He ducked back into his position of safety, chest heaving. He let his head fall back against the stack of plastic bags behind him, which were full of coarse gravel. The plastic was cold against his sweaty hair. The stones poked at his scalp. He took in choppy breaths, willing them to be quieter, willing himself to shut the hell up.
All of this was happening because of Glover’s decision to follow Burton.
Glover wasn’t smart enough to be a leader, but he knew whom to follow. People like Lukas Burton—a winner, a born commander. He was the sort of man who could lead a guy like Glover to success, wealth, safety.
But if Burton was so damn great, why was Glover being hunted down now in a darkened warehouse?
And who the hell was the man hunting him?
Prior to the confrontation in the parking lot a few minutes earlier—when Glover had told the man Burton’s secret, before he’d managed to escape—Glover had never seen the man before, this large, cruel-looking individual with sculpted features, dark hair, and cold eyes.
He took another look into the warehouse. Still nothing. But how could—
There!
A flash.
The movement had come at the nearest window.
A reflection.
Something moving. Fast. He had just enough time to turn and find the fist hurtling toward his face.
Pain exploded in his eye socket, a burning wave that surged through the back of his head, up his nose, down his throat.
He stumbled back, took a blind swing, and a powerful hand clasped down upon his forearm and twisted. Glover’s feet were swept from beneath him, and he was thrown.
He landed hard on the floor several feet away with an impact that sent another pulse of pain through him, this one rattling his bones, erupting in his shoulder.
He slid along the polished concrete, bashed into something wooden. His eyes strained to open. Jagged boards surrounded him, the shattered remains of a pallet.
A moment of nothing. He breathed.
And then a shadow moved in front of him, the dark man loping forward, pistol in hand.
Glover grabbed one of the broken deck boards and swung just as the man reached him.
In a blur of movement, the man caught the board—caught it—and brought Glover’s swing to a dead stop.
After another streaking motion, the board was wrenched from Glover’s grip and the man threw it into the darkness. It clattered, the racket echoing off distant walls.
The man stood above him and aimed his Beretta 92FS at Glover’s chest. A silencer extended the pistol’s length.
Glover kicked feebly at the concrete, but there was nowhere to go.
“No! Shit! Please! I … I told you everything!” He shielded his face, his chest.
But the man’s expression said he wouldn’t fire.
Not yet, anyway.
The look wasn’t there, that look in the eyes that said a person was prepared to take a life. Glover had been around violence his entire adulthood. This guy—whoever the monster was—had a reason for pinning Glover down like this. He wanted to squeeze more information out of him.
“Talk,” the man said, the first time he’d spoken. Minutes earlier, in the parking lot, the man had said nothing. He hadn’t needed to. The beating he’d given Glover was enough to get him to spill his guts.
Glover gasped.
The man’s voice…
It was a growl. Something at the same time mechanical and of the earth—deep in its bowels, forced up between layers of rock and lava.
The man brought the gun down, taking his aim off Glover’s chest and to his knee.
Talk, or you’ll never walk right again.
Glover’s arms pulled in tighter over his face. “I swear to God! I told you everything!”
He really had told the man everything. There was nothing left to share.
The dark eyes continued to stare down upon him. The pistol’s suppressed barrel didn’t waver.
Glover’s hands quivered in front of his face. He peered through his fingers, making eye contact with the man, a human connection, a plea.
The man’s expression changed. But not in the way Glover had hoped.
The look was there now, in the monster’s eyes, a veil of subtle changes to the muscles in his face. He bore the countenance of a man ready to go the full distance, to end someone’s life.
The desire to kill.
“Whoa, man!” Glover said. “I gave you what you want. I swear that’s all I know! Let me go.”
Glover’s heart pounded. His eyes moistened.
Why? Why was this happening?
This wasn’t how things worked. There were codes to be followed. Glover had snitched. And therefore the man was supposed to let him go. That’s how this was supposed to work.
The man’s nostrils flared. His eyes went wider, took on a distant, hazy appearance—the kill look gathering power, building steam.
He raised the Beretta, away from Glover’s knee, going higher.
And then Glover noticed something.
The man’s eyes.
They looked … familiar.
No.
No, it couldn’t be.
The man was the same height, the same proportions, similar build, if a bit more muscular. Dark hair, too, yes.
But the face was completely different.
All angles and sharp lines. Brooding chic, like a fashion model or something.
Those cold eyes, too. They were dark brown, not bright green.
So it couldn’t be him.
But somehow … it was.
It was him!
Glover’s lips parted.
A slight change in expression on the foreign but somehow familiar face showed that the man knew Glover recognized him.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Glover’s voice was weak and pathetic, flavored by the tears building in his eyes.
The man didn’t reply. The Beretta continued to ascend, past chest level, to Glover’s head, and stopped.
“Why are you doing this?” Glover screamed.
The man blinked.
He lowered the gun, glanced to the floor.
But only for a moment.
Then, he looked Glover directly in the eye, that intense glare boring right through him.
“For Cecilia,” the man growled.
He raised his gun.
And fired.
The Suppressor: Chapter 2
Silence Jones eased onto the front porch, slowly, carefully transferring his weight onto his lead foot. The floor was concrete, an advantage to him—no creaking
