Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
He is dead to me, he knows it. Like a plague he won’t stay away. He shouldn’t exist in Freedom Falls. Hell, he shouldn’t be in Alabama.
But he is. And he crawled back into my world dragging hell with him.
“Split,” Chux orders quietly. “Nitro, Shaft, take the bathrooms. Stunt with me we hit the breakroom. Riot, you’re point. The office is yours with Mellow at your back.”
Nobody questions it.
This is personal.
I move.
Boots silent. Breath calm. Muscles tight. Shadows bending around every corner. Every instinct from the Marines, from the bad missions, from the old life, waking up like a beast I buried years ago.
The office is darker than the others. The red glow of the exit lights barely noticeable here.
Rainwater drips from a busted vent in slow, irregular taps. I advance twenty feet before entering the room where a voice slices through the dark.
Soft. Mocking. Unbelievably familiar.
“Well, Ledger.”
My spine turns to ice. He’s here. Exactly where I expected him to be, hiding in the shadows.
“You always did walk heavy.”
I freeze. Knife on my side. Gun in hand, raised.
“Show yourself,” I growl.
“Oh, come now.” Footsteps echo slowly, purposefully. “Not even a hello? Not even a Jonas, I thought you were dead? Hell, I expected to hear, I hoped you were dead. I’m hurt.”
He steps out of the shadows. A man I buried years ago.
Shorter hair. Lean face. Eyes like ice.
He’s not masked now.
He wants me to see him.
Jonas Greene.
I lift my gun.
He smiles slow, amused, utterly unfazed. “You won’t shoot me yet.”
“Try me.”
“No,” he state calmly. “If you shoot, you risk the unknown of who I may have working for me and the risk to your beautiful lady.”
I go rigid.
Greene chuckles. “Ah. There it is.” He taps his temple. “Your tell. Your weakness. Same as before.”
“You don’t get to talk about her.”
“Why not?” He tilts his head. “She’s the reason you’re here. She’s the reason I could even get close enough to have a conversation with you. And she’s the reason you’re not going to walk away from this alive.”
A growl builds in my chest. “Where are the rest of your men?” I demand.
He shrugs. “Alive. Dead. I lose track.”
“You sent them after her.”
“I sent them after you,” he corrects. “She was simply the pressure point.”
“You should’ve stayed dead,” I snarl. “When the contract came in for Russia, that final mission, I told you man to man, it ends now. We both allowed things, we both did things we can’t take back.”
“Funny.” His smile widens. “When I came to in the hospital after you left me the first name I said was yours. While I couldn’t remember everything, I remember you telling me I was dead to you.” He lets out a low whistle. “Except, I was anything but dead, Ledger Masters. No, I was a man with vague memories and a grudge.”
My blood goes cold. Then hot.
“You were always supposed to join me,” he continues. “You were as close to me as my brother. Before the Kings stole you. Before you went soft. Before you found some moral code that changed you. And, brother, that was long before you found that woman to warm your bed.”
“Don’t,” I snap, voice breaking on the edge of feral.
“Ah,” he says softly. “There it is again. The weakness.”
I lunge.
He expects it. Greene always expects everything. We served together in an elite recon unit. The training we both endured and the torture as prisoners of war during a deployment give him too much knowledge over me. The handful of years doing contract work when we got out of the military didn’t just pay well, it forced a level of trust to survive. I am too predictable for a man like him.
He sidesteps, slashing a blade toward my ribs. I twist, the knife grazing my side, burning instantly. I counter with a hook to his jaw. He stumbles two steps but doesn’t fall.
Not enough.
Never enough.
We circle each other in the dim space of the room. Mellow is close but as a man and a brother in the Kings, he knows I need this. He won’t let Jonas kill me, but he’s going to let me fight my own battle and learn what I need to in order to protect Kelly.”
Jonas drags the back of his knife along the wall, scraping metal. “You were always one of the best, Masters. But then you traded purpose for a patch. Friendship for family that isn’t blood.”
His lip curls.
“You gave up all your potential for life as a foot soldier in a club and most of all, you’ve given up your manhood, your existence for a woman.” A smug smirk comes across his face. “I’ll give you this, she’s a fine piece of ass. I wonder if her cunt tastes as sweet as those pastries she bakes?”
I launch forward. My blade slices across his arm. He hisses, twisting away. Blood splashes the concrete.