“Anyone would break under those circumstances.”
That’s what he’d been told over and over again. “When Big Tag came to rescue us, I stayed in the plane. I actually walked back on the plane because I’d been taught whenever something was going wrong to go back to base. It took me a good ten minutes to make the decision to break free.”
“But you did. You did break free.”
“And then I went back in.”
“What?” Noelle asked on a gasp. “What do you mean you went back in?”
It had been the hardest decision of his life. And oddly, the easiest. “I mean the night we were rescued Big Tag came to me and asked me to go undercover. He asked me to make my way back to McDonald. I knew there were more men under her control. I’d seen evidence of it, though at that time she kept me away from her other bases. I was the only one who could do it.”
“He asked you to go back in?” The question came out on an outraged huff.
“He did, and then he had to pretend I’d defected because we couldn’t be sure that Theo was solid. The training…”
“You mean brainwashing,” she corrected.
He supposed that was a good term for it. “Yes, the brainwashing was effective. In some ways I was almost relieved because I didn’t have to try to be the me I’d been before, if that makes sense.”
“It does. You didn’t want to have to face the fact that you’d changed. You didn’t want to look at the people who’d known you before and disappoint them because you couldn’t be that person anymore.”
She did understand. Their traumas had been different, but they were both survivors. “I feared standing in front of my brothers and feeling like I didn’t belong there more than I feared the pain that would come from going back to McDonald. Obviously they weren’t my blood, but the men I served with, I worked with, they were my brothers. When I joined that CIA team, it was the first time I felt like I had a family.”
It had taken him a while, but they’d gotten to him. Those men had accepted him and joked with him and invited him to their family gatherings when they’d realized he didn’t have anyone. He’d spent Thanksgivings with the Malones and Christmases with his buddy Deke and all those sisters of his. Lately they all went to the big Taggart family holidays.
But at the time all he could see was how he’d failed. “I had to go back to find myself again, and it was a close thing.”
“You thought about staying with her?”
He shook his head. “No. I thought about disappearing. I thought about walking away from all of it and never showing my face again. But I knew those men were in hell. I’d been in hell and I couldn’t leave them there. It was like penance.”
“You had nothing to do penance for. It wasn’t your fault.”
“But I needed it,” he explained. “I needed to walk in there willingly, to sacrifice. In some ways, it was the turning point of my life. I’m stronger now. I broke, but I put myself back together. Well, with lots of therapy.”
“I’ve been thinking about seeing one myself,” she said. “So you’re worried Jessica is going to be another Hope McDonald, and that’s why you’re trying to protect Kyle.”
“And you.” He stared right at her, giving her all the honesty he had. “And not strictly because you’re the client. So that’s my sad story. I’ve got completely unsupported emotional concerns about a woman I don’t know. And I’ve got real concerns, too. I’ve spent a lot of my evening researching her, and she’s dangerous. I think her corporate structure is sketchy, too. I think there’s a good chance she’s under some kind of investigation, and you’re going to get dragged into it. Is there any way you could take a couple of weeks off?”
It was the conclusion he’d come to. He would feel safer if she didn’t go back into that building again.
She shook her head. “I can’t. If I leave, I leave my research behind, and I’m close. If I prove my processes can work I’ll be able to hire on anywhere, and that would be remarkable at my age.”
Well, it was the answer he’d expected. “I want you to keep your eyes open and call me the minute you feel like anything’s weird. Trust your instincts.” He let out a breath and admitted the answer he’d come to. “I’m going to let Kyle go in with you tomorrow.”
“Good, because I have it on the highest authority he was going to take that job anyway.”
It was good to know he was in charge. He closed the screen of his laptop. He should go to bed and let her have some peace. She had to be at work early in the morning. He would lay on her couch and stare at the ceiling.