"You listen to me, Walker. I don't care about the girl you want to fuck. What I built is far more important than a silly little doe-eyed CIA analyst and her sad soldier boyfriend. And yes, I have to get my hands dirty to do it. I'm not going to apologize for that. I'm certainly not going to give one to a man whose hands are as dirty as mine."
Her voice is cold iron.
"I ain't judging you. I'm telling you how it is. Let Naomi go."
"She knows too much."
"She knows about El Centinela. It's gone."
"I don't care. I can't afford loose ends. I am the one who keeps track of the monsters under the bed. Not you."
Blood drips from my fingertips onto the scorched earth beneath my boots. The irony of her statement isn't lost on me. I am the monster she claims to control. The weapon she thinks she understands.
I sigh, like I’m bored. But I’m actually bone-deep tired. "Babylon, Echo Valley, Operation Blacklight, Helios Point, Nightshade." I list the black sites and secret projects that Static found Isla Graves has either started or had a hand in. The pieces of her dark empire that I will destroy one by one if she doesn't give me what I want. Letting her know that El Centinela was just the beginning.
I can hear the tension in her voice. "Well, maybe I'll just let Logan kill her. I'm the only one holding him back."
My grip tightens on the phone. The plastic creaks under my fingers.
"I suggest you don't, ma'am. First, I'll dismantle what you've built. Then I'll find anything you love and destroy that, too. Then I'll find you. And take you apart piece by piece."
Silence.
The fires behind me cast my shadow long across the ground, stretching it into something inhuman.
"I would burn down the world for her. This is a war you don't want. This is a war you can't win. Give her back to me, and you can have peace. Take her from me, and there will be nothing left. Let. Her. Go."
Another long stretch of silence. I mean what I say. Every word of it. But I am not as sure as I sound. It is a gamble. I'm trusting that Isla Graves is logical. That she’ll sacrifice this piece of her black kingdom to hold on to the rest.
Graves sighs. "I will release her. But the two of you had better disappear. If I hear from either of you again, I will use all the weapons at my disposal to wage war on you. Do I make myself clear?”
Graves doesn’t know that we won’t be riding off into the sunset together. Naomi will hate me. She wanted her life back. I can free her, keep her alive, but I can’t change what I am or how the world works.
But I will find some way to keep her out of Isla Graves’s crosshairs.
"You won't hear from us again.”
“I’ll text you where you can meet.”
I end the call and pocket the phone. I lost the battle for my soul. But won the war to save Naomi. I can never have her. Never be with her. The angel can’t lie with the demon.
But as the town burns around me, looking and feeling like hell, I don’t regret it.
I’d trade my damnation for her salvation every damn time.
Thirty
Logan
Logan bursts into Graves' office without knocking, the door banging against the wall. Naomi Barrett sits across from Graves, still in her orange prison uniform, hands cuffed behind her back. But there's something wrong with the picture. Naomi doesn't look frightened or desperate. Her posture is almost relaxed. Her eyes hold a quiet confidence that makes Logan's blood boil.
"Is it true?" Logan demands.
Graves narrows her eyes at him, her perfectly manicured fingers stilling on the document she was about to sign. "Get out of my office."
"Are you letting her go?" Logan steps closer, his movements predatory.
"Not that it's any of your concern, but I am." Graves leans back in her chair, utterly unfazed by his presence. "I was simply impressing upon Ms. Barrett that if she would like Walker and her to remain safe, they should make themselves scarce."
