They stood staring at one another for several awkward seconds, each knowing what the other meant to the woman they both loved, and each knowing that the other knew as well.
Jax was the first to break the silence. “You’re JD,” Jax said quietly, his voice calm and controlled despite the fact that inside he was falling apart. It wasn’t a question, merely a statement of fact, plain and simple. The pictures he held in his hands were all the confirmation he needed.
Jerry nodded, remaining silent. Brenda had told Jax about him - well, at least about JD. He wondered what else she had told Jax about him - about them?
“And you know about Brenda and me.” Another statement; Jax could see in Jerry’s eyes that he knew.
Jerry again nodded mutely, then looked away, suddenly unable to look at Jax without visualizing that damnable picture of him and Brenda making love.
Jax mistook that look as guilt. “Is that why you’re back?” Jax demanded, his voice harsh and acrid, as he was no longer able to control the feelings that had been fermenting beneath the surface for the past several minutes as he’d made this terrible journey of discovery. “I should have known when you called me last night to ask my help that there was a whole lot more that you weren’t telling me. Of course, I never dreamed that you were asking my help so that you could disappear with the woman I love!” Jax tossed the photos onto the couch and glared at his brother.
Jerry remained silent, remembering the anguish he’d felt when he’d first learned about Jax and Brenda - the anguish he still felt whenever he recalled that picture of the two of them or thought of Brenda in Jax’s arms. He imagined that learning that he was the third side to this twisted love triangle must be equally as hard for his brother, so he’d let Jax vent before attempting to explain the truth of the situation. Jax had earned his moment of righteous indignation, and Jerry had every intention of letting him have it. Besides, he knew that deep down Jax was angry at the situation, not at him.
Jax mistook Jerry’s continued silence as smugness and that made him angrier still. “This isn’t a game, Jer. She isn’t like your usual playthings - those spoiled socialites who live simply for the pleasure of the moment. They know from the start that there’s no future with you, and they don’t mind in the least because the future is something they never worry about. A brief fling is all they want; they wouldn’t know how to be satisfied with more… Brenda is different, Jer, and you should know that! She has feelings… a heart that can be easily broken… She was young and innocent in a lot of ways when you met. You were the older man - sophisticated and charming and worldly - and you lied to her and manipulated her so that she fell totally in love with you. She imagined a happily-ever-after with you, and all you cared about was the pleasure of the moment. You saw her as a beautiful challenge that needed to be conquered, and once you’d done that, you grew bored and you moved on!
“Now, what? Did you decide you want another fling with her, so you pop back into her life four years later, thinking you can just pick up where you left off - no harm, no foul?… Or are you back simply because you found out that she was finally able to love again - and the man that she loves is me?”
That last remark made Jerry explode. “Is that what you think of me, Jax? That I’m a heartless cad, who could carelessly break her heart and then return simply because I wanted to make sure my brother couldn’t have her?” He ripped the towel from around his neck and tossed it onto one of the couches, taking several steps toward Jax as he spoke. “You have no idea what really happened between Brenda and me!”
“Oh, I know exactly what happened there - Brenda filled me in on the gory details of her relationship with JD! But now - knowing that you’re JD - I’m just not so sure that I know who you are anymore, Jer - if I ever knew you at all!” Jax shouted, closing the remaining distance between him and Jerry, so that they were now staring eye-to-eye with one another. “I can’t believe that my brother was the one who tore apart her life! Do you know the kind of emotional hell you put her through?” Jax demanded, gesturing angrily at Jerry as he spoke. “She mourned you for years; she withdrew emotionally from the world, Jer - she simply built a wall around her heart. She figured it was better to live without love than to chance her heart being broken again, the way it had been by you… But I got through to her, Jer… She was finally able to feel again… to love again - and she found that with me!
“But just as she’s ready to put the past behind her and move on, you come back into her life, like some bad dream that just won’t disappear! But the question is why are you back? You can’t really love or want her - not if you could leave her the way you did!” Jax accused, shoving Jerry angrily.
“You think I don’t really love and want her?!” Jerry exploded, his eyes flashing with anger as he shoved Jax back. “You don’t think that every minute of every day that I was forced to be away from her wasn’t sheer hell for me?! Do you honestly think that I chose to walk away from her - from us - and that I’ve stayed away from her willingly all this time?!” He backed away from Jax and ran his hands through his damp hair in frustration. “Good God, Jax - leaving her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life! And staying away all these years has been sheer torture for me - knowing where she was, but never allowed to be with her!”
“Never allowed to be with her?!” Jax shot back, once again in Jerry’s face. “What the hell are you talking about, Jerry? You left her of your own free will, and you and I both know that! No man - or woman - has ever been your master! … And now you’re back…” He looked scathingly at Jerry and shook his head, as he added: “The thought of her spending the rest of her life with me must have really scared you to push you to actually propose marriage.”
Jerry looked up at Jax, surprise written across his face that Brenda had confided the marriage proposal to him.
“Yeah, Brenda told me,” Jax said in reply to Jerry’s surprised look. “At first I was shocked that the infamous JD had returned, let alone asked her to marry him and run away to parts unknown with him. Of course, had I known at the time that you were JD then I wouldn’t have been so worried. After all, you are the most commitment-phobic person I’ve ever known. Even if you did make it to the altar with her, you and I both know you would never have gotten through the vows - or been able to remain faithful to her, if you had! Marriage is a lifetime commitment, but commitment of any kind is a foreign concept to you, isn’t it, Jer? This was all just a plan to get Brenda away from me for the short-term, so you could have your fun with her, while I agonized over her disappearance!” Jax baited Jerry sarcastically.
“Although I have to admire your bold style: calling me to ask for the use of the jet to whisk your ladylove away for an impromptu wedding. And it was very clever of you to call her ‘BB’ when I asked for her name, rather than giving me her full name, Brenda Barrett. That way you were totally up front with me about everything, weren’t you? Would that be your defense later, Jer - that I knew all along?… And then, on top of all of that, you planned to run with her to St. Beliz - my very own island! Was that the ultimate irony for you, Jer - not only marrying the woman I love, but then honeymooning and setting up housekeeping in my island home? After all, you have always been into ironic, little games!”
“You think I asked Brenda to marry me and run away with me simply to keep her away from you, Jax?” Jerry growled. “Do you actually think I would have asked for your help had I known that you were anywhere in the picture? I had no idea that you were the man she’d met and fallen in love with!”
“But you know that now,” Jax shot back angrily, but then his anger dissipated as he saw the pained look on his brother’s face at that remark. He took a deep breath and sighed, leaning against the arm of the nearby couch. This was all too much. They both loved and wanted the same woman, and arguing like this wasn’t going to change that situation in the least, but it could change their relationship irrevocably. As kids, their father had always reminded them that ugly things said in anger could never be unsaid, so they should always think before they spoke. He knew that at this very moment they were both dangerously close to saying things that they would both regret later.
“So how long have you known?” Jax asked finally, his voice more subdued, as he once again tried to control his tumbling emotions. He fervently hoped that Jerry had been as much in the dark about him being the other man in Brenda’s life as he’d been about Jerry being JD, the longtime love of her life. This situation was bad enough without thinking that his brother had purposely tried to spirit Brenda away, knowing that Jax was his competition.
“I just found out this morning,” Jerry answered quietly, seeing his own pain reflected back in Jax’s eyes. He wondered if either of them would ever be free of it? He walked to the couch and picked up his leather jacket, retrieving from an inside pocket the picture he had received of Jax and Brenda just hours before. “…After I got this,” he continued, unfolding the picture and handing it to Jax.
Jax blanched as he gazed at the invasive picture, evidently taken that first night that he and Brenda had become intimate. “Someone was watching us?” he asked incredulously, feeling completely violated by the fact that a voyeur had been privy to such a beautiful and intimate moment as this. He tore his eyes from the picture and looked back at Jerry, doubt once again momentarily clouding his eyes. “Did you order this?”
“Do you honestly think I would want to see something like this?!” Jerry shot back hotly. “Up until yesterday, I had no idea that she’d found someone, let alone that it was you! I hadn’t gotten an update on her in a week, but I had no idea that this was why they hadn’t updated me on her activities!” he shouted, grabbing the picture from Jax and wadding it up and tossing it onto the floor.
“What do you mean: they hadn’t updated you on her in a week?” Jax asked, looking sharply at Jerry. “Who are they - and why are they keeping tabs on Brenda for you?”
Jerry realized too late that he had inadvertently slipped and now his secret life could no longer be kept secret. He took a deep breath and turned to face Jax fully. “I’ve been leading a double life for the past ten years… To the family, and even to the public at large, I’m Jerry Jacks, wealthy playboy, whose only apparent purpose in life is to travel the world, looking for the next big challenge; whether it be a wealthy socialite with more money than brains or a high stakes game of chance with some wealthy industrialist - also with more money than brains - but always leaving a string of broken hearts and broken banks in my wake. But that’s just been my cover… In reality, I work for a covert international organization whose goal is to maintain peace and stability in the world.”
Jax’s head shot up at that, remembering a similar theory that he and his dad and the firm’s security chief, Mike Moriarity, had postulated earlier concerning JD. They had been right on the money there, but what none of them would have ever guessed was that the mysterious JD was none other than Jerry, and that Jerry was the one who worked for the covert - and potentially dangerous - organization.
Jerry seemed oblivious to Jax’s reaction, continuing on with his explanation without hesitation: “I use a lot of different aliases, accents, and disguises, but I also travel as myself a great deal. You’d be surprised at the intelligence I can gather at dinner parties and other social events merely as Jerry Jacks, wandering playboy. But in a nutshell, I use whatever means necessary to try to keep the good guys a step ahead of the bad guys.”
Given all that he knew of JD and his organization’s effect on Brenda’s life, Jerry’s use of the term ‘good guys’ to describe himself and his employers galled Jax. “And how do you tell the difference, Jer? How can you tell the good guys from the bad guys? And how can you call the people that you work for ‘good guys’ when they threaten the life of an innocent woman?” Jax asked, suddenly angry that his own brother had been the one who had brought Brenda into harm’s way. Seeing Jerry’s surprised look, he added: “Yeah, Brenda told me that JD’s ‘people’ had threatened her and that was supposedly why he’d left her. Answer me this, Jer: how did you get mixed up with these people in the first place - and how could you just leave her like that, walking away without a word?”
Jerry sighed; Jax deserved to know everything. But where to begin, and how to make him understand what now seemed nearly inexplicable, even to himself? “When I first joined the Agency I believed in its principles - what it stood for, what it did. And it was exactly what I needed to do with my life back then,” Jerry began. “Do you remember the summer after I graduated from college?” he asked, walking over to a nearby table and picking up a framed photo that sat there. “Do you remember this day?” He held it up for Jax to see. It was a snapshot of the entire family at a barbecue at their parents’ ranch, taken the weekend after Jerry had gotten his master’s in business administration from Harvard Business School.
The family barbecue had been an impromptu celebration of Jerry’s graduation and anticipated move to the family company as a full-fledged partner. It had been John Jacks’s dream that both of his sons get a good education and then join the family business. And Jax had shared that dream with their father, but that had never been Jerry’s dream. His dream had been to travel the world and experience heart-stopping adventures. He wanted to taste all of the challenges that life had to offer, not merely the ones that accompanied running an international business conglomerate. That was why he’d jumped at the chance to join the Agency when they’d approached him just weeks before he’d earned his master’s.
“Sure,” Jax answered, easily recalling that summer and that particular day. “It was to celebrate the fact that you were joining the company. Everyone expected that, but instead you announced that day that you needed some time for yourself to travel before you started work… Then, a few weeks later, you just called and told Dad that corporate life wasn’t for you after all and that you didn’t want to become a partner in the company. You said that you needed to be free of the entanglements of the corporate world to travel and experience all that life had to offer… Dad was shocked and Mum was heartbroken.”
Jerry nodded, remembering his family’s reaction to his decision and how frustrated he’d felt, knowing that he couldn’t tell them the real reason he’d passed on working in the family firm. “Well, I couldn’t very well tell all of you that I was leaving behind the chance to amass a fortune in securities to try to keep world security, now could I?” He asked, smirking slightly as he looked at Jax, then sobering as he continued: “I’d already been recruited by the Agency by then. In fact, they approached me my last semester. They told me that I was exactly the kind of man they were looking for: intelligent, with a photographic memory and a natural aptitude for languages; computer savvy and comfortable with the newest electronic gadgets; adventurous; able to think on my feet; comfortable in unfamiliar social situations and able to read people; physically fit; sophisticated beyond my years - and glib.” Jerry laughed derisively at that. “Ironic, isn’t it? All of my life, people have warned me that my glibness would be my downfall, but that’s one of the attributes that actually caught the Agency’s eye… Then again, perhaps it was my downfall after all, since the Agency seems to be at the root of my problems these days…” he added softly, as he stared out the balcony doors at the expansive view of Central Park spread out just below.
“But I digress…” he said, turning to face Jax once again as he pulled himself back to his explanation. “I’ve been with the Agency for ten years now, and the first six years were nothing short of amazing! Those first years were everything I had dreamed they would be. Day-in and day-out, day after day, it was like I was on the ultimate, never-ending high. It was an adrenaline rush unlike anything I had ever experienced before or had even imagined was possible. I literally held the fate of the world in my hands at times, Jax, and it was a powerful feeling! I played games of chance for stakes far higher than the fortunes visible on the table; there were times that I gambled for my very life or the lives of others… I socialized with heads of state - and then helped to bring down more than a few of them afterwards… I traveled to every place imaginable in the world - some beautiful beyond description, some horrid enough to belong only in someone’s twisted vision of hell... One week I’d be in Thailand; the next, Italy; the week after that, Brazil or Zimbabwe or Russia…”
“The books…” Jax interjected suddenly, as the destinations that Jerry ticked off seemed very familiar to him. “You sent Brenda all those travel books!”
“Very astute of you, little brother,” Jerry grinned, proud of his brother’s keen perception. “Not many people would have caught that little detail.” But he grew more sober as he continued: “It was the only way I could stay connected with her. I wanted to know that she was touching something that I had touched, treasuring something that I had given her - even though she had no idea they were from me…”
“Avery Buehler…” Jax interrupted again. “He works for you, doesn’t he?” So many things were falling into place here.
“You know about Avery?” Jerry asked, momentarily surprised that Jax had mentioned him, but then a sardonic smile came across his face. “That’s right! You had Brenda investigated, and you came to a dead-end when Avery’s name came up… If I recall, you called me asking for my help in ferreting out the dark secrets in your ladylove’s past... Little did either of us know at the time that I was the darkest secret of all that was buried there…” Jerry said quietly, reflecting on the little ironies that had crept into both their lives in the past few days.
“So this Buehler - or whatever his name is - works for you?” Jax asked, once again bringing Jerry back out of his solitary reflections.
“His given name is Andrew Buxton, and he works for the Agency. He’s been my mentor and my friend since the day I was recruited, and he was the only one I trusted to watch over Brenda once I realized the Agency wouldn’t let me leave to be with her.
“In fact, Andrew was the one I contacted when I first decided I wanted to leave the Agency and have a life with Brenda. He was the one who set things up back here in the States for Brenda and me to return here to live. He supervised all the renovations, and then he set up their ‘accidental’ meeting to make sure that Brenda found the place. But it turned out that Brenda was the only one who got to live there…”
“The loft?” Jax asked; Jerry nodded. “You’re MBP Company…” So much was falling into place now.
“Actually, Brenda is,” Jerry answered casually. “The company’s even named for her.” At Jax’s questioning look, Jerry explained: “MBP stands for ‘My Beautiful Princess.’ It was what I used to call her because she had this fascination with castles - and she was as beautiful as any fairytale princess… Andrew acts as the ‘landlord’ and handles things like hiring the building supervisor for maintenance and the like. But technically Brenda owns the building, even though she has no idea that she does. MBP is a holding company that I formed for her, and all of the rents and other monies generated by the property over the past four years have been put into escrow for her…
“I won the building itself in a poker game just a few weeks before I met Brenda… The former owner bet that I wouldn’t draw to an inside straight. He was wrong.” Jerry smiled slightly at the recollection. “Anyway, I had had every intention of selling it immediately since it’s rent-controlled, but then I met Brenda and she changed my life, and I changed my mind about the building.
“I quickly realized that the top floor of the building was exactly the type of place she’d described as wanting for a studio one day, and it was even in the East Village, where she dreamed about working and living… She saw that area as the Mecca of the art world here in the city, and I wanted nothing more than to serve up that world to her on a silver platter… Of course, back then I never dreamed I’d end up shattering her world so quickly and so thoroughly…” he added quietly, his voice trailing off as the realization of all the pain that he had inadvertently caused her returned.
Once again Jerry caught himself and continued, quickly wiping the pained expression from his face, but a tinge of wistfulness remained in his voice. “Anyway, I knew that Brenda would hate living here in this apartment, and I knew that the loft would be the perfect place for her to have her studio and for us to start our married life together…
“We were only together six weeks, but it only took our first day together for me to realize that I never wanted to be without her again…” He picked up one of the pictures of him and Brenda that Jax had tossed onto the couch and gazed at it, letting it transport him back to another time and place - a far happier time and place. “I fell in love, Jax - for the first and only time in my life, I knew what it was that inspired men to write love songs and poems and why Mum and Dad are still smiling and happy even after all these years…. Brenda filled the emptiness that had always been in me; the emptiness that I had tried to fill with my endless travels and dangerous missions… She was the adventure I had always been seeking, and once I found her I knew that nothing and no one else could ever bring me that feeling of completeness that I had with her…” He looked up from the picture, a contented smile lighting his face. “Do you know what it’s like to have your life changed forever in the blink of an eye, in the turn of a head, in the whisper of a kiss?” he mused, speaking more to himself than to Jax.
“Yeah… yeah, I do…” Jax answered softly, his voice catching, as he remembered the feeling of completeness he’d felt when Brenda had finally admitted her love for him.
Jerry was caught off guard by Jax’s unexpected response. “I suppose you do…” Jerry answered quietly, as both brothers stared uncomfortably at one another; each recognizing both the love and the pain that they now shared.
Jax continued to stare at his brother, as Jerry lovingly fingered the picture he still held in his hand. He knew exactly how Jerry felt about Brenda because he shared those same feelings. And despite his claims to the contrary earlier, there had been a part of him that had secretly hoped that Brenda had only been a whim for Jerry - just another fling that Jerry could easily walk away from so that she and Jax could be together. But listening to Jerry now and hearing the love in his voice as he spoke about her - about them - he knew that what Jerry felt for Brenda was as real as it gets, and, worse still, it was as real as what he felt for her himself.
Jerry finally broke the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them, as he looked away from Jax and continued: “You were right about one thing, Jax. When I first laid eyes on her, I saw her simply as a beautiful challenge to take on. I figured that once I’d had my fun with her, then I’d move on to another challenge… I actually watched her for several days before I approached her, plotting my strategy on how to meet her and then entice her into my bed. I studied her like I study an assignment: I familiarized myself with everything about her so that I could always be one step ahead of her, leading her where I wanted her to go. And once we finally did meet, my moves were cool and practiced; there was nothing accidental about our apparently accidental meeting. I was completely in control - at least, at first.
“But as that first day went on, I began to lose myself to her - her beauty, her innocence, her spontaneity. We met on the beach, but I easily persuaded her to be my photographer and tour guide of the area, pretending to be a tourist who’d forgotten his camera… She was a marvelous tour guide. She’d been there for several weeks and she knew the area well, showing me places that most tourists never get the chance to see… And even more than the beauty of the countryside, she showed me the beauty of the people. She was at ease with every person that we met that day, even though they were all strangers to her, and they quickly treated her as if she were family as well. She simply sparkled with vitality, and each moment that passed made me want her all the more.
“That afternoon quickly turned into evening, and I suggested we extend our time together by sharing dinner at her favorite seaside café. There we laughed and talked over a bottle of wine until late into the night, and then I escorted her back to her tiny flat, which was just down the beach from where we’d met. By that time, I could feel that she was as attracted to me as I was to her, so it took very little for me to make my way into her place and into her bed.
“She was even more beautiful than I had imagined, and she responded to me as no woman ever had before. It felt like we were made for one another, and she unleashed feelings in me that I had never known before. I felt so alive with her, like she opened up an entirely new realm of existence for me… I felt things for her and with her that I never thought were possible… When we made love that first time, it was beyond anything that I had ever felt before. For the first time I felt connected spiritually, as well as physically, to another person. She somehow seemed to fill every part of me, completing me… It was as if she entered my soul that night and took possession of it, and from that very moment I knew that I would never again have it back entirely as my own. I felt so happy and so content with life at that moment, and I knew that I wanted to stay with her forever… And that scared me - so I ran.
“While she slept, I went back to my hotel and packed and headed straight to the airport, intending to get as far away from there as possible and never looking back. But I didn’t get very far… I couldn’t; the ache inside me was too overwhelming to ignore. It was like someone had ripped out my heart, and I knew that if I didn’t return to her I’d die from the pain…
“But she didn’t welcome me back… She was crying when I got there, and it tore me apart because I knew that I was the cause. The minute she saw me, she exploded and told me to get out. She picked up the money that I’d left to pay for the pictures and threw it in my face. She said that she knew what services I was really paying for and they had nothing to do with her skills as a photographer, and despite how it might appear from how quickly she’d succumbed to me, she wasn’t that kind of a woman. There was so much anger in her eyes, and I expected and deserved that, but what I hadn’t expected was all the pain and humiliation that I saw there as well.
“She was right - I had treated her as nothing more than an object, there only for my pleasure and desire. I had played her to get what I wanted and that was simply to get her into bed. But what she didn’t know - and what I had to make her understand - was that somehow, some way, in the midst of my seduction of her, she had actually seduced me and I’d fallen in love with her.
“I confessed everything to her that night - well, at least about my intentions toward her. I told her that I loved challenges and that even though my work was filled with challenges, the moment that I’d seen her on the beach I knew that she was yet another challenge that I couldn’t walk away from. I told her that I had set out to seduce her and nothing more, but I hadn’t counted on being the one who was ultimately seduced. I told her that I loved her and that I wanted us to be together for as long as possible and I meant it - I still mean it. But at the time, I was only really counting on the few weeks of vacation that I had remaining because I couldn’t allow myself to think beyond that.
“She finally opened her arms and her heart to me once again, as she told me that she loved me, and my heart soared, Jax. I don’t think that if I live to be a hundred that I could be able to adequately describe the elation that I felt when she said those words to me that first time… I had spent a lifetime avoiding hearing those words from a woman, but when I heard them from her lips, I couldn’t believe the joy that I felt. And that joy grew with every day that we were together. And the longer that we were together, the more I knew that I could never give her up and that I would rather die than be without her.
“A couple of weeks later I began formulating a plan to leave the Agency. I called Andrew and laid everything out for him. I told him that I couldn’t stay with the Agency any longer, and I asked him to help pave the way for my departure. I also asked him to set things up for Brenda and me in New York, by supervising the renovation of the top floor of that building I’d won. I described in detail how I wanted the loft redone, right down to the color schemes and the furnishings that I knew that Brenda wanted. I told him that I didn’t care how much it cost, I wanted the work completed within four weeks’ time because that was when I had planned to move Brenda there, and I wanted everything to be perfect for her there. Little did I know that nothing after Monaco would ever be perfect again…” His voice once again trailed off, as the memories of that time came flooding back to him.
“I had only six weeks remaining on my vacation when I met Brenda, and I knew that despite the fact that I planned to extricate myself permanently from the Agency that I at least needed to return for one last assignment. I had spent the better part of the previous year setting up the groundwork to pull off a coup to bring down a particularly nasty drug scion in Mexico, and I knew that my presence was a vital part of pulling off the operation. I couldn’t leave the Agency - or the other agents who had worked on it with me - hanging, so I decided to return for that one last assignment.
“The day that I left her, I had every intention of returning. She and I often took a few hours away from one another and I figured I’d be back in time for dinner, so I didn’t even leave a note for her. Another agent who was working with me on the Mexican assignment had contacted me and requested that I meet him in Paris to discuss the last minute details of the operation. The whole thing should have taken no more than a few hours at the most.
“But once I got to Paris, I was informed that I was back on active duty, effective immediately, and that I had to leave for Mexico within the hour. They confiscated my ID and passport as Jarrod Davis, and they wouldn’t let me get in touch with Brenda to let her know that I was okay. They said that any contact with her at that point could jeopardize both the operation and her life, and I knew that they were right. Then, unbeknownst to me, they erased any evidence that Jarrod Davis had ever existed, even going so far as to clean the flat of my prints and removing all of my things from there - even confiscating all of the pictures she had taken of me or of the two of us during the time that we were together. I found out weeks later what they had done, but by then Brenda was already in New York and settled into our loft apartment, and I figured I’d explain everything in person when I joined her, because at that point I still had every intention of joining her.
“Once I realized that I couldn’t safely contact Brenda, I called Andrew and made him promise to watch over her until I could get back to her. He promised that he would. And Andrew was true to his word: he watched over Brenda from the moment that I was called back to duty, and he’s continued to watch over her for me to this day…”
“But why didn’t you contact Brenda after that assignment in Mexico, as you’d planned?” Jax asked, understanding the need for complete secrecy until that was over, but not once Jerry was finished.
Jerry laughed ruefully at Jax’s question, as he remembered that time. “That Mexican fiasco stretched on forever, and an operation that should have been cleanly finished in three weeks tops, took nearly eight weeks to foment and finally fall apart. It seems that there was a leak somewhere, and in the end, Juan Carlos Sanchez, one of the most lethal and notorious drug lords that the West has ever seen, managed to escape with both his life and a small fortune. He managed to take out several of the Agency’s best men and then simply disappeared into thin air. He’s not been heard from since; he’s probably underground, working out of some jungle hideaway at this very moment. And no doubt plotting his revenge against those who tried to do him in…”
“And does that include you?” Jax asked, suddenly worried for his brother’s safety.
“Don’t worry about me, little brother. Don’t you know that I’m invincible?… Besides, the odds are that Sanchez is already dead. The life expectancy in that life is limited, at best!” Jerry grinned, trying to make light of the situation, despite the fact that he knew that he could very easily be on the top of Sanchez’s hit list since he was one who had dealt openly and often with Sanchez, setting up the sting gone bad. But despite having escaped the Agency’s grasp, Sanchez most likely had not escaped death’s grasp. Sanchez had been 35 and in power for six years at the time of the aborted coup, but in the drug trade, no one was long-lived, so it was likely that a rival drug lord or a greedy underling had already killed him. At any rate, Sanchez was not a priority in Jerry’s life at the moment; the situation involving him and Brenda and Jax was.
“You still haven’t explained why you left Brenda dangling, even after you were finished in Mexico,” Jax prompted, unaware of the thoughts about Sanchez that were tumbling through Jerry’s head.
“Once I returned to the Agency I found that extricating myself from its grip was not as easy as I had hoped…” Jerry answered.
“You couldn’t just walk away?” Jax asked, still not fully understanding Jerry’s hesitancy to leave this agency that seemed to control his every move. “If you loved her so much and you knew that she was what you needed to feel whole and alive, why didn’t you just quit the Agency and take Brenda away with you then? Why didn’t you just come out and tell her who you really were and what you had planned for the two of you then?… Why wait four years to pop back into her life?… And once you realized you couldn’t get away, why did you feel the need to spy on her from that point on? And why the continued loyalty to a group that makes you sacrifice your personal happiness for them?… It sounds like indentured servitude to me, Jerry!”
“It’s complicated, Jax,” Jerry answered quietly, but even he had asked himself over and over again during the past four years why he hadn’t just grabbed Brenda and run when he’d first suspected difficulty leaving.
“I’m not asking for details here, Jer. I just want to know the basics of how you could sell your soul and still live with yourself!” Jax replied angrily, frustrated that Jerry seemed to be talking in circles, defending this indefensible group that he worked for.
Jerry sighed and looked away. How could he justify any of this to Jax when he could no longer justify it to himself? He had gone into the Agency an idealist, imagining himself helping to right the wrongs of the world - and in most cases they had done that, if only in small ways. But over the past four years he’d continuously questioned his commitment to the Agency, remaining with it only out of fear for Brenda’s life, no longer out of a sense of pride or duty. They had killed his dedication when they had nearly killed her.
“You’re right, Jax - I did sell my soul, but I didn’t feel like that in the beginning,” he finally answered. He once again gazed at the picture of the two of them that he continued to hold in his hand, finally looking up at Jax before continuing: “A few years ago I would have defended the Agency and its ways because I truly believed that they always did what was best. But since Brenda… since they almost killed her in order to convince me to stay -”
“They were the ones behind Brenda’s assault?” Jax asked, horrified that such a heinous act was a cold and calculated move on the part of an organization purported to be promoting the betterment of the world. This group was just as dangerous as Mike Moriarity warned they might be, perhaps more so now that he knew that they had his brother firmly under their control. No wonder Jerry had wanted to take Brenda into hiding!
Jerry nodded sadly, closing his eyes as he thought of the pain he had unintentionally inflicted on Brenda. “Yeah, and they’ve used her as leverage to keep me in line ever since.” He opened his eyes and walked back toward the balcony, staring off into the distance and avoiding Jax completely, preferring to stare into the dark night, rather than the dark disgust that he knew now clouded his brother’s eyes. “The assault was a warning to me to stay or else they’d finish the job on her, and I knew they would… I know how they operate. They’re always true to their word, and they’re always coolly efficient in keeping their word… Of course, they needed a carrot to balance out that powerful stick they’d used on me, so they assured me that as long as I stayed and honored my commitment to the Agency that Brenda would be safe... But I still worried about her, so I asked Andrew to keep an eye on her for me - but nothing intrusive like that,” he said, pointing to the floor at the crumpled picture of Brenda and Jax. “I would never have allowed them to do that, had I known!”
“But you have allowed spying on her for the past four years! In fact, you asked for it! Jerry, you not only turned her life upside down when you left her, but then you turned around and invaded her privacy as well!” Jax was aghast; was his brother that deep into the clandestine ways of this organization, where he was asked to routinely break laws, that he no longer saw the problem with violating the right to privacy of the very woman he claimed to love?
“It was for her own good!” Jerry shot back, but his tone didn’t quite carry the conviction that his words meant to convey.
“Was it, Jer? Or was it for your own good?” Jax asked angrily. “You said yourself that they promised to stay away from her as long as you did. You must have trusted them to keep their word, otherwise, why stay? You said yourself that they always kept their word… So the question is: were you as worried about her safety as you were about her moving on from you - putting you and your memory in the past where it belonged and learning to live in the present and for the future with someone else?”
Jerry looked away from Jax, his words ringing painfully true. The surveillance had long ago moved from one of solely assuring him of her safety to one of also assuring him of where her heart still lay. And up until this past week her heart had remained firmly in his grasp. But now he and his brother each held a portion of it. “I suppose you’re partially right, but I still was worried about her safety - I still am! Jax, they almost killed her!”
“They didn’t almost kill her - they did kill her!” Jax exploded, slamming his fists down hard on the arm of the couch he’d been leaning against. “They killed her spirit and they killed her will to live when they killed-” Jax stopped mid-sentence when he realized that his brother probably never knew about the baby that Brenda had lost after the assault.
Jerry looked sharply at Jax, realizing that Brenda had indeed been pregnant and lost the baby - and Jax knew all about it. A wave of irrational jealousy coursed through him that she had told Jax but not him, when it was his child! “When they killed our baby,” Jerry finished quietly for him, tamping down his jealousy, as he rationalized that the brief encounter he and Brenda had had the previous evening hadn’t allowed an opportunity in which to break that kind of life-altering news.
“You knew about that and yet you continued to stay with these people?” Jax asked, appalled that Jerry had stayed on with that knowledge.
“I didn’t know about the baby until just a few hours ago, and then I only guessed… You just confirmed it for me…” Jerry answered quietly, as the pain he had felt before at the probability of the loss rebounded back with a vengeance, as that probability suddenly became cold, hard reality.
Watching the pain play across his brother’s face, Jax felt as if he’d killed a part of Jerry when he’d so callously blurted out that devastating piece of information. And his own heart ached, not only for Jerry but also for himself, as the realization suddenly hit him that the child that Brenda had lost was his family, too. “I’m… I’m sorry, Jer…” Jax stuttered, unsure of what more to say or what to do. He reached out and laid a comforting hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“Yeah…we all are,” Jerry replied softly, as he moved back toward the balcony again. “If I’d only known… There was no way the Agency could have kept me had she just told me about the baby…”
“How was she supposed to do that, Jer, when the man she knew and loved - Jarrod Davis - had effectively disappeared from the face of the earth? And she didn’t know about the baby when you left; she didn’t find out for sure until a couple of weeks after she’d arrived in New York. The only person she confided in about the pregnancy was Avery Buehler - or rather, Andrew Buxton. In fact, he helped her find an OB/GYN, and he helped her after-”
“- After the assault,” Jerry finished. “When she nearly died, first from blood loss, and then from wanting to kill herself…”
Jax threw Jerry a puzzled look. “How did you know that?”
“I overheard a conversation between her and Andrew yesterday afternoon at her place,” Jerry answered flatly.
“Wait - you were at Brenda’s yesterday afternoon? Why didn’t you reveal yourself to her then, instead of waiting until last night?” Jax asked, confused by his brother’s actions.
“When I went there, my only purpose was to look around her place for clues as to why the Agency had stopped sending me updates on her over the past week,” Jerry answered. “At that point I hadn’t really made up my mind to contact her, despite the fact that something inside me had been telling me for days that she was slipping further and further away from me… Of course, when I got to her place, I quickly discovered why I’d been left in the dark about her activities. It seems that some lovesick fool had filled her loft to the rafters with flowers - roses, actually - of every color imaginable.” He turned to look at Jax, a wry smile on his face, but a sad glint remained in his eyes as he spoke: “Nice touch, little brother. I have to admit that was something that I would have done myself had I been able…but as it was, travel books, filled with all the places I longed to share with her, were all I could safely send…” His voice trailed off as he once again looked back at the picture of him and Brenda in happier times, thinking of all they had lost since then.
He quickly regained his composure and looked back at Jax. “But once again, I digress… Brenda returned before I had the chance to make my safe escape from her place, and with her she brought none other than my friend Andrew, AKA her friend Avery. That puzzled me because Andrew hadn’t made physical contact with Brenda in years. In fact, he made a point of staying away from her; instead keeping in touch with her only by phone and through the books he sent her, which were actually from me. And just the day before he had assured me that, despite the lack of information about her recently, she was fine and that I had nothing to worry about.
“But seeing and hearing him there in her apartment, I suddenly had the feeling that I had plenty to worry about - and not just about the possibility of another man being in her life. And the more I listened to Andrew, the more convinced I became that there had been a lot about Brenda that had been kept from me, specifically about the assault. I just never dreamed that it had to do with the child that she had lost that I never even knew she was carrying…” His voice caught and he quickly looked out the balcony doors again, trying to blink back the hot tears that were once again stinging his eyes at the thought of what could have been… what should have been…
Despite the anger and jealousy that Jax felt when he’d discovered that Jerry was JD, his heart still ached for his brother. Jerry had just learned that he had conceived and lost a child with the woman he loved. And on top of that, he’d learned that the very people that he’d given his loyalty to for the past decade had been the ones who had killed that child. Then something struck him…
“Do you know that Brenda blames herself for the miscarriage?” Jax asked suddenly.
“What?” Jerry spun around to face Jax. “Why on earth would she blame herself? They staged the assault to look like a random mugging. How could she possibly think she could have prevented that?”
Jax realized just how much Jerry didn’t know about what had really happened to Brenda that afternoon four years before. All he had access to was the sanitized version that had been handed to him after the Agency’s spin-control was done with it, and even then it was dark and ugly. But not nearly as dark and ugly as the truth of that day as Brenda had related it to him. He hated to add to his brother’s pain this soon after he’d just confirmed that Brenda had lost their baby, but he felt Jerry needed to know everything about that so-called mugging. “Do you have any idea what happened to Brenda; I mean, beyond the horror of the miscarriage?”
The color drained from Jerry’s face as it dawned on him what Jax was talking about. “She… oh, God… she wasn’t -”
“Raped? No, Jerry, the man didn’t rape her, but Brenda said she knew that he intended to; it’s just that when she… when she started to miscarry, the sight of the blood seemed to scare him off…”
“Oh, God… I didn’t know…” Jerry moaned, closing his eyes in an effort to ward off the images that were flashing though his mind; images of Brenda struggling against a man whom he had unwittingly set upon her. He had always known that the Agency had been responsible for the assault on her, but he had assumed that the report of the incident that he had gotten - the one that Andrew said had come directly from the police files and that looked official - had been accurate. That report had called the assault a mugging, which he knew to be a lie, but he had never questioned the other details of the assault: attacked from behind and knocked down a set of stairs in the course of the struggle, resulting in a concussion and a broken rib. He had trusted that Andrew had given him the unadulterated facts, which he evidently had not. His face hardened as he opened his eyes and looked back at Jax. “I need to know what really happened that day - everything.”
Jax hesitated slightly, realizing that none of this was going to be easy for Jerry to hear. But Jerry deserved to know the truth; he’d been kept in the dark long enough. “She was doing a shoot in Harlem for a magazine layout. It was her first professional assignment…” Jax began, watching as his brother’s face remained hard and impassive as Jax related the details of that day just as Brenda had chronicled them for him the night before. Jerry remained stone-faced throughout the story, and Jax wondered how he could appear so detached and unemotional about all of this? This was the woman Jerry professed to love and this is how the group that he had pledged his loyalty to had coldly hurt her and killed their child! Why wasn’t he brimming with rage, as Jax had been when Brenda had told him?
But as he looked more closely at his brother, he saw the hint of tears in the corners of his eyes that belied the firmly set jaw and the impassive stare, and he knew that Jerry’s reactions had been no different than his own. It was just that somewhere along the line - most likely in order to stay alive in this dangerous world that Jerry now existed - Jerry had learned to hide his emotions. But Jax could see the resolve behind his brother’s eyes, and he knew that Jerry had no intention of allowing any of this to go unanswered, and he wondered just how far his brother would go in pursuit of justice - or to exact his revenge? But that question was answered in short order, as the stark coldness that quickly replaced the tinge of tears in Jerry’s eyes, sending an involuntary chill down Jax’s back, told Jax exactly what Jerry’s intentions were.
Jerry said nothing while Jax was talking, nor after he’d finished, instead walking silently from the living room and back toward his bedroom. A few moments later he re-emerged, having donned a long-sleeved black shirt and his boots - and carrying a gun.
The sight of the weapon and the knowledge of what Jerry intended to do with it sent a shudder of fear through Jax. “Jerry! What are you thinking?” Jax yelled, grabbing for the gun as Jerry walked by him. “You can’t-”
Before Jax could finish the sentence, Jerry instinctively grabbed Jax’s right arm and twisted it hard behind Jax’s back, as he slammed him to the floor, the cold steel of the gun barrel pressed firmly against Jax’s right temple. Then, as suddenly as he had grabbed him, Jerry released his hold on Jax. “Sorry about that, little brother, but instinct just kicked in there,” he explained matter-of-factly. He stood and walked over to pick up his leather jacket from the nearby couch, adding: “But a word to the wise: if you want to avoid a repeat performance, don’t ever come at me like that again, little brother!”
Stunned, Jax slowly pulled himself off the floor, rubbing his right arm and shoulder that throbbed painfully from his brother’s unexpected attack on him. He stared as his brother put on his leather jacket, then neatly stowed the gun in an inside pocket. At this moment Jerry was nearly unrecognizable to him, and he knew that for the first time he was seeing what his brother had become - what this organization he worked for had made of him: a killer who could be as cold and unfeeling as the worst of them.
“What are you planning to do, Jer?” Jax asked, but he knew all too well what Jerry had in mind. When Jerry didn’t answer, Jax continued: “I know how you feel, Jer. I love her, too, and I want justice for what’s been done to her. But justice doesn’t mean revenge! You can’t just go off and settle this score with a gun! That might be what you do in your work, but this isn’t an assignment and you have no immunity here. This isn’t some third world country where vigilante justice is the norm, and you aren’t working under the auspices of some international agency with unlimited power to protect you from prosecution. You’re just another citizen who’s been wronged. You have to go through proper channels… call the police… the FBI… someone…”
“You can’t possibly know how I feel, Jax!” Jerry exploded, the anger darkening his sapphire eyes, making them appear almost black. “You may love her, but it was my child that they killed when they set that animal loose on her! It was my life that they destroyed when they ripped us apart! They stole four years from Brenda and me - years that we should have had together, happily married and raising our baby, living and loving the way we were meant to be! You have no idea what it feels like to lose what I’ve lost and to realize that-” He stopped, suddenly unable to say the words aloud.
“That you were responsible for all of it?” Jax finished quietly for him. At Jerry’s look of anguish, Jax added: “I know that’s how you’re feeling, Jer, but it’s not your fault… The only thing you did was fall in love and want to spend the rest of your life with her. That shouldn’t be a crime.”
“No, it shouldn’t be, but in someone’s mind it was. And now I plan to find who at the Agency decreed that it was such a high crime that it was punishable by death - the death of our baby and nearly Brenda’s as well. And I plan to bestow a death sentence of my own on him and the animal he unleashed to savage Brenda!”
“Jerry! Think about what you’re doing here!” Jax pleaded, trying to think of a way to reach his brother’s rational side. On the one hand, Jax understood completely Jerry’s need for retribution against those responsible for his and Brenda’s pain, but on the other hand, he feared for his brother’s future if he took the law into his own hands, declaring himself judge, jury, and executioner. Jax might want Brenda for himself, but not at the cost of seeing his own brother imprisoned for the rest of his life for murder or possibly killed while trying to exact his revenge. “First of all, how do you plan to find out exactly who ordered the assault? You can’t very well just barge into wherever this organization’s headquarters is and demand to see the files!”
“Don’t worry, Jax, I don’t plan to go off half-cocked here, but I am going. When you came, I was waiting for some information that will reveal who authorized the attack on Brenda,” Jerry answered, but then his eyes caught sight of a brightly decorated package sitting on a table in the foyer. “When did that arrive?” he asked, running to retrieve the package.
Puzzled, Jax looked in the direction of the foyer, where Jerry was now holding the gift that the doorman had handed Jax downstairs a little while ago. “That? Your doorman handed me that as I was getting on the elevator to come up here. He said it had just arrived and that you’d been anxiously waiting for it. I figured it was a wedding gift from you to BiBi, and I guess I just forgot about it in all that’s happened since I got here… Why? Is it important?”
“Yeah… yeah, it’s important - crucial, in fact,” Jerry answered, as he set the package down, looked it over carefully, then slowly began to untie the ribbon around the brightly decorated gift box. “This package contains the names of those responsible for hurting Brenda and killing our baby.”
“I don’t understand… How did you get this?… Where did this come from?” Jax asked, unsure that he really wanted an answer to that one, given his brother’s earlier revelation of his true occupation.
“From the same lowlife who supplied me with that picture of you and Brenda,” Jerry replied, jerking his head toward the picture that remained crumpled on the floor behind them. “I paid $10,000 to see your face in that picture and another $50,000 for this information… Let’s see if I got my money’s worth…” he said, as he gingerly removed the ribbon from the package. “You’d better stay back, little brother, just in case…” He motioned for Jax to back up into the living room once again, as he slowly and carefully removed the lid from the box. When nothing happened, Jerry explained, “I didn’t really think this thing would be rigged, but in my line of work it’s always best to be cautious.” Jax nodded and moved back to stand beside Jerry, as his brother gazed down at the contents of the now opened package. “But I guess I was wrong... It did come with its own little bombshell,” Jerry said bitterly, his face clouding once again with anger and pain as he pulled out the item that was uppermost in the package. It was another picture of Jax and Brenda making love; this one more explicit than the last, and the look of love on both of their faces was unmistakable.
Looking at the new picture, Jerry once again felt as if his heart had been ripped apart. Despite the fact that he had mentally come to terms with the fact that Brenda loved Jax, seeing the evidence of that love in black-and-white still ate at him emotionally. He tried to hide his pain with sarcasm. “You can have this to add to your growing collection,” he said glibly, turning the picture so that Jax could see what it was.
Jax snatched the picture from Jerry’s hands and stared at it, his face growing crimson with rage. “That bastard! How long was he watching us?!”
“Probably every second the two of you were together,” Jerry replied coolly, but he was trying to contain the fomenting, white-hot jealousy that threatened to explode inside him. Jax remained beside Jerry, staring angrily at the picture, which was still uncomfortably within Jerry’s peripheral vision. “Do you mind putting that somewhere else?” Jerry asked, nodding toward the picture; it was bad enough to know that the two of them were together, but seeing actual documentation of that togetherness was totally unnecessary and nearly unbearable.
Jax looked up at Jerry, his own anger fading as he realized the uneasiness that this picture was causing Jerry. “Sorry…” He wadded up the graphic picture and tossed it onto the floor next to the one Jerry had thrown there earlier. “Is that all that’s in there?”
“No, there’s a zip disk and a note. The note reads simply: ‘Happy reading.’ And it’s signed with a happy face, the same way the other notes were that I received…” He turned and walked away. “I’ll be back in a minute,” Jerry said, as he headed down the hall toward his room to access his computer.
“This jerk has a twisted sense of humor,” Jax murmured, as he looked at the note and then glanced at the crumpled pictures on the floor. He was as anxious as Jerry was to know what was on that disk, but he decided that if his brother wanted him to look at it with him, he’d have invited him back with him. So instead of following Jerry, Jax walked back into the living room, settling himself once again on the arm of one of the couches, waiting patiently for Jerry to return. It was then that he caught sight of yet another picture, this one laying upside down on the coffee table.
What actually caught his attention was the frame, the shape and color of which were very familiar, and as he turned it over to get a better look, he understood why: it was the same picture that Brenda had taken from his office hours before! His heart beat faster as he realized what this meant: she was here with Jerry - or at least she had been! A wave of jealousy involuntarily jolted through him at the thought that she had run from him and straight into his brother’s arms. But then the jealousy passed as quickly as it had come as he rationalized that if she had come to Jerry, then at least she was safely away from the Agency’s grasp.
Just then Jerry reappeared, his face once again an unreadable mask. At this moment, he reminded Jax more of a robot than a man, putting Jax in mind of the Terminator, and Jax knew immediately that whatever Jerry had seen on that disk had rocked him to his very core. His flesh-and-blood, sentient brother had once again been replaced by the coolly efficient agent, who, when on automatic pilot, could kill without remorse. And Jax had no doubt that Jerry was on his way out to do just exactly that: kill the person named on that disk. “Jerry, think about this first,” Jax pleaded, jumping off the couch and grabbing his brother’s arm, just as Jerry neared the front door to leave. “Or at least let me go with you-”
“Jax, stay out of this! It’s my fight; let me handle it my way!” Jerry shouted, knocking Jax’s hand away from his arm. “You go back to the Plaza and keep Brenda safe. I’ll come by when I’m done and we’ll go from there - decide what’s best for all of us from that point on.”
“What do you mean: go back to the Plaza and keep Brenda safe?” Jax asked, the panic rising in his voice as he suddenly realized that Jerry had no more idea where Brenda was at this moment than he did.
Jerry stopped; his hand on the door, just poised to open it. “I assumed that’s where you left her when you came barreling over here to have me help you find JD…” he answered, turning to give Jax one last look before he left to settle some scores. “You didn’t take her back to the loft, did you? That would be one of the first places they’d look for her.”
“Jerry, I thought you had her…” Jax stuttered, realizing that he’d been wrong about Brenda having been there. “I saw the picture and figured-”
“What picture? What the hell are you talking about, Jax?” Jerry asked, his voice rising as he realized that his assumptions that Brenda had returned safely with Jax had been wrong.
Jax leaned down and picked up the identical picture that Brenda had taken from his office just hours ago. “This picture. Brenda took it with her - or one exactly like it - when she ran out of my office. I couldn’t figure out why she’d run with it, but now, knowing that you’re JD, I understand why she ran… When I saw this, I just assumed that she’d run here to you…”
“That picture’s mine - it’s one that Mum sent me! I haven’t seen Brenda since last night when I left her apartment - before she ran to LA and you!” The blood drained from Jerry’s face as it became increasingly clear what had happened: Brenda had seen the picture and discovered the truth about who he was and what he and Jax were to one another, and she had run. But she hadn’t run to him, as Jax had assumed. In fact, she was probably running as fast and as far from both him and Jax as she could. And he doubted that she’d return to the loft because she would expect him to be waiting there for her. And he doubted that she would run to her friends, the Ashtons, because they hadn’t a clue about him or her former life… But she would need to talk to someone to help her sort through all of this… someone who was aware that there had been a JD in her past life to suddenly reappear and turn out to be the brother of her current lover… someone in whom she had often confided over the past four years… She’d turn to Andrew…
“But I think I know where she is - or at least who she’s with - and if I’m right, it’s the worst possible scenario!” Jerry muttered, and at Jax’s expectant look, he added: “Andrew.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Jax asked, puzzled by the panicked look that remained on Jerry’s face. “I mean, Andrew’s your friend and he’s acted as a friend to Brenda all these years, too, so he probably has nothing to do with the people within the Agency that are trying to hurt her, right?… She’ll be safe with him, right?” When Jerry hesitated to answer, Jax’s voice rose noticeably as he repeated: “Right?!”
“Two days ago I could have answered that with an unequivocal ‘yes,’ but now, after seeing the contents of that disk…” Jerry hesitated slightly, then continued: “Jax, Andrew was the one who ordered the attack on Brenda… His loyalty has always been to the Agency and never to me or to Brenda…”
Jax was livid. “You entrusted her life to be overseen by this man for the past four years to keep her from harm’s way, and now you’re telling me that he’s the one who’s been the danger all along?!”
“Yeah, Jax, that’s what I’m telling you!” Jerry shouted. “I brought this hell down on her, and now I have to find her before it’s too late!”
“Correction, brother: we have to find her! Your days of flying solo are over here!” Jax answered angrily, the determined set of his jaw indicating that he was going whether Jerry wanted him along or not.
Jerry gave Jax an appraising look, then relented, knowing that arguing was pointless and would merely waste precious time, and time was at a premium now if they planned to find Brenda before Andrew and the Agency got their hands on her. “Fine! Just don’t interfere!” he growled, stepping away from Jax and opening the door, nearly knocking over Abe, the building doorman, who was standing just outside in the hallway.
“Mr. Jacks, I was just about to knock!” Abe said, trying to recover his balance and his dignity, as he picked up the envelope that had fallen out of his hands when Jerry had startled him by opening the door unexpectedly. “This just came for you. Some kid delivered it, and said that he’d been told that you were expecting it. It was marked ‘Urgent!’ so I brought it up immediately.”
Without a word, Jerry grabbed the envelope from Abe’s hand and hurried back into his apartment to open it, leaving Jax to handle a curious Abe. “Thanks, Abe,” Jax said, plastering on his best fake smile, as he handed the doorman a twenty and shepherded him back toward the elevator, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible about the envelope, even though he was anxious to know its contents. “You’ve been a big help,” he added, as he pushed the ‘DOWN’ button and the doors immediately flew open.
He waited until Abe had gotten into the elevator and it was on its way back down to the lobby before he turned and headed back to Jerry’s apartment. He found Jerry standing in the foyer, his face ashen, the envelope and its contents clutched in his hands.
Jax felt his heart sink, as Jerry hoarsely choked out: “It’s too late - they already have her!”