Jack was relatively calm, considering she was sitting across the table from one of the world’s top assassins, Yassen thought. If she knew his name and his face, then she had to know what he did for a living. MI6 must have briefed her during or after the Sayle incident. He watched as she took a sip of her coffee, a slight tremble of her hand the only visible sign of her fear. He was impressed by her impeccable manners, offering coffee and cake to the man who’d just broken into her home, treating him as if he were an invited guest. Of course, he didn’t want to be rude, so he’d accepted. The cake was actually very good, a mixture of fruit and nuts, and not overly sweet.
“I realize that you have no reason to trust me,” he started, trying for a casual tone, “but I can assure you that I mean no harm to Alex. If I’d wanted him dead, I could have done it several times already. Has he told you what happened in France?”
Staring down at her hands, she answered, “He said he’d had an opportunity to kill you, but that he couldn’t go through with it. He was upset that he couldn’t, but I told him that if he had, it would have made him just like -”
She quickly glanced up at him and stopped speaking, apparently concerned that she was just about to insult him and make him mad.
“That’s true, Ms. Starbright. Killing me would have sent him down a path from which there is no return. I am grateful that he was not able to do it. Of course, one reason being that I am still alive. But aside from that, I do not want him to become like me. What I do not understand is why do you continue to allow Alex to work for MI6? He is not a killer. One day, he will find himself in a situation where he must shoot, and he will hesitate, and he will die. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not!” she replied angrily. “But I have no say in it. MI6 has control over him, both as his legal guardian and as the trustee over his finances. He’s tried to refuse them, but it’s that Alan Blunt. He won’t take no for an answer. It’s not as if I haven’t tried to get them to leave Alex alone.
“Alex doesn’t know this,” she said seriously, “but when he was at the Point Blanc Academy, they wouldn’t tell me what was going on. I kept calling and complaining about it until finally they sent a car to the house to get me. I thought they were going to tell me where he was, but instead, they took me to a room somewhere underground at their headquarters, and they locked me in. I was there for several days before Alan Blunt came to see me. He threatened me. He said that if I did anything to interfere with MI6 and Alex’s missions, he could make me disappear. But as long as I behaved, then Alex would be allowed to stay with me. I hate Alex working for them, but if I’m gone, who’s going to protect him? You? You’re the reason he’s in this mess to begin with, because you killed Ian!”
Yassen watched the fury burn in her eyes, and was satisfied. He could see how much she cared for Alex. Neither one of them could protect Alex on their own. Yassen had his own life, his own work, and it didn’t allow for him to monitor Alex’s situation on a consistent basis. Jack was with Alex every day, but didn’t have the power to fight MI6. But between them, they could keep Alex safe and out of Alan Blunt’s hands.
“You’re right, of course. Killing is my job. I don’t make any apologies for it. However, if I could change things concerning Ian Rider, I would. Ian and I went way back,” he explained. “We even worked together once, when our - goal - was the same. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we were friends, but I respected him. We had an understanding that we wouldn’t hurt one another if we could avoid it.” He tried to keep the sadness from his voice, but he could see by the look of horror on Jack’s face that he’d failed.
“You didn’t know Ian was in that car, did you?” she asked incredulously.
He sighed deeply. He had to trust her. He had no one else to share his grief with over killing Ian. “I would have found another way to stop him if I’d known it was him. I was in Port Tallon when Harod Sayle called to say he’d intercepted a message from a security guard. The message had said that the guard knew what was going on with the Stormbreaker Project. The only road out of the Sayle Enterprises complex was through Port Tallon. Sayle described the car, and I waited to ambush him as he drove by. It wasn’t until later that I heard that Ian Rider had been the security guard.”
He looked at her, almost pleadingly, as he said, “You must believe me. The last thing I wanted to do was take Alex’s only living relative away from him.”
“But…I don’t understand,” she said, confused but no longer afraid. “I can see that you might not have wanted to kill Ian, since you had known and worked with him. But Alex? Why do you care so much about Alex?”
“Ms. Starbright,” Yassen said slowly, “you must never let Alex know what I’m about to tell you.”