The Mercenary and the Mortician (The Silent Hollow #1)

25. Cal Walker

A pex was located outside of Cleveland, on the outskirts of Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The massive concrete building was set back deep enough into the woods that hikers and lost tourists rarely came across it. Even if the odd nature enthusiast wandered a little farther off the beaten path than most, they were often deterred by the barbed wire chain line fence and armed guards that patrolled the gate 24/7.

The G-Wagon handled the rugged trail leading up to the imposing grey structure without any issues at all. I turned down my dubstep as I rolled up to address one of the guards. He was in all black, wearing Kevlar, and had an MP5 clutched in his hands.

“Sup, McGregor?” I grinned at him, flashing my security pass. McGregor had been with Apex longer than even I had. He still checked my security pass like we were strangers and gave me a scowl.

I winked at him.

“Stop flirting with me, McGregs. You know I can’t resist a man in cargo pants,” I purred, enjoying the way his cheeks flushed red with rage beneath his macho, straight man, wrap-around shades.

Homophobia ran rampant in military operations, and while we weren’t military by any means, many of the men and women who ended up here were ex-military, and old habits die hard.

I was pretty open about who I was and probably got away with more than most since I was Ryker’s favorite. I think if Vox could talk, he would have warned me against goading the homophobes. Especially considering they were homophobes with guns.

As it was, watching McGregs get all flustered because of a little harmless flirting was funny as fuck, and I really just couldn’t help myself sometimes.

My tires crunched over the gravel pathway, and another armed guard opened the underground door to the parking garage for me.

As the highest-paid mercenary here, I had an entire floor dedicated just to me and my bad habit of buying flashy cars… probably another reason I wasn’t super popular with the other murder monkeys.

Vox was really my only pal in the industry, and I think it’s because he didn’t want to be here anymore than I did.

Sure, the money was nice, and I was good at what I did, but if I could retire, I would. Even for a sociopath like me, killing for someone else wasn’t exactly my dream job. However, you didn’t get to quit Apex. Once you were in, you were in. The only way out was in a body bag.

Many of the mercenaries who worked here had sought out Apex and wanted to be here. So, understandably, many of these men and women were annoyed that someone like me, who clearly had zero reverence for this place, was shown so much favoritism.

But, hey. It’s not my fault they’re shit at their jobs. I also couldn’t help the fact that Ryker seemed to have a fucking boner for me.

What was I supposed to do?

Like I said, the more I made it clear that I didn’t give a fuck about this place, the more Damian seemed to want to sink his dirty ass claws into me.

Maybe he just liked it when I played hard to get. Either way, I didn’t take the general animosity I experienced from my peers seriously.

I had Vox in my corner, and he was all I needed.

Speaking of the human vampire, he was leaning against the cement pillar by my empty parking spot as I pulled in.

He was smoking a cigarette directly next to a no-smoking sign, and his silver eyes were dark, meaning something was up.

I hopped out of the G-Wagon and gave him a quizzical look.

“Why so glum, Voxy? The big man in a bad mood?” He pursed his lips and nodded, jerking his head toward the doorway that led out of the parking garage.

“Yeah, he seemed testy when he messaged me. You and I are supposed to be off for another couple of weeks. I’m guessing vacation is getting cut short?” I rambled.

Vox flicked his butt away and shrugged, his expression getting more and more pissed off by the minute.

Vox hated Damian, and he had probably only survived so long because of his inability to talk about it. He was just as much of a slave to that man as I was. There were a handful of us who had been plucked out of bad situations as children and groomed. Not all of us had lasted.

Vox and I had been the exception, and when I got old enough to realize that what Damian was doing to kids like us was grooming, I made enough of a stink about it that he stopped.

However, when I first came here, there had been a dozen or so of us. Being Damian’s favorite did have some perks. I had a small amount of sway with him. He would bend sometimes to keep me happy, especially when I had told him I would help him recruit more willing participants into Apex.

That being said, Vox’s sour mood wasn’t anything out of the norm.

Vox hated him so fucking much, and unlike me, he didn’t have any family that Ryker could hold over his head. I honestly didn’t know why he stuck around. Vox was a fucking prodigy when it came to hacking. I was pretty confident that, out of all of us, if Vox wanted to get out of here, he could pull it off.

However, every time I asked him about it, I usually just got a silent scoff or an eye roll in return.

We got to Damian Ryker’s door, and I bit back a sigh at the sight of it. Vox stood beside me, and we stared at the industrial handle together for a beat. Then, I shook my head and forced myself to open the door.

I didn’t knock, as was the Apex custom. If you didn’t want someone to enter a room at Apex, you locked the door. Otherwise, a closed door meant nothing. Even if you were the big cheese.

Vox followed me into the office, close enough on my heels that it was a little annoying. Damian’s office was circular in shape and just as windowless and grey as the hallways that led to it. Curved screens lined the wall behind his desk, showing live feeds for every single inch of the facility, including bathrooms and showers. There was an ongoing joke that he sat in here and jerked off to us when he was alone, though no one ever let him hear that.

It would likely be the last thing they ever said.

The man himself was sitting behind his large, plain grey desk. He had three monitors set up that faced away from us, so I couldn’t see what he was looking at as he typed away on his wireless keyboard. He also had two picture frames on his desk. They also were facing away from us, but I knew who he had featured in those frames.

He made sure I knew every time I came in here.

He hadn’t changed much since the first day I had met him. He was the kind of man that just became more attractive with age. His chestnut hair now just had a few silver streaks in it, but his whiskey eyes were still sharp and full of cunning.

He was dressed in a grey Armani suit, complete with a tie, even though he was the only asshole in here. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at his obsessive need to look so put together. I think it was a power thing meant to make those around him feel underdressed and inferior.

He didn’t look up right away when we entered, even though he had made me drop everything to come to him.

Another common power move, and I heard the faint sound of Vox’s knuckles cracking next to me.

I shot him a look that said: calm the fuck down.

The last thing I needed was to be up all night patching Vox up for pissing off Damian… which happened more often than I would like.

Damian heard, however, and he glanced up from what he was doing, his eyes narrowing on my friend.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Moretti?” he asked, his voice dripping in honey and venom.

Vox didn’t say or do anything in return; he just stared right back.

I rolled my eyes.

“Jeeze, there’s no problem, Damian. You know he’s just a cranky bastard. What did you need? I told you I have an early start tomorrow,” I said, trying to get his attention away from Vox and back onto me. However, Damian held Vox’s gaze for another beat, the corner of his mouth tilting up in that sadistic way of his.

“You’re dismissed, Mr. Moretti,” Damian said, glancing at me briefly before shooting Vox a look I didn’t understand. “Leave Mr. Walker and I to chat.”

Vox’s lip curled, and his eyes flashed. He took a step closer to me, indicating that he wanted to stay. I frowned at him and brushed him off.

“Get out of here, Voxy. I’ll come find you after,” I muttered, not wanting him to push Damian past the point of no return. Vox met my gaze, and his lips set into a hard line. There was no mistaking the concern twisting in his silver eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” I said firmly. I could handle Damian Ryker, even when he was in a mood. Vox hovered for another beat before glancing back at Damian, who was staring at Vox like he was a cockroach he wanted to crush beneath his shoe.

It was a look he got that said: I’m your master, you bow to me.

He didn’t use it on me the same way he did on Vox. It was like he wanted to make Vox feel degraded. Maybe it was because Vox usually returned that look with the one he was wearing now.

Vox’s look said: Fuck around, and I’ll kill you. I don’t fucking care who you are.

It just made Damian’s smile grow wider.

Finally, Vox reached over and squeezed the back of my neck the way he sometimes did, knocking his forehead briefly against the side of my head.

It was his way of telling me goodbye and to come find him later. He shot one last glare at Damian before stalking out of the office and slamming the door behind him.

Ryker turned to face me, the amusement slipping off his face.

“Mr. Walker,” he dead-panned.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Yeah? What?”

“You have some explaining to do.”

I frowned. What was this about?

“What do you mean?”

Ryker’s expression darkened, and he stood up, placing both hands on his desk as he leaned forward. Suddenly, I felt like I was a little kid again, being reprimanded by him for missing a target during practice.

Despite how much I hated Ryker, there was a small part of me that always wanted to please him. He was the closest thing I had to a father figure, so when he looked at me the way he was now, it always made me feel like I was about an inch tall.

“On your knees, Mr. Walker,” he ordered, and I sighed, ignoring the way my heart rate sped up at his words.

There were no chairs in Ryker’s office, and it was pretty common for him to order me to get on my knees when he called me into a meeting. It was another power move… I knew it was, though it didn’t make it any easier for me to kneel for him.

I hesitated, and his expression darkened further. Reaching into a drawer, he pulled out a 5x7 print before wandering around his desk. He sat on the edge and snatched up one of the picture frames before handing it to me.

I grit my teeth as I took it from him.

“Open the back up. I need to update it, don’t you think?”

Rage was firing off in my chest, and I glanced down at the framed picture of Naomi. This picture had been taken two years ago, and she was smiling directly at me through the frame without a care in the world.

I looked up at him, the edges of my vision turning red with fury.

He wasn’t smiling.

“Open it up, Callum, and put the new picture in so I can be reminded every day of how pretty your sister’s become. How old is she now… nineteen?” he asked, looking down at the print he had taken from his desk drawer.

A potent mix of rage and terror ripped through me when I glanced at it and saw that it had been taken the other day when we had been at the park scouting Caleb.

She was in her cute little sundress with daisy clips in her hair.

Someone had been watching us.

A low growl built in my chest of its own accord and the red that edged my vision spread.

Damian’s eyes snapped to mine, his own face tight with fury.

“None of that, Callum. Change the photo, and get on your knees. Then we’re going to have a chat about killing my middlemen without clearance.” He reached out and picked up the other frame, which had Cass’s graduation portrait in it.

“Such beautiful girls,” he purred, rubbing his finger over Cass’s smiling face.

Forcing the all-consuming rage and fear down, I did as I was told.

Carefully, I opened the back of the frame and replaced Naomi’s picture with the more recent one before getting slowly to my knees.

Damian took Naomi’s picture from me and made a show about setting her and Cass’s frames back on his desk. This time, they were both facing me.

“Now. Let’s talk about the missing Honourable Kyle Bradshaw and his wife, Amanda Grey, shall we? It seems you’ve been a very busy boy, and my investors are not happy with how you’ve recently decided to spend your free time.”