Chapter 1
Hollis
Present Day
I’m all for playing a trick on someone. It’s not often in my isolated world that I get to engage with people I don’t have the first inclination to kill, but what happened here tonight is a little out of my comfort zone for several reasons.
First, I want to warn Liam about his woman.
Any chick willing to have you kidnapped, hit over the head, tied up, and gagged, is someone to run from, not smile at.
But despite Liam looking around the room with an expression that tells me he’d slit all of our throats, he also seems ecstatic to have just experienced what he did.
I don’t mean the sex he had in that fucking room.
His woman, Raya, looks just as love drunk as he does.
I try to disguise the shiver of nausea that runs up my spine by shifting my weight on my feet.
Love. Ack. No thanks. That shit does more harm than good, and I want no part of it.
Even non-sexual relationships and love have the power to utterly destroy people. My dad’s connection to Patrick was brotherly, his connection to sixteen-year-old Ellie was fatherly, and yet he still drank himself to death because of their loss.
As far as I’m concerned, attachments to people aren’t worth the trouble.
Burned bridges are the way to go, and I’ve lived my life since my late teens reflecting that.
Any link I have to anyone is fragile at best. Although I may not care much about living or dying, I won’t let my end come on the back of someone I’ve let myself believe I care about. When it happens, I won’t have to point my finger at anyone but myself.
I let my eyes track the same thing he does, just considering myself lucky that Angel’s woman isn’t here.
Lauren Vos scares me more than he does. She has this way of looking right through you as if she can read the deepest, most hidden parts of your soul before you have a chance to open your mouth and introduce yourself.
I have so many questions about what just happened, but I’m not stupid enough to open my mouth and ask them.
Questions in our line of work can get you killed, and for the most part, I don’t mind being on a need-to-know basis.
The details about why Raya wanted Liam abducted and held hostage aren’t really my business.
“You fuckers have a lot of nerve,” Liam growls as he makes eye contact with each of us.
I nod, knowing I’d feel the same if not angrier if I got smacked over the head and tied to a fucking chair.
I grin at the pair, grateful I’ll never have to deal with that sort of shit.
Liam, once a tough badass, visibly melts under Raya’s palm as she presses it to his chest.
It’s absolutely disgusting to watch a grown man lose himself to love. It will bring his own destruction, that’s assured.
“Who the fuck is that?” Liam grunts, pointing at the new guy.
I wanted to ask the same damn thing, but questioning Angel could mean the man doesn’t send jobs my way. I need to stay busy more than I need to get paid, although the jobs he contacts me for pay very, very well.
“That’s Fox. Don’t worry about him,” Angel says, a warning in his tone.
I face Liam, not wanting this night to end in a rain of gunfire.
I look over my shoulder, wondering if putting my back to the new guy is the safest thing right now before speaking.
“That guy’s a real fucking psycho,” I whisper. “Not like you, not like me, certified. I think it has something to do with his girlfriend being killed.”
The information I relay was told to me by Nash, and although I can’t verify the validity of it, he said it in front of Angel, who didn’t argue or correct him.
As if agreeing, Fox bares his teeth like a true, uncivilized psycho before turning around and leaving the house.
Liam turns back to Angel. “Lauren didn’t bother to come?”
The air grows thicker in the tiny living room, the mention of her name too much.
“She’s spitting fucking mad,” Angel says with a shake of his head, as if he’s not in fear of his life, like I am by proxy.
It doesn’t matter to Lauren that we’re in a dangerous part of Mexico, nor that she’s so pregnant she could go into labor at any time. I don’t know much about the woman, but I know she wants to be in the middle of all of it. I still think their business, Mission Mercenaries, is more hers than his.
“Since you’re all fucking here,” Angel says in a way that makes me wonder why he’s even here, considering how annoyed he seems with it all. “I have a job and instead of assigning it to any individual, I'm letting you choose.”
“I’ll take it,” I say, stepping forward and raising my hand.
Angel shakes his head as if he doesn’t want me to have it. “This isn't a normal job. It's more dangerous than any I've encountered. There's a very good chance that whoever takes this job won't make it out alive.”
“I'm busy for the foreseeable future,” Liam says, pulling Raya even tighter against his chest.
We all laugh. Despite Raya being the one to come up with this entire plan, despite the noises we heard coming from the room not long ago, she looks embarrassed at Liam’s obvious reference to the sex he’s planning on having. She turns and buries her face into his chest.
“I’ll take it,” I repeat, unconcerned about the danger level. “Gotta die someday.”
“The pay is five times higher than normal,” Angel says, his eyes on Nash for some reason.
What am I? Chopped liver?
I look between Angel and Nash. “Wanna go in halves?”
Nash holds his hands up in mock surrender. Fucking coward.
“I know what we do is dangerous,” Nash says. “But guaranteed death, I'm out.”
Fox reenters the house, a cold beer dangling between his fingers by the neck of the bottle.
“Just giving the guys an opportunity to take a job, five times the pay, probably ten times the danger,” Angel says to the crazy guy.
I can’t believe this shit.
“We can go in halves,” I say, offering the same deal I offered to Nash.
“I work alone,” Fox grunts, making me smile as I look back at Angel.
“I guess it's yours, Hollis,” Angel says, sounding more disappointed than I like. “I'll email you the details.”
“This is all fun and everything, but I've got shit to do,” Liam says, directing Raya toward the front door of the little shotgun house.
We’re not far behind. We aren’t a team. Fox said it best, declaring he works alone. We all do.
I didn’t take the job because I particularly like danger. I’d much rather get in, serve up a little justice, and get paid. I’m not one to drag a job out. That means I get shit done quickly, leaving me bored.
Maybe this next job will take longer.
The threat of death is nothing new to me. I don’t particularly want to die, but it’s not like there’s anyone around to mourn me.
I shut down the thoughts of my dad, Patrick, and Ellie before they can take over as I walk to my truck.
That whole situation I experienced as a child may have been the deciding factor of how I live my life, but I never allow it to get inside of me.
It’s poison, something that could easily eat away at me from the inside until I end up no better than my father.