AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
~Matt~
The smell of my own burnt flesh plagued my senses, even though hours had passed since my coronation. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, the brand on my chest red and raw and starting to puff up around the edges.
GSD
How the hell could those three little letters hurt so fucking bad? Probably because they’d been burned into me one at a time. Forcing me to choose for my boss to continue until it was complete. Each character searing into my skin, marking me forever as a member of the cartel. Proving my loyalty.
One more lie I had to live. One more nick in the integrity of my shield.
The things I’d had to do to work my way up the ranks of the cartel from grunt to Knight had pushed against the line of the law. Okay, fine, they’d strayed far over the line. But for the last four years I’d done my dead level best to ensure that no one ever got hurt because of choices I made.
No one but myself, anyway.
Once again I stared at that brand, reminding myself that I’d chosen this. All of it. The undercover assignment, the scars, the life of crime that I’d been assured was necessary in the long run to bring the network down.
I’d chosen this.
And now I would be marked forever as one of them.
I inhaled sharply and the smell overwhelmed me, causing me to turn and begin vomiting into the toilet, my stomach heaving as I thew up everything I’d consumed in the last few hours. Beer, stale peanuts, tequila.
When there was nothing left to purge, I flushed and lowered myself to the floor, resting my burning face against the cool tile.
God, I was so sick of this.
My cell started to ring, and I reached up blindly, fumbling my fingers over the counter until I found it and brought it to my ear.
“Yeah,” I said, my tone hoarse.
“Matt?” Griffin’s voice was clearly concerned. “Are you alright?”
“No,” I admitted. “I had no idea how badly this was going to hurt.”
“Well, they pressed molten hot metal into your skin. What did you think it would feel like?”
“I don’t know,” I snapped. “Not like this.”
“How did it go tonight?”
“It went well, I guess.” I shrugged as I sat up, though he couldn’t see me. “Drinking, branding, swearing in. Everyone seemed pleased.”
“That’s good.” Griffin’s voice lowered to almost a whisper. “How are you, really?”
I knew what he meant, but I didn’t actually know how to answer him.
Griffin James was my handler. He was a federal agent with the FBI and was the only contact I had with the world outside of the cartel.
He checked in with me every few days to make sure I was still alive, to get any intel I could give him on the key players and, on occasion, to act as my pseudo-therapist when things were really dark for me.
Tonight, things were really dark. I’d let a national crime syndicate brand their name into my flesh. How was I supposed to be doing?
“Matt,” he prodded, his tone indicating that he expected an answer.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “It’s the job. I’m a just a soldier.”
Which was true. The problem was that I was a soldier for both sides. And playing this game for so long made me question sometimes where my loyalties ultimately lay.
