As she scrolled, the screen lit up with an incoming call, and her stomach twisted. Marcus. The last time she had seen his name on her caller ID, she’d received the worst news of her life. Last time she’d seen the man himself—the night of Danny’s funeral—she’d kissed him. Or he’d kissed her. Maybe they’d kissed each other, but it didn’t matter. The memory of it filled her with so much shame.
She should ignore him. He’d extracted himself from her life, made it quite clear that he’d help her financially, but he was staying away. And that was for the best.
So why was he calling now?
Against her better judgment, she thumbed the answer icon and raised the phone to her ear. She didn’t say anything for a handful of beats. Neither did he. They just sat there in silence, listening to each other breathe.
She started to shake and clamped her other hand around her wrist to steady herself. “If you’re calling to talk about what happened after the funeral, I can’t right now. I—”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” It sounded so final. The door had shut and locked on that conversation, and he had tossed away the key.
“I know you don’t want to acknowledge it. I don’t, either. I’m so ashamed, but—”
“Stop. I didn’t call to talk about that.” His words slurred and crashed into each other.
“Are you…drunk?”
“Not yet,” he muttered. “And not for lack of trying.”
Yeah, she could tell. Maybe he didn’t feel drunk, but he was definitely not sober.
“Marcus…” At a loss, she trailed off. She was a fixer. Always had been. But she didn’t have the first clue how to fix him. And, honestly, she couldn’t spare the mental time or energy for him when her own life was falling apart. She sighed. “Then why did you call?”
“He’s dead.”
And just like that, she was thrown back in time to the morning phone call that had shattered her life as she knew it.
She’d woken up early to enjoy her coffee in peace before the kids got up for school. The sun was only thinking about rising, staining the horizon with a pale glow, but hadn’t decided to show its face yet. She sat at the kitchen island with her steaming mug, enjoying the quiet, and idly flipped through a glossy tabloid she’d picked up at the grocery store the day before. Just as she stood to refill her mug, her cell phone rang. She’d always remember the first thought to cross her mind: It’s too early.
Nobody calling at 5 a.m. had good news.
Dread had already been coiling around her spine as she reached for the phone with Marcus’s name flashing on the screen. He might have said a greeting. She didn’t remember. All she’d heard were two words: “He’s dead.” And she’d known. He didn’t need to elaborate. If anyone other than Danny had died, Danny himself would have called her, not Marcus.
Her limbs had lost all feeling. The phone and mug had fallen from her hands, crashing to the sleek tile floor she and Danny spent hours picking out. The mug had shattered, cracking into jagged pieces, like her heart. The phone had landed screen up, still connected. It had mocked her with its slowly ticking clock and Marcus’s name on the screen. She’d grabbed the island to keep from collapsing, and the scream that tore from her was so elemental and animalistic it left her throat and chest aching.
Pain cleaved through her now at the memory, the blade of it as hot and brilliant as it had been that morning. Even after three months, the wound was still too fresh, too raw. Why was he doing this to her again? Why was he making her relive the worst moment of her life?
She wanted to yell at him, I know he’s dead! I know every morning when I wake up alone! But when she opened her mouth, only a numb “oh” came out.
“I wanted to kill him for you.” Marcus’s voice was tight, and she heard him take a swallow from whatever he was drinking. “I wanted to avenge Danny for you, but he was already dead. He was already dead when we got there.”
“Oh,” she said again, understanding finally sinking in as the fog of grief cleared from her mind. They were thinking of two different dead men—her of her husband, him of the man who killed Danny.
The man who killed Danny.
It still seemed so surreal. Danny only ever made friends, not enemies.
She made herself ask the question she knew Marcus expected, even though she wasn’t positive she wanted to know the answer. “Who was he?”
“His name was Sebastian Haly.” He spat the name like it left a bad taste in his mouth. “He was a hired gun.”
She gripped the phone so tightly her fingers went numb. “And he’s dead? You’re sure?”
“Don’t get much deader,” Marcus said. The laugh that followed was caustic. “But, yeah, I made damn sure.”
Chills raced over her skin at the ice in his tone. This man wasn’t the Marcus she knew. The one who always joked around and made her laugh. The one who had held her the night after she buried the love of her life. The only man other than Danny who had ever stirred desire in her—
No. She shut down that line of thought.
Kissing him the night of the funeral had been a colossal mistake. She’d been desperate for a connection and delirious with grief and lack of sleep. Yet something had sparked between them. Something that terrified them both. He’d been right to walk away, but the man who left her that night was not the same one she spoke to now. In the weeks since, he’d changed, and she didn’t want to know this new Marcus. She wanted the old Marcus back.
“I’ll find who hired Haly,” he promised.
“Marcus, don’t—”
But he was already gone.
Chapter Three
HORNET Headquarters, Wyoming
Ian Reinhardt rolled out of bed and stuffed his feet into his boots. The quick back-and-forth trip to Switzerland had thrown off his internal clock, and he wasn’t getting sleep any time soon. From the dog bed on the floor, Tank lifted his head from the pillow of his big paws and blinked sleepily.
On his way to the door, he rubbed a hand over his best friend’s—okay, shit, only friend’s—head. Tank gave an impressive yawn and looked at Ian like he was crazy for being up in the middle of the night.
Yeah, pal. You should know by now I’m batshit crazy.
It had been two years since he and the team rescued Tank from a bombed-out shell of a village in Afghanistan, but it still astonished him that the dog liked him. No-fucking-body liked him. He was an asshole on his best days, and a complete shit-heel bastard on his worst. He knew it, accepted it, was A-Okay with living his life that way. And, still, Tank thought the sun rose and fell at his command.
He patted the dog’s head. “Go back to sleep, pal. I’ll be home in a few.”
Tank hesitated and looked at the front window of their one-room cabin. Snow had built up six inches thick on the windowsill and icy flakes frosted the glass. He looked at Ian again. Dogs supposedly couldn’t express human emotions, but Ian saw disbelief written all over his black snout. Almost as if he was saying, You’re going out in that?
Yes. He was. And even if he wanted to, he couldn’t explain why.
“Stay,” he told Tank and snagged his jacket from the knob by the door.
Tank hesitated another beat, then plopped down on his bed with a huff. All… Fine. I didn’t want to go with you anyway, you big jerk.
Ian grinned as he opened the door. The cold hit him like a fist to the stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs. “Fucking Wyoming.” He kicked at the snow that had blown up against his door and was now tumbling inside. “Fucking Gabe and Quinn. They couldn’t set up shop in California or Florida or Hawaii. No, it had to be Wyoming.”
He glanced back inside before swinging the door shut. Tank was already snoring again. He envied his dog’s ability to sleep at the drop of a hat. Ian was lucky to sleep at all anymore.
It took fifteen minutes to clear the fresh snow off hi
s truck and de-ice the windshield. When he finally climbed behind the wheel and put the thing into drive, he told himself he didn’t have a destination in mind.
Even as he pulled up in front of the half-finished dorm of HORNET’s training center, even as he shut the truck off, even as he got out and trudged through the snow to the front door, he told himself he had no particular destination in mind.
And he would’ve kept telling himself that until he got to the door of her cell, except he saw Marcus staggering through the swirling snow, headed in this same direction. Ian parked himself in front of the door, arms crossed.
Marcus didn’t notice anyone was gatekeeping until he nearly collided with Ian. The guy was shit-faced. Again. No big surprise there. It was his regular state of being since the whole Danny thing.
Ian ignored the sharp tug in his gut that happened every time he thought of that morning and watching Danny Giancarelli bleed out on the pristine sand of a Martinique beach. It wasn’t grief, goddammit. He didn’t care enough about any of these guys to grieve for the senseless, brutal loss of one of them.
People died. That’s what they were put on this planet to do. Live a shitty life and die shitting themselves. He couldn’t care about everyone who got themselves killed, especially in this line of work. Not caring was exhausting enough, thanks.
Marcus slurred something that might have been a sentence, but Ian couldn’t pick out any specific words. He planted his feet. Not that he thought Marcus had any chance of taking him on in his inebriated state. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Get outta my way.” More slurring. He carried a bottle in one hand and his weapon in the other. He waved the gun around in a big gesture. Pointing at what was anyone’s guess. Only thing he was threatening was the light over their heads, and even that was safe due to the fact he had more alcohol in his blood than plasma at the moment. “… the prisoner… knows more… I’mma find out…”
Yeah, nope. That wasn’t happening on Ian’s watch and was exactly the reason he’d been unable to shut his brain off tonight. A switch had flipped in Marcus back there in Switzerland. Ian had seen that switch before. Hell, he’d felt that switch before. He knew the rage and the driving need to kill to settle the score. He’d lived with it for years. Had channeled it. And was so damn close to being rid of it.
Given the shit Marcus had done to Mercedes Raya to get the intel on Sebastian Haly, murder wasn’t a stretch of the imagination. And Ian couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d wake up tomorrow morning and find Mercedes dead.
Not that he cared what happened to Mercedes. He didn’t. He hated her and everything she stood for. She was a reminder of exactly the thing he’d spent the last several years trying to forget. But he had plans for her, and they didn’t include her getting a .45 slug in the brainpan courtesy of a pissed-off Marcus.
If he ever wanted to be rid of the rage inside him, he needed her alive.
Marcus tried to shove by him. He didn’t budge, but Marcus stumbled down the steps and fell on his ass in the snow.
Ian shook his head. Pathetic. “Go home, Deangelo. Before you do something to piss me off.”
“Yer always pissssed off.” Marcus swayed to his feet, his gun forgotten in the snowbank where it had landed. He didn’t forget the booze, though. Oh, no. He snapped that bottle up like it was a lifesaver in a turbulent sea and took a huge swig. He swiped his mouth with the back of his hand and jabbed a wobbly finger in Ian’s general direction. “Yer p-protesting… erm, protecting…the enemy.”
“No. I’m keeping you from doing something that will weigh on your conscience for the rest of your life. Cold-blooded murder doesn’t make for a sound night’s sleep.” He should know. His teammates thought he was capable of murder—and, yeah, he was; he’d killed many times and would again—but none of them knew that the blood on his hands kept him awake at night. They thought he was a psycho, and he was fine with that.
Marcus shook his head so hard he threw himself off-balance. “Not cold-blooded. She killed Danny.”
“Sebastian Haly killed Danny. And he’s dead. You should take comfort in that.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“You should take comfort in that, too.”
“I owe Leah closure. I owe her…” He stared up with bleary, red-rimmed eyes. “I told her I’d catch the man responsible. I told her…”
Despite all of his protestations to the contrary, Ian felt for this guy. Marcus wasn’t a bad man. He was shattered and lost and so fucking sad it hurt to be in the same room as him. But at his heart, underneath the anger and sadness, Marcus was one of the best men Ian had ever known. A man with a quick smile and quicker wit. A man who loved his mother, put her up on a pedestal, and treated her like a queen. A man who took care of his friends, even when he was hurting.
Someone should do the same for him. Unfortunately, the only person awake at this hour was Ian.
“Marcus…” He hesitated. He wasn’t sure how to be a good friend, wasn’t even sure if they could be considered friends at all. “Man, you should leave for a while. Get away from here. Get your head on straight. Get away from the sauce.” He nodded toward the bottle. “You’re too good to let that demon get the best of you.”
Marcus swayed on his feet for a moment, then looked at the bottle in his hand. “Hurts too much to be sober.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
He blinked hard and to Ian’s horror tears spilled from the guy’s eyes. “It was ’posed to be me. I shoulda died on that beach, not Danny. Me.” He thumped his chest. “The sniper wanted me.”
With that, he spun away and swayed off into the swirling snow.
Ian let out the breath he’d been holding. “Fuck,” he said softly. That had been more emotion than he’d wanted to deal with tonight. Or, you know, ever.
He waited until he could no longer see Marcus. The guy would either make it back to his cabin or pass out and freeze to death in the snow. Ian told himself he didn’t care which one happened as long as Marcus stayed away, and he shoved through the door.
The construction on the dorm had kicked into double-time since the previous dorm sustained fire damage a few weeks ago. Currently, the trainees were all staying at a hotel in Jackson. Before much longer, they’d move into this building, which begged the question—what did Gabe and Quinn plan to do with the prisoner then?
Well, after tonight it wouldn’t matter.
He found Seth Harlan standing guard outside the cell. The sniper was recently back from his honeymoon and looked tanned and as relaxed as Ian had ever seen him. His attention was on his ereader until he yawned and reached for his empty coffee mug. Only then did he notice Ian’s approach. “What are you doing up?”
“Hey, Hero. First day back and they have you on bitch-sitting duty, huh?”
Seth shook his head and set aside his mug. “Don’t call her that.”
Ian rolled his eyes. That was Seth. Golden Boy Scout Hero to his core, even after all the shit he’d gone through. Had to give the guy credit. Torture like he’d endured as a POW in Afghanistan would’ve broken a lesser man. But Seth? Nah. It only chipped him a little bit, dinged him up.
Ian suspected Seth Harlan was stronger than all the rest of them put together, which made what he was about to do to the guy that much worse.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Ian said. “Went for a walk, ended up here.”
Seth yawned again and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Lucky. I’m struggling to stay awake.”
“Want me to take over for a bit?”
Seth’s head snapped up and his eyes narrowed. “Why are you being nice?”
Guy was no idiot. This would be so much easier if he were. “I’m not an asshole all the time.”
Seth just stared at him. “Yeah, man, you are.”
Ian resisted the urge to shift on his feet. He wasn’t about to ex
amine why those words made him so uncomfortable. It shouldn’t matter that Seth thought he was a Grade A prick, but…it did.
Goddammit.
Going for disinterest, he shrugged and turned away like he planned to leave. “See if I offer to help again.”
He’d wanted to do this without hurting anyone, but it looked like that would be impossible now. And, fuck, why did Seth have to be on duty now? Out of all of them, Seth was the guy he least wanted to hurt.
“Wait.” Seth got up from his seat and stepped forward, giving the perfect opening.
Ian swung around, rotating his hips to add KO power behind the punch. Seth never saw it coming. His head snapped back and it was lights out.
Ian caught him before he collapsed and lowered him to the floor. “Sorry, pal. I really didn’t want to do that, but I need our prisoner free.”
He searched Seth’s pockets for the key, found it, and took it over to the door. He drew his weapon with one hand while unlocking the door with his other. He didn’t need the gun. He could kill silently with his bare hands. The gun was for show, intimidation.
As if anyone could intimidate Mercedes Raya.
She sat on the end of the narrow bed, dressed in sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt. The clothes she’d had on when they picked her up in Nigeria had been destroyed in case she’d come in contact with the virus still burning its way through the population there. Whoever had bought her the sweats hadn’t paid much attention to her size—she swam in them.
She looked like hell. She’d lost weight. Her hair was a matted mess, reminding him of the crazy homeless woman who used to wheel around a broken cart full of junk outside the troubled boys’ group home where he’d grown up in Brooklyn.
Crazy Cart Lady. Huh. He hadn’t thought of her in ages.
Honor Avenged (HORNET) Page 2
