Breakneck nodded, slapping the magazine into his rifle with a sharp click. "Then let's go cripple a cartel."
After Iceman left, the armory fell into a quiet rhythm of metal on metal. Breakneck grabbed two mags and stuffed them into his vest, the movements automatic, his mind still miles away, lost in a job offer and the steam and vulnerability of the bathroom. He turned and found Boomer leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, a knowing look on his face.
“I guess you were busy last night,” Boomer said, his voice a low, teasing rumble. “You didn’t sleep in your bed. But I’m guessing you were pretty comfortable.”
Breakneck just stared at him, the playful jab hitting a little too close to home.
“I’m fucked here, Boomie,” he admitted, his voice rough. He leaned back against the counter, the cold steel a stark contrast to the heat in his chest. “Out of my element. I don’t know which end is up.”
Boomer chuckled, a warm, sympathetic sound. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’ve been with Taylor for a while now, and I’m still waiting for that feeling to go away.”
Fuck me. The simple, honest statement made him wonder what it would mean to have her in his life permanently. He wasn't alone in this. He wasn't losing his mind.
“I’m American. She’s Canadian. We’re countries apart,” Breakneck continued, the rationalizations tumbling out, the excuses he’d been building to protect himself. “She got a promotion and if she decides to take it…. I can’t be the one to hold her back.” He took a hard breath, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. “The last time I looked in a mirror, all I could see looking back was Derrick.”
Boomer’s gaze was warm and knowing. “And now?”
Breakneck’s voice broke a little, the admission tearing itself from his throat. “Now I just see me. All because of her.” He closed his eyes, the weight of it crushing him. “What should I do?”
“I think you’re forgetting something,” Boomer said softly. “I’m American. Taylor’s German. She did get a freaking good offer for promotion at the Hague. She turned it down for Ansel. For me. But mostly for herself.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “Why don’t you tell her how you feel and let her make the decision? We both know what you want.”
“Then live with it?” Breakneck asked, the fear in him like a live thing, a cold knot in his gut. What if she doesn’t choose me?
“Yeah,” Boomer said, his expression unwavering. “From what I’ve seen, she’s over the moon for you. She hung in there when you were being a colossal a-hole.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Breakneck headed toward the exit but slowed when he caught Jones’s voice, low and sharp.
“Do we need the kid?”
“What are you talking about? Yes, we need him. We can’t hold off attackers with one operator,” Carver snapped. “Did you do what needed to be done?”
After a moment, Jones replied, “Yes.” The word was edged with something that wasn’t quite anger. “It’s done. Let’s finish this. The farther I get from you, the better.”
Trouble in paradise?
Break had never fully trusted the dynamic between Carver and Jones. Partners, sure. But lately there’d been friction. Fracture.
He stepped into the open. Jones’s gaze landed on him and held for a second too long. He jerked his chin toward the SUV. Resigned.
Break stopped. “You want me to accidentally get Carver in my sights?”
Jones’s eyes flared. For a split second, something unguarded flickered there, temptation, maybe. Then he barked a laugh and shook his head. “Dammit, kid. Get in the car.”
45
The SUV crunched over the gravel shoulder, kicking up a cloud of pale dust that hung in the still air. The second site was a defunct lumber mill, skeletal and rusting. A single, faded sign bearing a cartoonish axe-wielding mascot was peeling off the chain-link fence, its cheerfulness a grotesque parody of the decay within.
“So this looks like it might be a bust,” Jones said from the front passenger seat, his voice laced with a practiced disappointment that didn’t quite reach his eyes. The only thing they’d found at the two possible stash house sites was abandoned buildings, trash, and a whole lot of nothing. Breakneck was beginning to think that dying flunky had sent them on a last-ditch, dying-breath joke.
“Could be that bastard was playing us,” Carver said, his gaze sweeping the property with an unnerving calm. “But if we don’t find it, it’s not like it was a wash after all. We made strong inroads into breaking down Los Reyes del Octavo, yeah?” The first site, an abandoned mine shaft cut into the mountainside, had smelled of damp earth and cold stone, a fitting tomb for a false lead.
“Damn straight,” Jones agreed, turning to look out his window. “With us about to put in our papers for our twenty, it’s a good note to end on.”
Carver’s eyes found Breakneck’s in the rearview mirror, a deliberate, predatory connection. “Yeah, and you got yourself something out of it, too, kid, didn’t you?”
