couldn’t deny it. As far as troops went, these weren’t the best.
“Don’t spoil my fun.” His grin widened an impossible fraction. He patted Reese’s cheek with a gloved hand and headed for the door. “Come on, then.”
Reese sighed…and resisted the urge to smile himself.
~*~
“You have holdings in New York?” Luis asked.
Ian didn’t grace him with an answer. If he knew what sort of wedding he’d had, then he knew that he had holdings in New York.
Luis made an impatient sound. “I came here today to enlighten you about your opportunities.”
“I thought you came to blow up my building.”
Luis grinned – but the impatience glittered, still, in his gaze.
“Is there in fact a bomb?”
“If you cooperate, then you’ll never have to find out.”
“I thought this was an opportunity.”
“It is.” Voice tight, now. He wasn’t in control; even though he had the guns, and the goons, and had taken over the building, he couldn’t pin Ian down mentally, and that was getting to him. “You aren’t like the Dogs. You and I both know it. You lack their inconvenient scruples and hang-ups about certain necessary evils. You’re a businessman, a true one, and you’ve clearly done quite well for yourself.”
“Why, thank you.”
“You’re more like me than you are like Ghost Teague. If you align yourself with me, with my colleagues, you have the chance to make gains the likes of which you’ve only dreamed of.”
“I have plenty of wealth, I assure you.”
“But some things are more appealing than wealth, aren’t they?”
“Such as?”
“Power.” The word dripped lust. His eyes shone. “I’m offering you a chance to be a part of something extraordinary. Businessmen from all walks working together – no longer competing, but cooperating. No shootouts, no sabotage, no hits and vendettas. Just wealth, and power, enough for everyone.”
“Let me guess,” Ian said. “All I have to do is hand the Dogs over to you on a silver platter.”
Luis grinned. “It would be helpful.”
Ian studied him, could almost taste his desperation. He said, “If you have them, and you have the chance for riches and influence, why would you want me?”
Luis blinked.
“Just because I can take out the Dogs for you?”
“I–”
“Or because you’re not reliable enough for them, and you think bringing me along will sweeten the pot?”
Luis studied him in turn a moment. His grin became a snarl. “Because we’re so much alike, you and me. You’ve been fucked. It feels good to be the one fucking for a change.”
Ian knew that it was a stab at his past, but that Luis wasn’t talking about sex in regards to the present, not at all.
A flicker of movement in the outer office caught his gaze, and he was careful not to linger on it. The goons had been facing out, but faced in, now; they hadn’t noticed it.
“You know,” Ian said, “I did use to think that. But I suppose I’ve grown. Fucking is a fleeting, visceral pleasure, to be sure. But it fades. It leaves you hollow. I’ve found that it’s much better to love, and to protect. That’s what feeds the soul.”
Luis frowned. “What–”
Pfft.
Pfft.
Suppressors were so civilized. Ian loved the way they kept gunshots from being loud and rude.
The two guards fell, boneless, dead, seconds after a fine mist of blood bloomed from their throats and into the room. Red mist sprayed across Luis’s face, and he blinked, startled, and turned.
Ian lunged forward, across the desk, never more grateful for his height and length of limb, and stabbed a letter opener into the back of Luis’s hand. The one holding the gun.
He screamed. The hand spasmed, and the gun fell to the carpet.
The black-clad figure in the doorway cracked his gun across the back of Luis’s head. Luis slumped down in the chair, unconscious.
“Well done,” Ian said, panting only a little as he eased back in his chair. Alec’s hand touched him on one side, and Bruce’s on the other. They would be cross with him for being so reckless.
The figure in the door was joined by a second, both lean, their black clothes and gear ill-fitting. The first pushed up his goggles, grinning, to reveal big, blue eyes, creased with mirth. Charlie Fox’s pretty brother.
He glanced down toward Luis, his bleeding hand, and in his true accent said, “I’m impressed.”
Ian winked at him, pleased when it drew a blush. “Me, too, darling. Shall we go down now?”
Forty-Five
A paramedic had draped a blanket across Leah’s shoulders. It was a warm afternoon, but the blanket’s weight was a comfort, and she found