Page 22 of Danger Close (Mourningkill #3)
My Week’s Going To Shit. HBU?
Cobra
Five Days Before the Wedding
“How’s the missus?” Dave Beaufort leaned forward in his seat, his dark eyes amused as he lifted a single brow.
The plastic cushioned booth of the Middlebrook Diner creaked as he shifted his weight. The bustle of the quiet morning rush of truck drivers, cops, and commuters were barely audible over the morning sports recap on the ancient antennae television hung in the corner of the room.
“She wants nothing to do with me,” I said gruffly.
She’d rejected me, after all. It took everything in me not to be an asshole and try to change her mind, especially when I saw the sorrow and desire written in the shades of her indigo irises. That would only harden her rejection.
“I don’t blame her. I want nothing to do with you too, half the time.
” Beaufort smiled, his white, perfectly straight teeth were bright against his umber smile.
The man hadn’t aged in the past ten years.
I was aging like milk, with more aches and pains than I cared to think about.
He, on the other hand, was aging like a fine wine, with his clean shaven square jaw, shaved head staved of any white hairs, and unlike me, his consistency at the gym.
I wiped my hand down my face, feeling my own wrinkles and scraggly beard against my palm.
“Thanks,” I said acerbically. “We had a slight kerfuffle when she had less than a warm reception at dinner.”
Beaufort tilted his head, a slight dimple showing as he gave me an amused smirk. “Oh?”
“I got a real talking to from some kid, Vedder, about what it’s like to be ostracized.” My fists clenched again but not as hard as they did last night. “Apparently, it’s a far more unpleasant feeling than many of us know.”
The look in her eyes as she cowered behind him shattered me. I wanted to reach out, only for her to recoil. He stepped in as her white knight, and I stood there like a chump. The kid was doing my job. I was supposed to defend her. I was supposed to take care of her.
“Being the odd man out of a team is a far tougher experience than most people understand.” Beaufort grabbed a sugar packet and ripped it open over his coffee.
“How would you know?” I scoffed, my eyes going down his tan designer peacoat, hundred-dollar t-shirt, and Gucci jeans. Knowing his reputation as the best in his field, there was no way—
“I was a Black Navy SEAL,” he lifted a brow as if it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world.
“Oh.” I always forgot that part since I didn’t know him in the military. I only knew him as a spy. A very well-respected one, at that. That’s why he gave talks at West Point, the Pentagon, and was consulted on Cyber Security by the Joint Chiefs.
“Yeah,” Beaufort said, dragging out the word to really emphasize his sarcasm. “ Oh. ”
“I’m an asshole!” I admitted. “I’m sorry. It’s been a month of Sundays, and I wake up feeling like shit every single day.”
I twisted my shoulders, cracking my back. The lack of sleep the last couple of days was no help.
“What’s it called when you wake up hungover, but you weren’t drinking?” I asked, twisting my shoulders until they popped and cracked.
“Turning fifty. That’s what it’s called.” He chuckled, softly. “It’s all downhill from here.”
“Shit. How old are you? I could have sworn you were younger than me.” I wiped my face with my palm, and sighed. “I never expected to live this long.”
“Me neither.” Dave’s voice was heavy, almost disappointed. “And I’m older than you.”
“No shit?” Damn, I was looking rough then.
“By three months.” He coughed, before getting us back on track. “I started digging into the missus, based on the summary you sent me.”
I’d sent him a copy of Jericho’s findings. I hoped it’d help expedite things.
Beaufort put down his coffee mug, then straightened.
The tapdancing, rapport-maintaining part of our conversation was over, and now, we were in negotiations. “I don’t know if I should give this to you, so I’m gonna ask you a few questions.”
I frowned but nodded. I’d answer whatever I needed to. I had nothing to hide. Not anymore.
“Why do you care so much?” The intensity of Beaufort’s gaze warned me that any twitch, any flash of a micro expression would be scrutinized.
He wasn’t just reading my words. He was reading my face, and body as well.
“Someone hurt my wife.” Before he could interrupt, I lifted my hand. “And before you say anything, I get it. We’re divorced. But someone hurt her. No one has a right to do that. Not even me. Someone committed grievous harm on the mother of my child. I need to know who did it.”
So I could skin them alive, and dismember them.
Beaufort’s eyes narrowed. “Are you pissy that she got wet for someone else? Jealousy’s not a good look, my friend.”
“No.” I never broke eye contact. “But if he laid a finger on her, I will break his hand.”
Was I jealous? A little bit. But it was nothing compared to my need to protect her. She needed a high wall and a moat to keep her away from all the perils.
“Pah!” Beaufort scoffed, “I’ve seen your lady. She’s beautiful. Many a man would kill to have her—”
Before he lewdly said anything designed to make my temper snap—another technique to get people to give up the truth—I interrupted him, “I need to fix whatever’s going on between her and my daughter.”
Beaufort tilted his head.
Spies, in general, categorize people into neat little groups. Most men who want to know about their ex-wives are controlling, jealous pricks. That wasn’t me. I was a prick, but I was not motivated by jealousy.
“You wanna make me seem like a red pill chump, fine. But you know I’m not.” Nothing, and I mean nothing in my past would ever suggest that I was that scumbag. “She’s my family. We might be divorced, but she’s still family. ”
Was I taking a page from Jericho’s book? Yeah. But if it worked, I didn’t care.
“Whatever bad blood there is between Teri and Trinity is hurting my kid.” My hands clenched around the mug. It’s hurting my Princess as well. But I didn’t mention that. “I need to fix that, because I’m pretty sure I played a part in causing it.”
“You think fixing their relationship will make up for thirty years of absence?”
Ouch. Way to soft ball that one in, Beaufort.
“No.” I let out a long sigh. “But it’s a start.”
He scanned my face, from my brows to my jaw, to the veins on my throat, down to the fingers around my coffee mug.
“And you want to get back with her, too, I assume.” He said it as a statement, not a question.
“Yes. But that’s nothing compared to my need to just make the women in my life happy.” I shrugged. “She told me no last night. That’s fine. If she really doesn’t want me, fine. That doesn’t change the fact that she doesn’t deserve whatever happened to her.”
The way she put distance between us… it was… it was heartbreaking.
“Guilt’s not a good look on you, bud.” Beaufort relaxed, leaning back into his seat. “You’ll never get your lady back with that sour puss.”
He pulled an envelope from his pocket, put it on the table, and pushed it toward me. I frowned.
“Nothing’s for certain,” Beaufort said, his tone losing any traces of humor. “I haven’t found much more than this… yet . I just thought that this should inform how you treat her from here on out.”
“I owe you,” I said, quietly, ripping the envelope open and reading the contents inside.
“You do.”
“How much?” I lifted a brow, wondering if we’d gotten to the negotiation segment of our interaction.
We hadn’t discussed his fee yet, so I wondered exactly how many zeros would be on the end of that check.
He smirked, his thick lips pursing to one side, as he lifted his dark, arched brow. Shit. He was going to charge more than dollars.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath. “Really?”
“Money, and resources, I’ve got. But a favor from Cobra Guerro?” He lifted his fingers, rubbing his thumb and index finger together. “That’s worth its weight in gold.”
I let out a long-agitated sigh and reached into the pocket of my MIT sweatshirt, since my leather jacket was still with Teri. The oversized, heavy garment looked good on her slender frame. I was like a high school punk, giving his girlfriend his varsity letterman jacket.
I palmed a heavy coin in my hand. I twisted it between my index and middle finger.
It was a simple enough thing. It was the size of a silver dollar, but three times as thick, covered in black lacquer.
The border was a serpent, eating its own tail, and the inside was a cerulean, three pointed Celtic knot. My coin.
My blood chit.
A symbol of my I.O.U.
I didn’t have many of these floating around in the universe.
I’d handed one to President Andrew Lau, but that debt had already been paid.
A Scottish baron, and founder of Caledonia Security, had one in his pocket at all times as well.
One had been assassinated before he could cash it in, so I assumed it was lost. Each one was a debt that I was obligated to repay.
It wasn’t something we took lightly. If you reneged on one, then you were persona non grata.
If you didn’t have your word, you were nothing.
A vulnerable place to be in the world of espionage.
We shook hands across the table, the coin between our palms. When our hands parted, he had the coin, my payment for everything he could tell me about Teresa Louise Guerro.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” he said with a smile.