Page 26 of Lethal Weakness

“I do have brownie mix in the pantry, if you want to stay for dessert,” she offers.

I shake my head, and I swear a screw has been knocked loose. “Uh, no. I need to go home. I need to check on something.”

“Jack?”

“Thanks for dinner.”

I don’t even know if my feet touch the ground as I fall back, retreating to my lightless sanctuary.

I might be inside the home that I’m pretending to live in, but it’s this room with no windows, surrounded by the artillery that keeps me alive, where I feel at home.

Cold metal, steel. Firepower.

No warmth. No feelings.

I need to stay away from them. I can’t be the man I need to be when I’m coaxing a little girl to eat dinner, and seizing up when her mother touches me.

Her hand on my neck, her body tucked against mine.

It makes me want a lot of things. A lot of things that make me feel more human, and less like a machine.

But being in black ops means being a machine.

Stone cold. Deadly.

Music starts next door, and my listening devices pick up on it, feeding the sound into the room, defiling my sanctuary.

The singing and dancing will start soon, but I’ll ground myself from here on out. I won’t play nice with my neighbors.

I can’t. Or it will be the death of me.

* * *

I stand silently in the black shadows of the balcony, waiting for assurance that the mansion is quiet. I won’t enter, not tonight, but I will plant a listening device right outside Edmund Scott’s office.

Merrill’s office is deeper inside the house, according to the floor plans. My intel is getting me one step closer to infiltrating the house, but I need to be able to do it seamlessly. One slip-up could destroy this entire op.

Like driving through their front gates like I did last week.

I’ve never been so reckless in my entire career, let alone with Project Obsidian.

I’ve taken down some of the worst offenders in the world without a whisper of it getting out. This op has to go the same way.

That’s how you prevent collateral damage.

I might not follow the parameters of the law, but I have a code. Eliminate threats to protect the innocent.

That’s the job.

That’s all I live for now.

My thoughts shift back to little Avery the night she almost took a swim. That pervert that was within reach of her.

My only regret is that I didn’t kill the man slower.

I would have killed the landlord too, but even I know that I didn’t have a good enough reason.

That wouldn’t have been an emotionless kill. And that’s the danger of getting attached.