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“Trust me, I’m getting there. The best part about the undercover gig was money. Lots of it. I would keep my FBI salary in addition to the salary that the organization paid me. It was enough to take care of Nonna and Lucia. That was all that mattered to me at the time. And let’s face it, I was young. So to me, the idea of undercover work seemed fascinating, exciting. A far cry from the ordinary life I’d been living. I could run into danger but sanctioned danger.” I shook my head. “I had no clue what I was getting myself into.”
“So you’re FBI?”
“I was. I’m sorry I lied to you. It’s a long story. I was undercover for a long time. Hell, I’m technically not even supposed to be alive. It’s only been a year since I’ve come back out into the world under my real name.”
She stared at me, but she didn’t remove her hand from mine. Instead, she watched me intently. As if waiting for me to tell her more.
“After Quantico, I was sent back to school as if that semester had never happened. As if all that training had never occurred. The extra FBI courses I needed to graduate from Quantico, I took through correspondence on weekends. There are a few of us that were like that. All because they wanted us young, fresh. It was strange being back in my normal life. In essence, all I had to do was wait to be approached by ORUS. And just like my handlers said, it didn’t take very long.”
“And ORUS is that organization you were talking about?”
I lifted my head so I could meet her gaze directly. I needed to be looking her in the eye when I said this.
“It’s an organization of assassins. They’re a black-ops group working with the US government designed to take out the worst of the worst. The kind of people that you can’t even contain in prison. The kind of people doing damage across the world to thousands if not millions.”
Very quietly she asked, “So you’re an assassin?”
“Not anymore. After I was recruited into ORUS, I started out low level but quickly worked my way up. Most of the hits I was on were sanctioned by the government. I only had problems twice. Once, there was this girl who wasn’t supposed to be in the house. When I took out my target, I found her there.”
She swallowed hard. “Rafe, what did you do?”
“I knew what the FBI protocol was: call it in, have her taken from her home. Away from any family who might be able to look after her. Have her questioned. After losing her father, I didn’t think that was the best course of action for her. And then, of course, my ORUS orders would’ve been to take her out.”
I shuddered, remembering. “I was a killer, but I wasn’t going to hurt that little girl. She was an innocent. It was her father who was the dregs of society. So I put her in a closet and made a point to put the fear of God into her. It was the only way to keep her safe. If she ever mentioned she’d seen me there, both my organizations would’ve taken action. And I didn’t want anything to happen to her.”
Next to me, she shook. “You did that to save her?”
I nodded. “I may be going to hell for the things I’ve done, but I’m not taking anyone else with me. I’m not a complete monster.”
Diana closed her eyes, looking pained. “I’m sure she didn’t understand at the time, but if she had known, she would’ve loved you for what you did.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“What about the other case?”
“That’s the one that got me killed.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“It wasn’t a sanctioned hit. The leader of ORUS was going after someone who was actually an undercover FBI agent. I tried to deter him, but it didn’t work. He sent Noah to do the job.”
“Noah? Your brother-in-law? But he runs a security firm.”
I smiled ruefully. “He didn’t always run a security firm. He was ORUS once. I was his mentor in the organization. I taught him everything. He was like a brother to me. But that day, they sent him to do a job they didn’t intend for him to come back from. They intended him to die there. But I was able to stop him from executing the hit. And instead, I died.”
“How?”
“I was wearing a special type of ultrathin Kevlar. So when he shot me, he thought he’d killed me. But I managed to live through it.”
“Noah killed you?”
“He didn’t mean to. It’s a long story. But that day, Rafael DeMarco died. The feds had to clean up after everything went down, so I was given a new name and identity and sent to work overseas. But I had no life. No family. No friends other than people I worked with. It’s been only recently that I came back into Noah and Lucia’s lives. We brought the leader of ORUS to justice. The organization is still around but with a new leader and back in the fold of the government.”
“My head is spinning. This is so much. Why did you tell me all this?”
“I know you have things that you don’t want to tell me. Things that you’re scared of telling me. Things you think will make me walk away from you. And I want you to know, that after everything I’ve done, the lies I’ve told, the people I’ve hurt,killed, there is nothing that can make me walk away from you. I love you. It’s as simple as that.”
“I want to tell you. I do. I’m so scared.”
