Page 125 of Breaker

“It’s just a protocol Rune put in place.” Zane sips his drink, then sets it down, leaning back in his seat, elbows out, fingers laced behind his head. That friendly, loose demeanor vanishesand Zane is here. Present. The man who not only works for, but with Rune, to maintain control over his business, and those around him.

The man who’s capable of atrocities I’ll never rid from my mind.

Because they’re the same things I’m capable of.Capablebeing the key difference between us and Zane. Between myself and the man before me. I may be capable of doing horrendous things, but I draw a line. Zane leaps over every moral and ethical line drawn in this business.

He thrives on evil.

“It’s just a little test, nothing real challenging,” Zane says. “When Don joined, he and his wife had to go into a shark cage to prove they had the balls to take part in the Wilderness Experience.”

“As long as he doesn’t throw me in a pit of snakes, I’ll be fine,” I say with a grin. “Just send the contract to my office and I’ll have my associates go over it as well.”

He leans forward and gives me a slick smile that makes my stomach churn. “I’d be careful what you reveal around Rune,” he says. “That snake tidbit may give him some ideas.”

Rune and his ideas. I know all about those.

“What did you have to do for the initiation?” I ask, though I have a feeling I know.

That smile turns dark, lips lifting at the corners into a vile grin. “Let’s just say I proved my loyalty to Rune a long time ago.”

Chapter 38

Breaker

Ionly have afew hours, so I have to move quickly. My heart ricochets in my chest, blood pounding in my ears as I leave the docks and drive Ben’s sports car to the hotel. My footsteps acho as I stride through the lobby, making sure to walk in front of the camera’s, as I head up to my room, winking at the group of young women gathered at the desk, smiling at the concierge, and chatting with the bellhop in the elevator on the way up to my suite.

Once inside my room, I grab my bag and change into my gear, gathering up my supplies and tucking them into my pockets. Then I grab my helmet, slipping my mask and it over my head.

When I booked the room for Ben, I chose this one because of the security.My room has a camera aimed down the hall toward the elevator, but I knocked it a few degrees to the left, aiming it away, so I could slip in and out without being seen. The only thing the footage will show is the wall. It doesn’t matterbecause the others recorded Ben walking up to him room, the guests and staff can attest to seeing me if questioned.

I slip back out of the room, and take the staff elevator to the first floor, then walk through the parking garage, out to the street, and head down to the garage a few blocks away where have my bike.

My heart hammers, but it’s no longer nerves. It’s the familiar, skin heating feverish anticipation that washes over me right before a mission. And this time, I’m not following orders. This time I’m running on instinct, which heightens the intense, almost heady sensation, buzzing though me.

No one ever tells you how difficult it is to change patterns. It’s not just habits or words we speak to ourselves late at night or the things we see inside ourselves when we look in the mirror that require breaking. It’s a breaking of who we are and who we were and everything we thought we’d be.

In order to change our lives, we have to cut out everything that feels safe. We have to be scared, terrified even. Because it’s that discomfort, that pain that makes us realize we need to change.

My father is one of the worst men I’ve ever met and yet, he was familiar. His cruelty felt safe because I knew what to expect. I knew how to talk to him, how to make him act nice. How to get him to speak kindly to me. And when that kindness came my way I saw nothing but evidence that deep down he loved me like a son.

I willingly became his soldier, molded by him to react exactly as he needed me to. I was shitty when he wanted me to be. I was kind when he knew I would be. Harsh and cruel like him when he bent me to it.

I was after all his favorite son. Just like him. Capable of great things. Capable of terrible deeds.

Capable.

That’s what I feel right now. I don’t feel like Breaker, the man who can’t take orders, or when he does, it’s only because he’s scared of the consequences. I feel like justice. Revenge. I feel like a protector of innocent things.

Like the man my mother needed when she was being hurt the day I was conceived. Like maybe, this was my purpose all along. Not to destroy things for money, or to gain even more power and influence for my father, but to break and take and ruin any and every bad thing that tries to snuff out the good in this world.

Which is what I’m about to do.

***

Bright beams of sodium colored light slant over the parking lot. I pull the bike up to the wall surrounding the lot, keeping to the shadows and wait.

He’s due to meet Rune at his club in exactly three hours. Zane will be leaving to head back to his house—

There he is. Right on time.

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