Crave

state his ass. That fucker had better be there with Isaac Rothe duct taped to a chair before Matthias rolled up—and God help him if he’d killed Rothe.

As impatience cranked his hands down on the wheel, Matthias eased away from the curb and headed for the highway thanks to the GPS screen on the dash. He’d gone less than a mile before the pain underneath his sternum came back, but it was like a familiar suit of clothes after he’d been trying on someone else’s wardrobe: easy and comfortable in a fucked-up kind of way.

His phone went off. Picture message. From his number two.

As he accepted the thing, he was relieved. A little visual confirmation that Isaac was alive and in custody was a good thing—

It was not a picture of Isaac.

It was the remnants of his second in command’s face. And that snake tattoo that ran around the man’s throat was the only way he was sure who it was.

Underneath the picture: Come and get me—I.

Matthias’s first and only thought was . . . the fucking nerve. The goddamn cocksucking nerve. What the hell was Rothe thinking? And shit, if threats against dear sweet lovely Grier Childe didn’t work, Isaac was utterly uncontrollable and therefore he had to be put down.

Raw fury cast aside the last lingering remnants of his time in that church, a wellspring of vengeance letting loose to roar. As it hit him, in the back of his mind, he had a thought that this wasn’t him, that the cool, knifelike precision of thought and action that had always been his hall-mark would have precluded this white-hot burn. He was, however, incapable of turning away from the need to act—and act personally.

Fuck delegation. . . . There were countless operatives he could have called in, but this he would handle himself.

In the same way he’d had to see Jim Heron’s body with his own eyes, he was going to go and take down Rothe himself.

The man had to die.

CHAPTER 41

As Grier sat on the couch in the corner of the kitchen, she revisited her choice to go into law instead of medicine and knew she’d made the right decision: She’d never had the stomach to be a doctor.

Her grades and test scores could have gotten her into either graduate school, but the tipping factor had been Gross Human Anatomy, that first-year med-school staple: one look at those muslin-covered dead bodies on all those tables during her pre-admission tour and she’d had to put her head between her knees and try to breathe like she was in yoga class.

And what do you know. The fact that there was someone in an even juicier condition in her front hall was so much worse.

Surprise, surprise.

Another shocker at the moment—not that she needed one—was her father’s hand making slow, calming circles on her back. The times he had done something like this were few and far between, as he was not the kind of man who handled shows of emotion well. And yet when she’d really needed it, he’d always been there: her mother’s death. Daniel’s. That horrible breakup with the guy she’d almost married right out of law school.

This was the father she had known and loved all her life. In spite of the shadows that surrounded him.

“Thank you,” she said without looking at him.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t believe I deserve that. This all is because of me.”

She couldn’t argue the point, but she didn’t have the strength to condemn him; especially given that terrible ache in his voice.

Now that her rage had passed, she realized that his conscience was going to haunt him to the day he died, and that was the punishment he’d earned and was going to carry out. Plus, he’d already had to bury one child, an imperfect son who he had loved in his own way and had lost in a horrible manner. And although Grier could have spent the rest of her days alienating him and hating him for Daniel’s death . . . was that really a burden she wanted to carry around?

She thought of the body in the front hall and how life could be snatched away between one breath and the next.

No, she decided. She would not allow the hurt and anger she felt to cheat her out of what was left of her family. It would take time, but she and her father would rebuild their relationship.

At least that was one thing Isaac had been right and truthful about.

“We can’t call the police, can we,” she said. Because surely anyone in a uniform who showed up would be hunted as well.

“Isaac and Jim will handle the body. That’s what they do.”

Grier winced at the idea. “Won’t he be missed by someone? Anyone?”

“He doesn’t exist. Not really. Whatever family he had thinks he’s dead—that’s the requirement for men in that branch of XOps.”

God, morally, she had twelve kinds of problems not saying something or doing something about the death. But she wasn’t going to put her own life at risk for the guy who had been sent to kill Isaac and maybe herself.

Except . . . well, apparently, he’d come to commit suicide with witnesses.

“What are we going to do,” she said, talking out loud and not expecting an answer.

And the we in that was her and her father. The we did not include Isaac.

He’d lied. To her face. He had in fact had contact with those evil people—and meanwhile, she’d been thinking that they’d had a plan. Sure, he hadn’t betrayed her father, but that was only a measure of comfort because obviously, he’d decided to turn himself in—or at least appear to. A man like him, who fought like he did and was as comfortable as he was with weapons? It was far more likely that he’d decided to kill whoever took him into custody and bolt out of the country free and clear.

Fine. She was letting him go.

He was nothing but sexual attraction packaged in a ticking box—and that sound was the timer running out on the bomb underneath all the hard-bodied bows and ribbons. As for the I-love-you stuff? The thing with liars was that you believed anything they said to you at your own risk—not just the stuff you knew to be false. She wasn’t sure where that “admission” got him, but she knew better than to view it as anything other than more hot air.

Her mind made up, she was too tired to be anything but numb. Well, numb and feeling stupid. But come on, like that “rare combination” of raw and gentle really existed?

“Wait here,” her father said.

As he got up, she realized two large men had come into her kitchen. The pair of them were cut from the same mold as Isaac and the very-definitely-not-dead Jim Heron—and the sight of them was yet another reminder of what was going on in the front hall.

Like she needed the help, though?

“We’re friends of Jim’s,” the one with the braid said.

“In here,” Heron called out from down the corridor.

As the pair headed for the body along with her father, she got annoyed with herself and pulled up her mental big-girl pants. When she stood up, her head spun, but that whirling-dervish stuff receded as she went over to the coffee machine and went through the motions of making a fresh pot.

Filter. Check.

Water. Check.

Coffee grinds. Check.

Button to on. Check.

Normalcy helped stitch her back together a little more tightly, and by the time she had a steaming mug in her palms, she was ready to deal.