Page 22 of Jacking Jill

That maybe things were going exactly to plan.

Just not her plan.

Maybe not anybody’s plan.

8

“That isn’t part of the plan, Jack.”

“It is now, Benson,” said Jack softly into his phone, glancing at the two bodyguards who were standing against a gold-painted wall adjacent to the lavishly stocked buffet table in the massive indoor hall which looked big enough to host a football game. “My gut tells me Kay Steffen is Diego’s mystery contact. Paige checked her out, and it looks like she’s a lawyer. I bet she works for Romeo Carmine, so therefore our trail leads directly to the big man.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, kid,” came Benson’s warning. “In more ways than one, I might add.” He chuckled dryly, his comment making Jack wonder if Paige really had turned off access to Jack’s microphone and camera like he’d asked or if Benson had been listening in all this while. He sighed into the phone, listened as Benson continued. “Look, Jack. We still don’t know for sure that Kay is Diego’s contact. You seeing her in the hotel lobby answering a call at around the same time Paige picked up the burner phone again might just be a coincidence. Paige hasn’t been able to see any of the messages or listen in on any of the phone calls. And we don’t know for sure whether Kay works for Romeo Carmine either. There’s no record of her representing the Carmine Family in any legal cases. Though Romeo's been mostly legit for years now, so there aren't any recent legal cases. Still, take it slow, kid.”

Jack sighed into the phone, scanning the room for Jill on her way back from the bathroom. No sign of her yet, but Bobby Carmine was on the far side of the hall near the open bar, nowhere near where Jill would be, so Jack relaxed and focused on arguing his case with Benson.

“Why the hell is a lawyer at this wedding if she doesn’t work for the Carmine Family?” Jack thought back to Paige’s research on Kay Steffen. “She fits the profile. Ten years as a Federal Prosecutor. Then she switches sides and goes into private practice as a defense attorney, defending the same thugs that she spent ten years putting away. She’s a mercenary. Following the money. No moral compass.”

“Worry about your own damn compass before you change this mission’s direction.” Benson spoke curtly.

Jack bristled. “You questioning my moral compass, Benson?”

“Your morals are fine, kid. It’s your cock that’s pointing in a questionable direction. I know your history with women, Jack. You’re far too compromised in the dick department to trust that it points true north. You get my drift?” Benson spoke straight and cold, no hint of that wisecracking humor in his steady tone. “Clear your mind of all the crap the other Darkwater guys have been feeding you. Just because her name is Jill doesn’t mean she’s yours, kid. Use her and then lose her. You and I both know that you aren’t the forever kind of guy. Don’t try to be something you’re not. I know how it looks with the Darkwater patterns and the names and whatnot, and I know I’m guilty of encouraging all the rumors of mystery and magic. But although I believe certain things about how the universe works, I’m also acutely aware that we live in a world of flesh and bone, sand and stone. A world where death is final as fuck, no matter what I might believe about the afterlife. I know it’s challenging for the new Darkwater guys to ignore the patterns and play the game straight, which is why it’s doubly important that you follow my orders to the letter, Jack. You got sloppy at the gas station, and a civilian got killed.”

“Well, I didn’t fucking kill him, Benson,” Jack snarled, unable to stop the defensiveness from taking over his tone. In his mind he could still see that gas station attendant’s crooked smile, teeth rotted out by whatever addiction had prematurely aged him. Sure, Jack hadn’t pulled the trigger. But he’d left his bike with the keys in the damn ignition while he went to take a piss. Jack had literally been caught with his dick in his hand. That kind of mistake would have been not just uncharacteristic in the Deltas but unacceptable. “All right, look, I’ll cool my jets, Benson.” He thought a moment, glancing towards the empty corridor leading to where Jill had disappeared into the restroom. “Guess you pulled Jill’s name from her car registration or hotel booking.” He took a breath, blinked twice, feeling vaguely guilty for asking the next question even though he couldn’t stop himself. “What did Paige find out about her? Anything in Jill’s background I should know about?”

Benson was silent at first, then Jack heard him speaking in hushed tones to Paige and Keller. “Paige will update you,” he said gruffly to Jack after a bit. “But remember that this is my mission, not yours, soldier. Keep Kay Steffen in sight, but keep your mind open that it could be somebody else at that wedding. The endgame is Diego Vargas—not Kay Steffen, and certainly not Romeo Carmine. Stay with Jill as long as you need her for cover, but be careful about which compass you’re following, kid. It’s dangerous to think that the patterns of the past will continue into the future. Sooner or later all patterns break, all rules have their exceptions, all diamonds have their flaws. Oh, and don’t pressure Paige into overriding your phone again. She works for me, not you. Now get your head straight, and remember that the Jack-and-Jill nursery rhyme did not end well for that fairy-tale couple. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after, right? Sounds cute and funny in cartoon fairy-tale land. But in the real world that means you and Jill both die at the end. Keep that in mind before you let your dick out of your pants, stud. Hold for Paige.”

Jack stared at the phone, not sure what to make of Benson’s comments. Was the warning real or was Benson up to his coyote-crooked tricks? Was the wily old wolf testing Jack like he’d done so often on the previous Darkwater missions or should these serious-sounding warnings be taken at face value?

It was impossible to know for sure. Jack had spent a fair amount of time with Benson during the Ice-and-Indy mission—enough to get some insight into Benson’s strangely mystical view of the world. Jack and Ice’s head-in-the-stars flower-waving parents had shared some of Benson’s woo-woo beliefs, had tried to pass some of those whimsical teachings down to their kids. Ice had firmly rejected all that nonsense, but Jack had listened with a somewhat open mind.

But that still didn’t help Jack guess where Benson’s mind was right now. The older Darkwater guys had echoed some of the same warnings about how Darkwater was a different beast now. It had been eight years since Ax and Amy defeated Prince Rafiq on that first Darkwater mission, and things had certainly changed. The missions were getting more complex, with more players in the game, the stakes way bigger than just the Darkwater men and women involved. With Senator Robinson on the cusp of becoming the next American President, all bets were off when it came to protecting him and his family. Marcus and Delilah Robinson and the future of the White House were the highest priority, which meant Benson would absolutely make the hard decision to sacrifice a Darkwater man—and maybe a Darkwater woman too—for the bigger picture if it ever came down to it.

In fact Benson had been prepared to do precisely that with Jack’s older brother Ice on the last mission. It had pissed Jack off to the point where he’d considered breaking the old CIA man’s jaw. But Jack was no stranger to how shadowy spooks like Benson and Kaiser worked. Men like that often faced impossible choices, where right and wrong wasn’t so clear, where cozy compassion had to be overruled by cold calculation, where you burned good men and women because America was worth the sacrifice.

Jack poked at his phone as he waited for Paige to come back on the line. He opened up the settings and sighed. Sure enough, the settings to manually control the microphone and camera were grayed out again. Jack wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t expected his little secret to evade Benson’s watchful eyes for too long.

Had Benson been listening in during that flash of protective anger with Bobby, that confrontation which almost derailed the entire mission, almost got Jack kicked out of the wedding when he was so close to getting back on Diego’s slippery trail?

Hell, Jack thought as he glanced at the two black-suited thugs assigned to watch over him and Jill, this whole mission might already be blown. Kay Steffen had seen Jack in the lobby, and Romeo Carmine already had Jack on his radar. Diego himself would have seen Jack outside Senator Robinson’s townhome and almost certainly knew Jack was part of Darkwater. Right now Kay Steffen and Romeo Carmine and Diego Vargas hadn’t connected all the dots and blown what little cover Jack still had, but the clock was ticking.

“Hey, Jack,” came Paige’s breathless voice through the phone. “Sorry, it’s a bit crazy here at Darkwater HQ. Construction is creating a racket, and Benson isn’t fully back all the way in his recovery. He won’t admit it, but Nancy thinks the shockwave-induced concussion from the blast is giving him headaches, making him irritable and hot-tempered.”

Jack frowned, wondering if maybe Benson wasn’t completely himself—which made it even harder to figure out whether to take his warnings at face-value or ignore them completely.

Still, Benson was certainly right about one aspect of Jack’s internal guidance system:

Following his cock hadn’t always led Jack to the best outcome.

He was most certainly compromised in the dick department.

Now Benson’s advice to “use her and then lose her” echoed in Jack’s head as he saw Jill emerge from that distant corridor. Immediately his cock perked up like it was locked-in on her curvy presence, awakened by that intimate glimpse he’d gotten of her sexy slit outlined through her tights before she’d self-consciously covered herself.

Damn, she looks hot as fuck in that black dress, Jack thought as he watched Jill step into the main hall, her heavenly hips highlighted by the corridor lights behind her, her sexy shape mesmerizing like music, intoxicating like alcohol, arousing like an aphrodisiac. He wanted to fuck her, no doubt about it. But it was more than just that, even though it had never been more than just that with any woman in his past.

This was new and different. Just like the burst of possessiveness back in the hotel room had been something new and different. Jealousy had never been an issue before, mostly because Jack simply never gave a damn, was never with a woman long enough to even pretend like they were together. Hell, he’d often had the opposite problem—women getting possessive and jealous to the point where he couldn’t bail on them fast enough. Soon he’d gotten into the habit of cutting women loose as fast as possible after taking what he wanted.

But what happens when I want more than just that and I want it forever, Jack wondered as he watched Jill glance towards him from over by the buffet table and smile shyly before quickly looking away when Nina made her way over and the two women began to talk like they were friends again, like they’d never had a falling out that would have been final as fuck if it were two guys but seemed to suddenly be a non-issue with the two girls.

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