One bay was empty, another had a John Deer tractor and the next one was cluttered with farm equipment. In the last bay, however, was a low, sleek shape under a dusty cover. Not daring to hope, Ethan lifted up a corner of the tarpaulin. A hint of green, an angular fender and round, forward facing headlight. A further peak showed a flat black grill with a Holden badge.
Resistance was futile. Ethan tossed the cover off and revealed a late seventies Holden Monaro. Lime green, thick black stripes running up the bonnet. GTS350 coupe. Classic. His fingers itched to touch it, but if he went that far, he’d have to get in and feel the leather of the seats. Curl his hands around the steering wheel, and well . . . it was inevitable.
Despite the dust on the cover, which probably was barely a week’s accumulation in this environment, the tank was full and the engine came alive smoothly when he hotwired it.
The whole idea was ridiculous. It would leave a path a mile wide for anyone to follow, but with the 5.7 litre V8 motor, they’d have to work to catch him.
He peeled the car out of the shed and onto the dirt driveway, back end fishtailing in the loose surface. Arcs of red dirt spraying up behind him, Ethan roared away. For the first time since his implant had pinged while lying beside Jack, Ethan felt truly in control. This was something he could do without thinking. It was second nature to him now, to let the pulse of a powerful engine dictate the beat of his heart, to feel the speed in the weight on his chest, to let the world blur away and disappear. Like this, he could almost forget what he had done, or that in doing so, he might have destroyed the most perfect thing that had ever happened to him.
What if Jack hadn’t got to his family in time? What if Ethan had left him to face Seven alone and he didn’t prevail? What if Jack hated him for leaving without saying anything?
He ditched the classic Monaro in Tamworth and switched to an early model Toyota Celica guaranteed to have no GPS tracking devices onboard. Another car change in Newcastle and at nine p.m. that night he was cruising back into Sydney in a Hyundai Santa Fe. He couldn’t imagine a more unlikely car for Ethan Blade to drive, given his reputation with the local authorities. This time, when he left the car behind, he didn’t steal another one, instead making his way across the city via public transport and taxis, always careful to keep his face off any cameras. Just after midnight he was back in the building on Bathurst Street.
The penthouse was empty. No sign of Jack, no sign of recent habitation in fact. The E on the note he’d left had been crossed out and replaced with a J, but that and a few extra groceries in the fridge was the only change from when Ethan left. Hoping it simply meant Jack had gone back to his own apartment—which he could understand, given the circumstances—and hadn’t succumbed to any dangers, Ethan went down to the garage.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he stepped out of the lift. The detachment he’d been relying on to get him through this vanished the moment he laid eyes on his Aston Martin Vanquish S Coupe. Victoria was in her usual place, but she was damaged. Dinted fenders, smashed lights, paint scraped back to undercoat in several places, bullet holes across her rear end. She was just a car, but one he’d invested a lot of his life into fixing, keeping pristine and getting to know so well he could drive her blind. He felt her damage in his own body.
Ethan ran his hand over the damaged areas, finding red paint in the scratches on the fenders. What had happened? It had to have been Jack who’d taken her out. He had access to the keys and, if he’d found and followed Ethan’s clues, cause to need her. The damage wasn’t so great the occupants wouldn’t have survived, but were they uninjured? Was Jack okay? Were his passengers, if any, all right? Hopefully Victoria had taken all the hits for them and done her job well.
Turning from his car, Ethan’s heart took another blow.
In the space next to Victoria, where Jack parked his Kawasaki Ninja, was instead a white-covered motorbike, red bow still in place.
Jack’s gift. The bike Ethan had bought for him. The Ducati Panigale was second hand and had required some work before it was back to showroom quality. It had been Ethan’s refuge in the week after Nine’s death. Cathartic. Taking something he used to do for his sister—maintaining her Ducati SuperSport S—and now doing it for Jack had helped him deal with Nine’s loss. When the bike was finished, Ethan had been able to look at it and not feel the gut-deep hurt of Nine’s death. It had become solely Jack’s. He’d organised for it to be delivered on Jack’s birthday. Finding it here still, four days later and untouched, tore a hole in his heart.
Jack had been here between his birthday and now. He had seen the gift. And left it behind. Was it just a case of him not liking the model? Or did he not like whom it was from anymore? The possibility hurt like nothing else. Not even thinking Jack was sleeping with his old fling had sliced through Ethan’s chest like this.
The hole in Ethan’s heart simply joined up with the hollowness in his chest that had been growing deeper and darker since he’d walked out of this building four days ago.
It didn’t matter why the gift was still there. It didn’t even matter that his precious car had been through a trial and come out battered and broken. All that mattered was making sure Jack was all right, and that he would stay that way.
Or be avenged.
Ethan had to be certain before he left Sydney again. Certain that his plan had worked and that Meera and Matilda were safe. Certain that when he left again, it was to protect Jack and not avenge him.
And there was one fast way to do that.
In another stolen car, his first stop was to fetch a set of fake passports and IDs. Ones that even Jack didn’t know about. The money he’d taken from the penthouse had been lost in the chopper crash so he visited a few other drop sites and collected another hundred grand in various currencies. From there, he took his time getting to Leichhardt, ensuring he hadn’t picked up a tail. Parking some distance down the street from Jack’s apartment building, Ethan scanned it with a high-powered rifle scope. It was after midnight yet there was a light on in Jack’s corner apartment. No shadows moved inside but shortly after one a.m. a man appeared from the front entrance and walked towards a car parked on the side of the road.
Average height, lean, moving with an easy swagger, a satchel hanging by his left hip. He pulled a phone from the back pocket of his pants and as it lit up, his smiling face was revealed.
Ethan let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. The growing pain in his chest eased away as he was watched Lewis Thomas flick through a couple of screens. He appeared fine and the light still shining from Jack’s apartment was a good sign he was in there. Lewis had left Jack’s place happy. He wouldn’t have done that if his best friend weren’t safe and healthy.
Ethan had met Lewis two weeks ago, when Jack had been recovering in the Office infirmary. Even though he’d helped Ethan negotiate his terms with the Office he’d also promised to bring the weight of the Office down on Ethan if he ever hurt Jack.
Was that what Lewis had been doing at Jack’s? Comforting him because Ethan had left? Offering to hunt Ethan down and make good on his promise?
Lewis put his phone away, opened the car door, tossed his satchel into the back and got in. A moment later, he was gone.
Ethan kept a watch on Jack’s place for the rest of the night. Earlier than he usually left for work, Jack appeared out of the underground garage on his Ninja. In his riding leathers and full-face helmet he was anonymous, but not to Ethan. He knew the body, the shape of the legs, the curve of the arms, the way he angled his head when checking for oncoming traffic. It was Jack and he was all right.
The pain in Ethan’s chest sharpened as the bike turned towards him. His hand was on the door release without thought, ready to pull it and dash out in front of Jack. The need, the driving ache, to simply throw himself at Jack and hold on forever was almost too strong for Ethan to fight.
About to open the door, he shifted in the seat, twisting his injured leg and the flare of pain cut through the
haze of want. It brought the memory of escaping the sinking helicopter, of the fight with Ten and Four. Of killing his brothers before they could kill him, because the bosses had ordered them too. Because no one defied the Cabal.
It was time they were stopped. Their shadowy global manipulations needed to end, yes, but it wouldn’t be because they’d influenced presidential elections for their own political gain or started civil wars to earn themselves money. No, the reason they were going to die was because they’d raised a family of killers and then demanded that the brothers and sisters kill not only their targets, but each other as well.
Grimacing against the agony, both physical and spiritual, Ethan watched as Jack sped past his parked car, racing to catch the yellow light at the intersection, sweeping the bike around the corner just as the traffic light went red.
And he was gone from Ethan’s sight. But not his heart. Never his heart.
Jack was all right. He was alive and well and working—possibly to find Ethan, or the Cabal, or to simply make sure his family was never threatened again. He didn’t need avenging, but there were others—One through Twelve, from cold and calculating, to unfeeling psychopaths, to dead boys who’d never stood a chance of surviving their brutal childhood—who needed Ethan to make sure that the people who’d destroyed their lives didn’t go unpunished.
Tap tap tap.
Ethan’s reach for his Eagle stalled as he recognised the face peering in the passenger side window of the car.
The smart thing to do would be to ignore Rocco Cesare, start the car and drive away. Smart, but impossible.
It had been easy to avoid Lewis and harder to avoid Jack, but Rocco was right there, smiling at him through the tinted glass and motioning for him to wind the window down. Ethan leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door for him instead.
“Oh, thank you, son.” The elderly man gingerly lowered himself into the leather bucket seat. “It’s quite warm outside already. Shorty and I decided to cut our walk short today.”
Hearing his name, the dachshund jumped up, front paws on the edge of the seat. His tongue lolled out of his panting muzzle, disappearing as he barked excitedly.
“Do you mind?” Rocco asked.
“Bring him in.” Ethan wouldn’t have cared even if this were Victoria. He wasn’t about to leave the dog out in the sun while they sat in the cool interior.
Shorty helped Rocco pull him up by scrabbling frantically with his paws, and when he could, he clambered over his human and the centre console and straight into Ethan’s lap. He nosed at Ethan’s chin, then licked him.
All of his reserves spent on not chasing down Jack, Ethan lowered his face into Shorty’s affection, letting the rough tongue leave tingling stripes across his cheeks and jaw.
“Shorty,” Rocco murmured disapprovingly.
“It’s all right.” Ethan rubbed the dog’s spine and Shorty stopped licking, his eyes rolling back in his head in canine ecstasy. “It makes him happy.”
Rocco made a noise in the back of his throat that probably meant not only Shorty, and his smile was indulgent. “How have you been, son?”
Ethan had come to know Jack’s elderly neighbour—their elderly neighbour—fairly well over the past month. It had been difficult to avoid him in the apartment building, not that Ethan had tried too hard, and not only because of Short Round. Yes, the dog had drawn him in initially, but the man had proved to be everything Jack said he was, sweet, kind, and welcoming. Rocco hadn’t batted a single eye at two men living together, nor had he pried into Ethan’s past when they chatted.
“I’ve been well.” He hated lying to the man.
Rocco nodded. “Good. I’m pleased to hear that. I’m glad I saw you just now. I’ve wanted to thank you for what you did for Shorty.”
Hands stalling on the dog’s long body, Ethan blinked against the sudden sting in his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I know you paid his vet bills, son.”
As if sensing he was the topic of conversation, Shorty pushed and nudged at Ethan until he got his demands across. Succumbing, Ethan cradled the dog in one arm, so he could scratch the exposed and needy belly. Shorty sighed and rested his head on Ethan’s shoulder, his hot breaths puffing contentedly on his neck.
“It wasn’t hard to work out,” Rocco continued softly. “They were paid when I went to pick him up and when I asked Nishant, he knew nothing about it.” He only knew Jack by his Indian name.
“Then why think it was me?”
“Who else cares about Shorty so much?”
The tears surged forward. “It was the least I could do.”
Rocco was quiet in the wake of the confession, only the happy snuffles of the dog filling the car.
When Rocco did talk, it was soft and hesitant. “Did you poison Shorty?”
Ethan’s arm tightened around the dachshund reflexively. “Of course not.”
“Then, son, it’s not your fault and you shouldn’t blame yourself for it.”
But it is my fault. Ethan bit the words back. He couldn’t admit that without telling Rocco everything. That it was Two who’d poisoned Shorty so he could get past him and into Jack’s place without alerting anyone. That Two had only been there because Ethan had wanted something he should never have thought he could have.
Ethan nodded, setting aside that trap and moving on to what he needed to confirm before he could go. “Is Nishant’s family all right? Has he said anything to you about them?”
Rocco frowned but shook his head. “Nothing to me, but when we chatted the other day, he seemed okay.”
“That’s good then.”
“Except that he misses you, Ethan.”
Shorty twisted around in Ethan’s arm and licked his chin again.
“I know,” Ethan whispered to the dog. “I miss him too. So much.”
“Then why didn’t you stop him from leaving just now?”
Ethan shook his head, mute from the impossible tangle of want and need and reality.
“I may not know everything that happened the other week,” Rocco continued, the soft tone hardening a little, “but I do know you’re mixed up in whatever mess Nishant got into when he was arrested. Whatever it was about, I knew he wasn’t guilty of murder. He’s a good man, a good soldier. But I saw the look in his eyes when he surrendered to the police. It wasn’t anger or panic. It was despair.”
Mouth open to ask him to stop, Ethan didn’t get a chance as Rocco kept going.
“I’ve seen that expression before, son. On my daughter’s face when she realised she had to divorce her husband. In the mirror when my Bettina passed.” He paused, then added firmly, “On your face right now. So why didn’t you stop him?”
“I couldn’t. It’s too . . .” Ethan closed his eyes behind his sunglasses, thankful that Rocco couldn’t see the tears pushing forward. “Too complicated.”
The older man snorted. “Everything’s complicated, and if that were ever a real excuse, then it would be a pretty miserable world we live in.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. Not at all. Look at Shorty there. Two weeks ago, he nearly died but that doesn’t matter. He’s okay now, happy and excited to see his best friend. Whatever happened then, son, no matter how complicated it was, or how complicated it might be still, all that really matters is now. You want to be with Nishant?”
“Yes.”
“And he wants you too. What else matters?”
It was tempting. So very tempting. Did Ethan owe any more loyalty to his dead siblings than he owed Jack? Was the Cabal his responsibility to take care of? Ethan desperately wanted the answer to be no, but he couldn’t quite convince himself.
Rocco had seemed to instinctively know Ethan didn’t like being touched and had never tried in the past, but now, he rested his hand on Ethan’s arm. A simple, warm contact that lasted maybe five seconds before it ended, but one that Ethan knew he would be feeling for a long time yet.
“Think about it, son,” Rocco s
aid gently. “We all deserve to be happy, you included. Now, I had best get Shorty home and to his water bowl. It’s rather warm out today and he’s been carrying on like a pork chop.” Opening the door, he patted his thigh and said, “Come on, Shorty. Let’s go.”
Short Round gave a little whine but squirmed out of Ethan’s hold, hopped across to his human and let himself be scooped up and deposited back on the pavement. Rocco groaned and huffed his way up out of the low car. When he was standing, he turned and, one hand on the door ready to close it, stooped and smiled warmly at Ethan.
“Shorty and I miss you too, son. I don’t think it will, but we’d like it if that helped you decide to come back.”
Before he could respond, the door was closed and Ethan was alone again, watching his unexpected friends cross the road in front of him and go home. He sat there for a while longer, thinking about Rocco’s words, eventually distilling them down into three that reverberated inside his head.
What else matters?
“Hmm,” the Doctor said as he set his teacup down. Porcelain clinked gently against porcelain as the cup settled into the saucer with a sound Ethan associated with warmth and safety. He knew now that they’d been false feelings. “Interesting. You attacked Four unprovoked.”
Ethan sipped his own cooling tea. His throat was dry from talking and he needed a buffer before replying. “They were sent to kill me.”
“Did you know that for certain?”
“There was no other reason for both of them to be there.”
The Doctor sighed. “Is that how you were taught to operate? With nothing more than supposition?”
“It was more than a guess. The bosses had already gained my cooperation. They needn’t have sent anyone to escort me in, yet both Four and Ten were there.” Ethan left it unsaid that Ten was only sent out when death at any cost was required. He was simply too unpredictable.
“By your own admission, neither made a move against you. You made the first strike, Ethan.”
When Death Frees the Devil Page 5
