Surviving Ice (Burying Water #4)(102)

Despite everything, I smile. “Thanks, man.” It’s been a long time since I’ve relied on anyone but myself, and here I am relying on a bunch of criminals. “Just . . . take care of her.” I hang up and toss the phone into the console in time to pull up to my parents’ house.

And take a deep breath. I had a feeling I’d be visiting again, sooner rather than later.

My dad answers the door with a frown. “Twice in two days.”

“I know.” I lock eyes with him, swallowing my fear that he’ll say he won’t help me. Besides Ivy, he’s the only one I trust. “I need your help and I don’t have a lot of time to explain.”

He looks over his shoulder and then steps out, shutting the door behind him.

I pull a phone and a slip of paper out of my pocket. “There is a sensitive video on this phone that I want you to have a copy of. Don’t watch it. And on the paper is the information for a safety-deposit box in Zurich. It has you marked as next of kin, should anything ever happen to me.” I hand it to him. “I need you to make sure these two things are safe. And use the contents, if something happens to me.”

His frown turns to understanding. “I don’t want to know what this is about, do I?” His voice has taken on that stern, no-nonsense tone that has given me both comfort and fear all my life.

I shake my head. “Not unless you don’t hear back from me.”

He nods and, with a moment’s hesitation, adds, “Be safe.”

“I will be,” I promise, though I can’t be sure that my next stop won’t guarantee a bullet in my head.

“You found me.” Bentley fingers a vine, empty of fruit and ready for winter’s slumber. “I didn’t expect you here so soon.”

“Your wife gave me directions.” With a smile and a bat of her eyelashes, all while the cold metal of my gun pressed against my back and I considered using her as leverage.

Bentley doesn’t seem at all concerned by my presence. He doesn’t seem intent on anything but the grapes, and the western skies, where the sun is slow to set. “There’s something therapeutic about this place after it’s been harvested. Have you ever seen grapevines in the winter?”

“No. Not that I’ve noticed, anyway.”

“Well, I guess they’re like any plant. They look dead, incapable of ever coming back to life. Of ever producing anything again. And yet they do, year after year, as long as you protect their roots.”

It seems like such a casual conversation. If I weren’t on edge, I might enjoy it.

But I don’t have time to waste here. “Why’d you lie to me?”

He pauses, a dried leaf against his palm. “What was I going to tell you? That I lost control of some of my operatives? That the last boy scout was going to sink Alliance because of it?” He sounds defeated.

“So you did know what was going on over there. What Scalero was doing.”

His silence answers me.

“When did it become about money, John? Don’t you have enough of that?”

“It’s not about the money!” he fires back, his anger flaring. Finally. But he tempers it just as quickly. “You know as well as I do what happens to human instincts when they’ve succumbed to that world over there. To that kind of life.”

“No, not everyone loses themselves like that.” We all lose something, but basic decency . . . no. Not most of us, anyway. I’d love to say that all the stories of soldiers going off course are wrong, but that would be a lie.

Some people would say that I went off course long ago.

“If you knew what was going on, why didn’t you stop it?”

He sighs. “I didn’t know until it was too late.”

“Bullshit.”

Weary eyes settle on me. Bentley looks like he’s aged years since I saw him last. “Believe what you want, but it’s true. Alliance has grown beyond anything I ever expected,” he admits. “It’s beyond anything I want. I’ve been in talks with investors for over a year now. People who want to buy me out and take over. They have all kinds of ideas for running internal affairs and managing people. They’ll be good for the company’s future. Talks stalled for a while during the investigation into the civilian shooting in Kandahar, but they’re back on now, and people are ready to sign. Had that videotape surfaced, everything would have fallen apart.”

“So it is about the money.”

“To the investors, it’s all about the money. If they can’t get contracts, there’s no point buying Alliance. They want the expertise and connections I’ve established. The good parts. There are a lot of good parts, still, Sebastian. You are a good part.”

“I’m not a part of Alliance.”

He smiles. “No, you’re not. You could be, though.”

He’s trying to offer me an olive branch. I don’t want it. “You used me. Lied right to my face. You and I, we don’t do that to each other.”

“You would never have agreed to this assignment otherwise. I needed that videotape and you’re the best at what you do. You always have been. Even now, when I’m guessing you’re about to f*ck me over.” Bentley reaches into his pocket and I immediately move to grab my gun. He pulls out a loose cigarette and lighter, his hands raised as if to prove his innocence. “So, what’s your plan here, exactly?”