Page 14 of Jacking Jill

“Actually, I do.” Nancy smiled tightly. “I’ve read Diego’s CIA file, got the grisly details that you divulged to the rest of the Darkwater guys. I know Diego lost his young wife and baby daughter in the worst way possible, was forced to watch them brutalized and murdered. It’s what turned him into a savage monster with an insatiable bloodlust. But it’s also a psychological vulnerability that got exposed when he coincidentally crossed paths with Mercy and Cari. They reminded him of his own lost wife and little girl. Sorry, John. Not everything is because of Darkwater’s mystical vortex of eye-rolling woo-woo energy that twists the trajectory of time and shifts the sands of space.”

“Eye-rolling vortex of woo-woo energy? Aw, I missed you, Nancy Sullivan.” Benson smiled with exaggerated affection that he hoped would mask the real affection which stirred deep in a way that troubled him sometimes, exposed his own vulnerability, that raw psychic wound created when he lost Sally on that first Darkwater mission. “Point taken. Sure, it was a coincidence that Diego crossed paths with Mercy and Cari, who perhaps reminded him of his own lost family. But remember that coincidence is how the universe plays its games, Nancy. You’ve looked into Mercy’s past, I presume?”

Nancy shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the neckline of her navy-blue sweater. She took a breath, sighed it out, then nodded with quiet grimness. “Mercy was raped five years ago. Her daughter is the child of that violent act. She chose to keep the child, was strong enough to get past the memories of her attacker. Mercy’s a special sort of woman, I admit.” Nancy’s face tightened. “Not so different from the special sort of women who seem to be drawn to this Darkwater circus, I will concede.” She scratched an imaginary itch on her pale cheek, flicked a serious gaze in Benson’s direction. “Her rapist was killed in prison. What do you make of that? Another coincidence?”

Benson stroked his jaw thoughtfully, then shrugged, deciding to let that one go without comment. No, he didn’t think it was coincidence. The guy had been taken out in a classic prison-gang hit. Which meant somebody ordered that hit. There was no indication that Mercy was in any way connected to the prison gangs. She was squeaky clean, a textbook immigrant success story, somebody who’d come into this country legally, waited her turn to get approved for a work-visa, earned her shot to reach for the American dream.

But still, there was something dark and dangerous swirling in the emotional depths of that woman Mercy. Benson had spent some time with her during the few days Mercy and Cari had been sequestered in a CIA safehouse after being rescued from Rhett’s basement. Mercy had insisted that she barely knew Diego, didn’t even know his real name until Rhett Rodgers broke into her store that fateful night. Mercy admitted that she’d invited Diego to dinner at the store that night, but it was the first time they’d spent any time together other than the brief interactions when Diego would come in to buy groceries and supplies. She agreed to immediately call Benson if Diego attempted to contact her in any way, but Benson detected a hint of hesitation in her promise, like this woman had understood what Diego had done for her and Cari.

Still, that was a far cry from actually breaking the law to protect Diego if he contacted her again, Benson thought now as he felt the uneasy intuition that this amorphous energy of sex and violence had drawn Mercy and Diego together, would continue to draw them together.

And if that happened, Benson would be there.

There was too much goodness and strength in Mercy for Benson to allow her to be drawn into Diego's dark shadow. That would never happen. Not while Benson was still playing the game.

A game that was getting harder and harder to play, Benson reminded himself as an uncharacteristic shudder of uncertainty went through his body which had still not fully recovered from the aftershock of that violent explosion. There were still so many unknowns, loose ends from the last two missions that needed to be tied up.

Tied up quick.

Before the whole fucking thing started to unravel.

Now a sudden anxiety streaked through Benson when he thought about Jack Wagner out there on his own. The guy was a cocky, confident former Delta hero with a dossier that included as many broken hearts as confirmed kills. Sure, many of the Darkwater guys had that swagger, that confidence which sometimes bordered on arrogance. But just like the expanding universe, Darkwater was always changing, always evolving, always growing. Eight years and nine missions was a lot of history, and there was no ignoring the patterns now. Certainly, all the new Darkwater guys were primed to believe, which, ironically, made things shaky and dangerous when you played the great game.

Because fate isn’t for sure.

Destiny is never decided.

You can’t be certain of the ending until you actually make it there.

And not everyone makes it there.

You can’t keep drawing aces from the deck of destiny.

Can’t keep rolling sixes on the dice of fate.

Yeah, you need faith to stay the course.

But too much faith can lead to overconfidence and complacency, a feeling that the battle is already won before you even step into the arena.

That’s why cocky motherfuckers like Jack Wagner needed Benson looking over their shoulders. And that’s why Benson was pissed off—and perhaps a bit puzzled—at Nancy telling Paige to go ahead and give Jack control of his own phone.

Again that uncharacteristic uncertainty that had plagued Benson since the end of the Hogan-and-Hannah mission dug its claws back into him, whispering that maybe Nancy was playing her own game. After all, Nancy Sullivan had been a masterful manipulator even before she ever heard the name John Benson.

Was she trying to sabotage Darkwater, came the shockingly offhand suggestion from Benson’s subconscious. He watched her put those tortoise-shell cat-eye reading glasses back on, studied her focused blue eyes as she turned back to her blueprints of the new Darkwater campus. Nancy had been warning Benson for almost eight years that sooner or later the law of averages would kick in and his luck would run out.

Was Nancy trying to nudge things in that direction?

Was she secretly hoping for one of Darkwater’s missions to fail?

Hell, Nancy had a personal stake in this Darkwater game too, didn’t she, Benson thought now as his doubts began to dig deeper in a way that worried him, damn near terrified him. But he couldn’t stop that runaway thought-train, couldn’t stop his scheming brain from warning him that Nancy’s daughter Brenna was part of Darkwater, as were Nancy’s grandkids—Brenna and Bruiser’s adorable cluster of twins and triplets that Benson had lost the ability to count.

Had these loose ends with Diego Vargas and IMG Corp made Nancy scared for her daughter’s safety, worried about her grandchildren’s future? After all, Darkwater’s enemies might strike at any Darkwater family—and obviously kids were the most vulnerable.

Shit, Nancy had every emotional incentive to see Darkwater shut down, to just go away, disappear.

And the best way to make that happen would be if the great John Benson finally crashed and burned. Broke that perfect streak of “successful” Darkwater missions.

Lost a Darkwater man.

---