Page 21 of Scarred Sunrise

Lizzie watched as Nazareli sat a little taller and seemed to grow more severe and the knot in her belly that had developed when she heard her voice tightened.

“I’m not who you think I am. The man I work for has been trying to bring Rhea down for years.”

“So he put you close to her, to what? Get information?”

“Yes. He knew she’d be open to letting me in after you rescued Meg. Rhea needs that childlike position in her life filled.”

“If he knows so much about her, why doesn’t he just kill her?”

“It’s complicated.”

Smithy stood abruptly. “This is bullshit.”

“Sit down.” Smithy stopped and glared at Nazareli. “Please.”

Reluctantly Liz watched him sit.

“He cares about her.”

Smithy and Nazareli both turned to her as she spoke, and Lizzie saw the truth in the other woman’s eyes.

Smithy watched Nazareli intently now, and Lizzie cast him a glance. “Is that true?”

“Yes, he’s her husband.”

“I thought he died.” Liz tilted her head, her mind running through the options.

“He faked his death, hoping she’d stop. He couldn’t be with her when he saw what she was becoming, but John couldn’t kill her either. He loved her.”

“And now?”

“John sees what she’s become, and it’s a parody of the woman he loved. He knows she needs stopping, but we need your help.”

“Us? Why would we help him?”

Nazareli slipped her hand inside her pocket and pulled out a picture. Placing it on the table she slid it across to them. Lizzie picked it up and looked at the tall, fit man in his late fifties, early sixties. He had a shaved head and tanned skin and was handsome. The grey suit he wore tailor-made for him if she wasn’t mistaken. She frowned as she looked closer, something about him was familiar but whatever it was, it was just out of reach and she couldn’t place him.

Smithy tensed beside her, and she looked up at him as he took the picture from her, his face awash with dark memories. He looked up sharply at Nazareli, his jaw hard, anger emanating from every pore. Without conscious thought, Lizzie wanted to calm and console him.

“Do you know who this is?”

Nazareli nodded. “I do. His name is John Smith, and he was a spy who worked for the British government. He worked his way up until they put him in charge of a special project.”

“Project Achilles.”

Hearing the raw emotion in his voice, Lizzie studied Smithy, wondering who this John was to him.

“Yes, he was given the green light to create a small team of men and women who would go in and find the weak link in any organisation and exploit it.”

“We would use whatever we had as leverage, it was underhand and dirty, but it got the job done.” Smithy gave a humourless laugh, and Liz felt him close off from her as he tried to pull his hand away from her leg, but she held tight and he relented.

“Then one day a mission failed and they pulled the plug. The team refused to carry out the mission they’d been given.”

“They wanted us to kill the son of a drug lord to force him out of hiding. He was eleven years old and a total innocent. Bás and I refused, but Fitz was a crazy motherfucker and was going to do it. We argued with John when we found out, and he said he hadn’t given the go-ahead for the mission, but Fitz went out on his own, desperate to prove he was the best.”

Liz could almost taste the despair in the air as he laid it out for them.

“By the time we got there, he’d killed the boy and was cradling his dead body in his arms as if he suddenly realised what he’d become. We never saw Fitz again after that night, and as a team we were put back into normal service for our efforts.” Smithy looked at Nazareli with hate in his eyes. “John Smith was a heartless bastard, yet you expect me to believe he loves Rhea Winslow so much he can’t kill her?”