by Amity Cross
“Then…”
I knew better than anyone X wouldn’t rest until his mark was in the ground, but Moltke wasn’t a typical target. He had skills and cunning that matched and even surpassed X’s in some aspects, and that made him more dangerous than anyone X or I had ever hunted before. The ultimate challenge…and the ultimate danger.
There had been a time when I believed X was indestructible, that he was some immortal creature capable of clawing his way out of the deepest depths of rage and despair…but against Moltke? I had an awful feeling in my soul, the soul X inhabited, that he might not be so fortunate this time around.
The thought of burying X in an empty grave alongside Mei and the rest of Section Seven absolutely bloody terrified me. He didn’t want me to follow, that much was clear considering the way he’d left me, but if I could help him from afar, then I would. He was everything to me.
“If he won’t come back,” I said slowly, “then we need to find a way to get the intel to him.”
“How do you deal with that?” Jackson asked, giving me an anxious glance out the corner of his eye.
How did I deal? Sometimes I wondered that myself.
“We don’t have a normal relationship, but he knows he’ll pay dearly when I finally get my hands on him,” I replied. “And sorely.”
Jackson raised his eyebrows, but I was lost in my own thoughts.
The only person I knew who would be able to find X—who was the needle in the haystack that was London—was Hawkes. He’d been Vaughn’s bodyguard once upon a time before morphing into a business associate and father figure for the infamous Hangman. Somewhere along the line of duplicity and revenge plotting, he’d become a friend and ally of our own as well. How the world came to that conclusion was nothing but chaos to me. All I knew was that he was on our side, sympathetic to our cause, and if he’d been in touch with Lorelei since we’d dragged her from Section Seven, then he’d be more than willing to help deal a blow to the man who put her there.
“I know a way, but it’s not guaranteed,” I said, thinking about the burly ex-bodyguard. “He’s not exactly good guy material, but he owes X and me. He’ll do it.”
“Do I have to turn a blind eye?” Jackson asked wryly.
“We’re not in the system anymore, J,” I said. “Anything goes when we’re against a man like Moltke.”
Looking rather uncomfortable, he nodded. “Then I better get searching for a clue to that meet.”
Smiling, I rose to my feet. “Thank you, Jackson.”
As he slipped on his headphones and began his search, I ducked into the bedroom, where the scent of X and what he’d done to me still lingered in the air and attempted to contact the elusive Nathaniel Hawkes.
I just hoped to God that I could find him in time.
Chapter 15
X
The rain began to fall not long after I left Mercy.
It fell from the darkness above, light and misty, then heavier as the night wore on.
It rained the next day, only stopping for brief moments of respite before starting again.
Darkness fell, the first night I’d spent alone since Mercy had been in The Watchman’s clutches.
I’d tracked Moltke down to a warehouse on the outskirts of London, not far from the wharf where Mercy—
I found him, but he was long gone. His stink still clung to the cold industrial building, the remains of his work still littered in an abandoned office.
Schematics and purchase orders littered a table, and on a workbench, scraps of electronics, wiring, and plastics that had been used to create the bombs that had destroyed Section Seven. The same bombs that had taken two hundred innocent lives…and that of Mei Akiyama.
I knew he wanted me to find this place. I understood what he’d planted in the hours following Mercy’s supposed death. A trail to the feet of the man who murdered her. A trail to the site of my own death… my demise. My destiny.
Snorting, I felt a uncontrollable burn of rage flare through my body. Striding forward, I grabbed the edge of the table and with a roar, flipped the entire thing over. Papers, wiring, and empty bottles scattered, crashing to the floor with a bang that echoed through the warehouse.
I’d fast learned that Moltke was fond of elaborate games of cat and mouse. I fucking hated that he had power over me, that he was so smug he thought he could fool me into dying at his feet like a pathetic worm.
I’d kill him.
I’d kill him slowly, bleeding him dry, tearing the very soul from his body until he begged for mercy. He’d regret ever fucking with Xavier Blood. He’d regret waking the monster.
My phone began to ring shrilly in the silence, and I turned sharply, drawing my gun. Tracking the barrel around the room, I cursed when I realized I was alone, and the ringing had stopped.
Pulling out my phone, I checked the screen. It was a text message, so I opened it, knowing it wouldn’t be from Mercy. She didn’t have the means to contact me this way. Not even Jackson did. I’d made sure of it that morning.
Unknown number.
The message was just an image, one I recognized from my Royal Blood days. The Black Horse.
It was the protocol I’d used to contact Vaughn when he’d resided in Exeter, and I needed information. Knowing The Hangman was meant to be gone, it could only be from one person.
The phone began to ring, trilling into the silence, and I answered it.
“It’s Hawkes.”
My lip curled. Mercy.
“How did you find me?” I asked, the fingers of my left hand tightening around the phone as the gun dangled from my right, ready to draw at a moment’s notice. After all, I was still in the lair of the beast.
“I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who can do these fancy traces,” he replied. “I’m just an old man, so don’t ask me how this shit works.”
I wasn’t in the mood for games. “What do you want?”
“I have a message for you. The only reason I’m delivering this is because of your continued support of Lorelei.”
“Then what is it?” I asked, wondering what was so goddamned important that Mercy had to drag Hawkes into yet another mess.
“Your friends have been compromised,” he began, and my blood started chill. “A hard drive was stolen from them that can provide a backdoor link into their entire network. He plans to use it to plant a virus that will disable every secure firewall and security protocol throughout the world. The exchange happens tonight.”
Moltke was planning to disable MI6’s security? That could only mean he planned to launch an attack of similar caliber on their headquarters and field offices… But instead of C4 tearing them apart, it was going to be the Veltium-34.
Fuck.
“Where?” I asked thinly.
“I will send coordinates once the call disconnects,” Hawkes replied.
My thoughts went to Mercy, and I knew I’d pay dearly when I returned to her side. I’d betrayed her trust when she was at her lowest, using the same tactics I had in the past to try to subdue her rebelliousness. I’d told her I’d never leave, that I’d trust and love with every part of myself that was still able… I did it to spare her suffering, but she’d see it as something more sinister.
I sighed, casting my gaze downward. There were so many things I should be doing, but I allowed my thoughts to go to Vaughn and Lorelei. Providing she was able to leave the country, I gathered they were living the life Mercy and I should have pursued after everything that had happened in Bristol.
“Have you heard from him?” I asked, meaning Vaughn.
“No,” came Hawkes’s reply.
“As it should be.”
There was a rustle on the other end of the line, and he said, “Good luck, X.”
Then the line disconnected, and I was alone in the darkness once more.
Moltke had been waiting for me.
I supposed he gathered I’d come looking for retribution for Mercy’s death, that my anguish would deliver me to his
feet in a nice little package…then he’d use it against me and end the life of the last man standing in his way. The only other he’d search out was Jackson and his family.
He’d never get that chance.
The coordinates led me to a small garden alongside the River Thames. A tiny patch of green among the gray slate and stone buildings near St Paul’s Cathedral where a bronze statue of Charles Dickens stood, surveying the scene.
One of the author’s most famous works was A Tale of Two Cities. It was about the plight of the French people in the days before and during the French Revolution and their turmoil with the aristocracy. I thought about the premise of the novel, how it depicted the brutality of the French peasantry toward those in power that had demoralized and driven them to poverty and wondered if Moltke had chosen this place on purpose.
The people of MI6 versus Moltke, the king…or was it the other way around? Either way, it didn’t matter.
I watched the exchange from afar, waiting until the other party had cleared the scene before even considering making a move.
Moltke lingered, his gaze examining the space around him like he was waiting for me to show. Lucky for him, I’d taken his bait, fully intending on making it come around and bite him on the ass. This time, I’d have the upper hand, and there wouldn’t be a thing he could do about it. This time, I’d come out on top.
Emerging from the darkness, I clicked my gun’s safety off and raised it. Moltke turned at the sound, his lips curving into a smug smile as his gaze met mine across the patch of grass.
“What took you so long?” he asked, not even glancing at the gun.
“You know I like to pick my moments,” I drawled.
Rain began to fall once more, fat droplets landing against the grass and my skin, the temperature beginning to drop.
“You know, you’re such a challenge it’s going to be disappointing when you die,” Moltke mused as water clung to his coat. “It’s been so long since someone put up enough of a fight that I broke out in a sweat.”
“Am I meant to be humbled by that?” I hissed.
Moltke’s head titled to the side. “Are we so dissimilar, X? We were both MI6 agents who were left out in the cold to rot—”
“They did not abandon me,” I snapped. “They didn’t—”
“They didn’t find you until you went looking,” he snarled. “They didn’t want you until you came back to them. Do you think they were looking all those years for you? Hmm?”
There was more to it than that. I didn’t know about my past then. I’d hidden from Intelligence, the police, and anyone who would get in the way of my hits. Mei hadn’t stopped looking for me. Mei…
I narrowed my eyes as Moltke started laughing, his voice loud in the enclosed space.
“See?” he asked. “You understand. We’re both pawns in their game, X. You and I.”
Striding forward, my finger trembled on the trigger of my gun. “The only thing I know is that you murdered hundreds of innocent people.”
He regarded me with a raised eyebrow, not at all bothered by the gun pointing at his heart. “And Mercy?”
“And Mercy,” I snarled, playing along with his game.
“I see.” He snorted and patted his hand over his jacket where he’d stashed the hard drive.
My skin began to prickle with more than goose bumps as I deduced his expression. He knew I was bluffing. It was written all over his body language and laced through those two simple little words. He knew Mercy was still alive and had played me anyway. He was always one step ahead…
As my expression slipped, Moltke lunged and knocked me off balance. The gun fell from my fingers and clattered to the ground, skidding across the path that wove its way through the garden, landing at the foot of the statue.
He chose that moment of distraction to run, not kill, and sprinted across the garden toward the narrow alley beyond.
I didn’t have time to wonder about his motives. The only thing that went through my mind was the notion of pursuit. My target was getting away…and they never got away once I had them in my cross hairs.
Scooping up my gun, I sprinted after him, skidding around the corner. I hit the opposite wall and used the force of my flight to push off the stone and propel myself forward down the alley. My boots thudded on the cobblestones, rain beginning to pound harder, making my feet slip, but I pursued Moltke with reckless desperation.
Emerging in an open space between buildings, rain began to fall against my skin, soaking my hair and beading across my leather jacket. Moltke turned toward the river, not the city where he could easily disappear into traffic or jump on a night bus, and glanced back over his shoulder like he was checking that I was still on his tail.
He vaulted over a railing and leapt up onto the Millennium Bridge, the pedestrian walkway that crossed the breadth of the river. There was no other direction for him to run, so I followed. If I caught him now, this would be all over. Mercy and I would finally be free to chase our own destiny in each other’s arms.
The bridge was empty at this hour, save for us and the looming presence of the Tate Modern art gallery ahead—a converted power station with its cooling stack disappearing into the mist above our heads.
I gained significant ground on Moltke as he fled across the footbridge, and when I was close enough to reach out, I lunged. We fell to the boards, my gun almost slipping from my hand.
He bucked underneath me and we rolled, his fist slamming against my face with a smack. Not feeling the pain, I grappled, letting the monster within surface and take hold.
We rolled again, and this time, I was on top, my fingers winding through his hair. Pulling him up off the ground, I slammed his head down onto the boards with all the force I could muster as he tried to grasp my face, his fingers going for my eyes.
“Did you think you could lead me out here to kill me?” I shouted, slamming his head on the bridge’s surface again. “Did you think you could win against the monster Royal Blood created?”
“I was counting on it,” Moltke snarled, trying to throw my body off his.
I was too far gone to listen, and I pressed the barrel of my gun against the spot underneath his chin. How his head would explode when I put a bullet in it. It would erupt like a fucking watermelon.
“I tore Greggor’s heart out with my bare hands. I will take yours. I will take yours.”
Moltke roared beneath me, bucking violently, and I fell to the side, losing my grip on him. He skidded backward and pulled his own gun, pointing it straight at me.
Rising to my feet, I clutched my gun as water ran down my skin. We circled each other like fighters in a cage, neither one of us taking the risk of pulling the trigger in such close proximity. At some point, one of us would have to make a move, and it would cost both of us sorely. Who was going first was still yet to be seen.
Moltke held his gun in a steady hand, the barrel aimed straight at me.
Rain pounded against my skin, soaking me to the bone as the wind whipped violently around us. We stood on the bridge, the lights of London blurred in the background. We were at a stalemate unless one of two things happened—either I talked him down or one of us was shot. And I knew talking him down was not an option.
Weighing my options, I knew incapacitation was my best bet considering what he had planned for MI6. They’d need intel to dismantle his operation…and any Veltium-34 he already had in play. I couldn’t kill him. Not yet.
I pointed my gun at Moltke, aiming for his right shoulder. The shot would force him to drop his weapon and incapacitate him long enough for me to overwhelm him.
“Give up, Moltke,” I yelled. “You’ve nowhere else to run.”
“How far would you go for someone you loved, Blood?” he shouted back. “How far would you go to avenge Mercy?”
“I’d go after the people responsible, not murder hundreds of innocent people to get there,” I snarled.
“They were not innocent!” Moltke roared, the gun wavering in his hand. “A
ll of you are guilty. Every last person in Military Intelligence is to blame for Vesper’s death. You are all guilty of her murder.”
And there it was. Moltke’s end game. We would all die in an attempt to avenge Vesper’s demise…however that had occurred.
“How do you know?” I asked. “There is no proof she’s dead.”
“I saw her!” he yelled. “I saw what they did to her. What you and everyone like you did.”
I blinked, water dripping from my eyelashes as I realized there was more to this story than I ever realized. More secrets, more carnage, more lies and deceit than I could have anticipated. But it still didn’t change the fact he’d murdered Mei and the entire branch of Section Seven.
Moltke still had to pay. That was always going to be the ending to this story, no matter what secrets came to light.
“Too fucking bad,” I shouted. “You still killed them. You need to be held accountable for your actions.”
His shoulders tensed, his eyes blazing with unrestrained anger. “Fucking try.”
His finger tightened around the trigger of his gun, and he fired, the boom muffled by the moisture-laden air and the rush of water below us. It was far too late to get out of the way. Even if I’d tried, my reaction would never have been fast enough.
The bullet ripped through my shoulder, the force wrenching the gun from my hand, and I lost my footing, the world spinning violently as pain exploded through my body, tearing all rational thought out of my grasp.
Rushing forward, Moltke heaved me over the railing, and I was falling… Falling, spiraling, and diving into darkness, a trail of blood following my descent.
As the dark waters of the Thames rushed to meet my plummeting body, only one thought went through my mind.
Mercy.
Part II
Blood and Bone
“Death is just another path, one that we all must take.”
* * *
