Page 105 of The Beast's Broken Angel
Noah had drugged me. The bastard had actually drugged me.
“You're awake.” His voice came from somewhere to my left, carefully neutral like he was dealing with any other patient. “Shoulder's clean. No major tissue damage. You'll have full mobility once the inflammation goes down.”
I tried to sit up, but my body moved like I was swimming through treacle. The rage that followed burned hot enough to clear some of the pharmaceutical fog from my brain. “You had no fucking right.”
“You're alive,” he countered, still keeping his distance. Smart man. “That's what matters.”
“What matters?” I forced myself upright despite the spinning room, despite the fire in my shoulder where shrapnel had torn through during the explosion. “I finally had him. Finally had the chance to watch him die. And you took that from me.”
Noah didn't flinch. Didn't apologise. Just stood there in blood-stained scrubs with that maddening clinical detachment he wore like armour. “Harrison's extraction team had you pinned. Another minute, maybe two, and you'd have been Swiss cheese. Dead men don't get revenge, Adrian.”
“Better dead with Harrison than alive without him!” The words ripped from my throat, raw and honest in a way I'd never allowed myself to be. Not with anyone. Certainly not with him.
But Noah just tilted his head, studying me like I was a particularly interesting case study. “Is that really what you believe? That your life is worth less than his death?”
“You don't understand.” I swung my legs over the bed's edge, ignoring the way the room tilted. “You didn't hear them. My mother's screams. My father begging. You didn't smell your own flesh burning while the man who orchestrated it all got to play the hero, pulling you from the flames he fucking set.”
Noah's expression finally cracked, something flickering behind those hazel eyes. Pity? Understanding? It didn't matter. I didn't want either from him.
“Get Viktor,” I ordered, voice dropping to the dangerous quiet that made hardened killers step back. “And Dominic if he's mobile. We have a war to plan.”
“Adrian—”
“That's Mr. Calloway to you.” The words came out colder than London frost. “You're still under contract, Mr. Hastings. Your medical services are required. Anything beyond that is no longer on the table.”
I watched him absorb the dismissal, saw the tiny flinch he couldn't quite hide. Good. Let him feel a fraction of what his betrayal had cost me.
He left without another word, and I was alone with my fury and the phantom taste of sedatives on my tongue.
The operational briefing took place in the safehouse's reinforced basement, a room designed for exactly this kind of catastrophic failure. Concrete walls thick enough to stop artillery. Communications equipment that could reach my contacts anywhere in the world. And enough weapons to arm a small revolution.
My surviving lieutenants looked like they'd been through a meat grinder. Dominic sported enough bandages to outfit a small hospital, courtesy of Noah's battlefield medicine. Viktor favoured his right leg heavily, though he stood at attention like the soldier he'd always be. The others bore various wounds, reminders of how badly I'd miscalculated Harrison's resources.
“Talk,” I commanded, settling into the head chair despite the screaming protest from my shoulder.
“Harrison's extraction was professional,” Viktor reported, tactical assessment cutting through emotion. “Military coordination. Government-grade equipment. We counted at least thirty operatives, possibly more in reserve.”
“Thirty.” I let the number sink in. “Where does a financial advisor get thirty military contractors?”
“He doesn't,” Dominic growled, his usual good humour replaced by pain-fuelled anger. “Someone's backing him. Someone big.”
I'd known it, of course. Had suspected for months that Harrison's ambitions extended beyond simple embezzlement. But confirmation still tasted like ash in my mouth.
“Dominic,” I said, studying the bandages wrapped around his torso. “How are you feeling? Honestly.”
He shifted uncomfortably, clearly not expecting the question. “I'll live, boss. Noah did good work on the surgery.”
“That's not what I asked.” My voice carried that particular tone that made grown men confess their sins. Not harsh, but absolutely unyielding. “You took shrapnel to protect my interests. The least I can do is ensure you're properly cared for.”
“Few weeks of recovery, maybe less if I don't do anything stupid,” Dominic admitted, touched by the concern despite himself.
I turned to Viktor, noting how he favoured his right leg. “And you?”
“Functional,” he replied in his typical economical way.
“Viktor.” The single word carried decades of partnership, of battles fought side by side. “I need you at full capacity for what's coming. If you're compromised?—”
“Leg hurts like bastard,” he conceded, something almost like a smile ghosting across his scarred features. “But I've had worse. Will not slow us down.”