Page 69 of Heston
Tsk, tsk. Can’t have that.
Zack grunted and sawed his arm, as if he’d gotten to a particularly tough piece of meat. If Lancaster had a lick of sense, he’d realize this was a set-up. Miles wasn’t screaming or fighting back. That should’ve been Lancaster’s first clue. A smart person would’ve come to at the first slice of Zack’s blade. But fear, not logic, ruled Lancaster now. Precisely what Alex wanted.
Making it look believable, Zack slapped both bloody, gloved hands to the sides of the grave and pulled himself out of the hole. With a show of bravado, he tossed a handful of bloody ‘skin’ at Lancaster’s squirming feet and bragged to Alex, “Cut the bastard’s dick off so you don’t have to get your hands dirty. He’s all yours.”
Those bloody, loosely knotted strings looked nothing like skin or a guy’s dick, but Wirth was deep into believing. More grunting. More whining. Wordless begging. More thrashing hysterics that wouldn’t make a lick of difference in the end.
Enough was enough. How many women had Lancaster made bleed and cry? What’d he do then? Laugh in their face, whilethey curled up and died? Walk away like they were nothing? Alex honestly didn’t want to know.
“Shut the fuck up!” he bellowed. “You started this shitshow, Lancaster Wirth. I’m ending it.” Alex pulled the SIG from the holster cup under his left arm and shot Lancaster Wirth in his high and mighty forehead. Twice. Playtime was over.
The man’s body went slack. At the same time, Zack ended Miles Wirth with a double tap. Alex retrieved his blade and cut Lancaster down, then dragged his body to the grave where his son lay.
“We didn’t used to bury them,” Zack commented drily.
“This time’s different.” Lifting one knee, Alex booted Lancaster over the edge. Kelsey’s would-be murderer landed face-down on his dead son’s body.
“Shoulda buried them alive, both in the same grave,” Zack muttered. “Made them stare at each other until Hell swallowed them.”
“Yeah, I thought of that. But this bastard needed the same kind of Hell he condemned his victims’ families to. His last thought was that his son was being butchered. That you were torturing the baby boy he might’ve loved at least once in his life. Let him rot in Hell believing that.”
“You’re getting soft.”
“Nope. Just better. Let’s bury this shit.” Alex handed Zack one of the two folding shovels he’d brought with him, while he used the other. “Heston took care of Obermeyer?”
“Sure did. You might want to talk to him about what he did in the Army, though. Got a feeling he’s more like us than we thought.”
“Already talked with Adams, and you’re right. Contreras was black ops, too. Who’s left?”
“No one. Tucker Chase took out the ones I didn’t. It’s over. Let’s finish burying these two and get you back to the pretty saint you married.”
Alex nodded in the dark. He had married a pretty saint, and he’d done a lot of hard thinking these past few troublesome days about all Kelsey meant to him. About who mattered most. About the kind of man he was and the person he wanted to be. About The TEAM and the men and women he served with. About President Adams’ upcoming nomination for Alex to be his vice president.
A dozen years ago, Alex never thought he’d be the successful businessman he was today. He’d been a has-been back then, a morally bankrupt assassin, starting a business of like-minded mercenaries, all in the name of service to their country. Call it what you will, The TEAM was just that, a team of assassins. Yes, he’d hired only honorable, decent people who cared about this fucked-up land called America. He’d made a few blunders, but he’d more than made up for those missteps. His reputation for getting the impossible jobs done made him who he was today. He had more business than he needed. More money than he could ever spend.
It was time to call a spade a spade. Kelsey and the kids were more important than any amount of money and he didn’t give a flying rat’s ass about his reputation or being VP. It was over. Finally. He’d done all he could. He’d given enough to his country. Kelsey had too.
“Let’s go home,” he told the steadfast man at his side.
Alex got the answer he expected. “Copy that, Boss.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Instead of going home in Zack’s Porsche, Eric and Heston were taking London to Georgetown hospital in one of the many TEAM SUVs that had converged on Turkey Run today. The place looked like an SUV parking lot, with a helicopter on standby, its rotors whirling dust in the clearing by the road. Ironically, it was sitting in the same place where Obermeyer had made her, Maria, Tandy, and Felicia strip. And now Tandy was dead. Thankfully, the other women were on their way to a hospital. London didn’t know which one. Heston had asked Mother to locate their whereabouts so London could speak with them, if they wanted to hear form her. They’d all survived a horrific day together. They needed each other, right? At least London needed to see them, to be sure they were okay after… after…
She turned to the window, afraid to let Heston see her. After Eric had examined her and found nothing bleeding or badly broken, he’d very carefully wrapped a warm blanket around her and set her with Heston in the back seat of the SUV Eric had arrived in. Heston had wanted her on his lap, but Eric insisted she wear a seatbelt.
It was better this way, them sitting side by side while Eric drove. Heston had still tried to pull her across the seat and under his arm, but she’d whimpered. He said he understood, that he was sorry he’d hurt her. But her ribs were only partially why she’d whimpered. Her world had been flipped inside out. She needed distance from Heston, from everyone, to sort herself out. Everything had changed since she’d slipped out to grab breakfast. Before she’d been grabbed off the street.
What a fraud she was. A delusional liar, who’d convinced herself she was better and stronger than she was. Quicker. Smarter. But she wasn’t any of those things. She was a loser. A very foolish, weak, helpless loser. A dreamer—just like Heston had said.
London bit her poor, swollen lip, making it bleed again as the first drops of rain hit the windshield. The view outside turned blurry. A storm was blowing in from the East and the weak September sun had already set in the West, making everything grayer and darker. Bleaker. As if life wasn’t already bleak enough.
Growing up in her parents’ home hadn’t been easy. All her life, London had bolstered her own self-image and convinced herself she had confidence. That she could ace physics, calculus, and track in high school. That she was smart enough, that she knew enough to pass the ACT test with nearly perfect scores. And she had. That she could be accepted by Texas A&M University. She’d done that, too. Out of years of emotional neglect, she’d learned how to be her own cheerleader. She’d become a self-taught expert in positive reinforcement. At ignoring her parents’ jabs. Her cell phone’s photo app was full of encouraging memes. Feel-good banners and posters had decorated her bedroom. She’d even painted an aquamarine rainbow once, then painted over it in bold, black brush strokes that declared, “God loves you, so smile!” Just watercolors, nothing as spectacular as oils. Nothing that would ever end up in an art museum. But it had meant something to her, and it had helped her smile through some terribly long stretches of loneliness. Of being the odd man out. A loner inside her own home.
London had no idea how she’d done it, but at an early age, she’d realized she was different from her parents. They were naturally unhappy. She was the opposite. Somehow, theirbitterness didn’t affect her. It didn’t stick or sink in. As joyless and depressing as they were to be around, she was the opposite. Where they avoided social lives, she’d always enjoyed people. She’d never had tons of girlfriends, but she’d found a way to be happy, even when she was alone.
Simply by focusing on being all she could be. On excelling. Their social circle consisted of the few individuals they employed, who, unfortunately, were like them. Unimaginative. Boring. Which stood to reason. Their business was selling boots. Work boots. All ordered by mail. Never in person. No one came to their store to try boots on, because they’d never considered expanding their business to accommodate walk-in customers. Just boots. The same styles year after year. Only available in black and brown. Take it or leave it.
