Page 16 of Falcon

Rattler was already in the back of the plane where Joilyn sat with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders while an older woman assessed her injuries. The plane wasn’t overly fancy to be a corporate aircraft but was comfortable. Kind of like I imagined a private jet owned by a paramilitary corporation might be. It held our team easily enough with enough room for us to stretch our legs without being in each other’s way.

I took a breath and stood to go to Rattler where he sat with Joilyn. My gaze locked on hers and she met mine with what I thought was a mixture of defiance and regret in her expression. It was always hard to read Joilyn. She’d always been able to keep her feelings close to the vest. Looked like she hadn’t changed much.

“You’re not too worse for wear, dear. I think you’ll soon have your strength back.” The older woman squeezed Joilyn’s shoulder as she stood. The woman turned her gaze on me and Rattler, sticking her hand out to my MC brother. “I’m Mama. I serve Bones MC as their doctor. Cain sometimes uses my services with ExFil. He thought Joilyn would be more comfortable with a woman looking after her, but I think she’s OK.”

“I’m Rattler and this is Falcon.” Rattler introduced us as Mama took my hand in a firm grip. “Joilyn’s my sister.”

Mama gave me a questioning look.

“I’m Rattler’s friend. Joilyn and I had planned on getting married, but that was two years ago.” I saw Joilyn’s face harden before she masked her expression once more. What the fuck else was I supposed to say? I didn’t want to hurt Joilyn, but the fact was, for whatever reason, she’d faked her death long before whatever had happened to put her here.

“I see.” Mama gave me a knowing look, like she really did see. She squeezed my arm as she passed me.

I glanced at Rattler who studied his sister intently. The others had given us some privacy by sitting as far forward as they could so we had the back of the plane to ourselves. He crossed the short distance and took Joilyn in a hard embrace and the two clung to each other for long moments. When she pulled back, there was a glimpse of the Joilyn I knew. There was something vulnerable about her before that simply wasn’t there now. Rattler was right. I had changed. All three of us had.

“Joi? You’re safe now. You know that, right?” Rattler brushed hair off her forehead gently.

Joilyn gave him an angry, impatient look and shoved away from him. “Of course I know I’m safe, Ruben.”

Rattler raised an eyebrow. “I only say that because you’ve been a prisoner for the last two years and all that.” There was a bite to his voice I hadn’t expected. Probably in response to Joilyn’s display of temper. Rattler had never been anything but gentle with his sister. This tone of voice had the tendency to give most men pause.

Joilyn’s eyes widened and she actually drew back slightly before sticking her chin in the air defiantly. “You don’t know everything about my life. Everything I did was for a purpose. I stayed embedded in that group as long as I could. It was just my bad luck to have run into someone who knew me in town.”

“You mean, someone who thought you were dead?” Yeah, Rattler was good and angry. I couldn’t say I blamed him, but given how hard he’d taken her death and how he believed he should have protected Joilyn better, I should have expected him to lash out.

“Easy, Rattler,” I murmured. “She’s here. She’s alive and relatively unharmed. Be thankful you have your sister back.”

Rattler closed his eyes, sucking in a breath. Then another one. “You’re right. I’m so sorry, Joi.” He met his sister’s gaze again. “Your death was hard on me.” He glanced at me. “On both of us.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

I knelt in front of her. “What happened, Joi?” I kept waiting for that sense of betrayal, probably the same thing Rattler was feeling, but it hadn’t come. Probably because I was still crashing from the adrenaline letdown.

“Not sure what you mean.”

“With you, Joi. Did you fake your own death?”

“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. “With the help of the CIA.”

“Why?” My question came out more like a demand. Which it was.

She lifted her chin. “That’s classified.”

“Bullshit.” I didn’t raise my voice, but didn’t let her get away with the cop-out. “You owe me this, Joilyn. You owe both of us an explanation.”

“Look. Both of you were already in the Marines. You were serving your country and proud of it. I wanted to do that too.”

“No one said you couldn’t.” Rattler raised his hands in a pleading gesture. “I wouldn’t have liked it much, but I’d have helped you all I could. What exactly happened?”

She rubbed her eyes tiredly and winced when a bruise on her face protested. “I did enlist. You guys were deployed. I was going to tell you after basic. But I ticked every box the CIA special ops program was looking for at the time. They said my lack of actual combat experience would work in their favor because they could train me the way they wanted me to operate. The only catch was, I had to leave my life behind. Disappear permanently.”

“Christ, Joi! You were eighteen! You couldn’t make a decision like that on your own.”

“All evidence to the contrary,” she replied dryly. Rattler gave her a venomous look and she sighed. “In hindsight, yeah. I can see how it was a bad choice. But I’m not sure discussing it with you would have changed my mind. They were training me to do important things. Things to keep our country safe. I was going to make a difference and I did. The work I did in Oklahoma helped head off at least three different major domestic attacks.”

“The CIA doesn’t operate inside the US, Joilyn.”

“Not usually, no. But there is a domestic division. Project MK-ULTRA and the attempt to suppress the Warren Report are just a couple of examples. Not to mention they had an office under a different name in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Officially, we were operating in Oklahoma because we had tracked a foreign national with ties to multiple terrorist originations.”

---