Page 72 of Poisoned Pawn

Aidan Kavanagh has a gun pointed at my head and his other hand casually in the pocket of his suit trousers.

“You might want to reschedule that dinner date,” he drawls, his Irish accent upgrading the statement to an outright threat.

“I don’t fucking think so,” I say with an air of indifference.

I can almost hear the eye rolls from behind me. Kavanagh takes a step forward, the barrel of his gun meeting my forehead.

“Cocky little fucker, ain’t you.”

I don’t bother answering. It wasn’t a question.

“Let’s see how cocky you are with a bullet in your fucking skull.”

“It would certainly curb it for sure. But as I’ve just discovered, sometimes the dead just don’t fucking die. I’m happy to test the theory. My soul is already lost so I have no problem fighting the fucking devil to make sure Star is safe.”

“Well then, it seems you’re in luck ‘cause I am the fucking devil!”

“Shooting me would be a waste of a good bullet then,” I counter, maintaining my cocky front. Roxanne chooses this moment to step in.

She brushes past me, coming to stand between us, not in any protective measure towards me I note as Kavanagh still has his gun touching my forehead, and she makes no move to remove it or tell him to.

“Carter, who the fuck are we dealing with here? Zak said you know this guy. That he’s meant to be dead.”

“His name is Rook, an ex-Shadow.” I have no desire to continue this conversation with a gun in my face, so I push it aside, raising my brows at Kavanagh. He lowers the gun but only marginally. “Three years ago, I executed an order to terminate him.”

“I’d say you fucked up!” Maddox states, a clear dig at my expense.

“And I’d say it’s about time you gave it a fucking rest,” I bite back, exhausted with this bullshit.

“I see Maddox has been giving you hell in my place.” It’s clear from his wide grin this amuses Kavanagh, and even Roxanne cracks a smile.

“I didn’t fuck up. Put a bullet in his head as planned. Someone else fucked up when they declared him dead ‘cause that clearly wasn’t the fucking case.”

Footsteps on the stairs behind me draws Roxanne’s attention.

“What is it, Rick?” she asks.

“Carter is wanted downstairs.” He comes into view pointing at me before greeting Aidan. I turn and head back down to Koda. At the mention of Rick’s name, it becomes clear who he is; Rick Sullivan, one third of Triple R Security.

“I’m still working to get the server back, but I’ve managed to terminate the bounty. As for tracking the message, that might take a little longer.”

“VPN?”

“More than one and each bouncing off the other. Brian was just the decoy,” Koda states, mirroring my words to Brian earlier.

This is the disadvantage of having an enemy who knows you, knows how you think. But it works both fucking ways. Rook was a good Shadow, someone I considered a friend, but he changed.

“Did you dig up anything on the ghost guns?”

“Ah, now that I did get a hit on.” Koda, switches from Brian’s laptop back to his screen, clicking back to a page he was using earlier. “I was trolling a couple of forums used for gun sales and came across this.” He taps the screen, pointing to a comment.

“Mac51? He’s got to be—”

“Fraser Mack, head of the 51 Squad,” Rick cuts in, coming to stand beside me. He continues at my questioning look. “He’s been on our radar for a while. The 51s and Orlov seem to be at constant loggerheads with each other over territory.”

“Nothing new there. But who’s this guy?” I ask pointing to the reply from someone known as Gambit. The chess reference can’t be a coincidence.

“No idea, but whoever he is, him and Mac51 seem pretty friendly. And based on some of their other comments to each other, I’d say they have some kind of deal going on in the background. I’ll keep looking into it and see what else I can find out.”

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