Then again, he’d always been able to sense evil.
Some men were born with that presence. Others cultivated it and fooled most people by substituting confidence in its place.
“You’ll never be better than me.” Landon’s final words before putting him into the car with the men who would beat him nearly to death.
He was sure Landon had spotted him first, though, and that pissed him off.
They were a quarter of a mile from the nearest houses that dotted the beaches here—most of them vacation homes, expensive, rarely used. This was one of the many perfect places to live for anyone who didn’t want scrutiny from neighbors or the law.
“You’re living here now?” Gunner asked.
“I’m on vacation,” Drew Landon told him. Landon was the son of a small-time smuggler who’d taken over his father’s business and grown it to epic proportions. He was ruthless and brilliant.
He was a killer, although he made others do his dirty work.
“It’s done?”
“You have to ask?” Gunner handed him the small bag he’d swum with fastened to his waist.
“Yes.”
Gunner looked at his watch. “Three, two, o—”
By the time he’d finished one, the explosion rang out across the ocean. Plumes of smoke rose above the water, although it was impossible to see the burning wreckage of the yacht from here.
Landon nodded, satisfied. “Not sorry to see the asshole go.”
“You’ll leave them alone.”
It was a statement, not a question, and it made Landon bristle. “Is this about them or you?”
“I made the decision, but there’s no reason they should pay for that.”
“They killed Powell.”
Gunner stared Landon down. “I killed my father. Make no mistake about that.”
“You’re a cold fuck, James. Always were.”
“That’s what you like best about me.”
“I was hoping you hadn’t gone soft.” Landon stared at the burning boat in the distance. “You didn’t even give them a chance to get on the life rafts.”
The luxury yacht was named El Coyote, which made Gunner’s job of wiring the boat to blow, with its four passengers trapped inside, not as chilling. Human traffickers didn’t deserve an easy death. “Didn’t think they deserved that.”
Landon stared at him like he was trying to figure something out. When he didn’t, he looked inside the bag Gunner had handed him and rifled through its contents with a nod.
“Welcome back. This one was to get you warmed up.”
“Done. What’s next?” But Gunner knew the drill—jobs interspersed with bouts of drinking, fucking and trying to forget. He’d done it for so long it was like riding a bike. The sick part was that it felt natural. And that’s what scared him the most. The facade of Gunner, the karma he’d adopted had felt good—right, even—but it never felt natural. It was always a game of pretend.
This is you trying to convince yourself that you’re bad, Josie chided in his ear. She wasn’t with him all the time like that, just when he thought about going over to the dark side. And this was about as dark as it got.
He was bad. Look at where he came from.
“Some people are lucky enough to be born into their destiny—you were one of them. Stop trying to throw it all away.” His father’s final words to him before dropping him off at Landon’s place.
Gunner had never asked why before. At first, it was because he hadn’t been allowed to and then because it hadn’t really mattered. It would only make him feel worse, and his goal was not to feel at all.
But this time, he needed to know. He was in it for good. “Why did I kill him?”
“Would you feel better if I said it was because he was a bad man dealing in human trafficking?”
Gunner stared him down. When they’d first met, Gunner was five foot nine and lanky. Within a year, he’d grown taller than Landon. Broader, stronger, at least physically.
It was at that point he’d learned the most important lesson of all. Physical strength was no match for mental strength.
“Fine,” Landon relented. “He screwed me. And if I let that go with a simple warning, I’ll get walked on. You know this business.”
Gunner did. A don’t fuck with me message was the only way. “I want to know the reasons behind every job.”
“I don’t have a partner for a reason.”
“You’ve got one now,” Gunner told him. “If we’re getting into bed, I’m getting in all the goddamned way.”
Landon reached out and touched Gunner’s bare chest. He fixed the necklace after laying his palm over Gunner’s heart. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. You’d better not be screwing with me.”
“I’ve been waiting too.” Waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for everything to be taken away from him. The time was here. And Landon hadn’t answered his question about S8. “They won’t come after me. I made sure of it.”
“You’ll do what I say. Just because I tell you why doesn’t mean you get to say no.” Landon smiled a little. “I’ll leave your precious Section 8 alone as long as they do the same.”
Could Gunner assure him of that? No. But he’d do everything in his power to make sure he and Landon remained off the grid. Even Powell didn’t know much about Landon beyond his last name. The man was a legend, a ghost in a Keyser Soze kind of way. Ever changing.
The fact that Gunner had lived after seeing his face and leaving his payroll made him something of a legend in these circles too. A lot of people thought that James Connor-Powell didn’t exist.
Gunner didn’t let them ever think differently.
“Keep in mind, if you go missing again, I’ll hunt you down. And you’d better pray I find you captured and not running.”
“Understood.”
“I know you hate me, James, but this is who you are. This is your legacy. Embrace it, the way your parents did. You do realize that the only time you get into trouble is when you fight what’s natural to you, right? When you try to break away from your roots, innocent people die.”
Gunner looked down to see the blood running down his hand. He’d probably cut it along the hull of the ship, had been lucky not to attract sharks to him.
He glanced up at Landon. Any more sharks, at least.
He looked back down, watched the blood drip off his fingers onto the sand.
Blood and sand.
That’s all it would be from now on. Blood and sand.
Chapter Four
Being inside Gunner’s shop was like taking a bullet every time Avery walked inside. It hurt worse knowing this would be the last time.
Back at the hotel, her suitcase was packed, her ticket booked to some island resort where she could drink and sun and lose herself. Follow her own advice to the others.
Her flight left in two hours and there was no turning back. No reason to, especially now, she thought from where she stood in the center of the room, close to the table where Gunner had tattooed her.
She’d thought about calling Grace. Grace, of all people, knew what Gunner must’ve grown up with. Gunner’s father had taken her in, adopted her and then attempted to destroy her, just because he wanted to see if she could survive.
But she’d tried to talk to him and Gunner hadn’t wanted to listen. If Grace couldn’t have convinced him to stay, to save him from his past, Avery probably shouldn’t have thought she could’ve been the one to do it either.
But she had. Still did.
And you let him go. Again.
“It was for the best,” she said firmly, her hand rubbing the soft leather of his favorite tattoo chair. “It was the right thing to do.”