“I’ll give you one minute,” she said. “And if you don’t decide, I’ll have someone escort you out.”
The choice should’ve been easy, and yet, I was contemplating being some big business executive who could crush my enemies with the backing of hostile takeover and—fun stuff.
“Well?”
2. DONOVAN
The lights in the back of the limousine were glorious, sparkling as I laid almost on the floor completely. A bottle of champagne in one hand and a cigarette in the other. No smoking was a guide, and the driver had already told me I was being fined for it. I took a long drag on it and exhaled.
The visor into the front of the car opened. “Sir, please refrain from doing that.”
“Are you going to stop me?” I asked, pushing the gun on my hip into view.
“No, sir.”
I laughed until I coughed, then pulled myself up onto the chair. I’d been celebrating since midnight. The driver had taken me all around Manhattan as I drank the bar dry and watched the little dots of light embedded in the fabric of the interior sparkle. They’d changed color and hypnotized me.
The car pulled up to an abrupt stop, hauling me forward on my knees. I pulled myself up, my head swinging on my shoulders, but my hands were able to find my head and let me sink back more of the champagne. I’d paid for it, I wasn’t going to let it go to waste.
“Sir,” the driver said.
People were talking outside the car before the door opened. Daylight invaded my space and I recoiled as if I was allergic, and I didn’t want my fund to end.
“This isn’t protocol,” one of them said.
“We’ve got orders.”
It was River, one of the tech geeks. He peered inside the limo. “Ok, you haven’t done too much damage,” he said, tapping away on his little tablet. “You best have the funds for this, Mr. Kurt. Mercy isn’t going to foot this bill, not like last time.”
“Where am I?” I grumbled, staring at him. I knew I couldn’t be at Sanctum, they’d never let a random civilian near—or even see where it was located.
A larger guy climbed into the limo, the light behind him cast a shadow that had me squinting—I couldn’t see who it was. “Come with us,” he said, and before I could put up a fight, and I would’ve, but I was thinking, and then that’s all I was doing because I passed out.
***
The machine beeping woke me, followed by the chemical smell of Doctor Timothy Cole medical suite. It was a vile smell he seemed immune to the effects of. Instantly retching, a nurse was by my side with a bucket, and my vision completely blurred as I was guided to throwing up into it.
“Ah, you’re awake,” Dr. Cole said, coming into vision as my eyes focused. He wagged a finger at me as my instinct to yank at the wires coming out of me nearly took over. “We’re pumping you with necessary vitamins and hydration,” he said. “You’re lucky we found the car and had it rerouted. We had to get Jinksy to carry you in, from a block away.”
I laid back in the back and wiped my mouth on my arm, feeling the aching tug of the tubes plugged into me. “That was Jinksy?” I asked. “Jeez, what did he do to me?”
Dr. Cole shrugged. “Just a sedative,” he said. “An entire syringe, given your mass, and—all those muscles, we couldn’t take the change on you raging out about it. We heard you had a bit of an exciting night, and didn’t check-in.”
“Blah, blah, fucking blah,” I let out, that rage he was talking about bubbled inside me, readying itself, but my entire body ached against it. “I was celebrating, I got a fucking bullseye,right between his eyes. The hit happened, the payment hit, and I celebrated.”
“Maybe you should’ve followed protocol before that,” he said.
I saw the way he looked at me, like I was in trouble with thebig boss, which was funny. It was a choice to take hits from Mercy’s kill list. She didn’t own me. “Then where is she? I’d like to check-in with her.”
“Don’t mind that now, you’re here, and the weapons have been returned to the armory,” he said. “But you should be more careful where you leave them. Anyone could’ve found them on that rooftop.”
I screwed my eyes as a clusterfuck of a headache rolled through. “Put me back to sleep already,” I snapped. “Let me just fucking gather my thoughts.”
The clop of heels on the floor had my eyes spring wide. Mercy was stood in front of me at the bottom of the bed. She smiled and brushed a hand through her hair. “Nice to see you’ve rejoined us, Donovan,” she said. “But you know the rules, when you use the armory, and go out on an op with our tech and resources, you’ve got to check-in. We don’t need you to personally bring them back, we have people for that, you know this. It’s been—god, countless years.”
“I was celebrating,” I said.
She walked to the side of the bed, tutting. “Luckily, I had eyes on you for most of the night, otherwise, I might’ve been worried.”
