The Wild Charge (Dartmoor Book 9)

Twenty-Eight

"Aw, poor baby."

Luis jerked his head to the side as Mercy moved to touch his face, where a nasty bruise was coming up just beneath his left eye. They'd chained his hands and hooked him to one of the old halter rings in the trailer before Walsh hitched Emmie's truck to it and spent the entirety of the FBI search hauling him all across the city. Still, there was no way to be truly secure in the back of a trailer.

"Fuck off," Luis muttered, twisting away so he sat sideways in the straw. "The bucket turned over."

"Yeah, I can smell it, mon ami. If you're sweet, maybe I'll send one of the prospects to clean it up."

Unhappy muttering followed, and Mercy pulled the plastic-wrapped sandwich he'd brought from his cut pocket and dropped it to the straw between Luis's feet. "Here. Bon appétit."

He turned for the door, and Luis said, "Why did you need me out of the way today? Who raided your base?"

Mercy paused, and glanced back over his shoulder. The little shit was grinning now, sly and snide.

Mercy offered a smile of his own, all teeth, one that had proven capable of sending better men stumbling back. As hoped, Luis's smile slipped, and he sank down into the collar of his shirt.

He didn't back down fully, though. "That's why I had to be bounced around in this shitty box, isn't it? You got searched. Local? Or," his eyes caught a stray beam of light coming through the slats, glittering and dark, "federal?" The last he said with obvious relish.

Mercy kept his own smile firmly in place, and turned to face him fully, taking a breath that he knew lifted his shoulders even higher and wider, just for the sake of watching Luis shrink a little more. "Oh, don't you worry your pretty little head about it. Whoever it is, they can't reach you. You're all ours."

That got a gratifying squirm out of the little punk. But, as Mercy made to turn again, he said, "You know, that other one – the English one – he said I should be more afraid of him than you."

Mercy knew when he was being taunted by a petulant child. He said, "Oh, yeah. Him? He's insane. Absolutely nuts."

A muscle in Luis's face twitched.

"He gets really pissed off – you never know what he might do." Mercy grinned again. "Whereas with me, I'll always tell you exactly what I'm gonna do before I do it." Casually, he drew the knife in his front pocket and flicked it open, tilted it so the incoming slant of light glinted along the serrated blade. "No one likes surprises, after all."

Luis suitably pale, now, and no longer smiling, Mercy stepped out of the trailer and locked its squealing rear door.

It was high time, he thought, that he pulled Tenny aside for a chat.

~*~

Ian loved New York. It was a love tempered by ugly memories, old ghosts long since laid to rest, but hovering, regardless, at the edges of his conscience. It helped to remember the weight of a gun in his hands, and Ghost's grave, encouraging face; his gift of revenge, and the cleansing absolution of violence returned.

Ghost.

He didn't want to think of him now.

He'd looked back on what had happened that morning during the flight up, champagne in one hand, Alec's fingers laced through the fingers of the other, and had been removed enough to acknowledge that, in its own twisted way, Ghost's thoughtless grab had been a display of intimacy. Of sorts. It had been thoughtless instinct; he'd touched him the way he would have touched one of his Dogs, the way he would have touched his own son. Aidan was always in need of being dragged into stern lectures. It was a sign of acceptance: Ghost viewed Ian as one of his own. Maybe even as family – the Christmas dinners lent credence to that, for sure.