“Why?” Caleb swore. “Damn it, Owen. Why didn’t you take care of this when I told you to? We could have nailed Henry and Carl at the same time.”
“I know. But I couldn’t take Carl out, not then. I had no idea he’d turn out to be worse than his brother and father combined.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” They stared at each other. “So. You’re here, and you’re going to help me.”
Caleb just looked at him.
“And let me guess, you need my help on another job in the meantime?”
Caleb nodded. “I told them to go to someone else, that you’re done, but the admiral specifically requested you by name.”
Admiral London didn’t pull in favors unless he absolutely needed them. “Must be important.”
“Oh it is.” Caleb stopped talking and sent out a psychic probe Owen immediately recognized. Though it had been over two years since he and Caleb had worked together on a job, he knew the man’s energy. “I don’t sense any other telepaths in the vicinity.”
“We’re clear. The only psychics close by are you, me, and Ian.”
“Your new boy toy. Man, he was killing me with that glare. How do you get them to be so attached?”
“If only. I think he was more irritated with you than me.” Owen wanted to think all Ian had felt was jealousy, but he’d genuinely been annoyed with Caleb on Jack and Gavin’s behalf.
“Yeah, well, he’s one to watch. I’m telling you. He ran our guys through more hoops than I can say ten years ago, and that’s when he was just a kid. Ian Ryder has more aliases than I have fingers and toes. Watch him.”
“Trust me. I’m watching him very closely.” Owen smiled.
“For God’s sake. Get that sex crap out of my head. You put one bad image there, I’ll gut you, friend or not.”
Owen laughed. “Right. So who do you need taken out?”
“Small-time drug runner in Venezuela who happens to be a serial rapist slash killer on the side. We can’t touch him, because he’s got ties to someone high up on the president’s food chain. And he’s feeding money into a few of our own senators’ pockets. Watch the news, and you’ll see them step down later in the week.”
“So you want this guy taken care of soon.”
Caleb nodded. “Like, in two days. I’m flying out on Sunday to get a bead on him. I’ve gotten even tighter since we’ve worked together. Now I only need to be in the same city once I make initial contact.” Caleb mentally connected with a target, unbeknownst to the target, and then left the immediate vicinity. Back when Owen had last worked with him, Caleb had needed to be within a much closer radius to effectively hone a beacon for Owen, yet Owen could be miles away while inflicting damage.
“Nice.”
“Yeah. So I can be right with you when we take him down. You hit him; we fly you right out. No one’s the wiser.”
Owen wondered. “Unless he has his own team of psychics. I’ve been monitoring the situation abroad. More and more governments are using teams like the PWP. In all eventuality, our guys will need to start up again.”
“They already have,” Caleb admitted.
“What?” Owen said aloud, shocked.
“Quiet, Owen. Admiral London and his wife have been working on a new team, one put directly under their control.”
Owen blinked. “You’re talking about more than psychics, then.”
Caleb paused. “Yes.”
“Shit. Circs? They’re going to use Circs again?” Owen had seen some of the Circs—genetically altered soldiers and sailors—lose their minds during the initial stage of the project, and he’d immediately withdrawn his funding, disapproving of the project with every fiber of his being. Men who could shape-shift into larger, tougher beings with hardened skin, claws, and fangs might seem like ultimate warriors, but when they turned psycho, they’d been a nightmare of epic proportions. From what he knew, the entire project had been cut, slashed and burned years ago.
“Trust me. The Circs they have now police their own. But that’s a whole other discussion. We’re talking about bringing the Fixer back,” Caleb said.
The Fixer, Owen’s alias in wet-work—assassination—circles.
“You leaking word of my involvement, then?”
“Hell, no. We want this op to succeed.” Caleb sighed. “But man, I miss working with you. You’re the best at this, Owen. Clean, no mess, no fuss. The guys I work with now always have issues. A bunch of prima donnas, or else they’re not right in the head.”
“You’d know,” Owen teased, but he wasn’t quite right either. Killing because it was the right thing to do for his country had been enough of an excuse to use his dark power as a young man, but as he’d gotten older, it had been harder to justify taking a life, even as horrible as his targets had been. He didn’t take the government’s word on it; Owen researched his marks thoroughly before agreeing to eliminate them. “Let me work on this a bit. Give me his name, and once I’m satisfied, I’ll get with you to ferret out the specifics.”
Caleb knew his process. “Sounds good. I’ll bring my stuff in and get settled, then talk with your security. The Knoxes are good men. But they’re not cheap.”
“I know,” Owen said smoothly.
Caleb chuckled. “Rich bastard. Okay, I’ll leave you to it.” He withdrew a small card from his pocket and handed it to Owen, then left.
A pass code to sensitive material on a top-secret government server. Good old Caleb. Like Owen, he didn’t believe in being a tool to be used by anyone unless he allowed it—a concept Caleb had found out the hard way.
Owen sat behind his desk and tapped at the keyboard of his secure computer. And then he went to work. Two hours later, engrossed in the material he’d been reading, he found the answers he’d sought.
Morvelo DeSanta, the Animal, had to go.
“What the fuck am I doing here with your crap?” Keegan Price asked, not very happy as he glared at Ian, then glanced up at Tim.
That Keegan had to look up at anyone made Ian want to chuckle with glee. “Thanks, buddy. I know I probably took you from something important. Like pumping up your deltoids some more. But hey, Owen ordered me to stay here for a few weeks, so I needed my stuff.”
“Why not call Chloe?”
The night manager at the gym—and the woman he liked best—should have been off today with her twin boyfriends. Or fiancés. Whatever they called themselves.
“She’s on a break right now.”
“So am I,” Keegan barked. “I have the next three days off. I was busy.”
“I’m so sorry.” Ian would have fluttered his eyelashes, but he knew Keegan wouldn’t buy it. “If I’d known, I would have asked Jack to have someone else help me out. But with Rory being Owen’s cousin, and since I knew she’d be busy working, I just thought you’d help me out.”
Keegan let out a sigh. “No, no. It’s fine. But I hate Jack taking so much damn pleasure calling my ass in to work.” He frowned.
Another reason why Ian had chosen Keegan. Jack would have had a blast, egging the big guy on. For some reason, Jack and Keegan constantly butted heads, as if Keegan continued to challenge him for a leadership position everyone knew belonged to Jack. Though Keegan had once admitted he only riled Jack for the fun of it.
“That’s Jack for you.” Ian nodded with empathy while Tim looked on, his face expressionless. “You know Tim, right?”