Page 12 of Avenging Jessie (Black Swan Division Thrillers #3)

Twelve

Spence

An hour later

The rain had softened to a whisper, threading down the windshield, much like the nervous sweat trailing along his spine. A gray veil hung over the old industrial zone below, transforming the warehouse compound into a ghostly landscape of concrete and shadow.

From their perch on a crumbling overlook road—half hidden by brambles and forgotten fencing—Spence could just make out the dull glint of floodlights above the eastern loading dock.

He adjusted the laptop’s angle on his knees, then switched between the drone feeds. Still nothing. Static. The occasional gust of wind rattled a piece of rusted signage somewhere down the hill, but the compound itself remained locked in stillness. A sleeping beast.

Jessie sat beside him in the passenger seat, watching the same nothingness through a pair of binoculars through her half-opened window. She hadn’t spoken in twenty minutes. Which, for her, was restraint.

He exhaled, slowly and quietly. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, but his mind wasn’t on the screen anymore.

It was on contingency plans.

Not for the drones.

For her.

If this was a trap—if Brewer was playing the kind of game Spence feared—then Jessie was the real target. She always had been. Brewer loved leverage, and nothing got under a person’s skin faster than someone they couldn’t save.

He’d studied Brewer’s psychological profile and seen it in his own rearview mirror more times than he cared to count.

If things went sideways—if hell cracked open tonight—Spence had two escape plans mapped out. One along the old train route that veered south toward Czechia. Another through the forest trails, using gear Bellringer had provided to scramble heat signatures and jam tracking.

But both routes only worked if Jessie listened to him. If she didn’t rush in headfirst like she always did.

He glanced sideways at her. Damp wisps of hair clung to her cheekbone, and her mouth was drawn tight in that focused, bulletproof expression she wore like armor.

God help him, he was starting to see cracks in it.

And that scared him more than the drones.

He tapped a key. Zoomed in. Nothing but two parked trucks and a stack of empty shipping pallets near the side entrance.

Low activity, high defenses. The worst kind of combination.

“You see anything?” she asked, finally breaking the silence.

He shook his head. “Not yet. You?”

She lowered the binoculars. “Just a looming headache on the horizon.”

Spence leaned back in the seat. He didn’t say it out loud, but it circled his thoughts like a shark… If this is a trap, I need to be the one who walks in first.

Because he’d failed once before.

And he wouldn’t let history repeat itself.

Another twenty minutes went by. His muscles ached from stillness. From the anticipation that never quite exploded. He closed the laptop and rubbed his eyes before he took a few swigs from the thermos they shared.

Jessie was still watching the compound, but out of the corner of her eye, she was watching him, too. She’d noticed the laptop closing. The way his fingers hovered, then curled. The way he didn’t quite settle. She finally said it. “You’re exceptionally quiet.”

The air was humid, and the rental stank like gun oil now. “Just focused.”

“Bullshit,” she countered calmly. As if she already knew what was really going on.

He let the silence stretch for a moment, debating saying what was on his mind. “It’s strange.”

“What is?”

“This.” He motioned vaguely at the laptop, the van, and the gray German sky, bleeding into twilight. “I used to think the world made more sense behind a screen. Algorithms don’t lie. Code doesn’t stab you in the back. And if something breaks, you can fix it.”

Jessie didn’t comment, just listened and nodded. That alone made it easier to keep talking.

“People aren’t like that,” he continued. “They short-circuit. They ghost you. They change the rules mid-mission.”

A brow lifted. “What is this about?”

He shook his head. What was he trying to say? “I’m too much in my head right now, thinking about Brewer and his traps. The past with Bellringer. My manipulative, lying adopted father. Hell, even the situation with Flynn. People let you down, betray you, trick you.”

“You’re saying you trust machines more than people?”

He considered it. “I’m saying code is easier. Cleaner. Less likely to disappoint you.”

Jessie sighed, placing her hand on the console and toying with the cup holder. “Except when it gets hijacked by psychopaths and turned into drone armies.”

He smiled. Briefly. “Fair.”

The air was heavier now—not just with the weather, but with the weight of what wasn’t being said. “I spent a long time thinking if I stayed behind my personal firewall—kept my distance—I’d be safe,” he murmured. “Detached. Efficient. Invaluable. But eventually…”

She set the binoculars in her lap. “Eventually, what?”

“It starts to feel like you’re not even human anymore. Just part of the machine.”

Jessie shifted in her seat to face him fully. “Is that why you signed on with the Swans?”

He hesitated. Not because he didn’t know the answer—but because he did. “I thought if I were in the field again, I could stop hiding behind the tech. Be something real. Make it count.”

Her voice was quieter now. “Did it work?”

Spence looked at her. Right at her. “I don’t know yet.”

For a moment, Jessie said nothing. The rain blurred the world outside into streaks and shadows. Then her hand, resting on the console between them, edged an inch closer.

She didn’t touch him.

But she didn’t have to.

The way she looked at him—steady, unflinching—made it harder to hide behind sarcasm or strategy. She leaned a little closer, still not touching. Just close enough that the warmth of her presence scraped against the colder parts of him.

“I never had any siblings,” she said. “Losing your sister must have been hard.”

His throat got tight. It was so like her to go right for the jugular, realizing his armor was more about Victoria than any betrayal since. “She was five. Smart. Funny. Obsessed with birds. She used to call pigeons ‘air rats,’ but she’d feed them anyway.”

A faint smile ghosted across her lips, gone as quickly as it came. “What was her name?”

He pulled out the coin, flipped it over. “Victoria. I called her Vic. Our mother was…broken. Drank more than she ate. We never had heat in winter. Barely had food.” He swallowed. “She told me one night to get out. Said she couldn’t afford both of us.”

Jessie’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t interrupt.

“I was eight. I didn’t think she meant it, but she did.

Slammed me into the doorframe, she was so determined to shove me out.

I curled up in the alley that night, didn’t even have a coat.

I looked for a way back in, but couldn’t find one.

The next day, the doors were locked, the curtains drawn.

She acted like she didn’t know me. Like I was some junkie begging on the steps. ”

His hands curled around the steering wheel, needing something to hold onto.

“God, Spence.” Jessie’s voice was quiet like the rain. “That’s horrible.”

He stared at the blurry bulk of the warehouse. Saw his childhood walk-up instead. “I started watching the place. Figured I’d wait her out. Then this guy showed up. One of her old boyfriends. Real piece of work. He knocked, she let him in. Twenty minutes later, he walked out with Victoria.”

Jessie’s fingers twitched on the console. Still not touching him, but still giving him her undivided attention.

“She wasn’t crying,” Spence added, voice fraying at the edges. “She was holding his hand. Looking up at him like he was…safe.” His breath hitched. “Like maybe she thought he was her new dad or something.”

“What did you do?”

“I ran after them. Tried to stop him. He shoved me into the gutter, Vic screaming my name. He tossed her into the back of his car and drove off. I can still see her in that back window, hands pressed against her as she cried for me.”

Spence blinked hard to fight the sharp sting of tears. God, how he’d failed her.

Jessie’s voice was both compassionate and outraged. “That bastard.” She finally touched him. “You’ve been looking for her ever since.”

Her touch did things to him. Her compassion, too.

He peeled his hands off the steering wheel, wishing he could put them on that guy and choke him to death. Instead, he grabbed the thermos and passed it to her just to focus on something else, ignoring how his hand was shaking.

Their fingers brushed. He won the war on his emotions and slid that solid shield back into place.

“I went to the cops, and they laughed at me. An eight-year-old, claiming his mum kicked him out and sold her five-year-old daughter to her ex. I didn’t have his full name.

No license plate. You get the picture. No one cared.

No one looked. They didn’t take it seriously, and a case was never even opened—I checked later on when I hacked into their database.

She was just another missing girl from the wrong side of town. ”

Jessie took a swig from the thermos and screwed the cap back on, slowly, deliberately. Once done, she reached for him, gently placing her hand on his.

He held himself still, focusing on the contact.

He would not allow himself to move or breathe wrong and break the moment.

“After that, I stopped trusting people to do the right thing. Started building systems. Networks. Traps. I thought—if I could build something smart enough…maybe I’d never lose anyone again. ”

Her grip tightened.

He didn’t pull away.

The spark that passed between them felt like a live wire.

That single touch did more damage than a bullet. It wrecked him. Undid something deep inside him that he’d welded shut.

“If she’s out there,” Jessie said, “we’ll find her.”

He turned toward her. “We?”

Their eyes locked. And for a moment, neither of them breathed. The space between them was almost nothing.

“Yes, we.” She leaned in even more, determination burning in her eyes.

“After this, our mission is Victoria. You and me. You may excel at computers and coding, and you may even be a damn good spy, but I do have certain skills and resources that can help.” Her fingers lifted to stroke the side of his face.

“And as you’ve been trying to prove to me, teamwork is crucial to a successful outcome of any mission. ”

If she moved even a fraction closer, I’d kiss her—and then everything would unravel.

Her gaze dropped to his lips, and he thought she might kiss him instead. Yet, she held him there, in that suspended moment, and that restraint nearly killed him more than a kiss would have.

He cleared his throat. Forced himself to look away. “We should—uh—swap shifts. You need rest.”

“I’m not tired,” she said, voice just as wrecked as his.

Spence forced himself to pull away from her touch before the gravity of it pulled him straight into something they couldn’t afford.

He traded his laptop for his tablet and focused on the screen, heart still hammering. “I’ll cycle through the feeds again. Make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

Jessie nodded, but her eyes lingered.

They worked in silence for a few minutes. Shadows lengthened. The warehouse remained a black silhouette against a bruised sky, quiet and unassuming—too quiet. Spence hated that. Stillness always meant something was coming.

The burner phone in his jacket vibrated. He stiffened, yanked it out, and checked the screen. “Fuck.”

Jessie leaned over to look. “Who is it?”

Spence answered before the second buzz and hit the speaker button. “Go.”

Declan Reid didn’t waste time. “It’s about our boss.”

Every muscle in Spence’s body went rigid. Jessie straightened, flicking a fearful gaze at him.

“What about him?” Spence asked, already bracing for impact.

“He didn’t show up for the morning brief.”

Jessie let out a gasp. “What?”

Spence’s stomach turned. “Maybe he was delayed.”

“That man who lives in fifteen-minute blocks? If he was going to be late, he’d have sent a coded message, three contingencies, and a backup voice memo. Nobody’s heard from him since his call to you. You know anything about this little disappearing act?”

Spence swallowed hard. “I assume you’ve checked every crevice and corner inside Langley?”

“The place is locked down tighter than a vault, and Stone is crawling up every one of our asses. The majority are pretending it’s business as usual, but we both know what that means.”

Jessie shook her head and rubbed a hand over her face. “Either he’s gone dark side or someone got to him. Jesus, please tell me you don’t think he’s dead or being flown to some foreign black site.”

Declan grunted. “I don’t think either. What I do think is that he’s coming your way.

Meg and I are flying dark right now, but she’s making arrangements for us to do the same.

Off the books, of course. Tessa’s digging through chatter there in Western Europe, and she and Tommy are also on their way from Prague to converge with all of us in Munich.

One thing’s clear—we’re behind more than one eight ball. ”

Jessie met Spence’s gaze again. No more flirting. No more shared silences or maybe-later glances. Just the cold rush of truth settling between them.

“Keep your head down,” Declan said. “If Flynn didn’t disappear on purpose to help us out, that means someone has silenced him. Someone high up in the ranks. And that means, it’s open season on all of us.”

The line went dead.

Spence stared at the screen until it dimmed. The shadows outside had deepened, bleeding toward night.

Beside him, Jessie whispered, “Shit.”

Yeah.

That about covered it.