CHAPTER ONE
Savage
Present day—New York City
Tequila is the Mexican version of the middle finger, the perfect “fuck you” to someone you either can’t kill or haven’t decided to kill yet. It’s liquid foreplay.
Exactly why I lift my shot glass at Adam, one of the two Walker Security compadres at the table with me, and down the booze, a wicked bite following.
“Sorry bastard,” I murmur because he just took my money in a card game in the backroom of a New York City bar a few blocks from the Walker offices.
“Took my money, too.” Smith, the other of the two Walker compadres, grimaces, tossing back his shot glass as well with a grimace. “Fuck, that burns.” He runs a hand through his sandy brown hair, leaving it a rumpled mess. “Fuck.”
I laugh a mocking laugh. “Little bitch-ass Army Ranger,” I say, motioning to his hand. “Do you get pedicures, man? Because those are some soft hands you got there. A pussy’s hands.”
He snorts. “All you Green Berets do is blow shit up.”
“Nah,” I say, tracing my goatee and considering his level of stupidity, which is high. I drop my hands to the table and give in to the need to school this fool. “A Beret reckons himself a charmer,” I explain. “He convinces people like you to blow stuff up while he watches.”
Smith barks out a laugh. “You’re a charmer? Give me a fucking break.”
I lean forward and give him the cobra stare. The one I use right before I kill some asshole. “That’s why I left. I like to do the killing myself. Could be you I decide to kill one day.”
He laughs again and tosses popcorn in my face. “Bring it.”
“And here we have the reason you both just paid me,” Adam says, scooping up the pool of money. “You were both running your mouths and not paying attention.”
“How about I come over there and shut your mouth?” I taunt, refilling my shot glass. “Then we’ll see how Mr. SEAL Team Six does against a mercenary.”
Adam’s lips quirk and he leans forward, too—a big motherfucker, tall and broad, his dark hair a typical curling, wild mess. “We’re all mercenaries now,” he claims. “We work for profit.”
“Not the way I did before I came here, and you know it.” I run a finger down the scar on my cheek. “This only made me more of a bastard.” I down another shot of tequila, feeling the booze when the new waitress heads our direction. She’s a pretty little thing, a brunette who favors the only perfect woman I’ve ever known. A resemblance that might just require the entire bottle of tequila find its way to my belly. As if trying to make sure that’s what happens, she kneels beside me and whispers, “A man who just handed me a hundred-dollar bill to request your presence is in the alleyway.”
The hair on my arms goes all prickly. “Name?”
“Tag.”
Iron Man might as well have punched me in the chest, but I don’t react. “Thanks, sweetheart,” I say. “Enjoy the money. You deserve it just for speaking to the prick.” I reach into my pocket and palm her another hundred. “Go now.”
“Thanks,” she says, scraping her teeth over her bottom lip, an invitation in her eyes that I have no intention of accepting. Anyone who reminds me of her is a no go for me.
The waitress stands up and I don’t watch her depart. I focus on Adam and Smith. “Count me out this hand,” I say, shrugging into the leather jacket at the back of my chair, remarkably sober considering my level of tequila intake.
“Where the hell are you going?” Adam asks, the card deck in hand. “I’m dealing.”
“I’ll return to win my money back in a few,” I say. “You better practice while you can.” I stand up, taking the Glock at my hip right along with the blade hidden inside my waistband for this reunion.
I walk toward the front of the familiar bar, where I’ve hung out hundreds of times in the past three years since I joined Walker Security. This place is my comfort zone, a place to relax, and because I know Tag far more than I wish I knew Tag, that is exactly why he chose it. With long, measured strides, I make my way to the front door, because fuck no, I’m not walking into an un-scouted alleyway with a bastard like Tag. I exit into a bitter November chill that has nothing on a winter I spent in Russia. Adrenaline and agitation pulse through me as I walk to the end of the street and around the corner to enter a narrow walkway side street.
I stop short to find Tag is waiting on me, exactly as I’d expected he would. “Knew you’d take the attack route.”
I step toe-to-toe with the brute of a man I once considered more a father than the bastard of a man I’d called father until I figured out I hated the fuck out of him. He’s older now, cigarettes and years in Afghanistan shriveling up his skin like a damn raisin. “What the hell are you doing here?” My voice is low, taut, a threat he won’t mistake as a greeting.