Anarchy Found (SuperAlpha, #1)(50)

I slip my hands into the soft leather and a sigh actually escapes as I flex my fingers. They are big on me and I like that. I like his hands, even though he hides them from me.

Why send them to me? Because I asked him to take them off last night and he refused? Maybe it’s not a truce. More of a white flag? No, it can’t be surrender. I don’t see Lincoln as a man who surrenders so easily.

They’re a calling card, like the symbol he left behind on that man’s forehead. Like the printouts of his crimes plastered all over his cave.

Maybe he’s telling me there’s room for negotiation. If that’s the case, I owe him another meeting, right? I can’t just walk away if he’s got an offer on the table. At least not until I hear him out.

I know I’m rationalizing, but after I lost Will I got depressed because I had no more connections in this world. I left my life in the military behind, even though I would never count anyone I was working with as family—it’s not like I was in combat, for f*ck’s sake. It’s not like my co-workers and I were bonded by death and destruction, by sacrifice and survival. It was security. And yeah, it was high-level security, not mall-cop shit. But they were mainly acquaintances.

Lincoln might be the only person on this whole planet I would count as family. We were made for each other. Should I really walk away from that if he’s willing to talk through it with me?

The speed limit is generally something I obey, but not tonight. I race home as fast as I can, zigzagging my way through traffic and speeding up to avoid red lights. I park the bike in the garage, set the stand, and take my helmet off, setting it on the seat. The door in the garage that connects to the house is partly ajar.

I was right. He was calling me home with those gloves.

My heart flutters with excitement and anticipation. Fear too, if I’m being honest.

When I walk through the kitchen the first thing I see is Lincoln Wade sitting at my table. His bare hands are folded neatly in front of him and even though I can’t say for certain that he wasn’t covering them up with gloves to keep the blood off them as he murdered people, I can say for certain that was not why he took them off tonight.

Because both of his palms are glowing bright red.





Chapter Thirty-One - Lincoln




“No squad cars following you in?” I ask Molly.

“Not yet,” she says, stepping into the house and kicking the door closed behind her. “But don’t think I won’t call them, Lincoln.”

I shrug with my hands and her eyes track to my palms. She stares hard at them for several seconds before breaking away and looking for my face. “Did you get a good look?” I ask. “It’s what you wanted, right?”

“Not really.” She draws in a deep breath, her eyes darting back to the light that is now yellow-orange. My heart is still beating fast, but not as fast as it was when she first appeared. “What are they?”

“You don’t know what happened to me,” I say, returning to our conversation from this morning. “And you can say things like I chose Case and Thomas over you, or that I walked out, or that I’m a sick monster who deserves to be put down like a dog. You can say all that. And even if it’s not all one hundred percent true, it’s all partially true. I did choose Case and Thomas, but not for the reasons you think.”

“Is that why you’re here? To make me feel special?” she asks, walking over to the table and pulling out a chair. She takes a seat and I can see the weariness in her face. She’s tired.

But I’m tired too. “I’m tired of pretending. If you love me, and that’s a big if, then you need to love me, Molly. Not Alpha. Not your idea of me as Alpha. Not the fantasy that we are soulmates or lovers interrupted.”

“What are you?” she asks. “What are we?” She’s been thinking since I saw her this morning. Reevaluating, maybe. Time has always been my friend. I am patient. It’s an innate quality inside me. A trait I was born with. It’s surprising considering how impatient I am with most people. But this… scheme we’ve been working towards—I have endless patience for the vengeance I’ve imagined over the years. I will only get one chance at revenge. One chance to retaliate. Once chance to make it right. And all of that has depended on more than a decade of planning and plotting with Case and Thomas to get to this precise point in time.

I hold up a palm and it flashes an orange light bright enough to cast a glow across her face. “It’s an electromagnetic field.”

She blinks.

“A magnet,” I explain.

“Why would they put magnets in your hands?”

“They didn’t,” I say calmly. I’ve never had to explain this to anyone. Case was there. Thomas wasn’t there when I did it, but he was there in the beginning. He knew it was going to happen and he knew why it was happening. And I’m sure his little visit to Mac’s last weekend was a not-so-gentle reminder that this job is about more than me. “I put the magnets in there. There’s a lot of reasons attached to that answer, Molly. But the important one is that they started something with me back when I was a kid. They changed me. And you helped them.”

She shakes her head. “I was forced.”

“I’m not trying to blame you, Molly. I’m just stating facts. No one is holding an eight-year-old responsible for this,” I say, holding up my glowing palms. “Least of all me. The Prodigy School used you to keep me in line. They made you send electrical current through my body—”