Wasted Lust - JA Huss Page 0,90
man. There is no one above that dude. No one.”
“Right,” I say. “And who calls the shots for me?”
Adam gives me a shrug using his hands. “Max. He’s lying, Jax. You know he is. None of this shit makes sense. Did you ever ask yourself why Max wanted kids?”
I get where he’s going, but if these suspicions are true, then what the fuck have I been working towards all these years?
“And did you ever ask yourself why Nick Tate was so hell-bent on killing people? Why make killing Company kids your life’s mission? It’s so fucking sick, right? It’s insane. And that guy is a lot of things, but insane is not one of them. And furthermore, why not kill us too? He’s never even tried to kill us.”
I look Adam in the face and let that sink in. “Because we’re not Company.”
“We’re just employees. We do what we’re told. We work for the FBI, and yet we don’t. We’re hidden away, compartmentalized. No one can touch us. Madeline says she’s there to help get these Company kids out, and yet every one of them ended up dead or missing. Where the fuck are those kids, Jax? Where the fuck are the kids she saved? And don’t say we’re right here, because we don’t count. We’re nobodies.”
“So you’re convinced Max is Company? And Madeline?”
“Look, I was just as happy as you to ignore all these warning signs. But not anymore. Not after that video. Max sent that video to Sasha to make her think Nick was hunting her.”
“But Nick came to her house last night and then left. Why didn’t he kill her if he was hunting her?”
“Because he’s not hunting her, Jax. He’s hunting Max. He already got Matias and Madeline last night. Now Max is the only one left. And Max wants Sasha for something. That’s why he sent you to get her. He wants her with him. And Madeline wanted her too. But they both wanted her alive. Why?”
“Why?” I ask myself out loud.
“You have a gift,” Adam says, pointing to a box on the chair opposite me. “I don’t know who it’s from. It was sitting there when I came on board this morning.”
I stare at him for a few seconds and then he walks off to the cockpit. “We’ll be there in an hour, so you better come to some kind of conclusion, Jax. Because I can’t do my job if I don’t trust the people around me. And we all know what happens to people who don’t do their jobs.”
I look at the box on the ground and open it up, thinking of all the brothers I’ve lost over the years. I think of Jake, the brother I almost lost the other night, the only one left aside from Adam. What was the point of all that shit in Denver with Jake? Max sent him there, but why?
I’m not sure.
I’m not sure about anything right now.
The white card on top of the white dress shirt says, Put it on. You can thank me later.
The estate is still smoldering from the explosives that went off last night. It’s nothing but a shell of those beautiful sandstone bricks.
Max is pacing in front of me, screaming as he counts off the dead. “Julian,” he yells. “Julian is dead!”
“Who gives a fuck about Julian?” I’m barely listening. I can’t get Sasha out of my head. I can’t get that video message out of my head. And now it all comes down to who I should trust.
“Where is he?” Max screams, leaning down into my face. “Where is Nick Tate? I gave you one job,” he roars. “One. Fucking. Job. Get that girl so we can get Nick Tate. And this,” he says, panning his arms towards the rubble. “This is what you delivered?”
“I’m doing my best to figure it out, Max.”
“Madrid says you sent the girl home in a car. A car? It’s a nine-hour drive to her home from Fort Collins, Jax. Just what the fuck are you doing?”
“It was the safest way I could think of to get her there.” And if I was really sending Sasha home, that’s still the way I’d do it.
“One phone call to Madrid and she’d have picked her up.”
Right. Madrid is another unknown I don’t understand.
“But the girl is gone, Jax. And she didn’t take the car.”
“What?” I look up at him. He’s got my full attention now.
“Madrid got a message from Nick saying he sent her to the safe