Page 25 of Lethal Torture

“I was planning to head back to Australia for a while,” I say. “Take a break, get some surfing in. Maybe meet a nice girl and—”

“Settle down, have a couple of kids, normal life, yada yada.” Mak finishes the sentence, twirling his hand airily. He exchanges a knowing look with Roman and Dimitry, none of them attempting to hide their amusement. “We’ve heard it all before,Macarthur. And you’ve been saying the same thing to me for a decade. The truth is, if you really wanted that life, you’d have stayed in the army and worked toward a pension. You certainly wouldn’t have taken contracts for me. And you definitely would have been out the door the moment you got a look at what we dealt with in Miami and Myanmar.”

He leans back in the booth, stretching his arm over the curved seating, regarding me with his ever-present smirk. “There’s a reason I came to you with this job before offering it to anyone else. I’m not going to sit here and blow sunshine up your ass all day, because I don’t need to. You know what you are. You’re not just a soldier, Luke. You’re a machine.”

He nods in Roman and Dimitry’s direction. “Some men are born to build and run empires.” He tilts his head toward one of the bouncers on the door. “Others are born to knock heads and get paid for it.”

He looks directly at me with that annoying half smile. “But some men are born with a particular set of skills at which very few truly excel, because on the surface they appear to conflict: the ability to hunt and kill—but also to protect.”

For a moment the room seems to fade away, the dancer on the stage disappearing along with her slow, sensual jazz and the scent of expensive cologne and good liquor.

In a split second I’m back in the heat and dust, lying on my belly, the smell of cordite and rifle oil mixing with the earthy scent of mud bricks and humanity, every nerve tense and sure as I wait to take the shot that will kill the enemy sniper I’ve hunted down.

The kill I need to make to protect the men coming behind me.

It’s there and gone as fast as I feel it, the savagery of the strange dual life I’ve lived for so long and carry inside me still.

“Yes.” Mak watches me with knowing eyes. “There he is. That man is who you are, Luke. Who you were born to be. You can gocatch a wave and tell yourself that is your life, but you and I both know it will never be enough. You need the danger like you need to breathe. And you won’t ever be happy without it, no matter how good the fucking swell is.”

From the corner of my eye I see Mickey, Roman’s godson, approaching us with a dancer under each arm, and with several others from his crew. From their loose ties and wide grins, they’ve clearly all been living it up. I vaguely remember Dimitry mentioning Mickey won some kind of bet with him and Roman, the prize being a visit to this club.

Mak lowers his voice as they near us.

“I’m not asking you to take this job because I want to fuck with you, Luke.” For once, his face is stone-cold serious. “I’m asking you to take it because, like I said, Zin needs someone I can trust to have her back. The kind of trouble she’s in is likely more dangerous than any sandbox ever could be—and you’re the only man I believe is equipped to handle it.”

There’s nothing lighthearted about the way he says it. And Mak isn’t one to exaggerate a situation.

Quite the opposite.

If Mak says it’s dangerous, then it’s fucking dangerous.

And he clearly wants me on this job, which intrigues me almost as much as Zinaida herself.

Almost.

Fuck.

Say no, Luke. Tell them all to go to hell.

“Fine.” I fix Mak with a hard eye. “Send me the fucking brief.”

“Excellent.” He clips the end of a cigar and pulls a passing dancer down onto his lap. “You start the day after tomorrow.”

Roman and Dimitry slap hands, laughing their asses off.

“Bunch of pricks.” I glare at them. “And how do you know I start the day after tomorrow? She hasn’t signed the contract yet.”

But you want her to, don’t you, Luke? Far more than you should.

The truth is, I can already feel the familiar, hard thrill of danger reaching for me like a seductive mistress.

“She will.” Mak’s smirk has a dark edge.

Christ. What happened to walking away, Macarthur?

I don’t know why, but my common sense seems to exit the damned room the moment the bratva boys walk into it.

“Well, Mickey.” Roman lolls in his chair, grinning as the tall figure reaches us. “What’s the verdict? The Quartier more fun than those goddamn laptops you and Pavel never let go of?”