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What was she going to do? Eric had well and truly destroyed her life, every single bit of it. Everything that had meant anything to her would soon be in shambles. If the Russians acted on their threats, and she had no doubt they would, she couldn’t live with the guilt of her staff and students getting hurt. Her only option would be to shut the place down and pray that would keep them safe.
Instead of choosing that path from the beginning, she had stupidly thought she could plant the devices and make the bigger decisions later. But she didn’t count on how it would feel to betray Hannibal and Ink. So she had blown up any chance she had ever had at a relationship with them by confessing and placing a target on herself and others.
She deserved whatever was going to come next. She had thought none of it through and acted on pure emotion. But even if she had gone through with planting the devices, what would Petrov have asked of her the next week and the one after that?
She didn’t even have money in the bank to run. She’d emptied both her personal and business accounts in order to get Eric his stupid money. The money that he didn’t even have the respect to tell her wouldn’t be enough to solve his problems.
He may have been her best friend since childhood. But this well and truly cleared any debt she might have felt for the kindness that he had shown her as a child. Was that the point? He would only be happy if she were as miserable as he was.
Her phone rang, and she saw Hannibal’s number across the screen. She closed her eyes and hit ignore. There was already a stream of texts from him she couldn’t bring herself to read. She put her phone on silent. The temptation to answer would be too great if she kept hearing her phone ring.
Jade needed to be the one to fix this. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do it, but even if the men never spoke to her again, she needed to make sure everyone would be safe. She dialed Eric, hoping to get more information, but it rang straight through to voicemail.
His phone was either off or he was purposefully ignoring her call. Rage replaced the sadness and hopelessness paralyzing her. Even if he wasn’t able to fix this, he needed to know just how much he’d ruined her life. She would have the satisfaction of telling him to his face that he was right. She hated him.
Finding him wouldn’t be hard. Years of chasing after him to get him home and sober before a competition meant they had always needed to know where the other one was. She pulled up an app she hadn’t used in years.
She waited while the ‘find a friend’ app loaded. He was her only contact in the thing, so the map automatically settled on his location. Eric was in a part of downtown Denver she’d never been to. Probably living it up at some club without a care in the world about how much he had destroyed her life.
Her anger simmered as she drove the half hour to find him. The missed calls from Hannibal kept going up. Would he eventually give up on her? He should. Could he want the opportunity to tell her off? She would let him once she settled things with Eric. He deserved to take whatever revenge he wanted.
When she was close, she used the map to see if there were any bars or clubs near his location. His phone was showing in a building on Logan street near 16th street. The area strangely lacked anything that fit her ex-friend’s lifestyle.
She pulled into a parking spot about a block away. The area was pretty rundown. Last week, she wouldn’t have believed that Eric would be found dead anywhere near here. Maybe he had a hookup somewhere in one of the apartments. If that were the case, it would be hard to find him.
She wasn’t willing to give up yet. She pulled on a black hoodie. The almost deserted street held closed shops and rundown apartments. That was all that was visible other than the spire of a church a block away looming over the neighborhood.
She followed the GPS, trying to get as close as possible before deciding what to do next. It directed her down an alley. Fear had her shoving her phone in the pocket of her hoodie and looking around. She crept down the alley. This had to be one of the dumbest things she’d ever done. It was after midnight, in the bad part of the city, and she was a female alone without even the comfort of mace.
If she survived her stupidity, she would try to have more sense in the future. The indistinct sounds of voices echoed back to her. She couldn’t understand the words but knew they were coming from further down.
She moved into the many shadows between the two buildings. Barely any light from the street made its way down to her. Her survival instincts finally kicked in and told her it would be better if the men didn’t know she was here. Unfortunately, her sense didn’t override her curiosity, so she inched forward until she was up against a dumpster pressed up against the side of a building and leaned out.
At the end of the alley, a small parking lot was situated, lit by dim floodlights. It sat behind the buildings, hidden away from sight. Two cars were parked in the lot, one with its trunk open. Two men stood speaking Russian. They held bottles of bleach and chuckled. A tarp was laid out on the ground, Eric’s bloody, beaten body sprawled in the center. His lifeless eyes stared off into the distance, a bullet hole gaping in his forehead. She gasped before she could think better of it.
The men stopped speaking and squinted down the alleyway towards where she was hidden. She pulled her head back, the quick movement unfortunately causing the dumpster to move and create more noise. The echo of footsteps moved towards her and her heart raced.
She looked down the alleyway behind her. The distance to the street was too long for her to run without getting caught. The men would be on her in seconds. She spun and lifted herself up to the top of the dumpster. One man cried out as he saw her.
She leaped up, grabbing the edge of the roof of the building and heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire.
Chapter 27
Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear, so take that fucker out quick.
Ink
It felt like everything inside Ink had gone cold. His Brothers talked around him and none of it was able to pierce the fog he was in. He answered questions on auto pilot, giving what little information he had on the woman who had torn out his heart.
Not only had Jade rejected them and walked away with no explanation, but then it turned out she’d betrayed them. Planting listening devices for their enemies. The knowledge of that should’ve enraged him, but where that heat should have been was just the nothingness of ice.
His quick temper and lack of patience were at the core of who he was. It was why he’d been paired with Hannibal in the Rangers so they could balance each other out. Anger would be much easier to handle than this numbness. Was he going to let his issues from childhood turn him into a waste of space?
There were too many unanswered questions. He should be desperate for the answers. Instead, it had been Hannibal attempting to call her every few seconds for the last fifteen minutes. Not that she bothered to pick up. If they weren’t important enough for her to give an explanation to, he would have to find the answers other ways.
Most of the Brothers believed she’d been under the Russian’s thumb from the beginning. Her friend Eric’s troubles were now common knowledge. The popular theory was that she’d been their puppet for months and when Petrov found out she had a connection to them, he ordered her to spy.
Hannibal didn’t agree and believed she didn’t know anything about it until today. His Brother’s instincts were usually solid. His gut screamed at him to agree with him, but it was hard to trust in anything at the moment.
