Ciphers, Matt Rogers [a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT] 📗

‘So?’

‘I want to talk to you.’

‘About what?’

‘Everyone left town. Bailed on us.’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘Why don’t we rally up who’s still around? Put the old crew back together.’

Samuel smiled.

Under the weak light in the warehouse, his face seemed more gaunt than ever. Skin stretched tight over a skull, revealing every bone.

The man in the expensive coat smiled, too.

To the future, he thought.

2

Six weeks later…

Jason King said, ‘Hold on. I need to puke.’

He doubled over and perspiration showered off his face and neck, dotting the white towels laid neatly on the floor of his penthouse.

He was in the living room, beside an unrivalled view of Central Park. Manhattan swept out before him in all its regality. New York was a city of potential, a collection of men and women striving to climb. Maybe that’s what had brought him here for good. He’d spent most of his life on the road, and a permanent dwelling was a fresh concept, just as much for himself as it was for Will Slater. But now they were side-by-side in a pair of penthouses that cost more than a big-shot CEO hoped to make over his entire working career, and he found himself strangely reluctant to pack up and leave.

That bug had plagued him for decades, but New York had quashed it. He appreciated that it was a city of harsh truths — make it, or go home.

He and Slater had made it a thousand times over, but they would never abandon the climb.

It wasn’t about the money.

It was about the pursuit of betterment.

A man stood across from him, practically the same size, the same build. Like looking in a mirror. They were both six-foot-three and two hundred and twenty pounds, give or take, but Rory Barker was at least twenty years older. Which made it all the more impressive that he’d maintained such a fearsome physique so far into his retirement. He was the premier mixed-martial-arts trainer in the country, able to blend the most effective disciplines into a ferocious skillset. A former K-1 kickboxing champion with a professional record for the ages, Rory regularly charged thousands of dollars for mere hours of his time. He was brought into the training camps of professional MMA fighters at pivotal moments, whereupon he would dissect the competition and tell the coaches exactly what they needed to do to lay down a surgical beating on their fighter’s opponent. And then he was gone, off to another gym to provide the same service.

His time was exclusive and precious.

And Jason King had unlimited access to it.

The U.S. government always footed the bill.

Now, Rory said, ‘What’s the hold-up?’

King had his hands on his knees and his panting chest facing the floor. He said, ‘I just told you.’

‘If you need to vomit, then vomit. Otherwise we have more rounds to take care of.’

King stumbled to the sink and bent over the stainless steel. He retched once, then twice, then sighed.

He looked up. ‘Looks like nothing’s coming up.’

Rory wielded two leather Muay Thai pads, running the length of both his forearms, and now he slapped them together as he stressed the urgency of wasted time. Sweat sprayed off the pads.

‘Then let’s go,’ he said.

King battled down all the food he’d consumed at lunch and returned to the towels. His chest rose and fell, but he could feel his heart rate settling, inching down from its max. That wouldn’t last long.

‘Teep, left jab, right hook, left elbow, right side kick,’ Rory said.

‘Okay.’

King fired the combination off like gunshots — sometimes he wondered if the neighbours suspected foul play. Then again, he and Slater had waged war against a horde of mercenaries in this very building half a year ago, and nothing had come of it. An apartment with a fifteen million dollar price tag came with unrivalled insulation and soundproofing. Those who paid their way deserved discretion, after all.

So he smashed a stabbing teep kick into the pads, then darted in and flicked a precise left jab to freeze the imaginary enemy in place, then pivoted at the hips and put his whole enormous frame into a right hook that rattled Rory to the core, then lurched back in the opposite direction and threw a cocked elbow like his life depended on it, and finally switched direction once more and opened up his hips and put all his weight and momentum into a turning side kick.

His shin hit the pads like a cannonball and Rory staggered, knocked off-balance by the sheer blunt force. The trainer tried to correct himself, but a couple of steps to the left and he committed to the fall. He went down on his rear and landed on the sweaty towels.

He stayed there.

Slightly rattled.

King didn’t say anything. Just put his hands on his hips and caught his breath again.

Savouring the opportunity.

Rory looked up from the floor and said, ‘Remember our conversation from a few months ago?’

‘Which one?’

‘The only one we’ve ever had.’

King raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you suggesting I’m bad at small talk?’

‘I’m suggesting your business is confidential. An anonymous shell corporation is paying me huge sums of money to train you, so whatever you’re involved in is deadly serious. But we both already knew that. So why don’t we cut to the chase?’

‘I remember the conversation,’ King said. ‘And I remember emphasising how confidential my business really is.’

‘You also said you might be open to discussing it over a beer.’

‘I said “maybe.”’

‘Well?’ Rory said. ‘What are you doing after this?’

King could have come up with a thousand excuses.

Although he didn’t need to come up with an excuse at all.

Rory had only accepted the job as King’s head trainer with the understanding that he would get shut down if he ever tried to pry too deep. All King had to do was show the man the door.

But he didn’t.

So much had happened since their last talk — most notably, an attempt to destabilise the U.S. economy and shatter the country’s global reputation. King and Slater had