Page 71 of Allegiance
He wasn’t so sure.
“Why didn’t she come to tell me?” he asked.
“Because you literally told her to go. You told everyone here you didn’t want to be a father, and Violet wasn’t your kind of gig. What I can tell you is she reached out for help. Eve called the only person she could in that freefall. She called Jinx, crying. Does that sound like someone who has her shit together?”
No, it didn’t.
And it hurt his heart that he wasn’t there for her.
“I have never lied to you. I told you I questioned Sarah’s ability to hold it together. I told you she was a bad choice, but you insisted. I tried to help her all I could. I’m telling you to listen to me. Eve needs someone to save her. She did it all her life out of necessity—not because that was her instinct. She was trained to be a killer. Some of us can just do it without the military. Eve is broken. She was young when she was turned out on the street.”
He listened.
He didn’t know much about her.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, pulling out her phone. She had clearance so high, no one could top it minus the president. “Read.”
She handed him her phone and the file that was on it. It was Eve’s personal record.
The CIA one—not the military one. The CIA had files on EVERYONE.
Uh, that didn’t reassure him.
Only, curiosity got the best of him.
As he began reading, only one thing came to mind. Her past…
It was heartbreaking.
Her mother had been a horrible person, who left Eve alone in the world. She was shuffled from foster home to foster home. In them, she was abused, starved, and hurt in ways no one should be.
His eyes filled with tears.
No one had been there to protect her, so she’d had to do it out of necessity.
It was survival of the fittest.
He kept reading.
Apparently, she lied at seventeen and joined the Marines to escape, and then, she never looked back.
He read her missions.
Oh, and they were brutal.
She took countless lives but saved so many more. She’d served with honor, and had more medals than any one person should.
She was a hero.
He looked up.
Elizabeth stopped him.
“And she’s looking for that one person who will stand by her and hold her up when her feet get kicked out from under her—like they are now.”
God.
He wanted that to be him.