Merciless (Option Zero 1)

The bitterness in his tone belied his words. No, he wasn’t all right with Turner getting a light sentence. He knew to his soul she was directly involved in arranging Clark’s escape. Meg’s death was on her. Problem was, he couldn’t prove it. What he could prove was her presence in Colombia.

Thanks to Jules, the men who’d died that day would finally get justice. So yeah, it’d have to be good enough.

Chapter Forty-Five

Three Days Later

Alexandria, Virginia

Ash stood before the woman he’d spent years trying to bring down. The satisfaction was still there, but it had been tempered by frustration. Turner wasn’t talking. She knew she had been had, knew she was finished. The allegations, along with the recording of her meeting with Jules, were classified, but soon everyone and their neighbor would know that Senator Nora Turner was both corrupt and evil.

No way would a helicopter come swooping in to save her hide this time.

To avoid a media frenzy for as long as possible, the FBI had placed her under house arrest. So far she’d been closed-mouth and refused to answer any questions. This meeting at her home—one he was surprised she’d agreed to—was to try to change her opinion about talking. There was a ton of intel in her head.

“I must say you look quite healthy for a dead man.”

Ash had to give her credit. Turner was as cool as any cold-blooded killer he’d ever faced. But behind that bravado, there was fear. She looked a full decade older than she had in her meeting with Jules. She knew she was beaten.

“I’m feeling better. I’ll be even better when you’re behind bars where you belong.”

She tilted her head slightly as if trying to figure him out. “I’m as

suming you wanted this meeting for more reasons than to exchange insults with me.”

“You know exactly why I’m here. I want answers.”

“I agreed to this meeting as a courtesy, but I’m under no obligation to tell you anything. In fact, my attorney strongly urged me not to see you.”

“Then why am I here?”

“I guess since we’ve been in each other’s lives so much over the last few years, I thought it only fitting that we have a face-to-face.”

“In each other’s lives? That’s how you’re going to play it? Turner, you not only left a half-dozen men to die that day, you arranged for John Leland Clark to escape and murder my wife.”

“You don’t have proof of any of that.”

“I noticed you didn’t bother to deny your involvement in either incident.”

“What’s the point? You can’t record anything in this room. I fell for that once. I won’t again. It’s your word against mine. And no matter what you might think, mine still holds a lot more weight than yours.”

That wasn’t true, but he didn’t call her on it. He had come for answers, not to gloat. She had resigned her Senate seat, and every reporter in the country wanted to know why. She had given no answers to their questions, and speculation was running rampant. She could keep up the illusion of control if she wanted. He knew what a person who was on the edge of losing everything looked like.

“If it’s just your word against mine, why not tell me the truth?”

“Good try, but no. Ms. Stone got everything you’re going to get from me the other day. You’ll not get anything more.”

Jules’s real name had not been revealed, but Turner had already proved she had connections. Just how far those connections went was something he intended to find out.

“You’ll have to tell the truth at some point.”

She smiled almost pityingly. “So naïve for one of such experience. I will say that no one was supposed to get killed that day. We had no way of knowing we would be attacked.”

“Maybe not, but you worked hard to hide what you were doing. And you’ve spent a boatload of money covering up the aftermath.”

“The meeting was supposed to be a secret. No one, including that cartel, should have known anything about it. The attack caught us all off guard.”

“And you ran like a coward.”