“I’m not a loose end, asshole. Neither is she.”
Roark lifts a brow. “And yet here you are. Standing in my office instead of bleeding out in an alley.”
I step closer.
Roark doesn't reach for his gun.
In the hall, I hear rapid gunfire. The trap finally sprang, but I’m not concerned. Bronco’s got this.
“Your men are sloppy, Roark. Hard to imagine why I’m still alive.”
He scowls. “Yet you’re doing this over a girl? That’s disappointing.”
"I'm doing this for everyone."
Roark isn’t afraid, but he's greatly underestimated me.
“I didn’t set the original contract. Your mark did. His partners did. I simply providethe service.”Roark tilts his head. “But you… you thought you could leave the company.”
I take another step forward, close enough now that Roark’s whiskey smells sharp and bitter. “Cancel the contract on us and I let you live.”
His eyes turn calculating. “What did she do to convince you to be her champion? Cry for you? Beg? Look at you like you were something other than what you are?”
“She trusted me,” I reply. “Last chance.”
“You’re making this emotional.”
“No. I’m making this final.”
“I can call it off,” Roark says. “The contract. The bounty. I can make it all disappear. With one condition—you stay.”
I stare him down, weighing the offer. Roark is ruthless and he’s never let a contract go. Would he do so now just to keep me employed?
His right eye twitches.
It’s the same tell he’s had for years.
He only twitches when he lies. If I give in, we’re both as good as dead.
“She’ll never be safe as long as you’re breathing.”
Roark leans forward slowly, his voice sharp. “Wake up, King. Men like you don’t get to have a life. You don’t get a wife or a family. What’s going to happen the first time a kid wants you to tell the class what daddy does for a living?” He snorts. “You don’t deserve happiness.”
"Fuck you, Roark."
He smiles. Then goes for his gun.
I'm faster, firing once.
Roark jerks, shock snapping through his body as the bullet hits low and precise—right through his shoulder, driving him back in his chair.
Not a kill shot.
A lesson.
He snarls, clutching his arm, trying to raise the gun with his other hand.
I cross the distance in two steps and knock the gun out of reach.
