“I guess… you never really chat much with the other soldiers. They gossip about the contracts, you know. I would have told you if… I thought you cared.”
“I don’t fucking care,” I snap.
And it’s true. Idon’tcare about her parents. But if they’re dead, that means she’s on their radar. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I spent so much effort trying to keep her far away from Devil. So much fucking effort.
I tracked her throughout college. I had the password to her online banking account, and when I saw the Greyhound charge,I knew she’d be back soon.
Even before her parents died, I’d been trying to figure out how to keep her safe. I was such a fucking idiot in high school, having her around at my dad’s house, hiding her under the sheets or in the closet when my dad would walk in and yell at me about soldier training and contracts.
She found out so fucking much.
I knew that I wasn’t allowed to have a girlfriend as a soldier. Sex is fine, but if it starts happening regularly with the same girl, and she has your phone number, and you exchange lovey-dovey texts—well, just watch out, soldier. Her name could very well be on the next contract.
I was vaguely aware of the risk, but when you’re eighteen, you feel invincible.
Now, I realize just how fucking stupid I was back then. I know that if they find out about our past relationship, worse, if they find out I’m still completely obsessed with her… she’s dead.
Which is why I got her that hotel suite and even started thinking about locking her in. I hadn’t quite crossed that bridge yet when she hurriedly returned to her house.
Since then, I’ve had a seventy-thousand dollar empty hotel suite and a big fucking problem on my hands.
A problem I now realize is a whole lot bigger than I thought.
“Who got the contract?” I ask, my voice hard.
Liam looks at Dane, who shrugs. “No idea.”
“Do you know the details?” I’m trying to keep my voice neutral, but it’s fucking hard. It sounds way too throaty and there’s a very slight tremor that I really hope they can’t hear.
“Don’t know, man,” says Dane. “Only the contractor gets the details. You know that.”
I stare at him, trying to figure out whether he’s telling me all he knows. His face betrays nothing. He’s almost as good as I am, usually.
Right now, though, I’m aware I’m a mess, because I know what a fucking snoop she is.
She’s not the type of girl to let police officers do their work after finding her parents dead. Even less so if they tell her some bullshit thing like it was a murder-suicide.
She’s a lot of things. Annoying as fuck. Bug-eyed. Smart.
I close my eyes in frustration. “Is there anything youcantell me? Is there even any point to you?”
I open them again just in time to notice Dane and Liam exchanging a worried glance. Fuck, it’s so cringe how scared they are of me sometimes. Even more scared than they are of Devil, it feels like.
“I think…” Dane hedges, probably realizing that if he doesn’t prove himself useful in the next thirty seconds, I might just end his life. “I think whoever killed the parents went out of his waynotto kill her.”
My heartbeat picks up in my chest. I’m not sure how I feel about this information. I know Dane is trying to subdue me by telling me this. But all it does is remind me how fucking close someone got to her.
“How so?” I ask, my voice hard.
“We-e-ll…” Dane probably regrets saying anything, maybe because he knows his explanation is only going to piss me off. “She was in the house when it happened. He knew she was, and he didn’t try to kill her. Didn’t even touch her, or see her at all. He stuck to the contract.”
He was in her house. While she was there. He was in the same fucking house as her. He breathed the same air.
My mind is reeling. There are a thousand things I want to do right now. Find the asshole who breathed her air and destroy him. Kill Dane, the messenger. Stab Liam, the sniveling coward. Go back to Jones and put a few more bullets in his heart. Find the insect, and strangle her.
No, fuck her again.
