“The Piper approached me shortly after Dresden went after Vivi. He told me he had inside information that Dresden was coming for everyone in Endgame, and he was going to start with you. He said that the only way I could protect you was to insert myself into Dresden’s organization and divert his attention.”
“Goddamn him,” Jude bit out. He wasn’t lounging against the back of the couch anymore. He was sitting upright, muscles tight, hands fisted.
“I fell hook, line, and sinker. All I could see, all I could hear, was that Dresden was coming for you, and I had the opportunity to stop him. I jumped in with both feet,” she admitted.
“Goddamn you too,” Jude said harshly.
She held up a hand. “I can’t do this if you’re going to do that. I need you to listen to me, Jude. Reserve your judgment until the end, okay?”
He nodded, but she could tell it cost him a lot. Poor man. He’d already paid too much.
She swallowed and took a cleansing breath. “The Piper had no particular plan he’d made me aware of, had said only that I needed to be diligent, and that when the time was right, he’d call me up. I told you in Russia I had no idea that op in Beirut was meant to insert me into Dresden’s operation. And putting together everything now, I don’t think the Piper planned it that way. But once I was down, he didn’t do anything to get me out. He saw it as his way of obtaining an objective with minimal effort.”
“He couldn’t have known Dresden wouldn’t kill you. It was too much of a risk,” Jude bit out.
“Gray Broemig didn’t know that either, but one of his main intentions of inserting me into Endgame was to pursue Dresden. He and the Piper were making the same moves.” Ella bit her thumbnail and glanced at Jude. “I wonder if they even knew.”
She shrugged lightly. “I do think the Piper knows a lot more than he lets on and not enough about what he doesn’t.”
Jude breathed out roughly. “What he’s doing is borderline criminal.”
Ella didn’t disagree. “I wondered for a long time if it wasn’t the Piper who’d given Dresden the information about our mission, but it didn’t make sense. He created Endgame. He had no reason to risk destroying you all just to insert me. Plus, I’ve looked him in the eye, and this team is his. He wouldn’t destroy what he’d built and the men and women he’d built it on. He might sacrifice an operative to the greater good, but the whole team? I don’t buy it.
“I’ve also since found out that Loretta Bernstein most likely leaked the information to Dresden about our incursion in Beirut that night. She’d mined Gray Broemig for information, using other contacts to put pieces together. I believe she gave Dresden the information. He fired the RPG that brought us down, and the rest was just shooting fish in a barrel.”
She winced at her comparison. A fine man had lost his life that night. Micah Samson, Jude’s best friend, had perished. Only Brody and Ella had been allowed to live.
“Savidge shot Micah, where I couldn’t tell. I just knew he fell. He got Brody in the neck and winged me on the temple. I remember hearing you call my name in my earpiece. And I remember seeing Brody fall. But then my vision washed in red, and I was out. When I woke up, I was facedown on a dirt floor, naked and cold.”
Jude stood and began to pace. She let him. It was hard to recount. It had to be hard to hear.
“Dresden wasted no time allowing Savidge to break me. ‘Get them before their spine strengthens,’ he said. Savidge laughed and then clapped the manacles around my wrists. He pulled on a long chain until I hung from a bolt in the ceiling. They’d leave me hanging for hours at a time in the dark, bleeding, hungry, and cold. Then Savidge would come in, hit a lever, and lower me to the ground where I’d lie for hours more.
“I started making marks in the ground to count the days. The sun would pierce a high window in my cell. It would travel the sky and go away. That would mark one day. By the time I had five days crossed off in the dirt, they’d begun bringing Brody into my cell.”
She stared into the flames, feeling colder than she’d been in that cell. Memories hurt.
“The things they did to Brody made me scream. But eventually he screamed louder. I vowed in that dirty cell that I’d watch the life leave Horace Dresden’s eyes.” She glanced at Jude, noticing his jaw was bunched and his face wore a tortured expression. “He’s mine, Jude. You may want to kill him, but it will be me who takes him.”
Jude nodded at her demand.
“They finally took Brody away. He lost his voice for a long time. Probably lost more than that, but he’s never said a word to me about what happened in that room, and I haven’t either until just now.” She wiped a tear away. “By the time they took him away, eight days had passed. When Savidge would hit that lever, and I would fall to the ground beside Brody, I’d talk to him. I lied, Jude. Every minute I was with him, I lied to him.”
“Look at me, Ella,” Jude demanded in a hard voice.
She did. But the words had started, and now she couldn’t stop them.
“I told him we would be saved. That you were coming for us, and King would be right behind you. I told him our team would get us out of that hell. But you never
