General Hospital spoilers: Why would Jason work for John 'Jagger' Cates?

Since making his return on General Hospital, after being declared undead for the umpteenth time, Jason (Steve Burton) has managed to make quite the splash. Not only has he become a suspect in Dante’s (Dominic Zamprogna) shooting, but he’s also made people close to him like Carly (Laura Wright) and Danny (Asher Antonyzyn) guilty of aiding and abetting. Plus, he’s largely responsible for why Drew (Cameron Mathison) called it quits with Carly, given Drew believes Jason’s return means she’ll always put the "bad boy" first.

Even with all this chaos exploding across Port Charles, General Hospital fans are still scratching their heads trying to figure out why Jason has been away for so long. Then, in the episode airing on March 14, viewers get some first clues to what’s really going on.

During a face-to-face conversation with Michael (Chad Duell), Jason reveals that when he was presumed crushed and dead in the tunnel in Greece, he was actually alive on the other side of the debris. He managed to walk out of the tunnel to the beach, but he was met with armed men and taken prisoner. Jason was then flown out of the country and mets his new employer, who holds leverage over Jason to force him to work for him. Jason is careful not to disclose what the leverage is, but it seems obvious that it has something to do with a loved one.

After the conversation between nephew and uncle, Jason sits alone and has a flashback of him handcuffed in a room with John 'Jagger' Cates (Adam J. Harrington). Jason claims to have nothing to say without his attorney, but John asserts he doesn’t have to, as he has proof of Jason’s federal crimes and could put him away for 20 years.

While the episode ends there, it’s looking like Jason’s boss may be Jagger. But we still don’t know what leverage he has on Jason that has the former mob enforcer playing hitman for the FBI. Jason has stared down charges and the threat of federal prison before, but it never made him want to turn into an informant or government agency weapon.

If we had to guess, the real thing Jagger is holding over Jason’s head has to do with someone near and dear to Jason’s heart. Now we’ve suspected that Jason may actually be pretending to work against Sonny in an effort to save Morgan (Bryan Craig).

When viewers last saw Morgan, he was presumed to be killed in a car bomb, but his body was never recovered. It’s not outside of the realm of soap possibilities for Morgan to have survived and taken on another ID due to amnesia, and John tracked him down, holding his whereabouts hostage until Jason completes the mission.

Should our initial hunch be incorrect, we have one more theory. Perhaps John and the FBI are threatening to throw one of his loved ones in prison for any of the number of crimes they’ve committed over the years. Sonny, Carly, Michael, Drew, Sam (Kelly Monaco) have all committed their fair share of crimes, a few of which they never received proper punishment for. We can easily imagine Jason working for the FBI to save any of them from an imprisoned fate.

Although we are left to continue speculating as the story of Jason’s past few years unfolds, we look forward to seeing what happens next.

New episodes of General Hospital air weekdays on ABC. If you miss an episode, you can catch up on Hulu.