Gorgeous Misery (Creeping Beautiful)

“Yeah?” I ask. “From who?”

“Do you know Adam Boucher?”

“Adam. Boucher.” I say it like that. Two words. “No. Never heard of him. Who is he?”

“He runs the Company now.”

My eyebrows go up. “No fucking shit?”

“No fucking shit.”

“So… what’s up with that? He wants to kill me or something?”

Sasha chuckles. “No. He’s not like that. I mean”—she pauses—“he is like that, but he doesn’t care about us.”

“So what’s he care about? And why is he calling you?”

“Well, that’s why I’m here. Apparently, what he cares about right now is a man called Donovan Couture. You ever heard of him?”

I shake my head.

“How about Carter Couture?”

“No. I don’t know either of them.”

“Well, this is the problem, I think. They are the same person. And Adam is looking for a favor.”

“Same person? What the hell does that mean?”

Sasha lets out a long breath and averts her eyes to the pool where Jacob is coming down the slide. The kids are squealing and laughing. Then she looks over to the outdoor kitchen where Jax is cooking hamburgers and hotdogs and chatting with Sydney. “He’s Company too. Very… what’s the word I’m looking for here?” She taps her chin with a finger. “Um. He’s… royalty, I guess.”

“Royalty?” I can’t stop the scoff.

“The Coutures are one of the original families. God, I haven’t thought about this shit in so long, I can’t even remember what we called them.” She pauses to think. “Founders. Untouchables. Remember?”

“No,” I say again. “I’m not Company, Sash. I’m not really up on the family jargon.”

“Well, that’s who he is. Like… major fucking rank.”

“OK. What’s that got to do with me and this dude Adam?”

“Adam is rank too.” Her face darkens, like she just remembered something important. “He’s like Nick. He’s the same rank Nick was. The Tates, the Coutures, and the Bouchers, they are all Untouchables.”

“Oh,” I say. A chill runs through my body.

“Anyway,” Sasha continues. “Donovan is… well. Fucked. He’s fucked. He’s a dual personality. He was trained as PSYOPS—”

“Fuck that,” I interrupt. “Fuck, no. Hell the fuck no.”

“I haven’t even asked you the question yet.”

“I don’t need to hear the rest. My answer is no. I’m not getting involved with any of that shit. Never. Ever. I won’t do it.”

“Merc.”

“Sasha.”

“Just listen for a moment. Let me tell the story and then, if you say no, I’ll call Adam back and tell him it’s just no. I promise.”

“And then what will he do? Come fuck with me? Hunt down my kids?”

“No. I told you, he’s not like that.”

“He runs the Company.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Did the Company stop doing Company shit?”

“Not really, but—”

“But nothing. We have a truce here, Sasha. We can’t get involved.”

“You’re the only one left, Merc. You’re the only man left on this entire planet who has been trained in Company PSYOPS. Donovan is loved by some very dangerous people. He’s not a bad guy, either. He’s actually… I mean, I’ve always liked him. When he was him. Carter, on the other hand…”

I turn my head away from her. I don’t want to hear this shit. I don’t want to know this shit.

“Carter is insane. And there was some kind of… standoff at the Boucher house about a month ago and Adam’s daughter… I don’t remember her name. She shot Donovan in the back of the head with a psychotropic dart and he slipped into a coma. The Company thinks he’s dead, but Adam kept him alive, I guess. Life support or something. And now Adam needs someone to come in and… unfuck him. He wants to save him.”

“Why?” It’s blunt and cruel, but honest.

“They’re friends. They—Adam, Donovan, and another guy called McKay—they raised a Zero girl called Indie. And… well, Donovan has stacked up quite a few loyalty points, I guess. They just want to save him and you’re the only one left who can do it. Trust me, Adam would not have called in this favor if he didn’t really want to save Donovan.”

“Called in what favor?” I ask. “Why do you owe him?”

“I mean”—she chuckles—“he’s the whole reason I was able to get those drug lord assholes on board with that Santa Barbara massacre. I knew him from my father’s gun-running days. He used to come in to the antique mall a couple times a year. So I called him up and asked him for that favor. How do you think we got that meeting with the drug lords in the desert that day?”

I think about this for a moment, trying to conjure up the memories. Nick left Sasha behind to go do Nick stuff and she called me to pick her up from a hotel room in Wyoming. She was like thirteen when all this went down. But she was pissed off about the Company assassinating her father and grandparents, so there was no way to stop her once she got her mind on murder.