The Lies That Shatter by A.V. Asher
Chapter Forty-One
Jason ignored the sweat dripping down the side of his face. Even the night air was hot as fuck. What pissed him off more was that it was only a short walk back to his motel room. He shouldn’t be so goddamned winded. But the humidity in the air added to his lack of breath. He slowed his pace. It wasn’t like he was in a hurry to get back to the tiny room.
At least he was free. No one tried to stop him when he bought a bus ticket and got the fuck out of San Francisco. He no longer had access to the technology and resources he’d had working for Cooper, so his cover-up had been sloppy. The FBI probably knew exactly where he was. He hoped they were the only ones who were looking. Mercedes wasn’t the only one Cooper wanted dead. Somehow, Jason had skirted around the assassination attempts.
As soon as he could access his overseas accounts, he’d get the fuck out of here. With no money and no access to his connections, he was lucky to get what he had.
Jason couldn’t help but wonder what Mercedes had done when she heard the case would have to be retried. Now that McKinley had chosen the blonde woman, she might find a little comfort in his arms.
He climbed the steps to the second floor and unlocked his room. Just as he closed the door, he caught the faint scent of perfume.
Suddenly, the sound of something being hurled at him came from the dark room. It whizzed past his head and hit the door with a thump.
“Fuck!” He crouched, ready for the next assault to come at him in the dark. Instead, a feminine chuckle rang out.
“You’re so fucking out of practice,” she said, her British accent filled with amusement.
A switch clicked, and light flooded the room. Mariah Costa stood in the doorframe of his bathroom, from where she had thrown the knife at his head.
This bitch.
The knife was sticking from the door, inches from where he had been standing.
“What the fuck do you want?” She obviously wasn’t there to kill him, or she would have done it already.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” she purred.
Jason jerked the knife from the door. It was of high quality but smaller than he liked to carry. “What the fuck do you want?” he repeated, glaring at her.
“You’ve never been any fun.” Mariah plopped down on his bed with a sigh. “Cooper needs your help.”
“Does he? That’s funny.”
“I’m not laughing. I’m an effective honeypot and I can handle myself if I have to, but I don’t have your skills on the computer.”
“Why the fuck would Cooper trust me?”
“He doesn’t. I’m pretty sure he’d have my throat slit if he knew I was talking to you instead of ending you.” Mariah lifted her shoulder. “But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“Why do you need me? Where’s Adam?”
“I’m starting to believe Adam may be compromised.”
Jason sat at the table, the knife balancing on his fingers. “That seems unlikely. He’s one dedicated motherfucker when it comes to sucking Cooper’s cock.”
“Is he though?” Mariah pursed her lips. “Or does he just play the game better than the both of us?”
“What do you mean?”
“You were there with him when he found Mara Donovan, right? When she was able to get out of his grasp?”
Jason recalled the little village where he and Adam had confronted the lithe blonde and nodded.
Mariah smirked. “You think a man Adam’s size couldn’t keep hold of a little thing like her?”
“Why would he let her go?”
“Don’t know, but I’m pretty sure he was fucking her.”
Jason’s jaw dropped. “The fuck? Why would you think that?” Marcus Cooper would have had anyone’s cock on a stake if they touched her. She was Cooper’s personal property.
“Cooper’s son, Tyler, reached out to me recently when he began to question Adam’s effectiveness in getting this job done. I ran through some of our own security footage over the years to see what he did when Cooper was blindly trusting him. Turns out, he was staying long hours in Mara’s room after Cooper ditched her for his wife.”
“No shit?” Jason rubbed the hilt of the knife. “That doesn’t mean he helped Mara.”
“Not by itself, but let me ask you, how did a woman like Mara Donavan, with no training or expertise, evade our team for nearly two years now? It’s not like she has an Alec McKinley keeping her company at night.”
Hearing that fucker’s name hit Jason in the chest, and he glared at Mariah.
She sent him a smirk in return. “I need help. Tyler Cooper wants to be rid of Adam, Marcus Cooper wants me to find and finish off Mercedes and Mara. He can’t have them alive for the next trial.”
“What do I get out of this?”
“I’ll look the other way when Daddy Cooper orders me to kill you, which he already has.”
Jason turned his lips up into a smile. “Not enough, sweetheart. I need more than that.”
Mariah sighed. “If I find Mercedes alive, I’ll let you have her first. Just as long as she’s dead when you’re finished with her.”
Jason’s cock stiffened to think of Mercedes at his mercy. But he wouldn’t let her die. He didn’t care what Cooper wanted.
“She’s not going to be easy to find,” Mariah said. “My guy blundered our last hit and now she’s gone dark. I need your help to try to locate her.”
“You already have insiders placed in federal agencies that can help. Why do you need me?”
Mariah tilted her head. “Didn’t you hear? Mercedes declined to go into WITSEC again. She and Alec ran off before the judge even announced the mistrial.”
A knife in his chest would have been better than learning this.
That fucking whore.After everything McKinley had done to her, Mercedes had gone back to that fucker. When he found her, he was going to tear her throat out.
“I’m in.”