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“Sick of it. Everything. Working for you and that bastard Kuzo.”
“Ah. And when did you suddenly become sick of it? Because when we started, you were perfectly fine with the operation. In fact, I remember you being particularly invested in bringing that girl home safely.”
“I was pretending, alright? This whole time, I’ve just been pretending that I buy the bullshit that we’re saviors and not fucking murderers who are trying to somehow salvage our conscience.” He coughed some more, then continued, “I mean, seriously? You think Kuzo should have tortured those boys like we did the guerillas in Colombia? What those boys did is no worse than the shit we pulled on our operations.”
“We took down enemies of the country,” I reminded him.
“Oh yeah?” He gave a bitter laugh. “Are you sure about that? Because the truth is that we had no fucking clue who those people were. They could have been dictators or freedom fighters. They could have been normal fucking civilians, but we took them out anyway.”
“No, they weren’t. Every kill was a confirmed agent of terror. Someone who committed atrocities beyond redemption. I made sure of it.”
I told him that even though I’d asked myself the very same questions over and over again. The truth was that the death of my men tormented me, but so were those I took out myself. The fact was that, as much as I tried, I could never dissociate, never not see them as human beings. Some of them were evil men, confirmed. But some were collateral damage in the shootouts between the so-called evil men and us, and as much as I fucking tried to minimize it in my head and tell myself it was a worthy price to pay to eliminate them, I couldn’t quite convince myself.
I didn’t think I was a hero. That was a pathetic title made to make us feel better about what we did. I was a murderer. I’d come to accept that about myself.
But my men didn't deserve to bear the consequences of that.
That would be my penance alone.
Perhaps that was why, so far, I hadn’t been able to maintain a relationship with anyone. I couldn’t let go of that guilt and couldn’t see myself living a happy life with everything that had happened.
But that was me. My men were only guilty of following my orders, and they deserved better than me.
“You can’t let those things get in your head,” I told him, and he gave a huff.
“Really? Because these things in my head are the only things reminding me that I’m still human. Look, I tried to play it your way and pretend that I fucking bought the bullshit about redemption. But the truth was that I felt like shit every single day of this miserable life, and I’m now tired of feeling like that. So, please, just let me have this, alright? Let me fucking have this shit and finally get some peace.”
“No,” I said, getting up. “No. You hear me? I’m not giving up on you.”
“I quit. You can’t make me come back.”
“Lance—” The line went dead in my ear, and I nearly tossed it against the wall in frustration. But I didn’t.
I called Kuzo instead.
“Yeah?” he answered almost immediately, ever alert.
“Go to Lance’s house and watch out for him. Make sure he doesn’t do anything to himself. I’ll fly in tomorrow.”
Kuzo paused for a second. “Are you sure you want me for that job, boss? Because I’m not exactly his favorite person right now. Last time, we had…words.”
“Which makes you perfect for the job,” I said, and it was true. Because Kuzo wasn’t going to baby him. Kuzo would just get pissed, and they would fight, but he would also never let Lance hurt himself. So Lance would be alive. “Just don’t kill each other until I get there.”
“Roger that,” Kuzo said before hanging up. I could sense Kuzo was also worried about Lance, even though the man tried to pretend that nothing and no one in this world affected him. That was probably a part of his anger, seeing Lance descend into this pitiful mess of a man.
I sighed, rubbing my head. I had to leave town soon and get everything back in order at my company, but my job here wasn’t done. I still had yet to get Tillie situated, and I hadn’t found her mother. As Hardy said, the woman was probably dead, but what if she wasn’t? Would Tillie be better off knowing if she was?
I made a mental note to pull Hardy away from whatever he was working on to focus on finding Tillie’s mother. And perhaps send in some agents as well.
I still wasn’t sure about her feelings for her mother. Tillie didn’t ever let the conversation go there, and whenever I tried, she carefully avoided showing any emotion when talking about the woman. All I knew was that Priscilla abandoned her when she was young, but nothing else.
And the biggest reason why I couldn’t leave was Tillie’s chronic insomnia.
How the fuck was the girl going to sleep without me?
I picked up the phone and dialed a therapist who lived one town over. I’d done my research and thought this woman was the best one for Tillie. I set up the appointment, all the while wondering how I was going to convince her to go.
As if by clockwork, the moment I hung up the call with the therapist’s office, the phone started ringing again. It was Tillie’s caller ID.
