Jim rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. And I‟ll bet all that patriotic bullshit gives Uncle Sam a hard-on. But it doesn‟t do shit for me. The bottom line is…if you were in the civilian population, you‟d be a serial killer. Working for the government means you get to wave the American flag around when it suits you, but the truth is, you do what you do because you enjoy picking the wings off of flies. And everybody‟s an insect in your eyes.”
“My proclivities don‟t change a thing.”
“And because of them, you serve no one but yourself.” Jim brushed at the pair of burn marks on the front of his shirt. “You‟ve taken XOps over as your own personal death factory, and if you‟re smart, you‟ll duck out yourself before some of these „special assignments‟ come back to bite you on the ass.”
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“I thought you were here to talk about Isaac.”
Little too close to a nerve, huh? “Fine. He‟s smart, so he can keep himself out of enemy hands, and he‟s got no incentive to turn.”
“He‟s alone. He has no money. And people get desperate quick.”
“Fuck that—he‟s got a sterling record and he‟s going to disappear.”
The corner of Matthias‟s mouth inched up. “And how would you know that. Oh, wait, you‟ve already found him, haven‟t you.”
“You can let him go. You have the power to do this—”
“No, I don‟t!”
The explosion was a surprise, and as the words faded in the same way the gunshots had, Jim found himself looking around the room for verification that he‟d heard that right. Matthias was all-powerful. Always had been. And not just in his own eyes.
Hell, the bastard had enough clout to turn the Oval Office into a mausoleum.
Now Matthias was the one leaning in over the corpse. “I don‟t give a fuck what you think about me or how your inner Oprah has spun this whole situation. It is
not
about what I want…It‟s what I‟m compelled to do.”
“Innocent people have died.”
“So that the corrupt could! Christ, Jim, this whaaawhaaa bullshit coming from you is ridiculous. Good people die every day and you can‟t stop it. I‟m just a different kind of bus mowing them down—and at least I have a larger purpose.”
Jim felt a wave of anger crest—but then as he thought about it all, the emotion ebbed into something else. Sadness, maybe.
“I should have let you die in that desert.”
“Which is what I
asked
you to do.” Matthias grabbed onto his own left arm again and dug in, like he‟d just been sucker punched in the pit. “You should have followed the orders I gave to leave me there.”
So hollow, Jim thought. The words were so hollow and dead. As if they were about someone else entirely.
“Compelled,” indeed. The guy had wanted to get out so much he‟d been willing to kill himself to do it. But Devina had pulled him back in; Jim was sure of it. That demon and her thousand faces and her countless lies were at work here. Had to be. And hadn‟t her manipulations set the scene perfectly for the battle over Isaac: that solider had done evil, but was trying to start over, and this was his crossroads, this tug-of-war between Jim and Matthias over his what-next.
Jim shook his head. “I‟m not going to let you take Isaac Rothe‟s life. I can‟t. You say you work with a purpose—so do I. You kill that man and humanity‟s lost more than an innocent.”
“Oh, come on. He is
not
innocent. His hands drip with blood just like yours and mine. I don‟t know what‟s happened to you, but don‟t romanticize the past. You know
exactly
what he‟s guilty of.”
Pictures of dead men flashed in front of Jim‟s eyes: stab wounds, gunshots, leaky faces and crumpled bodies. And those were just the messy jobs. The stiffs who‟d been asphyxiated or gassed or poisoned had just been gray and gone.
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Crave
“Isaac wants out. He wants to stop. His soul is desperate for a different way and I‟m going to get him there.”
Matthias winced and went back to rubbing his left arm. “Want in one hand, shit in the other—see what you get the most of.”
“I‟ll kill you,” Jim said simply. “If it comes down to it—I‟ll kill you.”
“Well, what do you know…there‟s a news flash. To quote yourself, do it now.”
Jim slowly shook his head again. “Unlike you, I don‟t pull the trigger unless I have to.”
“Sometimes getting a jump on the showdown is the smartest move, Jimmy.”
The old name momentarily flipped him back into the past, back to basic training, back to sharing a bunk with Matthias. The guy had been cold and calculating then…but not through and through. He‟d been as loyal as someone could be to Jim, given their situation. Over the years, however, any trace of that limited slice of humanity had been lost—until the man‟s body was now as mauled and decrepit as his soul.
“Let me ask you something,” Jim drawled. “You ever met a woman named Devina?”
That one eyebrow arched. “Now why would you ask that?”
“Just curious.” He straightened his leather jacket. “FYI, I‟ve had a devil of a time with her.”
“Thanks for the dating advice. That‟s
really
my priority right now.” Matthias returned the sheet back over Jim‟s cold gray face. “And feel free to kill me anytime. You‟d be doing me a favor.”
Those last words were spoken softly—and proved that physical pain could bow even the fiercest of wills if it was strong enough and lasted long enough. Then again, Matthias had had a shift of priorities even before that explosion, hadn‟t he.
“You know,” Jim said, “you could take off as well. I did. Isaac‟s trying. There‟s no reason if you don‟t have the stomach for this anymore that you can‟t get out, too.”
Matthias laughed in a burst. “You left XOps only because I let you go temporarily. I always intended to get you back. And Isaac is not getting away from me—the only way I would consider not offing him is if he would continue to work for the team. In fact, why don‟t you tell him that for me? Given that you two are so buddy-buddy and all.”
Jim narrowed his eyes. “You‟ve never done that before. Once someone‟s broken the trust, you‟ve never let them back in.”
Matthias exhaled on a raw shudder. “Times change.”
Not always. And not about that shit. “Sure enough,” Jim said on a lie. “Let‟s put me back in there, shall we?”
The two of them slid the slab into the refrigerator unit and Jim relatched the door. Then Matthias slowly bent down to pick up his cane, his spine cracking a number of times, his breath hitching as if his lungs couldn‟t handle their job as well as the pain he was feeling. When he righted himself, his face was an unnatural red—proof of how much the simple movement had taken out of him.
A broken vessel, Jim thought. Devina was working with or through a broken vessel here.
“Did any of this really happen?” Matthias said. “This conversation.”
“The whole damn thing is real, but you‟re going to take a little nap now.” Before the guy could ask, Jim brought up his hand and summoned power to his forefinger. As the tip began to 157
J.R. Ward
glow, Matthias‟s mouth dropped open. “You‟ll remember what was said, however.”
With that, he touched Matthias on the forehead and a shimmer of light went through the man like a struck match, flaring fast and bright, consuming both the broken body and the evil mind.
Matthias went down like a stone.
Angel Ambien, baby, Jim thought. Knocks out the best of ‟em.
And as he stood over his boss, the back-flat was just too fucking metaphorical: The man had fallen in more ways than just in the here and now.
Jim didn‟t believe for one second that the guy was sincere about taking Isaac back into the fold. That was just a draw to get the soldier within shooting range.
God knew Matthias was an excellent liar.
Jim bent down and put the man‟s gun back into its holster; then he slipped his arms behind the guy‟s knees and under his shoulders—shit, the cane. He reached across, picked it up, and laid the thing right down the center of the man‟s chest.
Standing up was a breeze, and not just because Jim had strong shoulders. Damn…Matthias was so light; too light for the size of his frame. He couldn‟t have weighed more than a buck fifty, whereas in his prime he‟d been well into the two hundreds.
Jim walked through the closed doors of the embalming room and went up the stairwell to ground level.
Back in the desert, when he‟d done this the first time with the fucker, he‟d been prickling with adrenaline, on a race to get his boss back to camp before the fucker bled out—so that he wouldn‟t be accused of murder. Now, he was calm. Matthias was not about to die, for one thing.
For another, they were both in a bubble of no-can-see and safely in the States.
Passing through the locked front door, he figured he‟d take Matthias over to the guy‟s car—
“Hello, Jim.”
Jim froze. Then twisted his head to the left.
Strike that about the “safely,” he thought.
On the far side of the funeral home‟s lawn, Devina stood on the grass in her black stilettos, her long, gorgeous brunette hair curling down to her breasts, her little black dress hugging all those curves. Her perfect facial features, from those black eyes to those red lips to that alabaster skin, positively glowed with health.
Evil had never looked so good.
But then again, that was part of her surface appeal, wasn‟t it.
“What you got there, Jimmy,” she said. “And wherever are you going with him.”
Like the bitch didn‟t already know, he thought, wondering how in the hell he was going to get out of this one.
158
F
rom his vantage point in Grier‟s pantry, Isaac could hear what was being said out in the kitchen—but he couldn‟t see a damn thing.
Not that he needed a visual.
“Tell me where Isaac Rothe is,” Grier‟s father repeated in a voice that had all the warmth of a January night.
Grier‟s response was just as chilly. “I was hoping you‟d come here to apologize.”
“Where is he, Grier.”
There was the sound of running water and then the flapping of a dish towel. “Why do you want to know.”
“This isn‟t a game.”
“I didn‟t think it was. And I don‟t know where he is.”
“You‟re lying.”
There was a heartbeat of a pause, during which Isaac squeezed his eyes shut and counted the ways in which he was an asshole. For shit‟s sake, he‟d brought a wrecking ball into the woman‟s life, crashing through her relationships both personal and professional, creating chaos everywhere—
Footsteps. Hard and sharp. A man‟s. “You tell me where he is!”
“Let go of me—”
Before he knew he was blowing his cover, Isaac burst out of hiding, throwing the door wide.
It took him three leaping steps to get to the pair of them and then he was all over Grier‟s pops, swinging the man around and shoving him face-first up against the refrigerator. Palming the back of the guy‟s head, he pushed that patrician piehole into the stainless steel so hard, good ol‟ Mr.
Childe‟s panting breath left little clouds of condensation on the panel.
“I‟m right here,” Isaac growled. “And I‟m a little twitchy at the moment. So how about you don‟t handle your daughter like that again, and I‟ll consider not opening the freezer section with your face.”
He expected Grier to pull a let-him-go, but she did no such thing. She just took a box of Band-Aids out from under the sink and fiddled around choosing the right size.
Her father heaved a deep breath. “Get away…from my daughter.”
“He‟s just fine where he is,” she answered, as she wrapped a strip around her index finger.
Then she put the box away and crossed her arms over her chest. “You, however, can leave.”
Isaac briefly frisked her father‟s fancy-ass sweater and superpressed pants, and when he didn‟t find a weapon, he stepped away, but stayed close. He had a feeling the guy had gotten physical because he was scared to death and about to crack—but no one handled Isaac‟s woman 159
J.R. Ward
like that. Period—
Not that Grier
was
his woman. Of course not.
Damn it.
“You know you‟re giving her a death sentence,” Childe said, his eyes boring into Isaac‟s.
“You know what he‟s capable of. He owns you and he‟ll mow down whoever he has to in order to get to you.”
“Nobody owns anybody,” Grier cut in. “And—”
Mr. Childe didn‟t spare his daughter a glance as he cut her off. “Give yourself up, Rothe—
it‟s the only way to be sure he doesn‟t hurt her.”
“That man‟s not going to do anything to me—”
Childe wheeled around on Grier. “He already killed your brother!”
In the aftermath of that drama bomb, it was as if someone had slapped her—except there was no one to hold back from her, no guy to yank free and disarm and immobilize. And as Grier went white, Isaac felt a paralyzing impotence. You couldn‟t protect people from events that had already happened; there was no rewriting history.
Or…people, either. Which was the root of so many problems, wasn‟t it.
“What…did you say?” she whispered.
“That was no accidental overdose.” Childe‟s voice cracked. “He was killed by the same man who‟s going to come after you unless he gets this soldier back. There is no negotiating, no bargaining, no terms to trade. And I can‟t—” The man started to break down, proving that money and class were no protection against tragedy. “I can‟t lose you as well. Oh, God, Grier…I can‟t lose you, too. And he will do it. That man will take your life in the blink of an eye.”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
As Grier braced herself against the counter, she was having trouble processing what her father had said. The words had been short and simple. The meaning, however…