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“That was careless of him,” Solomon said with a nod to the old wound. Something dark and ugly flashed briefly in the man’s eyes but was gone in an instant.
Ice didn’t take the bait. He didn’t need to know what beef, if any, Solomon had with Echo or vice versa. All he wanted was to see Echo again, just to confirm something.
“I’ll give you a trial run. One month starting now,” Solomon said before he turned to his laptop. A moment later, the man pointed to the electronic reader on his desk. “Read the rules and sign here.”
Ice nodded and quickly scrawled his signature at the bottom of the rules he knew by heart.
“Turn over your cell phone and ID.”
Ice placed the items on the desk and Solomon slid a burner phone across the desk to him and a vehicle key. A moment later, the burner pinged with an incoming text.
“Take care of the mark that I just assigned to you. Report back to me when you’ve completed the hit.”
There wasn’t much to say after that. Plus, he was never one for idle chitchat. He stood, collected the items from the desk, and walked out of the man’s office.
Ice made his way through the warehouse that had been fashioned into an office building and took the four flights of stairs down to the parking lot. The clicker unlocked a nondescript four-door gray sedan and after collecting Grit from where he was curled up outside of the warehouse door, Ice slid behind the wheel with Grit in the back seat.
“Well, boy, we have our first official job. What say you?”
Grit pushed up between the seats, paws planted on the center console and wagged his tail. Ice took that for a yes.
One week later.
“The job is simple.”
Wrath slid Ice a sideways glance and then gave an up-nod to the shipyard below them.
Ice shifted a bit, settling one knee down on the roof of the building. He gripped his high-powered rifle that sat resting on the tripod and tilted the scope to his eye.
“Don’t overthink it or you won’t take the shot,” Wrath continued and shifted a bit on the metal roof of a neighboring building.
“I’ve done this before.” Ice slowly turned his head and scowled at Wrath. The assassin was shrouded in black with a masked hood that covered his head and face. He’d known Wrath for years—they’d served together as Navy SEALs. Wrath had been one of two medics in their unit while he’d been a sniper, so the guy knew he knew what the hell he was doing.
“Why are you really back?” Wrath sounded exasperated suddenly. “Why would you want to do this shit again? What is it? Did you miss it so bad?”
“No.” Ice squinted at his friend while rubbing at the new letter E tattoo beneath his shirt, it was slightly sore. The letter—inked on his upper left chest—represented Erebus. They hadn’t been tattooed when he’d been part of the group back in the day. Maybe they were keeping track better.
“What about you? Why are working for them?”
“I have my reasons,” Wrath murmured.
“Well, I… have some unfinished business.”
Wrath squinted at him and Ice scowled right back.
“With Echo?”
“How’d you know?”
“Everyone knows he let you live in that bar,” the medic said.
“Let me live?”
“Don’t underestimate him.”
“We have a score to settle.” Ice turned back to the scope and moved it around the area below to get a bead on the entrance to the shipyard and the two exits.
“Let it go.”
