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“What the fuck?” Gray demanded.
“Are you sure about this guy?” the woman asked. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and she slid her piece into the holster around her thigh as she side-eyed Zane.
“No,” Zane responded bluntly. “But he could be an asset.”
The tatted-up guy snorted. “How can we trust our lives with this asshole when he just tried to end his own?”
“I didn’ttryanything. If I wanted to die, I would’ve put my pistol in my mouth and pulled the trigger six months ago.”
“He’s not stable,” Pharaoh stated, crossing his arms.
“Which might make him the perfect asset.” The guy who spoke had dark blue eyes, golden-brown hair and seemed a little less uptight than the others. “I’m Rip.”
“Can someone please explain to me why the hell I’m here?” Gray looked from one to the next.
“They’re my team.” Zane stepped forward. “Ex Nihilo. We worked for a secret organization called The Agency. Until they tried to eliminate us.”
Gray hiked a thick, dark brow. “What did you do for them?”
“Killed bad guys,” the woman said. “I’m Bruja.”
He had no idea what the word meant, but the way she rolled her “r,” he was guessing Spanish. Debatable, though. Gray knew about as much Spanish as he did Chinese. Basically nothing.
“We didn’t ask questions. Just pulled the trigger. And that turned into a clusterfuck,” Rip stated. “We lost a teammate, a really good guy, and now we need someone new to step in and help us take these Agency fuckers down. Banshee thought you might be interested.”
“Keep talking.” Gray sat up straighter. They had his attention.
“There are rules,” Pharaoh said.
Gray’s amber gaze swung over to his friend, and Zane said, “You have to be willing to fake your death and have no contact with anyone beyond our group and operations until we take out everyone associated with The Agency.”
I died a long time ago,Gray thought. “Not an issue.”
Pharaoh shifted his weight, steel eyes piercing. “It’s a non-negotiable. That means no family, no friends,especiallyno girlfriends. You wanna get laid, go ahead. No relationships. And you never sleep with the same woman twice.”
Gray inclined his head. Again, it wouldn’t be an issue. At this point, his poor dick may have already shriveled up and fallen off.
Finishing his cigarette, the inked-up man leaned over and stubbed it out on the armrest of Gray’s chair. “Can you handle that, buttercup?”
“No problem,” Gray gritted out. The SOB was starting to annoy him. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your callsign.”
“Saint,” he responded.
“Great. Saint, can you step back? You smell like a fucking ash tray.”
Rip burst out laughing and a crooked grin curved Saint’s rugged face as he shifted his sights to Zane. “I like this fucker, Banshee. He might be even bolder than me.” He turned his attention back to Gray. “Glad you didn’t kill yourself on that mountainside, Demon.”
Gray slowly released the breath he’d been holding and looked back over at Zane. Guess he’d shared his nickname. Not that it mattered. The callsign fit him in every way and he hadn’t planned on changing it. Clearly, Zane hadn’t changed his, either.
“We’ve set up a base of operations in a small town up the coast,” Pharaoh told him. “After our friend’s funeral in the morning, we’re getting on a private plane, jumping out of it, and watching it crash in the desert as we drive to our new base ops. The world and The Agency will think we’re dead. Should make our job a helluva lot easier.”
“Hooyah,” Rip said in a low voice, and Gray immediately looked over at him, pegging the younger man as a fellow frog. A feeling of comfort that couldn’t be explained settled in his chest.If you know, you know.
“We good?” Pharaoh asked the group, and everyone nodded their approval.
Zane slapped a hand on Gray’s back. “Welcome to Ex Nihilo. It means ‘out of nothing.’ Because we don’t exist. And from this point forward, neither do you.”
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