Page 4 of Seeking Salvation

“So am I, Linton,” Mitch replied. “I should’ve stayed or looked out for you when Devon died, and I didn’t. I was a coward.”

Allen felt emotion choke him as he remembered the good times he’d had as a child. They’d played football with jumpers as goalposts, rode bikes, and had been family. He and Devon had practically lived at Mitch’s home, his mother feeding them and lavishing them with maternal love. It was only as they grew up and left him behind that things changed. Mitch and Devon had been dragged into a world that was virtually impossible to escape and left him behind.

“No, you tried to save him, I know you did. I never blamed you, Mitch. I’m happy you found a beautiful life.” Allen glanced behind him to see Autumn cuddling Maggie, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

Mitch glanced back at him, his eyes wet with emotion. “I want you to know that same beauty.”

“Too late for me.”

“Don’t say that. You’ll live or I’ll kick your ass.”

“Time to move.”

As he was rushed from the room on a stretcher, he felt the tiny flicker of regret that he wouldn’t live to see Maggie grow up. Then he felt nothing but the peace of the medication pumping through his veins.

Jack, the steely-eyed leader of Eidolon, stood over his bed, his entire demeanour that of a man who wanted him dead. Allen understood it, he’d shot his sister-in-law, a woman Jack loved like a sister. She was family to him. Allen focused through the fog of pain and weakness on the piece of paper Jack was holding out to him with a wry sense of self-preservation.

“If you accept this, your old life is gone. You’ll be dead, and anyone you know will believe that to be the case. Your money, your contacts, family, and friends are all gone, but you’ll be free.”

Allen looked back at him, intelligence failing him as he tried to understand this wild offer. He was prepared to live with the regret and weight of his actions and had accepted that his soul would never be whole, but he’d never seen this coming.

“What do you get out of this?”

Jack gave him a grudging look of respect at the question. Even as this man offered him a way out, he still questioned it. He was barely conscious but his desire to live had been as strong as the surgeon’s skills in saving him.

“You are just the kind of careful, suspicious, dangerous man I need inside the network I’m building. I’ve realised, in the last year, that having good men inside Eidolon isn’t enough. I need people inside the underbelly of the criminal world—men and women who can blend in.”

Allen would have been insulted if he wasn’t so intrigued by the idea of the proposition.

“Rykov Anatolievich is our first recruit. When we first met five years ago, he’d been rising through the ranks of the Russian Bratva, now he’s the man giving the orders. Rykov is cruel, deadly, and swift to punish anyone who even questions his word. But he’s also smart, and he knew having Eidolon as an enemy would cost him more than a tentative peace treaty would. I’m going to assume you’re as smart, given what I’ve seen from you. I’ve forged similar relationships with other networks around the globe. I’ve got eyes and ears in places only the lost live.”

It made sense to Allen to have that kind of network; it was a smart move. Like having an undercover force that didn’t have the same stifling restrictions of the law. But did he want to be part of that and subject himself to these people? “If I refuse?”

“Then you’ll go to a maximum-security prison for the rest of your life for the crimes you’ve committed.”

Jack’s tone was matter-of-fact, but Allen preferred that. “Not much of a choice, really.”

Jack shrugged. “Not my concern.”

“What about Mitch? Will he know?”

“My men are not pawns. They’re the lifeblood of Eidolon and secrets have a way of poisoning that, so, yes, he’ll know. They all will.”

“I want Mitch as my contact inside Eidolon.”

“No. I won’t have Mitch compromised.”

“Then who?”

“Whoever I see fit.”

Jack was a worthy opponent throughout this, and he knew working for him would be a challenge, but it would also allow him to begin to right his wrongs. Jack handed him a card with just a handwritten number on it, turned, and headed for the door.

“The offer expires at midnight.”

He lay in a medication-induced stupor and thought about his life up to this point. He’d made so many mistakes in his life. Would this be another one or was this the chance he had always needed? He lifted his hands and looked at the brown skin but saw only the blood he’d spilled. So much blood, so much pain.

At five minutes to midnight, he made the call that would change his life, he just hoped it would be for the better.

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