He spat the name like venom. I could feel the tension building in Jackson's muscles, the way his body went rigid beneath mine. Whoever the guy was, he hated him.
"He smiled too much. Always had the right answer. I didn't trust him, but orders were orders." His voice flattened. "Turned out he was a double agent."
My breath caught. The circles I'd been tracing on the blanket stilled.
I knew whatever he was going to say next wasn't going to be good.
"He got them all killed."
Jackson's voice didn't shake, but I felt the tremor in his chest beneath my cheek. A vibration of grief so deep it had nowhere else to go but into the bones. I wanted to say something, anything, but what comfort could I possibly offer against that kind of loss?
"We were extracting a diplomat's family. High-risk territory. Turner had fed the location to the enemy." His words came faster now, like he needed to push them out before they could choke him. "I was point man, first in the door. That's the only reason I wasn't in the kill zone when they hit."
I closed my eyes, picturing it. The chaos. The betrayal. The moment when he realized what was happening.
"I took shrapnel in my side, my leg. Managed to get to cover, but I couldn't reach the others." His hand moved to his ribs, unconsciously touching what I now realized must be a scar. "Radio was still working. I could hear them dying."
The room felt too small now, too dark. It was closing in on us both as his arms tightened around me. I wanted to turn on a light, to see his face, but I was afraid any movement might break whatever was happening—this confession in the shadows. This raw truth that he needed to get out.
"Then came the fire." His voice dropped even lower. "They firebombed the safehouse. The diplomat's wife was in there. Their kids."
My stomach twisted as I imagined children burning. I had to shove the image from my mind immediately.
He'd lived it.
"I called it in. Command told me to stand down. Said intervention would 'escalate the situation.' Create an'international incident.'" The bitterness in his voice could have cut glass. "Like those kids weren't already an incident."
His breathing had changed, becoming more deliberate, controlled. The kind of breathing someone does when they're fighting not to lose control.
I moved my hand, resting it flat on his chest, over his heart.
He drew in a deep breath, covering my hand with his. I didn't lean back to look at him. I felt like it was easier for him to share this without looking directly at me. To reveal the nightmare that haunted him.
"I tried to get them out."
I almost didn't hear him as thunder snarled overhead, as if it felt the same pain roiling within him. "I went in through the back. The heat—" He paused as he swallowed. "The place was all on fire. I could barely breathe. I got to one of the kids. Little girl, maybe six. Carried her out. I could feel myself burning. Smell my own flesh being melted…"
My throat tightened as tears pricked my eyes. I couldn't even imagine the horror of it. Of walking through a burning building to try to save a child, of burning as he tried to save them.
"She died in my arms. Burns were too severe."
I closed my eyes, my hand trembling on his chest. I didn't want to imagine it, but I did—Jackson, younger and desperate, holding a dying child while a building burned behind him. The image carved itself into my mind with terrible clarity.
He went quiet then. The kind of silence that doesn't ask for comfort. The kind that dares you to look away, to flinch from the horror of it. I didn't. I stayed perfectly still, my hand over his heart, feeling each beat like a small act of defiance against everything he'd lost.
"I found him," he said eventually, and there was something different in his voice now. Something cold and final. "Turner.The double agent. Tracked him for three months after I got out of the hospital."
His hand moved to cover mine as he let out a shaky breath. "I put a bullet in his head."
No apology. No regret. Just fact.
"That's what landed me in prison."
He said it like it was the price of breathing. Like it was inevitable. Like there had never been any other possible outcome once he'd watched that little girl die. Held her as she drew her final breath.
"Lot of red tape. They tried to bury it all—the mission, the betrayal, the casualties. Classified it so deep even the families couldn't get answers." His jaw tightened; I could feel it in the shift of muscles. "The Donatis pulled me out."
I blinked, trying to process this. "That was... generous of them."
