“More or less. We were at the same orphanage together.”
“I’d say ‘more’, not ‘less’,” Sam said.
Jack cut him a glance and sighed. “Fine. ‘More’.”
The people in the cabin who were not all that familiar with Jack looked at him with a mixture of sadness and surprise. Annabelle, Beatrice, Jack’s daughter, and Sam, however, had already known the truth of Jack’s past. He’d been an orphan in Yorkshire. And, apparently, he’d had a friend.
“Adam was brought in as an infant, just as I was, and roughly at the same time. He was a few years younger, or that’s what they estimated. But there was no accompanying information on him. So, they called him Adam because he seemed to be missing one of his ribs.”
“What?” Dylan blinked. His eyes narrowed. “He was missing a rib?”
“You couldn’t really tell, but as always, a physician was brought in to examine the new child. The doctor said it was a birth defect of some sort.” Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They gave him the surname of Night because of his hair.”
Annabelle thought about this for a moment and then asked, “What is the deal between you two?”
Jack went on. “Adam was younger, but a great deal more… fearless than I,” he began. “He was always the first of our group to wind up or mess someone about-”
“What?” They all asked, at the same time. Except for Beatrice and Clara, who were surprised by their question.
Jack blinked. “Sorry.” He’d slipped into the past to tell this story, and it had come through in his language. He cleared his throat. “He was always the one who caused trouble. He’d be the first to pull a prank, assuring us we could do it. Then he’d be the only one who wouldn’t get caught.”
There was a lot he wasn’t telling them. Adam had been Jack’s brother, in so much as two unrelated people could be brothers. Adam had always confided in Jack about what he was thinking and what he wanted to do. When he stole liquor, it was to share with Jack, no one else. And when he smoked, he and Jack smoked together as they sat on the roof of their orphanage and made fun of the people who mulled around below them.
But they didn’t need to know any of that. When it came down to it, the important thing that they understood was that Adam was crazy dangerous.
While Jack had fallen into the Business more or less by accident, Adam Night had out-and-out decided it was what he wanted to do. And so he had.
And he was very, very good at it.
“Night is an assassin with no barriers,” Jack told them. He was called in on only the most insane assignments. The ones that no one else would take. And he only sometimes finished the job. However, it never remained incomplete because Adam couldn’t do it. It was always because Adam had simply decided the target was too easy. Or too boring.
The higher-ups and their handlers had a very difficult time getting a hold of Adam Night. The enigmatic, frightening hired gun had been in more than a few manila folders, himself.
No one could kill him, though. Hell, no one could ever find him.
But when he did accept a job that he chose to complete, rumors of what he did to his marks infiltrated the circle of handlers and piece men until Adam Night had become a bad word in the households of assassins across the globe.
And he’d once been Jack’s best friend.
“So, basically, he’s a really bad guy,” Annabelle mumbled, turning away to gaze out the window.
“Aye, luv. A really bad guy.” Jack replied softly.
From where he was seated atop his trunk, the quiet and watchful Reese finally spoke up. Everyone had almost forgotten he was there. “You have no idea,” he said softly. He wasn’t trying to be a smart ass, and his tone wasn’t overtly cruel. It was a simple affirmation. His expression was almost sad. “I’ve come across the bodies he leaves behind. He doesn’t just kill them.”
Everyone was a little paler after that comment. Jack stared at Reese for a moment and then let the comment go, turning to Craig. If Craig looked a little sick, it was nothing compared to how he looked after Jack said, “He’s been hired to kill you.”
“You’re not… You’re not going to let him, right?” Craig asked, stumbling over his speech as his tongue had most likely gone numb with fear.
The truth was, if Adam Night wanted Craig Brandt dead, Craig Brandt was probably going to die. There would be little Jack could do to stop it. And the fact of the matter was that if Adam had really wanted Craig badly enough, the little game he’d played at the Middlesex mansion wouldn’t have occurred. Virginia Meredith simply would have woken up one morning to find her lover scalped or some other such grisly nonsense and cold as stone, lying next to her in bed.
Adam was having fun. He was letting his brother know he was in town; he was saying “hi.” Jack wondered how long the little reunion would go on before Adam got serious. Or bored.
Jack was hoping for bored.
When he didn’t answer, Craig swallowed audibly. “Then we need to get out of here, don’t we? Go somewhere else? Like, far away?” Virginia took his hand and squeezed it tight. She turned entreating eyes upon Jack, who ran a hand through his hair.
Here it was. What he’d been dreading.
“Yes, we need to get out.” He said. “We’re taking you to a researcher in Essex who should be able to get you set up to reproduce your cure.”
Beside him, he could almost feel Annabelle tense up. He reluctantly turned to face her.
Annabelle stared at him a few silent moments and then cocked her head to one side. “What?” she asked, very softly.
“We’re going to England, Annabelle. Today.” Jack told her, speaking slowly and softly. He was having trouble making eye contact with her. Instead, he looked at the wooden slats in the floor and, again with the nervous gesture, ran a hand through his blonde waves.
Annabelle swallowed almost as audibly as Craig had. “Jack, I don’t fly. You know that.” She swallowed again, though it was getting hard to with how dry her mouth had gone. “I made a once-in-a-life-time exception to come here because it was necessary. This is where Columbia is. This is where Craig Brandt is.” She glanced at Craig, nodding in reference. He hesitantly nodded back. “But there’s no way in hell that I’ll get on a plane to go to England.” She wanted to make herself very clear on this point.
She steadily stared up at him. Finally, he met her eyes once more. His expression was inscrutable.
She hadn’t missed the fact that he’d used her whole name when he’d addressed her about this. He only did that when his emotions were really strong. He was determined in this and that really scared her.
He pulled his gaze away from hers then and looked over her shoulder. Something flickered in their blue depths.
Annabelle spun around to see that he was looking at Sam. Who had silently made his way to the archway leading out of the cabin and was standing in front of it, blocking the exit.
What the hell?
“Anna, try to think about the fact that you finally get to visit England,” Cassie made her way across the cabin to put a gentle hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Hell, I’m actually really glad that I have to go with you because I sure as shit want to see England! We can try to get Sean Bean’s autograph!”
“I know you’ve always wanted to go,” Dylan offered next, shooting a slightly resentful look toward Jack as he continued, in as supportive a tone as he could muster. “You’re always telling me you want to see Yorkshire.”
“It’s not the destination, Dylan,” Annabelle told him. She tried to breathe evenly as she went on. “It’s the trip.” She was seething with anger at Jack at that moment. And, frankly, none of these people were helping. She wasn’t getting on another plane; that was a given. Especially a plane that planned to cross water. But, what pissed her off the most was the fact that Jack had just decided, without consulting her in the least, that she was going to yet again face her worst fear so that she could leave her country to go visit another one that very day! Where the hell did he get off?