My blood goes cold.Then hot.
“You were always supposed to join me,” he continues.“You were as close to me as my brother.Before the Kings stole you.Before you went soft.Before you found some moral code that changed you.And, brother, that was long before you found that woman to warm your bed.”
“Don’t,” I snap, voice breaking on the edge of feral.
“Ah,” he says softly.“There it is again.The weakness.”
I lunge.
He expects it.Greene always expects everything.We served together in an elite recon unit.The training we both endured and the torture as prisoners of war during a deployment give him too much knowledge over me.The handful of years doing contract work when we got out of the military didn’t just pay well, it forced a level of trust to survive.I am too predictable for a man like him.
He sidesteps, slashing a blade toward my ribs.I twist, the knife grazing my side, burning instantly.I counter with a hook to his jaw.He stumbles two steps but doesn’t fall.
Not enough.
Never enough.
We circle each other in the dim space of the room.Mellow is close but as a man and a brother in the Kings, he knows I need this.He won’t let Jonas kill me, but he’s going to let me fight my own battle and learn what I need to in order to protect Kelly.”
Jonas drags the back of his knife along the wall, scraping metal.“You were always one of the best, Masters.But then you traded purpose for a patch.Friendship for family that isn’t blood.”
His lip curls.
“You gave up all your potential for life as a foot soldier in a club and most of all, you’ve given up your manhood, your existence for a woman.”A smug smirk comes across his face.“I’ll give you this, she’s a fine piece of ass.I wonder if her cunt tastes as sweet as those pastries she bakes?”
I launch forward.My blade slices across his arm.He hisses, twisting away.Blood splashes the concrete.
“Come near her again and I’ll gut you,” I growl.
“But I already did,” he mocks.“I let her feel what I felt after you left me.At least hers will continue to return in time.The drugs I injected right after the accident should be out of her system in a matter of weeks.”
I shoot without thinking, instinct, pain, rage.He drugged her after almost killing her in that wreck.
He dives behind a column, bullet ricocheting.He moves fast for a man with a wound.Too fast.The hall flickers in and out of darkness as the backup lights glitch.
Out of nowhere, the noise he emits startles me.He begins to hum and then to sing.
Low.Uneven.Something from the barracks in another life.An old cadence to keep Marines awake when waiting on the next command.
My stomach turns.
“Stop,” I snarl.
He keeps going.“Oh, Ledger Masters,” He taunts, “always chasing ghosts, always chasing purpose.”
Rage twists my vision red.“SHUT UP!”
He laughs.“You hate when I sing.You always did.”
His voice echoes in the darkness of the room.
He moves, running toward me.He barrels out of the dark, tackling me into the wall hard enough that air blasts from my lungs.Pain explodes across my back.My gun skids across the floor.
Greene’s blade slices my arm, shallow but fast.Blood drips.
Everything becomes instinctive.
I grab his wrist, slam his hand against the wall.He grunts.I knee him in the stomach.He counters with an elbow to my jaw.Stars explode behind my eyes.
