Erasing Faith(48)

And then he was gone.





Chapter Twenty-Four: WESTON


SUBZERO



My punches rained down on the bag in a steady rhythm. I hadn’t bothered to tape my knuckles or change from my street clothes. As soon as I’d stepped through the door, I’d shrugged off my jacket, crossed to the bag, and started hitting. The rage, the pain I’d been feeling since I left Faith’s apartment — it needed an outlet. With each strike, I recited the two words bouncing around my head like a crazed incantation.

Wesley.

Smack.

Adams.

Smack.

Ten minutes passed.

Twenty. Forty. An hour.

I kept hitting.

My knuckles were raw — bleeding and aching. They hurt like a bitch.

But that pain was a f*cking needle prick, compared to what I’d felt when Faith looked at me with love in her eyes and said another man’s name.

It gutted me.

A knife twisting in my stomach, slicing through sinew and muscle. Rending vital organs to hemorrhaged shreds.

Before I’d met Faith, I didn’t think I had a heart. Now that I knew her, I was sure I didn’t.

For twenty-five years, a solid block of ice resided behind my ribs, and I was better for it. The perfect operative. Cold, detached, numb. No need for useless emotions. No use for the triviality of love.

You can’t miss what you’ve never had.

But in the span of a few weeks, a stubborn, whip-smart, unshakeable girl had melted my subzero shell. With one look, one laugh, one touch, she’d dissolved all the defenses no one else had even gotten close enough to see. And when she’d exposed the shriveled, unused, underdeveloped organ inside my chest — the laughable excuse for a heart that hadn’t pumped since I was small — she ripped it, still beating, from the cavity and claimed it for her own.

So, I could hit the damn bag until my hands fell off.

The pain would never come close to the searing agony inside my empty chest.

***

“Abbott.”

“I need a status report.” Benson’s voice snapped over the line.

Breathing deeply, I tried to mask the contempt in my tone before I responded. “I’m surveilling the interior of the Hermes offices as we speak.”

My eyes remained riveted on the screen of my laptop. The picture was bouncing slightly, the rhythmic movement of Faith’s steps making the camera on her messenger bag sway as she walked the halls. I reached out a hand and pressed a series of buttons to mute the volume feed and dim the picture.

“And?” Benson prompted.

Ass.

“I have audio and visual.” My jaw clenched.

“Anything actionable?” His voice was patronizing. “Or are you just monitoring the girls’ locker room to get your rocks off?”

I began to grind my teeth. “I’ve ID’d six operatives from the internal footage. One of them is Szekely’s nephew.” Konrad’s face flashed in my mind and I felt an uncomfortable sensation in my chest. I liked the kid — it was a shame he’d gotten himself snarled in this shit. “I bugged a baseball cap and gave it to him as a souvenir – hopefully, he’ll be wearing it next time he visits his uncle’s compound.”

“How old is he?”

“Sixteen.”

“Good. The young ones always break faster in interrogation.” Benson’s voice was smug. As if he’d ever interrogated anyone except the intern who finished the last doughnut from the box in the staff break room.

“We might be able to use him as leverage, but I doubt he knows much about the true nature of his uncle’s company.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Plus, Szekely isn’t the sentimental type. You could cut off his nephew’s hand and ship it to his doorstep via one of his own couriers— I doubt it would faze him. He won’t do anything to jeopardize his empire. Not even for family.”

“Well, we’ll see about that,” Benson blustered. Even when he knew he was wrong, he couldn’t admit it. “What do you have in terms of layout intel?”

“I’m reverse-engineering a map of the building from recorded images, sewer plans, and old blueprints. I should have a complete picture in a week. Two weeks, max.”

“Make it one.”

I began to pound a fist against the metal desk in sharp, metronomic hits that made the bones in my hand ache. My eyes followed the blinking red dot on the city map monitor, as Faith hopped on her bike and headed out for another run.

“Do you have access to deliveries in transit?”

“Limited.” I bit out the word like a curse, remembering how shitty I’d felt when I searched Faith’s messenger bag, opening each parcel and photographing the documents inside for later study. If she ever found out…

“Abbott, I’m not f*cking around. We need actionable material, and we need it yesterday.”

“You don’t think I know that?”

A frosty silence blasted over the line. “Speak to me like that again, and I’ll transfer your ass back here behind a desk so fast you’ll have perpetual whiplash.”

God, even his threats were pathetic. The worst pain he could even contemplate inflicting on someone was akin to a slight neck twinge. I tried not to laugh.

“Sorry, sir,” I sneered. “I’ve made contact with a few local sources. There are rumors that Szekely is working on something big. A new prototype.”