Darkest Before Dawn (KGI #10)(9)

After Maksimov you will be free of this life. It will be time for you to rest.

He nearly gritted his teeth. The whisper bothered him when so little else did. When so little else had the power to affect him. Rest could mean many different things to a man like him. But the one prevailing thought, the suspicion that took hold when nothing else would, was that in this case, rest meant eternal rest. And worse than the thought of it being final was the fact that he didn’t fear it, didn’t feel sadness or regret. All he felt was . . . anticipation. He didn’t share his acceptance of this with his team or with the four people he considered family, the only people in the world who mattered to him. The only people he felt real emotion for. Love. Loyalty. Respect. And the knowledge that he’d die for any one of them. No, if they knew, they’d make it much harder for him. They’d never understand. They’d want him away from this life. They’d want him to live. For them. With them. They’d never understand that he could never adapt to civilian life—normal life. He didn’t even know what normal was. He didn’t fit into a world where everything was black and white, where gray wasn’t accepted. He couldn’t live or exist in a life where if something happened to someone he loved he couldn’t go after the people responsible, couldn’t make them pay. He would be expected to rely on and trust law enforcement and then the justice system to get justice for the person he loved. How f*cked up was that?

He was a law unto himself, and that would never change. God help him, he didn’t want it to change. Never would he sit back and allow someone else to do what was his duty alone.

Bristow was seething with impatience, taking Hancock’s prolonged silence for disdain and insubordination. As much as Hancock wanted to tell him to get f*cked, there was a higher purpose at hand, and Bristow mattered only as much as a pawn used to achieve that higher goal. Hancock wouldn’t get rid of him yet. But he would allow the man to know who was really in control. Bristow would know not to cross Hancock, even as he wouldn’t be certain why. It would be nothing Hancock said—directly. But Bristow would know absolutely.

“You pay me,” Hancock said mildly. “I hired and pay my men. They follow my orders. Never think otherwise.”

Though the statement seemed bland, a simple truth, there was a soft warning that Bristow didn’t misunderstand. For a brief moment fear flashed in the career criminal’s eyes before he visibly chased it away with a shake of his head, a scowl replacing any hint of intimidation. He hated the feeling of inferiority. That Hancock, so rough around the edges, hard and unyielding, not handsome or appealing by anyone’s standards, could possibly make a man like Bristow feel so . . . subservient. And yet he was too aware of Hancock’s power to challenge the man who worked for him. He was . . . afraid . . . of him. And that rankled most of all.

Hancock almost smiled, but he was too disciplined to do so. He wanted the little bastard afraid of him—of his men. And he damn sure wanted the power-hungry warlord to know just where his men’s loyalties lay. It wasn’t with Bristow, and he’d be a fool to ever believe so.

“Now, about this woman,” Hancock said, deliberately bringing them back to the original subject. “What could be so important about a lone woman that you would risk pissing off one of the most powerful men in the world?”

Once again, anger flashed in Bristow’s eyes. Impatience caused a twitch to his right eyelid, and he was barely maintaining a grasp on his temper. With anyone else, he would have already acted. He would have ordered the person who dared to question him and suggest he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world to be killed. And it wouldn’t be a quick merciful death either. Hancock had witnessed Bristow’s depravities firsthand. He’d been forced to participate in order to prove himself. To enter Bristow’s inner circle, gain his trust—and confidence—and position himself as Bristow’s second in command.

The man was foul, and only the knowledge that when Hancock brought down his primary target he would then take out Bristow and dismantle his entire organization had kept him from killing Bristow on the spot. But he needed this man—or rather pawn, as loath as he was to admit it. Any idiot with Bristow’s connections would do. It wasn’t personal to Bristow or any greatness he perceived on his behalf. Maksimov, the primary target, the end goal, was a cagey bastard, and Hancock had come close too many times to count, only for the Russian to elude him.

He was determined that this was his final chase. It would all end here. He would bring down every kingpin in this macabre chain of evil. They preyed on the innocent, providing the necessary tools for anyone with the money and the means to wage war on the innocent. They were the cause of so much bloodshed. Rivers of it. Hundreds of thousands of deaths could be attributed to the links in the chain, but all pieces led to the same man. Maksimov. He had his fingers in every imaginable pie there was. If there was a way to profit from pain, suffering and terrorism, he found it.

Ironically, Maksimov provided equally to opposing factions, no doubt finding it amusing to see groups waging war against one another with weapons he’d provided, his pockets fat from the veritable monopoly he held on arms, explosives, every imaginable military weapon and even the necessary components to build nuclear weapons.

He was on every civilized country’s most-wanted list. He was the most-wanted man in the world, and yet no one had succeeded in taking him down. Over the years, Hancock had tasted failure more times than he wished to remember as he relentlessly pursued Maksimov. Took advantage of avenues to him. Cultivated partnerships with those high up in the chain leading to Maksimov. Were it not for an attack of the very thing he swore he didn’t possess—a conscience—he’d have nailed the bastard twice over.