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“Ripley, you fucking traitorous piece of shit,” White bellowed.
Tac laughed. “Ya know, if you were a Ridley Scott fan, you would’ve realized my name was fake, you wanker. I mean, what kind of real name is Hudson Ripley?”
“Hey,” Fluffy said, throwing a smile at Tac without taking his stare off White. “That’s an Aliens reference, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Tac said as he casually crossed the room. “Bloody great movie.”
“One of my favorites,” Fluffy agreed, nodding with approval.
“I like you, Marine.” Tac stopped at my side and regarded me with a level gaze, shaking his head. “White’s not worth it, mate. You got too good a thing going on in your life to throw it away on a turd like this.” He jabbed a thumb at White, who now stood rooted to the spot, stare very much fixed on the gun Fluffy pointed at him.
I frowned at Tac. Every molecule in my body screamed at me to shake off Ronnie’s grip, to shove the Australian aside, to stab the pen in my fist into White’s neck and pierce his jugular vein, to bury the pen into his ear, and then his eye—
Shutting down the dark, enticing thought, I turned my gaze back to Ronnie.
“I know you think you need to do this for us,” she said, voice low. “But you don’t.” She tilted her head a little over her shoulder. “There are others here who can do it.”
“That’s me,” Tac stuck up his hand. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“Listen to him, Pratt,” Ronnie agreed, her grip on my wrist relaxing. A little. “You’ve got a very good thing going. An amazing, awesome, incredible thing.”
I swallowed, breath ragged.
So much shit. I’d put her through so much shit. And here she still was, telling me what we had was good…
“You need to get out of here, mate,” Tac said, clapping my shoulder with a gentle hand. “I’m allowed to off a fuck-knuckle like this guy, given the right circumstances and provocation. Part of my job description. But you?” He let out a chuckle and shook his head. “You’d go to fucking jail if you did.”
Job description?
Chest tight, throat tighter, I turned a narrow-eyed stare his way. “Just who the hell are you, Tacitus?”
He dropped a wink. “Just a crazy bastard from Down Under who enjoys cleaning up shit.”
Cleaning up shit. Yeah, White was definitely that.
“Everyone you’ve ever loved is going to fucking die, Rip…” White faltered, his glare at Tac turning into a confused frown.
Ripley. He’d been about to call him Ripley again. It seemed White had only known him by that name. Had clearly trusted him. How long had Tacitus Kole been undercover in the prick’s employment to achieve such a vaulted position?
“See, now there’s your problem, mate.” Tac laughed, dropping his hand off my shoulder. “I don’t love anyone.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” White snarled.
And squealed, hands flying up above his head as Fluffy fired off another round.
“Unless you want to lose a testicle,” Fluffy said from his place at the door, “I’d suggest you pretend you’re a statue.”
“Everything okay up there?” Tannah’s voice rose up from downstairs, worry threaded through the question.
“All good, gorgeous,” Fluffy called back, smiling. He flicked me the quickest of looks. “Don’t mean to hurry you along, Lucas, but can you get your ass out of here? You and Ronnie? I really want to get back down there to my girl, but I’m going to keep this bastard in my sights until the Australian here does what has to be done.”
“That’s what I like about you Marines,” Tac said as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew a small gutting knife. “You follow through and don’t slacken off, even when the job’s almost done.” He held the gutting knife up, making sure White saw it. “Whereas us Aussies… Well, we’ve got a tendency to rush through something so we can get a beer.” He grinned at White. “Which means this fucker’s going to hurt a whole lot more than necessary if he doesn’t give me the answers I want.”
“Lucas?”
I turned to Ronnie at her soft question.
“Let’s go.” She shifted her grip on my wrist, moving it to my hand to thread her fingers through mine. “We’ve got a wedding to get back to. Our wedding.”
