Hunters, Matt Rogers [pdf ebook reader .txt] 📗

of times already. It blew King’s mind to think that she’d been a civilian with not a scrap of fighting experience less than a year earlier.

He turned away from the window, leaving them to the work. He wished he could join them, but there was plenty of time for that.

The sofa beckoned.

He dumped himself into it, and Violetta emerged at the noise of his weight lowering to the cushions. She crossed the cosy living room with its dark wooden walls, thick carpeted floor, and lodge-style interior design. It was a homely place. They all liked it. They didn’t know how long they’d be here, but it could be for as long as they pleased.

She sat down next to him, and he lowered himself gently on his back, facing the ceiling. He rested his head in her lap.

She smiled at the sense of déjà vu.

Then she ran a hand through his hair, just as she’d done back in Vegas before their world had turned upside-down.

She said, ‘So, where were we?’

He laughed. ‘I think we were discussing whether I was done.’

‘Guess the last few days answered that.’

‘But now…’

‘It’s different?’

‘We have the choice of whether to fight or not. We won’t be attacked anymore. We have no competition. It’ll take them years to curate a new crop.’

‘So what do you think?’

King could have spent hours answering, dissecting the minutiae of it, but he didn’t.

He said, ‘If I see someone who needs help, I’ll help.’

‘Then that’s settled.’

‘That was easy.’

‘Never had to be difficult.’

She combed his hair for another minute, then he saw a thought come to her. Her eyes clouded as she went deep into introspection.

He said, ‘What?’

‘They mentioned a handler. The top dog. What was his name? Onyx?’

King reflected on their encounters with the hunters, then nodded. ‘That they did.’

‘He’s still out there. We know nothing about him.’

‘Do we need to?’

She stared down into his eyes. ‘I never thought I’d see the day…’

‘And what day might that be?’

‘The day you’re not fixated on vengeance.’

King shrugged.

‘What if his identity is some shocking twist?’ Violetta asked with a hint of sarcasm. ‘What if we’re missing a big reveal?’

King shrugged again. ‘I’m long past giving a shit about that.’

‘You don’t want his head on a stick?’

‘He works for my old employers, and he didn’t do his job. There’ll be a stick in need of a head without my involvement.’

‘But you don’t want to be there to make sure it happens?’

He looked up into her eyes, making sure she saw the sincerity in his. ‘I don’t care about him. He cares about me. I wiped out his troops, his prized possessions. Now he’s leader to no one. I’m sure I’m living rent-free in his head. So, really, does it matter who he is?’

She smiled.

He leaned up to kiss her and said, ‘I have all I need.’

113

Onyx stood with his nose inches from the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Central Park, hands behind his back.

Staring out at what he used to think was his city.

Yesterday, everything had shattered.

Reflexively he slammed his forehead against the thickened glass, hoping that a jolt of pain would shock him out of his spiralling thoughts.

It didn’t.

He stormed back to his desk, slumped into his chair, put his head in his hands, and tugged at the thick locks that fell over his forehead.

“Onyx,” was obviously a callsign. His real name was Leonard Post. He went by “Onyx” because it meant something. Leonard Post was nobody, because his life outside his work was nothing. He’d been the one to instil stoic philosophy into Diamond and Spinel. He’d tried with the others, but they hadn’t listened. They hadn’t been interested. He considered the hunters he commanded the pinnacle of achievement, the magnum opus of his life.

Commanded, he thought, in the past tense.

Jason King and Will Slater. What made them so fucking special? They were past their prime by now … or were they? Was that concept imagined? Was it just a limitation? Did it even exist?

Post didn’t know.

He paled as his internal dialogue addressed him by his given name. You don’t deserve a callsign. You’re Leonard, and you’re a dismal failure.

He spun to the crystal decanter half-filled with eighteen-year-old Macallan scotch, usually reserved for celebratory toasts in this very office. He popped the stopper off and took a long swig. His lips hung on the rim, and he almost put the decanter down, then thought twice and downed another gulp.

He slammed the decanter back into place, spun the chair away, and resumed his mental self-flagellation.

An hour passed. His thoughts got darker and darker, as he knew they would, until there was nothing left. Even if he fell back on all that damn philosophy, it wouldn’t help. You are entitled to the work, not its reward.

And look where that got you, he thought.

He left the building two hours early, something he hadn’t done in his entire professional career. If he stayed late, as he always did, they’d come for him. Maybe they wouldn’t physically restrain him, but those in higher places than he could imagine would all come knocking, seeking an explanation as to why their country’s best operatives had been systematically exterminated in a two-day timeframe.

My responsibility, he thought. My failure.

He didn’t think his internal dialogue could get any worse, but it did. His blood alcohol content wouldn’t be helping. The private elevator down to the lobby was a cage of claustrophobia. The lobby itself, with its regal columns and marble flooring, was somehow just as constrictive. He made it out onto the bustling sidewalk and still couldn’t catch his breath, so he hurried for home, which was an apartment in a luxury condo building in Midtown.

He knew his home would feel like a box, which it was. He had enough money for a penthouse overlooking Central Park, but his love of stoicism had stopped him from jumping on the hedonic treadmill. He’d always kept his material possessions sparse so he could channel all his focus into his work.

My work…

The concierge on the ground floor of his