Page 109 of Nothing to Fear

“Damn,” Maddox said in a defeated whisper, forehead creased.

“What is it?” Gideon asked.

Pressing her lips tight together as if the words were too terrible to utter, Maddox looked stricken. Almost heartbroken. “I overhead Amanda ask Nicole Tully how the power was shut off to the observation room the night Novak was killed. When Nicole mentioned the server room, Amanda asked if the entry records had been checked.”

“She baited Nicole to find that evidence against Willow,” Gideon said.

Maddox nodded and dropped her head back against the seat.

The stab of betrayal went deep and twisted. Amanda was a field operative—or at least she had been before switching to analysis—and understood the magnitude of this. She’d jeopardized national security, but this was also personal. Amanda had endangered the lives of every operative and had burned one of their own.

Besides that, she had more to lose than anyone. More than her career or her future behind bars. Her son, Jackson, meant everything to her.

No way she’d risk not being there for him, watching him grow up—not for money, and she was no ideological nutjob on a crusade.

“Daedalus must’ve compromised her somehow,” Gideon said.

Maddox sat silent, now expressionless, staring out the window, but a pang of sympathy still went through him for her. She’d recruited Amanda from the DEA. They were best friends, and she was Jackson’s godmother.

“How could she have fooled everyone for so long?” Willow asked.

Maddox drew in a strained breath. “You mean, how could she have fooled me? Lied to me every single day without my knowing? Pretend to be my friend without me suspecting?”

“No, I didn’t. I meant all of us. I admire her…admired. How she managed to juggle so much as a single mother. She was always patient and nice to me.” Willow stroked her throat as if searching for her pearls. “But she planted trackers on me, framed me. She tried to kill me.”

Had Amanda also been responsible for the brake failure on Gideon’s truck that killed his wife? He thought he’d be relieved to learn the truth, like finally scratching an itch that plagued you. Instead, his stomach churned with disgust.

He didn’t want to believe it. That Amanda was capable of such things.

But Amanda had done a lot of deep undercover work, pretending to be someone she wasn’t for years. Her first day out of the DEA academy, she’d said she was making a buy as part of a sting to bring down a drug lab. And Sanborn had thrown her into the deep end the moment she signed on the dotted line to work for him. It wasn’t until she got pregnant with Jackson and wanted something less hazardous that she’d ever pushed papers.

“She fooled all of us,” Gideon said.

Ares tapped him on the shoulder. “That guy won’t crack. So tightlipped, you’d think he didn’t have a tongue. I can’t get him to break, but I’m sure you can get him to crack like an egg.”

A watery sensation sloshed through Gideon’s gut. He looked at Willow, dreading the words forming on his tongue. What would she think of him, once she saw who he really was? How ruthless, how pitiless he had to be sometimes?

The horror she would witness, the terrible things she’d see him do in the next hour would forever define him and color the way she looked at him. This moment was inevitable. Sooner or later, whatever they shared had to come to an end.

Willow glanced up at him with tenderness radiating from her, and the sick feeling inside him intensified.

If she didn’t consider him a monster now, she would by the time he was finished.

“Ares, lay down plastic so we don’t ruin the carpet. I’ll break him.”

41

Grand Cayman International Airport

Monday, July 8, 1:30 p.m. EST/2:30 p.m. EDT

Omega took his first-class seat on the flight from Grand Cayman bound for Dulles International. He’d sent the helicopter back in lieu of the faster commercial option. He clutched the burner phone in his palm that he’d bought in the airport, dreading the call he had to make like a coward.

Defeat was a corrosive burn in his blood, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. Shame was the only thing keeping the killing edge of his temper in check. He’d be dead if not for instinct and sharp reflexes that had saved his ass.

Would Daedalus be happy to know he was alive even though he’d failed?

There were many days when their empire seemed more important to him than anything else. As though he were willing to sacrifice Omega, all they shared, and all they could have in the future if it meant that Daedalus would get to keep his crown.