Page 116 of Nothing to Fear

Sanborn recalled when her son had been diagnosed. The battery of treatments that had been tried and failed, little Jackson growing gaunt, losing his hair, the dark circles under his gentle eyes. Sanborn’s heart had gone out to her. He’d encouraged her to take time off, but she’d said that work—the mission—kept her sane, and with help from her parents, she’d manage.

To think, he had admired her strength.

“Jackson responded to the drug therapy. He was eating again and had the strength to play. Weeks later, Daedalus said the drug was close to approval and we had to go through my insurance, but it wasn’t covered. I couldn’t afford it on my own, and the idea of losing my baby was unbearable. Daedalus befriended me, listened to my frustrations. Got me to trust him. One day, he asked me to tell him about where I worked, to give him a few harmless details to get my son back in the program.”

More tears slipped and fell. She wiped them away, not once looking Sanborn in the eye—as if she couldn’t bear to.

“I wrestled with telling you I’d been approached, but my son’s life was on the line. His health started deteriorating again. I couldn’t let him die.” The waterworks went into high gear, turning into hiccupping sobs. She finally met his gaze. “Don’t you understand?”

That was just it. Sanborn did understand, better than most. During his time with the CIA—long before the Gray Box had become his fate—he had lost his son, his only child, in an Agency mission gone wrong. There was no greater agony for a parent…other than being forced to watch that beautiful creature you loved more than anything in the world wither painfully at death’s door first.

His eyes moistened at the memories. A swell of renewed grief washed away his anger, but he tamped down those murky emotions and stiffened to steel.

“How did Daedalus know you were vulnerable? How did he know to leverage your son against you?”

Amanda picked up the water from the table. The glass shook in her hands, the clinking of the restraints like weird background music. “Daedalus built his network of spies—”

“Traitors,” Sanborn corrected.

“He used a pyramid model. He recruited one, then had that person find one or two others who could be exploited. My ex—Todd, Jackson’s father—gave Daedalus my name. He was my partner at the DEA. When I suspected Todd might be dirty, he ended our relationship, even though I was pregnant. Later, he apologized for compromising me with Daedalus but said it was the only way to possibly help Jackson.”

Amanda kept talking, about how Daedalus had trained her at a facility in Montana. About how the bodies of those who refused to cooperate or who’d made mistakes were buried out there. About how Daedalus wanted to cement his foothold in the Gray Box by having a second spy.

“Did you give Daedalus any names?” Sanborn asked.

She squeezed her eyes shut as if ashamed, her face blotchy from crying. “One, but I knew it wouldn’t pan out.”

His gut tightened. “You gave him the name of someone from the Gray Box to leverage?”

Pursing her lips, she nodded.

His jaw hardened, nerves stretching thin. It wasn’t enough that Amanda had compromised her best friend in the field—dear God, how must Maddox feel?—committed treason and murder and betrayed Sanborn’s trust, but she had offered Daedalus a Gray Box name too? Someone else to be compromised and coerced and dragged into her mess?

“Who?”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked on a sob. “I never wanted to put anyone else in the position that I was in. I’m so sorry.”

The knot in his gut twisted. “Whose name did you give?” Sanborn pounded a fist on the table, rattling the glass of water.

* * *

A slow, sick misery pooled in Willow’s stomach like raw sewage she wanted to expel as she listened to Sanborn’s interrogation.

She pressed an unsteady hand to her forehead.

Nothing could be trusted. Not Amanda or the kindness she’d shown Willow. Not Gideon or the passion he made her feel. Willow couldn’t even trust her own judgment.

Gideon had stared at her in the parking lot with cold, unfathomable eyes, his face hard-set, and had spoken to her as though she were a pest to be dismissed.

She hadn’t meant for the conversation to take such a vicious turn. Talking to him seemed of the upmost importance after he avoided having any contact with her on the plane. She’d only wanted to reassure him that everything was still the same between them.

But it wasn’t.

We don’t fit.

She’d expected the words to leave his mouth, had braced to hear them. But she had been unprepared for the startling pain, the scathing embarrassment.

Her throat closed again, choking her as though someone had shoveled sand down her esophagus. She’d asked for the truth, and he’d given it to her. She pinched the back of her hand, chewing the inside of her lip—bit down hard on the sensitive flesh until copper hit her tongue.