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Mathias felt sucker-punched. He looked at his old friend in sickened disbelief. “You did this tonight? You would’ve killed her too?”
“It wasn’t about the old man or the girl. They had nothing to do with any of this.” Sloane’s eyes took on a flinty edge. “If you want to blame someone, blame that drunken idiot, Doyle. He’s the one who put the target on their backs. He had no damned business letting himself be seen anywhere people might know him. So, he goes off and gets a tattoo? Fucking humans.”
Mathias dismissed the rant with a snarl. “Tell me what’s going on, Sloane. You and Doyle. It was you with him that night at the docks? What were you two doing? What kind of deal were you trying to make that night?”
He gave a slow shake of his head. “My only hand in the deal was to make sure things went smoothly, and that no one got nosy that night.”
“You and Doyle,” Mathias pressed. “You killed all of those people in cold blood?”
“They were scum, all of them. Especially Doyle. I would’ve killed him soon enough too, but your female and the old man here did the job for me.”
“Why? Are you a scarab too?”
“Fuck no,” Sloane spat out. “My only affiliation is to myself.”
“Then how’d you get mixed up in all of this?”
Sloane grinned. “I got paid, friend. I got paid very fucking well to make sure a package reached its destination, and that there were no loose ends.” He chuckled. “Guess I’m the last one.”
“What about Nova?” Mathias said. “Is anyone else after her?”
“No one ever was. I don’t know what her connection was to Doyle or his associates outside London, and I don’t care.” He shrugged. “Far as I’m concerned, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Mathias was relieved to hear it, but still cognizant of the fact that Nova’s past would need to be dealt with at some point. When she was ready. And he meant to be at her side when that day came.
“I have to take you in, Gavin.”
He stared, expressionless. “We both know that’s not gonna happen.”
Slowly, he turned around as if he meant to stroll out of the shop.
Mathias pulled his gun from its holster on his weapons belt. He cocked the 9mm pistol. “Sloane, stop.”
He paused, but didn’t turn around. His arms hung loosely at his sides. “You gonna put a bullet in my back?”
Mathias cursed through gritted teeth. “I’d rather not. But you’re not walking out that door.”
“Okay,” Sloane said after a moment. “I’ll make it easy on you.”
He pivoted suddenly, and Mathias saw that he was holding his own gun. It exploded an instant later, and a fireball of pain opened up in Mathias’s gut.
He fired back.
His bullet hit his old friend between the eyes.
Sloane hit the floor.
Mathias staggered down to one knee, blood pouring out of him.
CHAPTER 10
Mathias walked into the war room of the Order’s London command center that next morning, a bandage wrapped around his bare midsection. His pain was mild, but the gunshot wound that perforated several internal organs was going to take a few more hours to heal.
He hadn’t been happy to be dragged to headquarters by Thane and his other men after he called them back to Ozzy’s shop. He’d wanted to go looking for Nova last night. Turn the city inside-out in order to find her and tell her that Ozzy’s killer was dead and she had no reason to be afraid.
But dawn had been coming fast, and the bullet Gavin Sloane had fired through him had grounded Mathias on base for the rest of the night instead.
The Order’s report overnight of Gavin Sloane’s death in the line of duty had been met with shock by his colleagues at JUSTIS. The fact that the long-time law enforcement officer had been corrupt, on the take from a troubling underworld organization with ties and motives not yet determined, had been a detail Lucan Thorne had decided to omit from any official filings.
