I stared at the phone when it rang. I knew without even looking that it was Stone. He always did like having the last word with anyone. He wouldn’t be happy that I had hung up on him.
I started to reach for the phone, but curled my hand into a fist before I could pick it up. It wouldn’t do either of us any good to talk again, no matter how much I might want it. Stone had made his wishes perfectly clear and I needed to respect his decision.
I just had to learn how to live without the other half of my soul.
I quickly wiped at my eyes when I heard someone coming down the hallway toward my door. If I had been human—which I wasn’t—I never would have heard the footsteps. But, I did. I could even tell it was a man. Women didn’t walk in the same hard clipped manner as men.
I made sure everything important in my office was put away. Not knowing who was coming, I didn’t want to leave any sensitive stuff lying around. I didn’t get visitors often, but still, it paid to be cautious.
When the door opened, I swung my wheelchair around. “Councilman James.”
The man gave me the creeps, and it had nothing to do with me being a hyena shifter and the councilman being a panther. He just had this uncomfortable way about him, as if he was waiting to see what he could get out of a person, whether they wanted it or not.
“Has the Mills contract been completed yet?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“I need you to stop everything you are doing and put this out on the wire. The price if it’s done in the next twenty-four hours has gone up to two million dollars.”
I raised my eyebrows as surprise sliced through me. “Two million dollars?”
Some contracts went for quite a bit of money, but it had been ages since one had grown that big.
“In twenty-four hours,” Councilman James clarified.
Man, someone seriously wanted this dude dead.
“I’ll get right on it, sir.”
“Bring in extra manpower if you need to. This job needs to be completed.”
That surprised me even more than the money.
“Outside contractors, sir?” I wasn’t sure I could ever remember that happening, at least not as long as I had been a handler.
The councilman’s eyes narrowed. He dropped a folder down on my desk as he leaned forward. “I want this contract fulfilled immediately, Sinclair. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
The councilman might want the contract fulfilled, but I was starting to wonder why. He had never been this aggressive with getting a contract completed. He usually just e-mailed me what I needed to handoff to the assassins I worked with. He hardly ever came down to my office, and he certainly didn’t get so demanding.
It didn’t sit well with me.
I waited until the man left the room before picking up the folder he had dropped on my desk and flipping it open.
Holy shit.
I slapped the folder closed and looked toward the door. After drawing in a calming breath, I opened it up again. I don’t think I was supposed to see what was in this file. It was definitely top secret confidential stuff.
Like, seriously hush-hush stuff.
The councilman had a file on most of the guys I handled and few who were handled by others. Three of them had termination orders on them.
My three.
I didn’t understand. If Councilman James had ordered me to send Shade, Stone, and Stryker out to kill Bob Mills, then why were there termination orders on all three men? That didn’t make sense.
I quickly set the file back down where I found it when I heard footsteps heading toward my office again. I turned back to my computer and brought up what I was currently working on, typing away on my keyboard.
