Kelley Armstrong - Wild Justice

He passed me the cigarette. I tried to refuse, but he seemed to want me to take it—or want the pause it afforded. Only after I passed it back did he continue.

“Never came after me. Never said one more word. Week later? I come home from the mechanic’s. House is on fire. Find my mother. My brother. Dead. They’d tied them up. Couldn’t escape.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “My fault.”

“You—”

His hard look silenced me. “Know what I mean. Better than anyone. Yeah, I was young. Didn’t see it coming. Didn’t kill them myself. But I fucked up. Over and over I fucked up. Joined when my mother begged me not to. Didn’t warn my brothers about the mission. Wasn’t on the mission because I shot my mouth off. Didn’t haul my ass out anyway and make goddamned sure I was there, no matter what shape I was in. Could have saved my brothers. Protected them. I failed. Then what did I do? Told off the bosses again. Fuck ’em. Don’t owe them nothing and if they think I do, they can fucking come and take it from me. Which they did. Whole family’s dead. My fault. No one can ever convince me otherwise.” He looked at me. “Can they?”

He was right. He’d made youthful mistakes, as I had with Amy, and he’d feel the full weight of responsibility.

“I went after the guys in charge,” Jack continued. “Fucking useless. Gave up. Knocked around Ireland. Then England. Hired myself out. Didn’t give a fuck. Didn’t feel anything. Made the job easy. After a couple years? Cross the ocean and Evelyn finds me. Trains me. Turns me into a pro. Not a two-bit thug with a gun. But deep down? That’s still what I was. Didn’t give a shit. To her? Made me a better hitman. Cold. Ambitious. But I never forgot.” He glanced at me. “You know why I go by Jack? That’s what they called me. My family. My father was John. Came from a line of Johns. Didn’t want it for his sons. Gets his way with three boys. Then I came along. My mother insisted. Thought the tradition was important. They compromised. Named me John. Called me Jack.”

I stared at him. The possibility that Jack was his real name—or even a version of it—had never occurred to me. Given how security conscious he was, he’d never do that. Unless it was too important to give up.

Jack finished the cigarette, tossed the butt. “Told you once you wouldn’t have wanted to know me then. Meant it. Did shit I won’t ever forget. You ever find out? Might understand I’m not that guy anymore. Or maybe it wouldn’t matter because I was that guy. Cold and empty. Sooner or later?” He shrugged. “Something’s gotta give. Realized that’s not what I wanted. Only one way to fix it. Go back. Get revenge. Get justice. Or something like it.”

“So you did?”

“Yeah.” He picked up the bottle. He didn’t uncap it, just held it, staring out into the forest. “Did it make me a good person?” He snorted. “Obviously not. Still in the game. Don’t want out. But I’m not that guy anymore. Not dead anymore.” He met my gaze. “Needed to be done.”

“I know what you’re saying—”

“Not asking you to change your mind now. Don’t even want to discuss it. Just think about it. You’re not me. Same kind of guilt. Different kind of damage. But I think I know you well enough to say it’s not going to get any better until Drew Aldrich has paid for what he did. Until you know he’s not a danger. To anyone.”

I twisted to look at him and I wanted to say . . . There were a lot of things I wanted to say, and none of them seemed quite right. Tell him I was sorry for what happened to him? He didn’t want that. Tell him I understood? No one can understand another person’s experience—they can only sympathize and, sometimes, empathize. He didn’t tell me the story for that. He told me his deepest secret because he wanted to convince me to kill Aldrich, and I couldn’t even give him that.

He glanced over and when I looked at him, I didn’t see my mentor, my sometimes partner, sometimes friend. I saw Jack, a real person, with a past, with a name.

“Thank you,” I said.

He turned toward me, and I saw his face in the dim moonlight, the familiar angles of it, the familiar dark eyes filled with something that wasn’t familiar. Haunted eyes, looking backward, but also a wariness, an uncertainty. I wanted to reassure him. I wanted to . . . Oh, hell, I knew what I wanted to do. Lean over and kiss him and make everything else go away.

I dropped my gaze before he saw that. I looked away and when I did, I felt his touch against my jaw, his fingers rubbing along it, gently turning my face back to his. My heart hammered. His fingers hesitated, then pushed my hair back behind my ear. I looked at him then. His gaze was lowered. Then he straightened, uncapped the whiskey, and took a hit. A long hit, before passing it to me.

“I really do appreciate—” I began.

“Drink.” He stood. “Got your gun?”

“Always. But—”

“Get it out. You start.”

I could have asked what he meant, but I knew. We were going to shoot stuff. And drink. Two things that don’t normally go together, but we’d done it once before, when I’d been upset over not saving a victim. Jack said it was good practice at shooting under less-than-ideal conditions. Which was bullshit. It was stress relief. That’s what he wanted right now, so that’s what I was going to do. It was a whole lot safer than what I’d had in mind anyway.

As he walked away to find targets, I took a slug of the whiskey, feeling it burn off a lingering feeling that I’d missed out on something I wanted very much. Wanted and didn’t want. Hoped for and feared. Drink and burn it away and go back to where we should be, where I looked at Jack and saw a mentor and a partner and maybe a friend. Nothing more.

Another shot of whiskey.

“You gonna shoot?” he called. “Or get drunk first?”

“I’m leveling the playing field for you,” I called back.

He snorted. “Seem to recall I won last time.”

“No, you were just so drunk you thought you won.”

He shook his head and waggled a rusted pop can. I took out my gun. He threw it. I fired.

Jack won. Again. In the early stages, it was close, but the more we drank, the more it became obvious that I wasn’t in his league for short-range shooting. With every hit from the whiskey bottle, my aim got worse. Jack had to get almost halfway through it to even affect his aim. And that’s about all the effect it had. When he drinks, he doesn’t get any louder, any more talkative, any more open, and his aim stays good. He just gets a little unsteady. Which is how we ended up on the ground.

We abandoned the bottle and ran out of bullets around the same time. I’d used up my ammo first, so I was stumbling around the forest, finding our shot-up cans to throw for him, drunk enough that even that was a chore.

“Passed one,” Jack called.

I looked back, squinting at the ground. Or it looked like the ground. When it comes to drinking, I’m a lightweight. I was plastered, and I was not seeing the can, even with his directions.

Finally, he made his way out to me. Then I caught the glint of metal and bent to pick it up. Just as he came up behind me, I stood, smacked into him, and down we went, with me on his lap. Which would have been a whole lot sexier if I wasn’t dead drunk.

“Damn,” I said, craning my neck. “It’s a long way up.”

“Then don’t get up. Not sure I could.”

I laughed and leaned back against him for a moment before pulling away. “If we’re going to pass out in the forest, at least let me find my own spot to do it before I crush you.”

“Nah.” He put his arms loosely around me. “You’re light. Also, warm. Getting cold.”