Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 136425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 682(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 682(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
“That’s when he found out about the career change,” Lacey pointed out.
“So your dad’s new bosses were terrorists,” Devi surmised.
Not exactly. “They were arms dealers. They didn’t have a political agenda. They were into making money,” Zach replied. “By this point my mother was no longer with my dad. She was paranoid and involved in several underground groups that I’m sure a couple of governments would label as terrorists.”
“Including the one my mum’s friend was heavily involved in. It was an animal rights group that operated out of Liverpool.” Lacey took over her part of the story. “It was Shannon who told us about the strange requests she was getting from an arms dealer called The Jester. She did some work for him, and he had a client who was deeply impressed with how she reworked certain aspects of her bombs.”
“She made them smaller. Easier to carry and conceal. Her bombs are also capable of handling small nuclear devices. Think of them like a bullet that goes off without needing a gun to deliver it.” Zach was well aware that his mother was one of the most dangerous people walking the earth right now. “They used her bombs in the Jakarta attacks and in some more focused assassinations that were played off as accidents.”
Devi took a sip of wine as though she needed the fortification. “Did she know what was happening?”
See, there was his hope. Her deep belief in people. Unfortunately, he couldn’t play up her optimism here. “There’s no good way to use one of her bombs. She didn’t know exactly what they would be used for, but she accepted the money for them.”
“She did it for more than money,” Lacey countered. “Devi, I’ve met Shannon. I consider her something of a friend. Shannon has faced an enormous amount of trauma. It’s affected her mentally. She sold those bombs because she was trying to protect herself and her sons. I believe the people around her used her family to put her in terrible positions.”
“My mother is paranoid. Not on some funny level. She’s taken shots at delivery people because she forgot she ordered a pizza and decided the man was coming to kill her.” He wanted Devi to know the whole story. “So to say tracking her down has been difficult would be an understatement. Now after all of that, I met Lacey when we were both looking for the man known as The Jester. He worked with Disrupt and was responsible for her mother’s friend’s death. This is where you’ll likely hate me again. Lacey and I worked outside of the Agency to find The Jester. We found him, fought him, killed him.”
“I think that was more me than you,” Lacey argued. “Men. They come in and take all the credit.”
He ignored her because this was the bad part. “At the time I was working with Tristan Dean-Miles on the same case for the agency. I couldn’t let him know about Lacey, nor that I killed The Jester, so I sent an assassin up. I wasn’t about to let Tris die. I had it planned perfectly, and Tris killed the man he believed to be The Jester and then took over his identity.”
“You used Tris to find your mother.” Sure enough, her icy demeanor was back.
“I did.” He wasn’t going to lie or prevaricate. “By this point in time Lacey and I had drawn some conclusions about the Disrupt subgroup.”
“We believe they were behind the attempted assassinations of certain heads of state in Europe a few years back. It didn’t work because they were attempting to replicate Shannon’s bombs.” Lacey was all business. “They failed. The man we believe to be the head of the group decided the best way to fix the problem was to bring Shannon Reed in.”
“That Huisman guy,” Devi said.
“Yes. He’s been looking for the bombmaker for a long time. It was precisely why we had to take out The Jester. Apart from my biological father, he was the only person connected to that world who knew her name.” Zach had not started the day thinking he would end it with a debrief of his girlfriend.
She frowned his way. “Why didn’t you go to my uncle?”
“Because while I trust Ian implicitly, I know there are those in the Agency who would do anything to see him fail, including screw with ops he’s running and fuck with intelligence he brings to the table.” He would love more than anything to dump this whole mess on Ian’s lap, but he couldn’t, and he had another confession to make. Somehow it was easier to make it to the man himself than it was to Devi. “I was sent in to gather intel on the group and make it easier for the bosses I worked for to dismantle the team.”