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“Exile looks good on you, Markus.”

I had to admit it did. He’d dropped weight, and his body had bounced back quite a bit. Most of the worry lines were gone from his face. His eyes had life in them again, rather than the dull hatred he’d exh

ibited before.

“Sorry Murphy, wish I could say the same,” he quipped. “You look like regurgitated shit.”

I sat up. It hurt like a motherfucker but I did it anyway.

“Kyle…”

Sammara was pulling on my hand. She wanted to ask me something, but I kept waving her away.

“Tell me why you’re here,” I asked Markus.

“I told you already. I’m here to help.”

“Why?”

The ex-mercenary produced a toothpick from one of his pockets. He shrugged as he began chewing it. “Why do you think?”

“Money.”

He shook his head. “Nope. Not a dime.”

I glanced at Sammara. She was looking back at me pleadingly. “Kyle, I need to know—”

“The leverage,” I said. “You want the files back. Everything we have on you. You want it destroyed, erased, so you can—”

“As if there aren’t already a hundred copies,” Markus laughed. He moved the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “Nope, it’s not the leverage.”

Sammara was squeezing my hand. Sitting close enough against me that I could smell her. She smelled like heaven…

Then it came to me.

“It’s the company, isn’t it. She promised you Di Spatia.”

Markus’s grin went from ear to ear. It was brighter than ever before. I could see that somewhere along the line, his two missing teeth had been replaced.

“She lied to you,” I said simply. “She can’t do that.”

“She can and she has,” Markus said. “I came a long way for this, Murphy. Talked to a lot of people. Right now Bradley is double-checking the intel I gave him. Formulating some sort of a rescue plan, while we sit here and argue whether or not—”

“Dakota? Where is he now?”

“Like I said, he’s with people. Some of mine, some of yours. Hell, some that belong to both of us, although you and Briggs might not even know it.”

“KYLE!”

I whirled, and suddenly I was staring at Sammara. There were practically tears in her eyes. Somehow I’d forgotten she was there. She’d been calling my name repeatedly.

“Kyle, where’s Ryan?”

I swallowed hard and looked away. The pain came again, probably because I was squeezing the muscles in my wounded leg. Some sort of lame method of self-flagellation, or—

“Kyle please… where is he?”

“I lost him,” I said simply. “We got separated in the mountains, not far from where Jason went missing.”