Merciless (Option Zero 1)

“It’s not, so don’t take it for granted. I trust Kate more than anyone else in the world. If she says you’re legit, you are. And your reputation for getting the job done is impressive. You’re a good fit for OZ.”

Before she could bask in his approval, he added, “We still have a problem, though.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re keeping something from me. You’ve got secrets…everybody does. I’ve got no problem with that as long as they don’t affect the team.”

He went to his feet and then looked down at her, his expression icy once again. “If those secrets ever put my people or a mission in jeopardy, you’ll regret it with your last breath. Understand?”

“The last thing I would do is hurt you or this team, Ash,” Jules said quietly.

With a curt nod, he turned and headed back to the front of the plane.

When he was several feet away, Jule

s blew out a long, ragged breath. It wasn’t every day that one received a death threat from an employer, but she knew that was exactly what he’d meant.

Chapter Sixteen

Montana

OZ Headquarters

Ash sat at his desk and reviewed the job requests. Since OZ operated under the radar, all of the requests had been vetted and validated. The team had been back from Romania for over a week, but he held back on choosing the next op. Not only did his people need some downtime, they were a couple of operatives short.

When he’d started Option Zero, he’d had two major goals. First, he would choose only the jobs that interested him. And second, he would choose the ones that appeared hopeless. A lot of different agencies and organizations assisted people throughout the world, but few focused on the situations that looked hopeless or impossible. He understood that. People helped where they could do the most good. But what about the others? The ones that seemed doomed to failure? The jobs that no one else wanted were the ones he wanted. Why? Because he and his people knew all about helplessness and hopelessness. They’d been there, done that, and had the scars to prove it. This was where they could make a difference.

Creating OZ had saved him. After he’d lost Meg, he’d lost himself. Hadn’t cared about anyone or anything. He might’ve stayed that way if it hadn’t been for Kate. He was already out of the FBI by then, spending most of his time so filled with hatred, he was surprised it hadn’t smothered him.

Kate had been dealing with her own issues. She had chased a serial killer for years and ended up leaving the Agency before he had been caught. On her way out, she had recommended Ash to take the lead on the case. In a roundabout way, that had led to Meg’s death.

Not that he didn’t feel the full weight of Meg’s death on his own shoulders. John Leland Clark had been the most evil and vile kind of human being, killing without remorse across the western United States and enjoying every moment of his far-reaching fame. But in the end, Clark had been used as a weapon for someone else’s evil agenda.

Ash had gotten his man. That was one thing that Asher Drake could say about himself. He damn well had gotten his man. But at what cost?

There was no denying that he and Meg had been struggling. After Colombia and then Syria, he hadn’t been the same man. Even though he’d fought many battles while in the Marines, he’d always known what he was fighting for and that he’d had a whole country backing him. In the jungles of Colombia and then the desert of Syria, it had been all about survival.

Returning home hadn’t brought the peace he sought. He was justifiably angry, and not being able to get any answers only made things worse. Meg had expected the man she married to return to her, and instead she’d gotten a damaged and bitter one. She’d done her best. He gave her all the credit for trying. And for a while, in his first few years with the FBI, things had seemed to be back on track. Even though he hadn’t gotten the answers he sought, he had been doing his best to look toward the future. All of that had changed when he’d turned on the television one day to see a woman running for political office. That woman was Nora Turner. After searching for years, trying to solve the mystery of what had gone down in Colombia, he discovered that one of the people who’d been there was an up and coming politician.

Seeing Turner had reopened wounds that had never completely healed. Confronting her had been a mistake. She had denied everything, of course, and Ash had ended up looking like a crazed maniac. The FBI had taken a dim view of one of their agents accusing a popular politician of treasonous acts and murder.

Everything had begun a downward spiral. Meg’s death at the hands of a serial killer had been the final and most brutal blow to his dream of a happy, peaceful existence.

Convicted of the murder of twenty-seven people, Clark was now rotting in a prison cell in Colorado. In Ash’s mind, he had killed twenty-eight. The one victim who had managed to escape him had committed suicide several months after her rescue. Without a doubt, Clark was directly responsible for her suicide.

The bastard was on death row, but Ash hoped his execution never happened. Death was too good for the monster. Better that the scum live to a ripe old age, withering away. Maybe it wasn’t a just sentence, but as there was no fitting punishment for what Clark had done, it would have to do.

Losing Meg had been like losing himself all over again. They’d been childhood sweethearts and had planned to grow old together. Life and other shit had happened to derail that happiness, but it was all on Ash that Meg died. He had to live with that guilt, and for a very long time, he hadn’t wanted to live at all.

Kate refused to give up on him. She was the one who came to him about Laurie, a four-year-old girl who was kidnapped from her home by her Afghani father and taken back to Afghanistan. The father was rumored to have ties to the Taliban. While both governments sympathized with the mother’s plight, little was being done about bringing her back home. Kate asked Ash to give it a try.

After talking with the mother, seeing the love and fear she had for her child, Ash felt a determination he hadn’t felt in years. This, he could do. This, he could handle. In this, he could make a difference.

The next day, he called the five people he trusted most—Xavier Quinn, Gideon Wright, Liam Stryker, Sean Donavan, and Nick Hawthorne—and told them what he planned. There was no hesitation. He had been through hell with these men. Ash knew them as well as he knew himself. He knew what their answers would be. All were in.

Under the cover of night, they broke into the father’s house, rescued the girl, and returned her to her mother.

Kate took care of arranging new names and a new life for the child and her mother. And Asher Drake had found a new purpose. Seeing the reunion between mother and daughter gave Ash the biggest sense of peace he’d felt since losing Meg. He had skills and he could use them—but only on his terms.