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“Andrew Wright,” a voice cut through the stillness sharper than a blade, a mocking half chuckle following close behind.
Something flicked against Hunter’s left knee and he jerked even though it hadn’t hurt. Andrew Wright was the name on the fake ID he carried. Was that what had just hit him?
“Really tried hard with that one, didn’t you, Hunt?” the voice said, more loudly this time, and the familiarity of it finally made its way through the lingering fog clouding Hunter’s mind.
The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. That made sense though. The only person he could think of who would bother going through the trouble of tracking him down wouldn’t dirty his own hands doing it.
Dominus didn’t have to. That kind of work, the kind that stained a person’s soul, was left to people like Hunter. People who were desperate and unable to refuse.
“If he sent you to kill me, just get it over with already.” It came off with a bravado he wasn’t feeling, but he refused to cower. If this was the end, he was at least going to go out with his head held high.
The man in front of him ripped the blindfold off Hunter’s head in one swift motion, tugging at some of the black strands of his hair in the process.
It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the harsh overhead lighting, the single bulb hanging directly over his kidnapper's head. When he was finally able to make out the details of the other man’s face, however, his frown returned. “Peter?”
The two of them hadn’t spoken much, but now that he was looking at him, Hunter was easily able to place him. It’d been years since they’d last interacted, roughly six, and he hadn’t so much as thought about Peter since then.
Something wasn’t adding up here.
“Did the Brumal send you?” he asked, though the likelihood of that was slim. There was nothing overtly special about Peter, nothing that would have drawn the attention of the world’s largest criminal syndicate, even as an associate. As far as hunting dogs went, surely there were better ones to be sent. Besides, unless the Dominus had discovered that Hunter used to live in High Tower, the tiny coastal town in Alter where he’d fled for a bit, there was no reason he’d even know of Peter and Hunter’s connection.
The blond pursed his lips. “What are you going on about? We’re here for Grimes.”
“You weren’t sent by the Frost family?” he asked a second before the name registered. “Leo Grimes?” Leo and Peter had been close, that was the only reason Hunter even knew of the blond.
“That’s the one,” Peter confirmed.
Alter was a country that rested between Brax and Kiland Soto. When he’d escaped, Hunter had first taken refuge there. At one point, he’d found himself in Ether, and had gotten work at a local bar as a busboy. Leo had been one of the bartenders and the two of them had developed a sort of friendly repertoire in the year that Hunter had stuck around.
Friendly, but not close enough he’d imagine the guy going to any kind of length to seek him out.
“I’m going to need some help with this one,” he said, admittedly losing some of the fear he’d felt up until this point. Leo had a temper, but he wasn’t a bad guy. This had to be some sort of misunderstanding. “Why is Leo looking for me?”
Hunter glanced around to find he was in a large space, probably an abandoned warehouse nearby the Midnight. They’d dragged him here and deposited him by the far wall, a good way from the open entrance where the moon shone brightly in the sky. There were two others aside from Peter, but he didn’t recognize them.
One stood on the other side of the warehouse guarding the door, the other was only a few feet away from Peter and had hair that was a deep flush of red that brought to mind lips Hunter had once dreamed about.
He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, not wanting to go there. Not wanting to think of him.
“Like you don’t know,” the redhead chuckled, then quickly stopped when he noticed Hunter’s expression. “No shit.” He turned to Peter. “I think he doesn’t.”
“Come on,” Peter clucked his tongue, “it’s an act. Like hell he forgot he stole from the boss.”
“Stole?” As far as Hunter knew, Leo didn’t own anything even worth stealing. “There’s seriously been a mistake—” A flash of silver gave him pause.
Peter twisted the knife pointedly in the lighting, smiling at Hunter as he approached. He was broad and looked like he’d been working out since the last time the two of them had met. Even dressed for the winter weather, it was clear he was strong and well-defined.
Hunter wasn’t exactly a weakling himself, not with the training he’d had in the past, and could probably have held his own if Peter had been the only person here he’d needed to worry about. But three? And bound? In his current half-starved state? There was no way. Not for the first time in his life, he wished he had his sister’s way with words. Meg could talk her way out of a paper bag if given the chance. He wasn’t nearly as skilled.
After his father had lost his job, Hunter’s family relied on his body to help keep the electricity running. He’d dropped out of high school the second he’d turned sixteen and had taken labor jobs wherever he could find them, divvying up his earnings to help pay the bills and to put aside for Meg’s college fund.
She was meant to be the one to continue her education and help get them out of the hole they’d lived in.
But she’d never gotten the chance.
“We aren’t here to talk,” Peter told him, seemingly all too happy about that fact. “Leo doesn’t care about the stuff anymore. He just wants to make sure you get what’s coming to you.”
“But I didn’t—” The sentence ended with a cry of pain as the knife slashed forward, too fast for him to evade. The blade cut across the side of his arm, instantly drawing blood, and Hunter shuffled back, bumping up against a wall.
