by Blaze Ward
“I burned them all first, before moving on to the more interesting things,” Greyson continued.
She hadn’t moved. Might have turned to stone for all she was breathing right now.
“Pictures of us?” she asked in a voice striving mightily to sound normal.
Wasn’t going to fool anyone but they were the only people to hear them. The only two that mattered.
Greyson nodded, wishing that this had been the sort of scene where he’d gone ahead and fixed himself a highball of the synth whiskey to drink.
“I destroyed them all,” he assured her again, eyes heavy as he watched her.
“When were they?” she asked.
“Back when we were maybe an item,” Greyson replied. “Zielinski apparently had his eye on you, but he was already blackmailing everyone, so I figure it was just an insurance policy.”
“You,” she said. “Why?”
“There are many things you never learned about my past, Denise,” Greyson offered. “You might have a high-enough security clearance these days to read some of them, but you’re probably better off not knowing what I used to do for the Army.”
“That bad?”
“I was an assassin, Denise,” he said flatly. “Not everything I did would pass muster these days. Less so with the Merchant’s Guild looking on. Better to let those things be.”
“And Zielinski thought that just the association of your name with mine would destroy me?” she asked.
“People would ask questions,” Greyson offered now. “I would become a brush they could use to tar you, when you go on and run for President, or maybe become Secretary-General. Things you’d want shut up, so you might have to engage folks that did things. Things even Edgar won’t do for you.”
She flinched at that, but Greyson supposed he had a much better understanding of a man like Edgar Redhawk than she did.
Denise was just a politician. Edgar was a killer, like Greyson. He just was willing to wear a tie.
Denise studied his face, looking for some softness he supposed. Wasn’t there. Hadn’t been, even before Ethen came along and changed everything.
“Destroyed,” she murmured, as if understanding that he had gone beyond just burning a dozen photographs.
“Destroyed,” Greyson echoed.
“And now?” she asked.
“Water under the bridge,” he said harshly.
Greyson didn’t want to hurt her. She was one of the most amazing women he’d ever met. Her and Emmy were of a type. Driven. Smart. Funny. Gorgeous.
Emmy had all her various companies and investments, a never-ending sequence of meetings to buy or sell some fragment. Maybe buy three companies and consolidate them into a new thing that could do something to revolutionize some industry. Then she’d sell it off to new investors and make her percentages on the deal.
Emmy didn’t keep Greyson around on the stage either, but he did clean up well and could squire her around town to various events where she needed a Plus One to look even better than she normally did.
Denise Upkins dated retired jocks and famous actors. Other people at her level of wealth and fame.
The beautiful people.
She didn’t need a broken down mutt of a former assassin with secrets anywhere near her life. Not then. Not now.
“Have you ever wondered—...” she started to say, but he interrupted her.
“That was six years ago, Denise,” he snapped. “We made the right choice then for your career and mine. You and I had been an item, but that stopped right after Christmas of ’51, as you should recall. My background has always been far too sketchy for a prominent pol like you to have off to one side. I might have blown your chance to be Metropolitan and we’d have had that schmuck Jovanon instead. There is nothing to be gained from digging all that back up again today. Nothing.”
Harsh words, but he had to protect her. Even from herself.
She was edging over into maudlin now.
Into Might-Have-Been territory. He wouldn’t have it.
Something like that only got you long nights drinking cheap synth whiskey and wondering where you went wrong and how it might have all turned out, but-for-that-one-thing.
Greyson had seen those sorts of thoughts destroy too many lives.
Slapping her with an open palm might have hurt less right now, but better to rip that bandage off all at once.
After a moment, she closed her open mouth and maybe ground her teeth a little too much.
Denise Upkins, Her Honor the Metropolitan of the Eastern Metroplex, rose silently and remembered her reader before she took a step. She stared at him for a long moment; hurt, surprise and anger all at war with each other in her eyes.
Tears, too, maybe, but they’d be unshed here.
Never in public, where someone might see them. Might blackmail you with them.
Later, after she was back at the hotel room she’d no doubt gotten as a backup against not staying here tonight. She’d cry there, alone in the privacy of her own thoughts.
That was the promise her face made now as she moved to the door and stopped, methodically unlocking each one.
Greyson didn’t stand. That would make it too easy to ask her to come back. To take her in his arms and hold her again, so they could both cry about things that never were.
He remained sitting, grinding his own teeth and trying not to snarl at himself as a damned fool.
Denise opened the door and held it as she turned and stared at him, perhaps that fabled one last time they talk about in the movies and good books.
“I’m sorry, Denise,” he finally said to her, studying her poised like a statue that one of the masters might have carved on his best day. “It’s for the best.”
That was all he could think of to take the sting out of the conversation they could never have. Not even in another decade or three after she was out of office and fully retired from public life.
Because he wasn’t Human anymore.
Something got through, because she nodded, a compact motion involving everything above her belly button. No words, just that jerk that encompassed her whole torso.
She walked out the door, pulling it shut behind her.
And out of his life, but it was for the best, at least for her.
For all of them.
Greyson rose after a time.
It was still dark outside and he hadn’t fallen asleep, but he’d indulged, just this once, in a fit of might-have-beens, wondering about the sorts of happily-ever-afters they might have been able to carve out.
He staggered to the kitchen and pulled the whiskey and a highball glass down from the cabinet, pouring himself three fingers instead of his normal one.
Greyson studied the caramel liquid as he swirled it. Good sipping whiskey, with just the right mix of peat, smoke, and sweetness behind it that you should always consume it at room temperature in slow, careful sips that let the flavor bloom on your tongue.
He tilted his head back and shot the whole thing down, letting the harsh fire fill the hollowness that was his soul. The cabinet door stared back at him blankly, but he didn’t have much to say to it or anyone else.
Greyson opened his wallet and pulled out a picture he’d hidden in there earlier, when he’d added the rest to the burning trashcan behind an abandoned building on the edge of an industrial zone.
He stared at the photograph.
The two of them, holding hands across a table in a particular Ghanaian restaurant, the first time he’d taken her out to dinner. First dates were always a movie, or a museum. Food left too many chances to make a fool of yourself in front of someone you desperately wanted to impress.
The shooter had been a pro, framing everything in such a way that Greyson thought he might be able to walk to the exact spot on the sidewalk tomorrow and stand where the man had paused, snapped, and kept walking while two silly lovebirds stared into each other’s eyes and smiled.
And then gone their separate ways, because having him in the pictur
e would have cost a woman like Denise the chance to do the one thing she’d been aiming at for most of her adult life.
She’d been a good Metropolitan. Would continue to be, until maybe she ran for President of the United States, or possibly Secretary-General of the World Council.
Denise didn’t need all the issues that would come of having her romance with Greyson Leigh dragged out into the light by folks who were compelled to keep asking questions until they had answers.
Greyson Leigh, ex-US Army assassin, didn’t have any good answers.
And all he could do right now was indulge in a useless round of might-have-beens.
So he stared at that picture. He could remember the night vividly, but he could not remember ever being that happy. He had been, from the smile on his face.
Greyson poured himself another two fingers and went back to that warm spot on the couch where she’d been sitting to sip it and remember.
It wasn’t like he was going to get any sleep tonight.
About the Author
Blaze Ward writes science fiction in the Alexandria Station universe (Jessica Keller, The Science Officer, The Story Road, etc.) as well as several other science fiction universes, such as Star Dragon, the Dominion, and more. He also writes odd bits of high fantasy with swords and orcs. In addition, he is the Editor and Publisher of Boundary Shock Quarterly Magazine. You can find out more at his website www.blazeward.com, as well as Facebook, Goodreads, and other places.
Blaze's works are available as ebooks, paper, and audio, and can be found at a variety of online vendors. His newsletter comes out regularly, and you can also follow his blog on his website. He really enjoys interacting with fans, and looks forward to any and all questions—even ones about his books!
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The Gilded Cage
The Pleasure Dome
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Longshot Hypothesis
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Flight of the Star Dragon
Call of the Star Dragon
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About Knotted Road Press
Knotted Road Press fiction specializes in dynamic writing set in mysterious, exotic locations.
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With authors in a variety of genres including literary, poetry, mystery, fantasy, and science fiction, Knotted Road Press has something for everyone.
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www.KnottedRoadPress.com
Latency
Hunter Bureau #2
Blaze Ward
Copyright © 2020 Blaze Ward
All rights reserved
Published by Knotted Road Press
www.KnottedRoadPress.com
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ISBN: 978-1-64470-176-8
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Cover art:
ID 131408614 © Andrey Golubtsov | Dreamstime.com
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Cover and interior design copyright © 2020 Knotted Road Press
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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
