Once you tell someone—anyone—it’s not a secret anymore. Even the most loyal friend with the best of intentions can slip up. And with a secret this dangerous to everyone I care most about, I can’t let that happen.
You have to control the flow of information. And that’s precisely what I’m good at.
“Well, about that… Felix said some shit I can’t unhear.”
Dimitri’s eyes narrow. “Such as?” he prompts.
Mac blows out a breath. “What do we really know about the General? Or his motives?”
“Nothing,” Dimitri answers. I remain silent.
“Doesn’t that… I dunno… give you the scratch?” Mac says, running his fingers the wrong way against the stubble on his cheek. It makes a loud rasping noise.
“Not really,” Dimitri says, shrugging. Totally unbothered.
That famous Russian nonchalance rubs Mac the wrong way this time. “Are you for real? You don’t care atall? I didn’t figure you for the blind loyal type. What if he’s abad guywho doesbad things?”
“My loyalty is not blind,” Dimitri argues. “I owe this man for a new identity and a fresh start—”
“Technically, you owemefor the new identity,” I interject with a half-smile.
“—I have no interest in making an enemy of him.”
Dimitri glances at me, and I nod my agreement. “Considering what he hires us to do, I think it’s very likely the General is a bad guy who does bad things,” I say, choosing my words. I prefer not to lie. Bending the truth makes me feel better,so I’m careful not to offer more details than I need to. “But he also brought us together.”
I think I understand now. Felix knows the General is after him, he wants to fight back, and he wants Mac in his corner. All that talk of having an exit strategy was his way of manipulating Mac into making a fear-based decision. After all, he has Eleanor to think about now—and most hitmen don’t retire peacefully.
Mac rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, I’d sleep a helluva lot better if I knew I wasn’t helping a new power rise in the underworld of Ulysses.”
That surprises me. “A new power? In Ulysses?”
“I know we’ve done jobs all over, but look at the ones we’ve done since we settledhere. An arms dealer. The fuckin’ mayor. The leader of the most powerfulBratvain the state... Are we taking out the trash, or are we eliminating the competition?”
I watch the question land and roll right off Dimitri’s frozen landscape of a face, but a frown forms between my brows that deepens with each question. The General wants to take over Ulysses? I didn’t consider that possibility. And it makes a twisted kind of sense for a man with a veritable army of hitmen at his disposal. “So, Felix thinks the General sees him as competition?”
“Felix thinks he was set up with Kyle and the USB drive, and that the General wants him dead.”
“Why does the General not just give us the hit, then?” Dimitri scoffs. “That would be much simpler.”
I make a face. “Well…” I hedge.
They both fix me with twin looks of startled expectation.
My eyes dart between them for a few seconds, then I sigh. Normally, I don’t share the details of all the hits we receive if I decide in advance we aren’t going to take the job. But in this case, the information has just become relevant. Whether Felix is friend or foe remains to be seen, but either way he’s involved. They need to know. “Technically, the General did give us his name.”
Mac’s eyebrows lift, and he exchanges a look with Dimitri, who demands, “Explain.”
“The General always sends us names in batches. Part of my role is to parse them out. I start my research before we ever begin our surveillance—it saves time if I can eliminate someone because they don’t follow the criteria we all agreed to. ”
“Why didn’t we know this?” Mac asks.
“You never asked?” I shrug. When he scowls in response to that terrible answer, I fall back on snark to avoid suspicion. “This is my job, right? I handle intel, logistics, and data erasure. Do I tell you how to line up a shot?”
Mac crosses his arms and grumbles, “Still feels like something you should have told us.”
“I agree,” Dimitri says.
“Fine. Going forward, I’ll just send you both the list as I receive it, and we can make the call for each name together. Yeah?”
