Alpha One (Shadow Agents #1)(14)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Ah…okay. “First names only, huh?” Juliana murmured. That was nice and anonymous.

“For now, it’s safer that way,” Logan said.

Right. Though Juliana wasn’t even sure any of them had given their real names. She put her fingers into her lap, twisting them together. “How are you going to stop the man who is after me?”

Sydney and Logan shared a brief look. Juliana’s shoulders tensed. She wasn’t going to like this part; she knew it even before Logan said, “Your father…made a deal with the EOD.” Logan’s quiet voice shouldn’t have grated, but it did.

Juliana forced herself to meet his stare. “What sort of deal?” She needed to know all of her father’s dark secrets, whether she wanted to hear them or not. It wasn’t the time to wear blinders.

“Your safety, your life, in return for evidence that he had against Diego Guerrero.”

Guerrero. Her heart slammed into her ribs. The man that Logan had told her was the same guy she knew as John Gonzales.

“What did my father—” Her voice sounded too weak. Don’t be weak. Juliana tried again. “Just what was my father doing with this Guerrero?”

“Selling out his country.” From the one called Jasper. When he spoke and she heard the drawl of Texas sliding beneath his words, Juliana remembered him.

Maybe he expected her to flinch at the blunt charge, but she didn’t. She just sat there. She’d known her father wasn’t exactly good for a long time.

“The senator facilitated deals between Guerrero and foreign officials,” Jasper said with his eyes narrowed on her. “Your father would find the people who needed the weapons, those desperate for power, those ready to overthrow weak governments…”

Her father had made so many connections over the years. He’d been on dozens of committees, and he’d told her once that he’d been working hard to make the world a better place.

Better? Not from the sound of things. Just more bloody, more dangerous.

“We’re talking about billions of dollars’ worth of weapons,” Jasper continued. “From what we can tell, your father took a nice little finder’s fee for every deal he made.”

She swallowed and forced her hands to unclench. “You’re saying my father took a commission from Guerrero? That every time weapons were sold—” every time people died when those weapons were used “—he got a slice of the pie.”

Jasper nodded grimly.

“He was a good man,” she had to say it. Someone did. He wasn’t even cold in the ground. “Once.” She could remember it, couldn’t she? If she tried hard enough, the memories were there. “Before my mother died. He went to Congress to make the world better.”

Only, he’d wound up working to destroy it.

Was that why he’d put the gun to his own head? Because he couldn’t live with what he’d done?

You left me behind to deal with everything, all on my own.

Sometimes it seemed as if he’d left her that hot summer night when her mother died in the car accident on a lonely stretch of Mississippi road.

“He wanted to save you,” Logan said, the words deep and rumbling. His hand took hers. Almost helplessly, her gaze found his. “He agreed to trade every bit of evidence he had on Guerrero in order to get you home alive.”

“So that’s why you—your team came for me.” In that hell. “Because my father paid you with his evidence.”

“He didn’t exactly make the payment….” Gunner muttered as he ran an agitated hand through his hair. “He put a bullet in his head instead.”

Juliana flinched.

Logan surged to his feet. His chair fell to the floor behind him with a clatter. Logan lunged for the other man. “Gunner…”

Gunner just shrugged, but he hurriedly backed up a few feet. “Payment was due at delivery, right? As soon as you were brought back safe and sound, Senator James was going to give us the intel we needed. Only, instead of delivering, he chose to…renegotiate.”

Juliana could only shake her head. This…this was the last thing she’d expected when Logan had brought her in to meet with the other agents. “I buried him today.”

“And because of Guerrero’s deals, hundreds of people are buried every single day,” Sydney said, her voice soft and lacking the leashed fury that seemed to vibrate beneath Gunner’s words. “We have to stop him. You have to help us.”

“How? I saw Guerrero, but…” But she’d already told them that. She’d sketched out half a dozen pictures. Done everything that she could. “Now he wants me dead.”

Logan shoved Gunner into the nearest wall. “You aren’t dying.” He tossed that back without glancing her way. His focused fury was on the other man.

Sydney cleared her throat. “Your father…indicated that you had the evidence we need.”

Her words had Juliana blinking in surprise. “I don’t. I didn’t even know about Guerrero until—I just thought I was being held with a man named John Gonzales, until Logan told me the truth! John said that he’d been kidnapped just like me. When those men put me in the room, John was already there. I didn’t know he was Guerrero, and I don’t know anything about his weapons.” She wished that she could help them. She wanted to make this nightmare end, but she just didn’t have any evidence.

“Your father left a suicide note.”

She didn’t want to hear any more. Juliana pushed to her feet, found Logan by her side. For someone so big, he could sure move fast. She stared up at him. “I wasn’t told about a note.” He hadn’t told her.

He glanced back at Sydney. Glared. “We didn’t…want that part leaking to the media.”

Rage boiled within her. He was so close. In that instant, she wanted to strike out at him. To hurt him, as she was being torn apart. “I’m not the media! I’m his daughter!”

“Exactly.” From Jasper, drawling Jasper. Cold Jasper. “In his note, he said you had all the evidence. We kept that bit from the media, but Guerrero would have put a spy in your father’s life, someone who could keep close tabs on him. That someone…we believe he told Guerrero about the evidence.”

Her head was about to erupt. The throbbing in her temples just wouldn’t stop. “I have no evidence.” Could she say it any plainer? “I can’t give you anything!”

“Guerrero thinks you can. And he’s just going to keep coming for you…” Jasper didn’t have to finish. She knew what the guy had been about to say….