Surviving Ice (Burying Water #4)(30)

“Seriously, Fez. Stop talking.” I can’t listen to that all night. If it wasn’t dangerous to put earplugs in around here, I would.

He waves his middle finger at me in response, but he takes no offense. He’s used to being told to shut up by Ned, every time he came in to deliver a pizza.

The ball in the bottom of the can rattles with my shake, as I size up the wall before me. It’s already been marred by taggers. Talentless fools with a can of paint. Nothing I can’t cover, though, and I will, even if it takes me all night.

“Who wants?” A guy I only know as Joker waves a bottle of Don Q in the air, his beady eyes settling on me first.

“Rum. Gross. Not me.”

The others flock to it, but I pull out my flask of whiskey instead, taking a small swig of it before I climb to the top of the three-step ladder. Not too much. Just enough to ease the tension out of my limbs.

With a spray can in my hand, I’m already feeling better.

TEN

SEBASTIAN

I have an obsession with time that I can’t readily cater to here, in my dark, dusty corner of this dump, the stench of urine and vomit permeating the stale air. Any flicker of light from my phone or my watch will go noticed, if not by the group of four graffiti artists in my line of sight, then by the many crackheads and vagrants that hide out like rats in rafters.

Watching with interest. Or, perhaps, for opportunity.

I’m really no different.

The last time I checked, it was two in the morning. Hours must have passed since, but Ivy doesn’t seem ready to leave yet. She must be a nocturnal creature, like me.

Ivy.

I’m no longer thinking of her generically. She’s no longer simply “the girl” in my thoughts.

Worse, I gave her my real name. Why the f*ck did I give her my real name? I never do that and yet, in a split-second decision, I convinced myself that I wanted to. That it was harmless, because she’s not guilty of anything, and I’m not going to hurt her.

At least, I don’t want to hurt her.

I do need her to trust me, though. I found nothing of any interest in the dead shop owner’s files. No property holdings, no safety-deposit boxes, nothing. Which means I have no choice but to get my answers out of her, one way or another.

Either Ivy’s a fantastic liar or she doesn’t know a thing about this videotape, or her uncle’s blackmail attempt. She’s just a twenty-five-year-old tattoo artist with a prickly exterior, who lost her father figure and is trying to move on.

It will take creativity now, to question her about the existence of this videotape without her realizing it. To find out where her uncle may have hidden it. It will take time. I guess it’s good that I’ve had this grim reaper tattoo in mind for the better part of five years.

The day I received my official discharge letter from the U.S. Navy, Bentley pulled up next to my parents’ San Francisco house where I was staying and told me to get in the car. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, or what he would be proposing. He had left the navy a year prior, and took his skills, his reputation, and his family money, and founded Alliance. It was still very much in its infancy stage then, but he had big ideas and even bigger connections, which were already landing him major security contracts in Afghanistan, the exact place we had been battling suicide attacks and ambushes while we toured together.

I hoped that he would hire me to go back, to continue putting my skills to use. To prove myself.

But he had other plans for me. I was someone he trusted like no other, someone he would pay well. Someone he needed to execute assignments that are never documented, that no one “officially” talks about, and that the world would never have any proof actually existed.

I would become a reaper of sorts, delivering an end to those who needed it.

Without medals, without fanfare, but with quiet honor.

Getting this tattoo buys me seven hours with Ivy. And if that’s not enough, I’ll have to buy myself more time in other ways. Maybe that’s what drove me to bait her earlier, lifting my shirt to my forehead to wipe the sweat off my brow. A childhood of Krav Maga and boxing lessons, two years of intensive SEAL training, and almost eight years of daily conditioning have honed my body into what most women want.

I already know that she finds me attractive because of last night’s phone conversation with her friend, but if she noticed my not-so-subtle move, she didn’t let on. Her ability to school her expression, to feign indifference is impressive. Or maybe this idiot, with his spiky black-and-blue hair and pants hanging halfway off his bony ass, and holes in his ears where the metal rings have stretched his flesh out—maybe that’s what breaks her out of her hard shell.

I had hoped to find that out tonight, instead of lurking here in the shadows. But that f*cking biker showed up. She didn’t want to work on him, she wanted me. I could tell. And she was protecting me by stepping in. Worried about me going up against a soft, slow man on a motorcycle. Probably assumed I didn’t recognize the insignia, because why would I? Why would I familiarize myself with the gang the police are focusing their efforts on in her uncle’s murder?

I could have had that guy in the Dumpster with the rest of the trash in under ten seconds. If Ivy wasn’t standing right there, I might have. But I had to step away instead, because taking him on would have caused a scene, and I need to be a ghost. So I climbed back into my car and waited on the street for hours, until I saw her little Honda whip around the corner and head home.