Come To Me (Owned 3)

TWO MONTHS BEFORE

“I’m done, Vic! I’m done!” she’d screamed.

Now, twenty-four hours later, I sat across from the devil, saying the exact same thing.

“You don’t get to choose to be done, Vic.” I frowned at Alice’s response, but it wasn’t unexpected.

“The last assignment I did almost cost me my family.” I touched the spot on my head where porcelain fragments had scraped over the skin.

You could say it hadn't been a very happy reunion. The minute I’d returned home from the mission, Lenny had thrown a dish across the room where it shattered against the wall mere inches from my skull. Small pieces of the plate scraped over my skin, leaving a crisscross pattern like a brand on my flesh.

In her defense, I had told her I was done.

Then I'd disappeared for a week.

I don't know what I'd been thinking.

That’s not true; I was thinking she wouldn’t notice. I wasn’t accustomed to people noticing my absences, much less caring.

Alice took a slow sip of her red wine. “You don’t get families either, Vic.”

“Do whatever you have to do, I’m done.” I stood up, my chair grinding against the wood floor.

“Really,” Alice said, her demeanor unchanged. “You’re prepared to be burned?”

I shrugged at her obvious threat. Once you started working for GEM, to get out you were either burned or blacklisted. I used to think being burned was the worst thing that could happen. When you’re burned, no one will touch you. They basically destroy your person, putting your name on no-fly lists and sex offender registries—not to mention you’re excommunicated by the wetwork community. Once upon a time I thought a life where no company would touch me would be hell. I only knew blood and bullets, and to live without that was unimaginable.

Now…I touched my forehead, the blood scabbing over. Now I knew there was more to life than blood.

“Yeah.” I shrugged at Alice. “Burn me, I don’t care.”

“You’re prepared to be blacklisted?” She ran her finger around the edge of her glass, a small smirk playing on her lips.

I laughed at her bluff. “You don’t care enough to blacklist me.” I nearly said she didn’t have the power, either, but stopped. Bending over, I placed my hands on the wooden table covered in scratchy linen. A single tea light separated her glare, nearly burned to the wick.

I should have realized then there were things about Alice I didn’t know. Alice was a far cry from the woman I’d married all those years ago; then again, I was also changed. Transmuted. We’d come a long way, and if she wanted to ruin my life, she would.

Burn me, fine. I had enough money saved up that I didn’t need to worry about work, civilian or otherwise.

Blacklist me… I didn’t really want to spend the rest of my life fending off hired mercenaries. I had more important things to worry about, like fending off Lenny’s wrath. Lenny and I had built our foundation on sand and the tide was finally coming in.

I smacked the table as I stood up, causing the candle to fall over. It was just hot wax now so it only caused a small stain on the linen. For a moment I paused, wondering if I would have preferred the fire, even if that meant I would have been caught in it. At least then Alice would be dead.

“Would you bet your life on that?” Alice’s voice drifted over my shoulder as I left the small restaurant. My fingers rested on the wooden doorway, her words twisting in my gut. Would I bet my life she wouldn’t blacklist me? That she would leave her petty vendetta alone?

I think I just had.

“I’m fucking done, Vic.” I ran a hand through my hair, trying not to sigh at her words. If I had a nickel for every time I’d heard Lenny say that, well…me and Mr. Gates would be smiling at each other on the Forbes list. I’d stopped counting when it became a weekly thing.

At first it hurt, having her threaten to leave me. Now it just was. I had to admit there’d been improvements, though, because now she mostly threatened while we were at the therapist.

Yeah.

A therapist. If the guys from GEM could see me now. No longer crouched on a rooftop avoiding bullets, trying to get the best intel, but here. In an office. Talking about my feelings instead of ignoring them to finish a job. But that’s not who I was any more. I don’t work for GEM, so those thoughts were irrelevant. I shouldn’t have even been thinking that…

“Do you see?” Lenny gestured to me. “He’s not even paying attention.” I sighed, tying my hair in a knot. The doc had said I needed to work on my “outward cues” or some shit. Apparently I gave off a vibe that I didn’t care.

I cared.

Obviously I cared.

I was in fucking couple’s therapy.

“You say that every week,” I finally said. It was the fifth week Lenny and I had been in counseling. We’d started going a few months after my sister, Grace, showed up. I hadn’t handled her arrival with much…well…grace. I’d left without a word to do an assignment for GEM, and that had put a thorn in my relationship with Lenny.

Another thorn to add to a fucking briar

patch, if we were being honest; it was therapy after all.

If you were to look at a guy like me, though, you would probably have suggested therapy years before Lenny. I didn’t come from warm and fuzzy and as I aged, I never found even the smallest blanket. Still, the reality of the situation was, as long as I kept ties with GEM, my emotions had to stay locked tight.

You can’t exactly go on a mission and then talk about how it made you feel.

But we were in the present now, and without GEM I didn’t need to keep those pesky little emotions on lock all the time. When I came back from that catalytic mission, Lenny was ready to leave me. It took a hell of a lot of begging to get her to stay. What really kept her, though, was me promising to break ties with GEM. Still, thorns remained in our relationship. Years of lies and deliberate miscommunication made it nearly impossible to just start clean. So, this was how we were trying to clean up.

With fucking therapy.

“Well this week I mean it,” Lenny said, shooting me a glare.

“Sure you do,” I replied, not even trying to mask my irritation. Boys who cry wolf and all that shit. Lenny had cried “done” more times than I could count.

“Do you hear him?” Lenny waved her hands at me while talking to the therapist. “Do you see how disrespectful he is?”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do? You’re threatening to break up with me.” Irritation was giving way to frustration and frustration would break into all-out anger. It was the vicious cycle Lenny and I always spun. “Which, by the way, you promised to stop doing.”