Page 4 of Scar

At long last, Julian could finally sleep.

CHAPTER1

The bitter notes of antiseptic touched his nose as his ears picked up on the faintbeep-beepof a heart monitor. Scar knew immediately he hadn’t been sleeping, because he didn’tsleep. Not in a lot of years anyway. There were times when he rested and times when he dozed, but not the concept of an eight-hour night sleep. It wasn’t a lack of desire to sleep or being so busy that he didn’t have the time. Sleep required a feeling of safety and security that Scar rarely ever found.

He didnotfeel safe and secure now.

His senses told him he was in a hospital or a hospital-like setting. The feel of the cotton sheets and something tight over his chest, the smell of heavy-duty cleaner, the telltale mechanical sound of his heartbeat… But it was too quiet. Hospitals were generally noisier.

He recalled being shot and going over the bridge. His shock at not being dead had the beeping of the heart monitor pick up, but two even breaths later returned it back to normal. Until he determined where he was and who he was with, Scar did not want the monitor to give away the fact that he was awake.

Was it possible his club had found him after he went into the water? He’d been so sure that he was going to die. He wouldn’t have had the energy or the blood to swim to safety, nor did he remember regaining consciousness in the water. How was he alive then?

Tessa was an emergency room doctor, but she was also nine months pregnant and due any day now. Even if she managed to get to the bridge when he fell, there was no way she could have saved him. It would have taken time he did not have to get him out of the water.

The air on his face was cool. It reminded him of how cold the river water would have been. The mountain runoff made it extremely deep this time of year and the occasional ice chunk was known to make it down as far as Mount Grove. It was possible, though his fogged brain was having a hard time believing it, that he went into cold shock. That would have helped stem the bleeding from the bullet wound but would not have kept him alive for long.

Someone still had to have pulled him from the river.

His ears picked up on the faintest ripple of a piece of paper. Once he detected that, he concentrated his hearing more. The slight inhale of breath; something moist, like a thumb rubbing across a tongue; and the gentle tapping of plastic against leather, perhaps a shoelace against a shoe, as a foot bobbed up and down.

Scar was not alone.

His hands twitched minutely. The pressure in his shoulders told him something was wrong. He wasn’t simply lying in a hospital bed with a blanket over him. Something else was on him, something that created weight and had his arms crossed over his chest.

Fuck it. He opened his eyes.

Gridded white ceiling tiles came into view. A quick glance to his left and right confirmed he was in a sterile white room with no windows and a stainless steel door. An oxygen tank, hospital cart, and EKG machine were on his left and an IV stand to his right. His gaze traveled down the length of his body to find he had a tan blanket covering his lower half. A wiggle of his toes told him he wore no shoes, but he was fairly certain he had on pants. Nothispants. It had taken him a long time to get his legs used to his leather riding pants and what was touching him now was too soft to be them. Cotton hospital pants perhaps?

On his upper half was a white straitjacket. Scar raised an eyebrow, because he certainly had not been expecting that. Was he in a mental hospital? Even if he had been rescued from the river, putting him in a mental hospital made no sense. Also, he was fairly certain that straitjackets were not commonly used anymore.

The presence of the man sitting in the corner of the room answered most of Scar’s questions without the man even having to open his mouth.

Henry Meacham, owner of Primis Global Security and the man Scar had signed his life over to nearly ten years ago. His soldiers only knew him as ‘Alpha’. It had taken Scar a long time for him to learn Alpha’s real name. He wasn’t the public face of Primis and worked tirelessly to keep his anonymity, but Scar knew. There was very little he didn’t know about this man.

The three-piece dark gray plaid suit was accentuated by an orange paisley tie and flawless pocket square. Tan wingtip oxford shoes and dark gray socks covered his feet. His dark skin didn’t appear to have aged a day since Scar last saw him, though the man had recently celebrated his sixty-third birthday.

As a birthday present, Scar had sent him the bodies of whatever nameless soldiers he’d sent after Scar, gift wrapped and with a red bow. He felt no remorse for those deaths, though they did add to his body count when he finally did manage to die. None of Primis’ mercenaries had families. That was against the rules, after all. Why have soldiers that could betray the company for love when you could have nameless, faceless armies at your disposal?

Alpha’s dark onyx hair was sheared close to his scalp. His clean circle beard barely had any gray. His amber eyes had yet to look up from the manila file folder he had splayed open over his bent knee. And sure enough, his left foot was bobbing up and down in open air, his ankle resting on his right knee.

Well, this wasn’t good. If Alpha was here, then Scar could only be in one place—and it was a place he’d sworn to himself he’d never return to.

Scar couldn’t say he found the straitjacket all that surprising. The last time he’d been in the Primis headquarters, he’d snapped the neck of Alpha’s second-in-command and set fire to their records room.

He could understand Primis finally getting ahold of him, as Scar had been in a rare and vulnerable state. What he didn’t understand was how Primis had known where he’d been. He was extremely careful to keep Primis’ tail away from Mount Grove. They’d gotten to him in Mount Grove, which meant he’d missed something, and that did not sit well with Scar at all.

With his hands bound by the straitjacket, Scar was forced to sit upright using only his core muscles. The action caused a twinge in his chest that Scar ignored and it also confirmed the fact that hewaswearing pants. The straitjacket had a groin strap that connected his bound forearms to the small of his back. Impressive. Alpha was not taking any chances, but then, he wouldn’t be as good at his job if he didn’t learn from his mistakes.

“I was wondering when you’d wake up.” Alpha flipped another page in his file folder. “And before you glare your silent questions at me, we performed surgery on your chest to remove the bullet. If it had gone through you, you would have been fucked, my friend. The cold water and the mud caking your skin saved you until my man was able to reach you. You’ve been in a medically induced coma for seventeen days. Also, you tore a ligament in your left shoulder. My doctors were able to repair it, but you won’t have full use of that arm for about four months.” He finally looked up. His barely visible brow raised over his right amber eye. “I suppose it’s a good thing you have a spare arm then, because you’re going to be very busy.”

Scar stared at him. The torn ligament was problematic, but worth the price as it had saved Sophia’s life. Hehadsaved her, hadn’t he? His memory was hazy, but he was fairly sure that he’d been able to get Sophia up to Pirate.

Alpha closed the folder on his raised thigh. Sitting back against the maroon chair, he studied Scar. “You broke your promise to me, Solo. You promised me five years in exchange for my help destroying the terrorists who took your brothers from you.” He held up his hand with all five digits spread. “You only gave metwo.” He folded three fingers into his palm. “That’s three more years on your contract. I’m also throwing on a year foreverysoldier you sent back to me in a body bag or who went missing while hunting for you.” He lowered his hand down to the file folder on his leg. “I don’t have enough fingersandtoes to show you the number of years you now owe me.”

Scar had sent him a couple of bodies a year over the past eight years. The man’s math was not an exaggeration.

The itching on his skin like fire ants told him that he was not wearing a shirt under the straitjacket. It was uncomfortable, but that was likely also Alpha’s intention. As much as Scar knew about Alpha, Alpha also knew about him.

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