Page 38 of Declan

“Should I do that here or…”

Declan’s eyes squinted at my tone. I tried, I really did, but it was either be sarcastic or punch him in the balls. Just because I understood why he was acting like an ass didn’t mean I liked it, and there was only so much I could take.

“Wait a minute and I’ll find someplace where you can change.”

So, shoot me, I couldn’t help the smile that turned into a smirk when he grunted his latest demand.

What could I say? No one had ever accused me of being mature, or obedient, or nice. I was pretty much bitchy all the time, and my patience had worn thin.

He called it in to the team we were moving, destination unknown, so I could change. I will note, he barked at the guys as well. I guess Declan was an equal opportunity dick when he was pissed. Good to know.

Declan pulled away from the curb, if you could call it that, it was really just piles of broken concrete and rubble that had been cleared away from the buildings. He remained silent, therefore so did I. There was nothing to say, and our fighting wouldn’t do anyone any good. We all needed to work together to complete our mission, then we’d be on our merry way back to the US. After that, I’d contact Ash and see if she had work for me. If she didn’t, I had someone in mind. Early on, I was like my sister, I got close to the men I targeted, used the arm-candy approach. Rich, powerful men loved to collect women, liked new and shiny on their arm when they went to events. They thought it made them look a certain way, like they were real men because they walked into a room with a beautiful woman at their side. But it hadn’t taken long because I’d overplayed that racket, until I just watched them from afar, collected my intel, confirmed what they were doing, then put them down like the beasts they were.

“Jesus!” Declan’s outburst pulled me from my musings.

“What?”

“You’re gonna have to pay attention.”

“What?”

“Pay attention, Autumn. You’re over there daydreaming and we’re in a war zone. You can’t—”

“First, I know where the hell we are. Second, I wasn’t daydreaming, I was thinking about Jason Dunbar.”

“Who the fuck is Jason Dunbar?”

Jeez, touchy, touchy.

“Depending on if the stable of thirty women he’s reported to have are all there under their own free will, or if he has them strung out and has forced them into prostitution, then he may or may not be dead.”

“And if the women are there under their own free will? Is he dead then?”

The way I lived my life I’d learned not to judge. People did all sorts of things I might not agree with but it wasn’t my place to condemn them. The things I did were morally incomprehensible. I was a bad person with good intentions but that didn’t make my actions any less wrong. So, if a woman wanted to sell her body of her own free will, that was not my business, not my place to pass judgment or try to stop her. But if she was forced, stolen from her former life, that was a different story. And if Jason Dunbar’s stable had underage girls, I’d shut him down.

“Not if they’re all of legal age and want to be there.”

“I don’t understand you.”

Welcome to the club. I barely understood myself.

“You don’t need to.”

“No one wants to be in that life.”

I shifted in my seat to get a better look at Declan. He was watching the road so I had him in profile. My eyes dropped to his neck and I stared at the faded scar there.

“How do you know? And who are you to judge them if they do? You and I have no room to question their chosen profession. We kill people for money. How is that ethically different?”

The muscles in Dec’s cheek jumped and he went solid. I understood that reaction. It was the same one I had when I was forced to look in the mirror. When I stopped lying to myself about what I did and who I was. When all the bullshit about the greater good was stripped away—I was a killer. Plain and simple. And when my target was dead, I took their money.

“You ever get tired of it?” he quietly asked.

“Every fucking day.”

“Then why don’t you get out?”

I felt it as it started to happen—my body’s normal response when I was uncomfortable, the tightening of my skin, the sick feeling in my stomach. I tried and failed to stop it. It was no use, I’d trained myself to shut down, to slam my mask down, to turn vulnerability into anger.