A large palm landed on his shoulder, heavy and strong, and Isaac froze as a flush went through him. The sense that the guy was powerful was not a surprise—like Jim would hang with anybody else? But there was something freaky about him, and it was not the dark gray metal hoops in his lower lip and his eyebrow and his ears.
His smile was positively ancient, and his voice suggested there were secrets all over his syllables as he spoke: “Why don’t you go inside?”
“Why don’t you tell me what the hell’s going on?”
The guy didn’t look thrilled with the hit back, but Isaac was so NMP’ing that one. He didn’t give a shit if Jim’s buddy gave birth to kittens from the upset—he needed some intel so things made sense.
Some sense.
Any sense.
Christ, this must be how Grier felt.
“I’ve bought you a night—that’s all I can say. I strongly suggest you get in there and stay put until Jim comes back, but obviously I can’t make you grow a brain.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
Pierced leaned in. “We’re the good guys.”
With that, he jogged his hooped brow and Cary Granted it with a grin—
Then just like that, he was gone. Sure as if he was a light turned out. Except, come on, he must have walked off?
Isaac wasted a split second looking around, because, hello, most bastards—even the high-level spooks and assassins he’d been in the service with—couldn’t disappear into thin air.
Whatever. He was a sitting duck out on this front stoop.
Isaac flashed back into the house, locked the door, and went into the kitchen. When he didn’t find Grier, he leaned up the rear stairwell.
“Grier?”
He heard a distant reply and took the rear stairs two at a time. When he got to her room, he stopped in the doorway. Or skidded to a halt was more like it.
“No.” He shook his head at her rich girl’s flavor of Samsonite: That monogrammed luggage was so not going anywhere. “Absolutely not.”
She glanced over from the nearly filled suitcase. “I’m not staying here.”
“Yeah, you are.”
She pointed her forefinger at him like the thing was a gun. “I don’t do well with people trying to order me around.”
“I’m trying to save your life. And staying here where you’re known and visible to a lot of people, where you have a job that you’ll be missed at and appointments to keep and a security system like the one in this house is the way to stay alive. Going off to anywhere else just makes it easier for them.”
Turning away, she pushed at the clothes she’d packed, her slender body bowing as she leaned into the shoving and made more room. Then she picked up a sweater and folded it in half and then in quarters.
As he watched how her hands shook, he knew he would do anything to save her. Even if it meant condemning himself.
“What did you say to my father?” she demanded.
“Not much. I don’t trust him. No offense.”
“I don’t trust him, either.”
“You should.”
“How can you say that? God . . . the things he’s kept from me—the things he’s done . . . I can’t . . .”
She began to tear up, but it was clear she didn’t want the old haven-in-strong-arms routine from him: She cursed and marched into the bathroom.
Dimly, he heard her blow her nose and run some water. While she was in there, his hand went into his windbreaker’s pocket and he palmed up the Life Alert. Death Alert was more like it: Help, I haven’t fallen and I’m standing up—can you come and rectify this problem?
Grier remerged. “I’m leaving here with or without you. It’s your choice.”
“It’s going to be without me, I’m afraid.” He took his hand out.
She froze when she saw the device. “What are you doing with that?”
“I’m ending this. For you. Right now.”
“No!”
He pressed the summons as she lunged for him, sealing his fate—and saving her—with a one-touch.
A little red light on the device started blinking.
“Oh, God . . . what have you done?” she whispered. “What have you done?”
“You’re going to be fine.” His eyes traced her face, memorizing yet again what was already etched into his mind forever. “That’s all that matters to me.”
As her eyes welled up, he stepped forward and captured a single, crystal tear on the pad of his thumb. “Don’t cry. I’ve been a dead man walking since I bolted. This is nothing more than what would come to me eventually. And at least I can know you’re safe.”
“Take it back . . . undo it . . . you can—”
He just shook his head.There was no undoing anything—and he was realizing that fully now.
Destiny was a machine built over time, each choice that you made in life adding another gear, another conveyor belt, another assemblyman. Where you ended up was the product that was spit out at the end—and there was no going back for a redo. You couldn’t take a peek at what you’d manufactured and decide, Oh, wait, I wanted to make sewing machines instead of machine guns; let me go back to the beginning and start again.
One shot. That was all you got.
Grier stumbled back and hit the edge of her bed, sinking down like her knees had gone out. “What happens now?”
Her voice was so quiet, he had to strain to catch the words. In contrast, he spoke loud and clear. “They’ll be in touch with me. The device is a transmitter that sends a signal and it will receive their call. When they hit me back, I arrange for a place to turn myself in.”
“So you could fake them out. Leave now—”
“It has a GPS in it so they know where I am every second.”
So they knew he was here now.
But he didn’t think they would kill him in her house—too much exposure. And Grier didn’t know it, but as long as he turned himself in, she was going to be okay because her brother’s death was going to keep her alive. Matthias was the ultimate chessman and he was going to want control over her father, given what the guy knew. Having already offed the son, it went without saying that XOps could do the same to the daughter—and as long as that threat was out there, the elder Childe was neutralized.
The man would do anything to keep from burying a second kid.
Grier’s life was her own.
“My advice to you,” he said, “is stay here. Work things out with your father—”
“How could you do that? How could you turn yourself over to—”
“I wasn’t one of the team who murdered your brother—but I’ve done things like that.” As she recoiled, he nodded. “I’ve gone into homes and killed people and left them where they landed. I’ve stalked men through forests and deserts and cities and oceans and I’ve taken them out. I’m not . . . I’m not an innocent, Grier. I’ve done the worst things one human can do to another—and I got paid for it. I’m tired of carrying all those deeds around with me in my head. I’m exhausted from the memories and the night-mares and the on-edge twitch. I thought running was the answer, but it’s really not, and I just can’t live with myself any longer. Not one more night. Besides, you’re a lawyer. You know the statutes for murder. This”—he dangled the Life Alert by its chain—“is the death sentence I deserve . . . and want.”
Her eyes stayed locked on his. “No . . . no, I know the way you’ve protected me. I don’t believe you’re capable of—”
Isaac whipped off the windbreaker and sweatshirt and turned around, flashing her the massive tattoo of the Grim Reaper that covered every inch of skin on his back.
At her gasp, he hung his head. “Look at the bottom. You see those marks? Those are my kills, Grier. Those are . . . how many brothers and fathers and sons I’ve put into graves. I am . . . not an innocent to be protected. I’m a murderer . . . who’s simply getting what’s coming to him.”
CHAPTER 28
As Adrian reappeared in the back forty of the lawyer’s house, he once again took up res next to Eddie—who was doing an excellent imitation of an oak tree.