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“No, she isn’t. I am.”
The man looked at me like I’d just shot his beloved. All betrayal, confusion, and anger. He was pale and exhausted, likely from his stint in Mari’s cold room. One of his eyes sported a fading bruise that Tennessee explained he’d gotten for fighting back when they’d originally picked him up from the docks. Jacob wasn’t the target they expected information from, but I was told to try my best to get it anyway.
Who approached you? How did you contact them? Who else is Cash working with? How long has this been going on? What else do you know?
“Jacob Collins, where do you work?”
“Seattle docks, under Micah Fitzgerald. Been there since I was twelve, working alongside my father, brothers, and uncles until they all retired. I’m the last Collins left.”
“What a shitty way to end a family legacy,” Mari snapped from her seat on the other side of the room, with Greyson and Dominic at her back. Jacob said nothing. He didn’t even look at her. It was as if she didn’t exist.
I didn’t like that at all.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Jacob. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer them. No lies, no half-truths, no omissions. If you do what I ask, I’ll go easy on you. If not, I will do whatever it takes to get the information I need, even if it means pulling out every single tooth and fingernail and knuckle in your body.”
To his credit, Jacob tried to stay tough, but I saw the whiteness of his knuckles against the chair and the hard swallow that bobbed his Adam’s apple. He was petrified, but too proud to admit it.
The darkest parts of me cheered with glee. The tough ones were always fun. That was the part of myself I didn’t like, the one born from a boy who’d had to steal and hurt just to make sure he ate. The one who’d done terrible things to make sure he survived.
But he was part of me, just like the man who cared for Mari was. They were all Nate, even when I wished they weren’t.
“Let’s get started.” I grabbed the first instrument I could reach and cracked it down on his hand as a warning. Then the interrogation began in earnest, and I let muscle memory and the familiar sounds and smells of torture take me away. Before I could understand what was happening, I was back in a time when there was no Mari, no Greyson, no Dominic. No empire in need of my help.
Just me and my team trying to survive.
“What are you gonna do when you get out of here, Nate?” Jorey asked, flipping a knife between his hands. It was an annoying habit. One of his many.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just want a chance to do nothing.”
I’d never had that before. I didn’t want warm sand and cool water, just a few days in a place of my own to decompress.
Franklin grunted as he bandaged a bite mark on Stowe’s upper arm, smacking him when he wouldn’t quit wiggling. “Knock it off.”
“Can’t believe that fucker bit me,” Stowe grumbled. I peered at the wound again, but it looked far better than the stab wound on his left leg. He’d been first in the door, and apparently, our mark had impressive aim.
“How about you keep your fucking distance next time?” Franklin muttered.
“What can I say? I’m a team player.” Stowe’s annoying grin turned to a pained hiss when Franklin poured antiseptic on him. “Damn, dude. That hurts.”
“Do you want whatever that asshole had in his mouth? I didn’t think so. Shut up.”
That asshole was now a body we’d buried in a shallow grave five miles away in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. I didn’t even remember what country we were in, to be honest. I rarely ever did. While we were working, there was nothing but the chase. The hunt. The kill.
Gather information, take down our enemies, survive. I didn’t have room for anything else.
Franklin and Stowe continued to bicker as usual, so I tuned them out. We were brothers. Just the four of us against the world, fighting bad guys most people didn’t even know existed.
We were the ones who snuck into homes and slit throats while our targets slept, ending regimes under the light of the moon. There were no songs singing our praise, no medals waiting for us at the end of the road as we crept through the shadows. Just another mission to complete.
This one was no different. A trafficker was setting up to take his business through the US, carting people across the pond and using the airports as hubs to send them all over the world. If we didn’t stop them, millions of women and children would be at risk.
We’d been trying to crack into the network for almost a month, with no luck. The biter had given us the intel we needed to finally end it all, and tomorrow, we made our move.
Franklin and Stowe glared at each other until their lips tipped into smiles while I oiled my knives with Tsubaki oil, trying to brush off the horrors I’d committed for honor and country. Meanwhile, Jorey tossed that goddamned knife in time with my heartbeat.
Catch, throw, catch, throw.
The first bullet hit him while the knife was in the air.
