CHAPTER SIX
“You sure?” Adam asked, his brow furrowed with concern.
With the entire family gathered in the kitchen, Jay understood his reservations. Bringing someone new into the lodge? A major risk. For all of them. But even though Becca had taken on the physical appearance of her evil twin, she wasn’t a danger.
“Absolutely. Becca was a political science major. She wanted to help shape US policies on international peace and cooperation, not spark a global political coup resulting in the total breakdown of humanity. Trust me. She’s not aligned with Volkov, the Russian government, or the Imperium Council. And she’d never release Dominion—not even with the lock and key in place. It’s why I asked her to code the key in the first place.”
“We trust you,” Eve said, patting his back on her way by. “If you say she’s not a danger, then she’s not a danger.”
“Eve,” Adam cautioned. Arms crossed over his chest, he leaned against the door frame leading into his office, the casual pose at odds with the intensity of his expression. “We need to be careful here. Jay hasn’t been face-to-face with Rebecca in seven years. We don’t know whose side she’s on, or what she’s capable of.”
Sunshine encased in bright-purple yoga pants and a matching tank top, Eve was the light to Adam’s dark—and the reason the JTT still had a leader. “We’re not blasting her out of one prison to put her in another.” She pegged him with her cobalt-blue stare as he wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her in tight to his hip. “It’s not right. If we want her to trust us with the key to Dominion, we need to give her our trust in return. We can’t do that if she’s locked away in the mountain cabin.”
“Adam’s right.” Seated at the table with his wife nestled in his lap, Chase voiced his concerns. “Jay’s been searching for her for months. Even though she’s a cyber genius who could’ve sent out a call for help at any time, she kept herself hidden. Facts are facts. She hasn’t asked to be rescued, which means she’s on Big Diomede because she wants to be there.”
Gray elbowed him in the ribs. Hard. “Don’t make me snow globe you to death. You’re both wrong. She doesn’t want to be there. She needs to be there. The question is why? What does Volkov have that she can’t get easy access to anywhere else?”
“Technology,” Jay answered. “Anyone with ties to Imperium will have enough computing power to rival any of the top intelligence agencies. The CIA, MI6, Mossad, the GRU—everyone’s looking for a way to control Dominion. She’s trying to stop them on her own.”
“That would mean she knew about the virus a full two years ahead of us. How’s that even possible?” Jamie asked.
“We were lied to,” Adam replied, a bitter edge creeping into his tone. “The president. The NSA. The CIA. Everyone knew the virus existed.”
“Even the colonel,” Gray said, mentioning her deceased father’s role in keeping the secret from the members of the JTT. “He didn’t tell any of you about Dominion or about Jay being the fucking mission.”
“He did what he thought was best to protect us, baby.” Chase brushed a loose curl off Gray’s face before landing a light kiss on her cheek. “We can’t find fault in him for that.”
“Yeah, we can,” she grumbled, still angry at the man she mourned for, and Jay felt a fresh wave of guilt over his role in creating the virus.
“I’m sorry, Gray. I never meant?—”
“No.” Her spine snapped straight a second before she sprang to her feet. “This is not your circus, these are not your monkeys, and you’re not responsible for this shit show.” She crossed the kitchen in four long strides and engulfed Jay in a rare hug that set him back a step with the force of it.
“Diane Heughan lied to you. She’s the one who recruited you. She’s the one who sent you to MIT. She’s the one who ordered the colonel to hide the truth about Dominion and the Imperium Council from the JTT. And she’s the one who got him killed. None of this is your fault. Got it?”
Jay’s eyes landed on Adam in time to see him give a sharp nod in silent agreement with his sister. As the colonel’s ex-wife, Diane was Adam’s biological mother—not Gray’s—and the JTT’s one and only contact in a government they’d lost all confidence in.
Did they trust her? Fuck no. Not anymore. They had a symbiotic relationship whereby they used each other to get what they wanted. Nothing more. “Got it.” He patted Gray’s back.
“Good.” She squeezed him one last time as they broke apart.
“What about you, Summer?” Adam shifted his gaze to the tiny blond-haired woman standing with Jamie by the massive granite-covered island. “How do you feel about having Rebecca in the same house with Halia?”
She didn’t rush to answer. Instead, she lifted the baby she cradled higher and took a deep breath while brushing her nose over the top of her adopted daughter’s fine black hair. “Jay brought me here.” She lifted her chin until her sweet smile landed on him. “I was nobody. A stranger he’d found on the Internet. If he thought for one second, I’d be a danger to Halia or the JTT, he never would’ve contacted me about the nanny job, much less allowed me within fifty miles of the lodge.” Jamie wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, and she leaned her back against his chest. “Jay asked Rebecca to code the key to Dominion for a reason. He trusted her. And I trust him. With my life. With Jamie’s. With Halia’s. With all of yours.”
She looked around the room. “We need her, and if she’s out there trying to stop the virus on her own, then she needs us too, so I agree with Gray and Eve. She’s one of us, and she belongs here in the lodge with Jay and the rest of our family.”
At that moment, he couldn’t have loved the tiny spitfire more.
Fiercely protective of her little girl and the family she’d made her own, Summer’s opinion held extra weight with Adam, and sure enough, he conceded. “Alright. We bring Rebecca to the lodge, but we keep a close eye on her. While she’s here, I want security measures doubled, and for now, as an extra precaution, our evac plans stay within this group. Agreed?”
A variety of unanimous sounds of agreement filled the big kitchen, and for the first time in a long time, Jay felt a small flicker of hope take flight in his chest. This place. These people. In his heart of hearts, they were home to him. But he had one last room to fill. One final piece of the puzzle to put into place before his world would be complete.
Becca had been lost to him for a long time.
Seven. Fucking. Years.
And now that he’d found her…he wasn’t ever letting her go.
