“We’re already enemies,”I sign. Dredyn translates automatically.
“No,” James corrects. “Right now, you’re problems, irritations. You kill us, you become targets. There’s a difference.”
“We’ll take our chances,” Dredyn says.
“Will you? You really think killing us solves anything? Cut off one head, two more grow back. That’s how the Syndicate works. That’s how it’s survived for generations.” The third man speaks for the first time, his southern drawl lazy but his eyes sharp.
“Maybe, but it sends the message that we’re not afraid. That we’re done playing by your rules,” Dredyn says.
“No,” James says, taking a slow step forward. “What it does is make you fugitives, killers. Exactly what we’ve always said you’d become if you chose the girl over the family. Let’s talk about survival, because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? You want to survive. You want the girl to survive. You want to be free.”
“And you want us dead. So we’re at an impasse,” Talon says.
“Are we?” James spreads his hands like he’s offering a reasonable compromise. “I’m offering you a way out, right now. Walk away, forget this happened. We’ll forget you killed our guards—self-defense, perhaps. Regrettable but understandable in the heat of the moment. You go back to your lives, we go back to ours. Everyone survives the night. Everyone gets what they want.”
“Except the girls you’re trafficking. They don’t survive. They don’t get what they want.”
Talon translates, and James’s mask slips for just a second, irritation flashing across his face before he smooths it away.
“That’s not—” the stranger starts, but James cuts him off with a raised hand.
“Let’s not insult their intelligence with denials.” James looks at me directly now, and there’s something almost like respect in his eyes. “Yes, the organization facilitates certain . . . transactions. Has for decades. Women, drugs, information, whatever moves power from one hand to another. But those operations don’t stop if you kill us, they continue. Newleadership steps in and nothing changes except that you three become fugitives with targets on your backs.”
“Maybe,” Dredyn acknowledges, and I see James’s eyes light up. He thinks he’s winning, thinks he’s found the crack. “But at least we’ll know we tried. At least we’ll know we didn’t just roll over and accept it. That we didn’t become you.”
“Noble. Pointless, but noble. Tell me, Dredyn, has it occurred to you that you’re exactly like your father? Standing there with a gun, ready to kill to protect what’s yours. That’s what James does—what we all do. The methods are different, but at the core? You’re not so different,” Edmund Mercer says.
“I’m nothing like him,” Dredyn says.
James sees it—pounces on it like a predator scenting wounded prey.
“Aren’t you? You kept secrets from your friends for years. You watched, you waited, you planned. You chose the moment to strike when it would cause maximum damage. That’s tactical thinking, son. That’s what I taught you. You are me. You just haven’t accepted it yet.”
“No.”
“Yes. And deep down, you know it. You know that pulling that trigger makes you a killer. Makes you someone who murders his own father. Can you live with that? Can you look Mara in the eyes and tell her you’re a patricide? Can you?—”
“He ordered Evangeline’s death,”I sign, stepping forward.
Fuck this. He needs to hear this. “You. Killed. Her.”
The room goes silent.
James’s mask slips completely.
He did it. He ordered my sister’s murder, and he’s not even sorry. It was just business to him. Just another decision in a long line of decisions.
“She was going to expose critical operations. She discovered the trafficking network, started documenting it—collectingevidence, building a case. She was two days from going to federal authorities with proof that would have brought down not just the Syndicate, but dozens of affiliated organizations. Hundreds of powerful people would have fallen. So, yes, I ordered her death. It was necessary.”
“Necessary,” I repeat, and the word tastes like poison on my tongue.
“For the greater good. For the survival of the organization. For maintaining the order that keeps this country actually functioning. For?—”
“For your power,” Dredyn interrupts. “Don’t dress it up; don’t make it noble. You killed a twenty-three-year-old girl because she threatened your empire. Because she had the courage to stand up to you.”
“I made a hard choice. The kind of choice leaders have to make.” James’s eyes bore into his son’s. “The kind of choice you’re making right now. So don’t pretend you’re better than me, Dredyn. Don’t stand there on your high horse judging me when you’re covered in the blood of four men you just killed, not to mention the blood of all the people we’ve ordered you to kill before this as your job. You’re already a killer, just like me. You just haven’t accepted that reality.”
Dredyn’s gun drops slightly, the barrel drifting down from center mass. “No, I’m killing to stop you. To save people. That’s different. That makes it different.”
