal holdings threefold.”
Dawkins held open the file, and Rafe pretended to read it. Really, his mind was racing, images from that night coming back. Images that he’d bury forever if he could.
“So what do you need me for?”
“We’ve gotten intel that the sons are looking for information on their father’s hit. They believe it was government authorized to get access to a family heirloom. They’re fueling all kinds of conspiracy theories about every government under the sun looting private citizens. It’s becoming a problem. Do you remember anything unusual about that job? Anything happen that was out of the ordinary? I know it was a few years ago…”
Two years exactly. Rafe tensed. They were discussing a man’s death as if it were just another day at the office. He’d grown accustomed to the cavalier way they played with people’s lives but in this case, it was particularly bad. Rafe knew that not only was he the one who’d killed Dieter Vandergroot, he’d also traumatized his young daughter. He’d been forced to do a lot of things in his ORUS tenure, but that particular job would always stand out. She’d been so young, couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, and had stared at him with big, haunted dark eyes. He’d just shot her father and then had heard the whimpering of what sounded like a wounded animal. Then he’d pulled the curtains back to find her curled up in the window seat, terrified.
She hadn’t even tried to fight him.
It had been the moment he was forced to realize what he’d become.
“No, I don’t remember anything unusual happening. It was a standard job. In and out.” The last thing he’d ever do was tell the FBI that there had been a witness to the hit. They turned a blind eye to the things ORUS did because it was seen as being for the great
er good. But he’d killed a young girl’s father in front of her. He’d left a witness to the crime behind because there was no way he could do what he’d been officially trained to do in that circumstance. He wouldn’t hurt an innocent to cover his tracks. Thank God, he’d been wearing a mask.
