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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 2024
“How in God’s name did you allow this to happen? A hostile takeover, and you didn’t think to call me before shit got so bad you lost the company?” I slapped a hand to the side of my neck, feeling the vein bulging there.
Two and a half years of trying to be a better man, and this news was pushing me awfully close to ripping this guy apart, just like I would’ve back during my crusade for justice.
I’d trusted Pierce Quaid because Rebecca had trusted him. My mistake. He’d fucked up and lost all that I had left of Rebecca.
“You went off-the-grid and left me in charge of The Barclay Group. I did what I had to. And why would I reach out to you? All I know about what you’ve been up to in the last several years is that . . . well, you probably belong behind bars. If someone finds out you’re here, you just might wind up there.”
Figured Pierce had the balls to say that to me, like I needed the reminder I was still technically a wanted man by our government, but he couldn’t manage to find his voice in time to save the business.
Of course, Pierce had no clue I’d assisted the military on and off over the years. They’d looked the other way, conveniently forgetting my “record” and the fact I was wanted by multiple governments, not just ours, as long as I brought them the results they needed. Hell, I even worked side by side at my security company with the Secretary of Defense’s son, Gray Chandler.
And there I was, walking on thin ice, keeping my head low, particularly in cities like New York, waiting for them to officially remove my name from their lists.
How much longer would everyone see me as either the man who had his wife murdered for her money—which many believed—or as the guy who snapped after losing his wife and became a killer?
Part of me wanted to take out a national fucking ad and let everyone know every life taken by my hand had been someone who could’ve, and possibly would’ve, easily taken theirs had I not done something. The other part of me, though, was fine with letting people think I was a monster. I wore the suit of asshole well, and I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to lose it.
“Did you even find who killed her? That’s what you were doing, right?” Pierce had the nerve to ask me.
“Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t?” I cocked my head, continuing to stare him down.
“Fair point.” He wrung his hands together, then shook them out at his sides. “And what do you do now? Is it something Rebecca would approve of?”
Did he really think I would tell him what I’d been up to in the last five years? Where would I even start? Maybe with a number? Like how many kids I’d saved from human traffickers in my two-and-a-half-year hunt for Rebecca’s killer?
Or there was another number—how many assassins, murderers, and criminals I’d taken out while working with Gray at Falcon Falls Security, as well as before that venture even existed.
Dozens of HVTs had been eliminated, including The Chechen—the man I’d been hunting in Budapest the night Rebecca had been killed. That turned out to be a double-edged sword in itself as Zoey now had her doubts he killed her fiancé after The Chechen had planted the ridiculous idea in her head that someone else had done it, but?—
“I guess your silence is my answer.” He interrupted my internal ranting, continuing to hang by the door as if on the verge of bolting from his own office, a room that had once been Rebecca’s. He’d redecorated and changed it to the point I couldn’t even feel her memory clinging to the walls.
“Shut the door.” I rounded his desk and dropped down in his chair, intending to come up with a strategy and get The Barclay Group back. Rebecca held on to it despite what she’d been dealing with back then, so she’d want me to save it.
“It’s too late. I know you’re trying to think of a way out of this problem, but there isn’t one. Paperwork was finalized this morning before you startled the shit out of me by busting into my office. I thought you were a ghost—haven’t seen you in years,” Pierce said after closing the door and facing me.
“And you were never supposed to see me again,” I finally said. “But you fucked up and lost all that my wife gave a damn about while she was still alive.” I couldn’t save her. The least I could do was save her company.
“You haven’t reached out in years. For all I knew you were dead, too.” Pierce paused to let that bitter truth sink in. I had been a ghost to almost everyone I’d known before I’d taken off. “You don’t collect a check from The Barclay Group. Your share is automatically redirected to charity. So, tell me why it really matters? The deal may have been hostile, but it was a good one. A lot more money than we deserved.”
“It matters because Rebecca cared enough not to want to sell. I had to find out on the news about the takeover, not from you, no less.”
He loosened the knot of his red tie, then removed his suit jacket and chucked it on the couch. “Rebecca cared about The Barclay Group because her father did. I swear, sometimes I think I knew her better than you did.”
I stared at him, my jaw tightening, as I considered the harsh truth of his words. It seemed everyone knew my wife better than I did. She’d kept so many secrets from me. So fucking many. Every time I found out a new one, it stung. It never seemed to stop hurting, how she felt she couldn’t be completely honest with me. I’d tried to keep the past in the past, but it was moments like these that made it impossible to do.
“I’m sorry.” He lifted a palm in surrender. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“There’s nothing left of her now,” I said under my breath, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
“You have her money.”
“Okay, so maybe you do want to die today.” I cracked my neck, then began working my sleeves to the elbows. At his timid gasp, I shook my head. “Kidding.”
“You don’t joke.”
I used to. All the time in the Army. When it happened now, it was because my teammates at Falcon Falls were beginning to rub off on me here and there, even if I didn’t want them to.
