Page 16 of On the Double

“You did put him out of his misery,” I tried, failing miserably.

“You’re right. I killed my own brother. I put a bullet in his head and ended his life.” He turned to face me fully. It felt like he grew five feet just with that single move. “I pulled the trigger to ensure he wouldn’t feel the fire killing every nerve ending in his body. I used my training from the military against my own flesh and blood.”

Man, this really wasn’t going the way I planned.

“I watched his head snap back and the life leave his eyes.”

Okay, I may have miscalculated how this whole thing was going to go.

“And you think a week later, I need to move on?”

My nose twitched as I felt a sneeze coming on. It tended to happen at the worst times. Somehow, I made it through the military with not a single sneeze interfering with my duties, but five minutes with my boss, and I was ready to go into a huge sneezing fit.

I opened my mouth, but found it difficult to actually say anything. I looked up, avoiding eye contact as I tried to come up with something I could say to get myself out of the shitstorm I’d started.

“You know, moving on is an odd concept,” I went with.

“Odd, like this conversation?” he asked.

“You could say that.”

“Edu, I’m gonna need you to explain something to me.”

Here it came. “Sure, boss.”

“What exactly were you trying to achieve by lighting my office on fire?”

My eyes flicked to IRIS who was standing a few feet away, staring proudly at his work. “Boss, I’m gonna lay it on the line for you. We need some jobs. I know you want a good fight, and you want that fight to be with The Syndicate, but meanwhile, there are jobs waiting for us. And if we keep turning them down, we’re not going to have the resources to keep fighting.”

“It’s been a fucking week.”

“A week of no teams going on jobs,” I pointed out. “What’s going to happen next week? Are we going to turn down even more? Because the fact is, we may not get another shot at The Syndicate. The government is dismantling them as we speak. The leaders are running like crazy.”

“And as they run, someone needs to go after them and make sure they never get a chance to set up shop anywhere else around the world.”

“You know that’ll happen again. Boss, it may not be the same men, but this will all start again. For every bad guy we take down, another pops up.”

“So, we just stop fighting?”

“No, we fight the battles we know we can win,” I argued. “You have a family, boss. Remember that. Look at what happened to Rafe. Libby left during the funeral. She was so pissed at him?—”

“Because he gave his life to save my sister,” he snapped.

I took a deep breath and said the words he desperately needed to hear. “Because he chose a greater cause over her. It was admirable. No one’s denying that. But if you follow the same road as Rafe, what’s going to happen to your own family? Do you think Eva will stick by you if you devote your life to chasing Rafe’s ghost?”

Cash’s face shuttered at my words. I may have gone too far too soon, but I wanted to shut this down before he was so far gone that no one could rescue him.

“Boss…Rafe may be gone, but your family isn’t.”

I watched as he considered my words. His eyes filled with tears, and I really fucking hated that I had to say any of this to him. Maybe the others were right in waiting to talk to him. Maybe it was too soon to talk about this stuff, but I never believed in pulling punches to avoid hurting someone’s feelings—not when the whole idea was to prevent harm.

“Maybe you’re right.”

Relief flooded through me at his words. I might have gone the wrong way in dealing with him, but at least I knew I was getting through to him.

“I’m glad you see it that way, boss.”

“I appreciate you standing up to me. It took a lot of guts.”

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