36. Alexei #4
“Lars is out of surgery.” Jack delivers the news without preamble. “He’s alive, but in an induced coma. Nobody will know the outcome until—and unless—he wakes up.”
I put the phone down, not trusting myself to speak. I take the vodka on the table and down it in one gulp, then pour another and drink that.
I doubt I’m ever going to stop feeling responsible for Lars being on that operating table. But for the first time since I watched the yacht blow sky-high, I can actually breathe.
I meet Mak’s eyes. “You asked me at the beginning of this,” I say slowly, “if you could have John Owens.”
His eyes narrow.
“Now I’m asking you to return that favor to me.” Anger is stirring deep inside me. All the emotion that has been frozen while Lars lay on that table begins to coalesce into a slow, burning fury. “I want these fuckers, Mak. I want them badly.”
“Understandable.” Eyeing me warily, he pours us both another drink.
“But this week in the Middle East has complicated matters for me when it comes to Sentinel and Zenith. They’re involved in certain games that I need to let play out.
Games I don’t feel able to hand off to anyone else. I wonder if we might compromise?”
I fold my arms. “Maybe. But I want Thorne.”
He nods. “Thorne is definitely your revenge to take. But I will give you an uncharacteristically strong warning, Alexei: think carefully about what vengeance you choose. You are very accustomed to taking it at the point of a knife. In the case of Silas Thorne, that may not be the wisest course, or even the best form of justice.”
“It’s exactly what Silas Thorne deserves.”
“Perhaps.” Mak’s neutral expression gives nothing away.
“Whatever you choose, I leave the Thornes, both father and son, to you. Meridian and Compass.” He tilts his head.
“Along with Hunter and his daughter, Kristi. She, incidentally, is quite the sociopath—I’ll give you what I have on her.
” He looks at me over the table. “The Thornes and Hunters are yours. Are you willing to leave Sentinel and Zenith to me?”
I grimace. The bloodlust is building, in a way I haven’t felt since I disposed of Vilnus Orlov all those years ago.
Lars and Ofelia are the two people in this world I love the most. Perhaps the only two people who truly love me.
And these fuckers are trying to kill them both.
But I also know Mak well enough to know that when he says Sentinel and Zenith are involved in games, he likely means games that influence the future of the planet, rather than that of Miami.
Which is about the only reason I’m prepared to take his compromise.
“Fine,” I say tightly. I’ll take Meridian Network and the Compass Initiative.
The north and south of this little compass.
I’ll leave the east and west to you. But I want your word that Sentinel will call off their guns—and that you will make sure Zenith stays the fuck out of this.
I catch one hint of Sentinel muscle or Zenith influence when I return to Miami, and I’ll storm whatever house in Washington these fuckers are hiding in and murder the lot of them. ”
“Understood,” Mak says lightly. “And they won’t interfere. I’ll make sure of it.” His hard smile says he means it. “And you? What is your plan, if I dare ask?”
“I’m going back to the States,” I say, my voice steadier than it has been for a long time. “To kill every single one of these motherfuckers.”
He eyes me narrowly. “Must it always be the blade, Alexei?”
I glare at him. “The blade ends the argument.”
He sighs. “Or it creates a new one.”
I smile coldly. “And again—one that I will end.”
“That sounds like a lot of arguments.” Mak regards me thoughtfully. “Perhaps those arguments could do with some extra heads—and hands.”
I shake my head coldly.
“Miami is my fucking swamp, Mak. And this is my mess. I’m not dragging anyone else down into it with me.” I pour myself a large shot of Graf and down it in a swallow. “Not anymore,” I say quietly. “Not ever again.”
He regards me with unsettling perception. “Sounds like there’s more to this plan than you’re saying. Care to share?”
I think of the server center beneath the Miami compound, nearing completion as we speak.
Of Phantom, the platform that is almost perfected.
The platform that will let me disappear.
The last few months have made me forget who I am. Have allowed me to envisage a future beyond the swamp, one where Ofelia and I could actually share a life beyond the shadows.
A life that wouldn’t require me to disappear.
But not anymore.
Reality has crashed into that idyll harder than a yacht running aground on a rocky shore.
The dream is over.
The swamp has sucked me back into its depths and reminded me that there is no escape.
Not for me.
Not now—and not ever.
Now all that’s left to decide is what kind of swamp I run.
Now it’s just business.
And if anyone will want in on this particular piece of business, Mak is that man.
I unscrew the bottle of Graf and pour us both very large drinks. “Do you remember,” I begin, “when you first came out to the yacht and suggested that I code myself into nonexistence?”