Merrick.
Fucking Merrick.
He grinned as he approached, hands in his pockets, moving like he owned the city. Like he owned me.
"Connor Ward," he said, his voice smooth and wrong. "Been a long time."
I didn't answer. I was too busy scanning the area, looking for his backup. Merrick never worked alone. He'd always had lackeys—guys who did his dirty work while he stayed clean.
He must have read my mind because he laughed. "They're in the apartment across the street. Paying a young Parisian couple a visit. Making sure they stay quiet while we talk."
The casual cruelty in his tone made my jaw clench.
Merrick. Fucking Merrick.
The man had enraged me since we were kids. He'd been older, bigger, meaner. The kind of bully who smiled while he broke you. And now here he was, standing in front of me like no time had passed at all.
"What do you want?" I asked, voice flat.
His grin widened. "You know what I want, Connor."
"Say it."
"There's a debt to pay," he said, tilting his head. "All that education wasn't free."
My blood went cold.
Our ‘education.’
St. Paul's.
Fucking St. Paul's.
The name alone made my stomach twist. My parents had been ecstatic when I'd gotten in. So, had I. St. Paul's was an athletic powerhouse—they only recruited the best athletes from across the Northeast. It was the prize gem for families like mine. People who worked hard just to put food on the table. People who wanted their kids to have a leg up in life.
And for a while, I'd believed it was exactly that.
Until I learned what it actually was.
"I'm still in the service," I said, keeping my voice even. "You know that."
Merrick laughed—a sharp, ugly sound. "Oh, we know all about it. About you and the others running off with the money. Enlisting and thinking you could just get away with it."
I wanted to flatten him right then and there.
There was a time when Merrick had flattened me. Those days were over.
"The money was ours," I said. "Rightfully."
Merrick shook his head, still grinning. "You know that's not the way things work, Connor. Never was. Never will be."
The comment wormed under my skin, sharp and unsettling.
We'd thought we'd crippled them. Thought we'd burned it all down when we left. The nine of us had planned it carefully—took what we were owed, scattered to the winds, built new lives.
But if Merrick was here—fucking Merrick of all the pricks—then shit was not good.
Not good at all.
