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He was so utterly, utterly different to me. He still believed in things like loyalty and right and wrong, and I adored him for that. His feelings were as clear and easy to read as his tattoos: no games, no tricks. He was simple, and that didn’t mean I thought he was dumb. He was simple in the way a bulldozer is simple. Huge and strong and uncomplicated, with one clear purpose in life. I wished I was that simple. And the attraction…God, the attraction was like nothing else, that hard, brute maleness, the way he scowled at me with those scalding brown eyes…
But it was impossible. I couldn’t have a normal, honest relationship with him, or anyone. With Lev, it had been different. Lev had been like me and we’d forgiven each other’s flaws. We knew that neither of us was real.
Colton was real. Warmly, honestly, roughly real. And he deserved someone real. Someone who laughed because something was funny, not as a way to manipulate someone. Someone who could love him.
He came sleepily awake, groaning and yawning and then opening his eyes, scowling grumpily. Then he saw me and his cock rose and hardened. God, he was so wonderfully primal, like a caveman.
We looked at each other, unsure what came next. Then I leaned down to the floor and grabbed his gun. He sucked in his breath and tensed, ready to grapple me—
I held the gun out to him in a sign of peace. He sighed in relief and took it, then nodded to me. We weren’t enemies anymore.
“I want to help you,” he said. “But you’ve gotta start leveling with me about what’s going on.”
His phone rang. He checked the screen, grimaced and looked meaningfully at me. It must be his team, wondering where the hell he was. He tossed the phone on the bed, letting the call go to voicemail. His own sign of peace.
I gazed at him, debating. Then I nodded. “Okay. But let’s go to the diner across the street. You’re going to need some coffee.”
33
COLTON
When we reached the diner and I smelled food, I realized I was ferociously hungry. I’d been on the go for over thirty-six hours with only a few rations to sustain me and I’d eaten nothing at all since yesterday morning. “Do you have pancakes?” I asked the waitress.
“Best pancakes in the city. You want pancakes with maple syrup and whipped cream, pancakes with maple syrup and bacon or pancakes with maple syrup, bananas and nuts?”
“One of each,” I said seriously. “And coffee,” I added, remembering what Tanya had said. “Like, a vat of coffee.”
The pancakes really were the best in the city, crispy on the outside and fluffy inside, drowning in maple syrup and topped with salty bacon and sweet fruit. I worked my way through three platefuls and felt better. Tanya, who’d just finished a modest bowl of oatmeal, smirked at me from under her long, dark lashes as if I was cute. “What?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.” She sighed and picked up her coffee cup. “Okay, listen. It’s the nineties. There’s a war going on in Bosnia, right in the heart of Europe. It’s bad, Colton. The worst things people can do to each other. Rape. Mass graves. Ethnic cleansing.” She leaned forward. “But there was this one guy who was worse than the rest. His name was Jadranko Maravic. Serbian Special Forces. He was responsible for some of the worst atrocities and he wasn’t some guy sitting in an office a hundred miles away issuing orders. He was right there with his men, leading by example. He liked to kill in especially brutal ways and he always finished his victims off with a knife. The locals were terrified of him. They called him The Devil’s Wolf. Not just because he was vicious, but because he’d do all of his higher-ups’ dirty work, no matter what. Nothing was beyond him.” She bit her lip and looked away, then summoned the strength to look me in the eye. “Pregnant women. Children,” she said quietly.
The anger had been building inside me as she spoke, like storm clouds rolling out to cover the sky. But in the last few words it got darker, the muscles in my arms tensing, my knuckles going white on my coffee cup. I’d run into guys like that, when I was Military Police. Men who used the horrors of war as a smokescreen for their sickness. I’d already done the math in my head. “He was a soldier in the nineties,” I growled. “That white-haired guy in the forest: that was him.”
She nodded. “After the war, the UN tried to put him on trial but he escaped. Started selling his services as a mercenary around the world: when some warlord in Africa wanted a group run off their land, they’d call The Devil’s Wolf and he’d do exactly what he did in Bosnia. People used him when they wanted to send a message, or when the crime had to be especially cruel.” She sighed and stopped, then seemed to have trouble starting again. “Two years ago, someone—we suspect the Chinese—paid him to get information out of a Russian weapons researcher. So he kidnapped her fourteen year-old daughter, took her to a remote hunting lodge and sent the mother photos as he tortured her, to force her to give up the secrets he wanted. We managed to backtrace one of the photos and my partner and I were sent in to rescue the child. We thought we knew what we were getting into, but…”
