“You got balls,” Stark remarks.
“He was an asshole,” I say.
“There are plenty of those around. You can’t kill them all.”
“Maybe.” I’m not sure I agree with him. I’m actually pretty good at removing the assholes in my life. It’s easy when you don’t feel any remorse for what you do.
As we talk about how we got here in the first place, the similarities are all too obvious. Both of us intended to be out of the business, but here we are—freezing to death for a cause neither of us cares about. We both share loyalties to the father figures in our lives, which is my reason for being here. Stark has additional reasons. Franks has his woman locked up along with his son. All that research I had done, and I hadn’t discovered much about Stark’s kid other than he was brought back to the States after his mother and her husband were killed. I had assumed Franks was using him as leverage against Stark. I’d gone as far as to threaten Stark’s kid right to his face just to see how he would react. He’d attacked me right in the middle of the tournament conference, confirming my suspicions.
Sebastian Stark is fighting for his family.
Well, there’s one difference. Though I want to live and return home to Lia, I’m not here because of her. No one is threatening her life, and I have no reason to think anyone will harm her after I’m dead. I’m here because Rinaldo asked, and what Rinaldo asks for, I give him.
It doesn’t matter. Neither of us is going to get out of this. As Stark takes out a child’s drawing of a couple and a little boy, I wonder if he realizes this and decide to state the obvious.
“You’re never going to see her again, not the kid, either.”
I watch as he balls his hands into fists. There’s a vein in his neck that starts to pulse. Almost as quickly as his body tells him to fight, I can see him drop back into the hole slightly. His eyes glaze over as he stares at the snow.
“Fuck you!” he yells at me, but there’s no fire in his eyes. “I’m getting out of this, fucking you over, and going home to them.”
“No, you aren’t,” I say with a shake of my head. I want to push him. It’s the best way to determine his mindset. “You know it, too. You just figured it out.”
My words have sunk into him, and he’s teetering on an edge inside his mind. I can feel it inside myself as well. We are survivors, my half-brother and I, but we also know hopelessness when we encounter it. Our options have dwindled to nothing.
Part of me is okay with that.
CHAPTER TWO
Risky Deal
“How do you know that?”
Stark glares at me, and I shrug with my free shoulder. My words might have hit home with him, but he doesn’t want to accept them.
“Your posture just changed,” I tell him. “You slumped down, and your eyes dropped. There’s no way to dig yourself out, and we aren’t going to help each other, so there will be no winner for this tournament. You were looking at that crayon drawing when you realized you’d never see her or your kid again.”
I watch as his eyes widen, and he stammers at me.
“I’m pretty perceptive,” I state.
He starts yelling at me again, but I’m only partially listening. He’s determined, at least in word¸ to win this game. When I point out the futility of it all, he denies it over and over again. I admire his resolve. He seems convinced this will be his last fight and that he’ll be allowed to go live out his life in peace when it’s done. I find the notion ridiculous even though I had once thought it possible.
I know better now.
“We’re too good for them to just let us go,” I say. “Even if they really want to, they’re always going to need us for something one last time.”
I watch his posture change again as my words sink in. He knows I’m right even if he can’t admit it out loud.
“Fuck you.” Stark bares his teeth a little, and I raise an eyebrow. There’s no more bite in his words. He goes back to mumbling. “I’ve got bigger priorities now.”
I remember the picture I’d acquired of his girlfriend, Raine. She’s cute and about half his size. She may be Frank’s prisoner right now, but he won’t have any use for her when this is over. I wonder if either Raine or Stark’s son will be allowed to live after they find us dead. At least Lia is safely out of harm’s way. She’s never going to know what happened to me, but at least she will live.
Despite our similarities, I can’t help but notice how different our motives are. Stark didn’t want to be involved in this game but agreed to fight to save Raine and his son. My reason for being here is…
Is what?
Because I have been in this life for too long. I don’t know any other way.
The next thing I know, I’m telling Stark all about Lia. I can’t say why I’m talking about her at all—I have no idea. Maybe it’s because I know I’m going to die, and I want to go thinking about her and not how I got here in the first place. I play dumb when Stark brings up Raine, but I slip up a little, and he calls me out on it when I act as if I don’t know Raine isn’t his son’s mother. I am a little surprised when he accuses me of killing the mother of his child.
“Franks put the hit on her,” I tell him. I don’t have any loyalty to Franks or his organization, so I don’t care if Stark knows who is responsible. “Rinaldo told me about it.”
I lay my head back, trying to stretch out the muscles in my neck. They’re stiff from the cold and the angle of the ice. I see movement up above me, and the vision of a teenage boy dressed in plain, tan clothing appears on the ledge above me.
I close my eyes for a moment, but he’s still there when I open them.
I don’t know his name. No one ever knew who he was or where he came from. When I was in Iraq, he had walked up to the camp where my unit was stationed with a bomb strapped around his chest. I killed him with a single bullet from my sniper rifle before he could get too close.
Apparently, being dead isn’t enough to keep him away from me. His specter follows me everywhere.
Stark is still talking about Raine, calling her a saint for putting up with him. It doesn’t sound like he’s much of a boyfriend, which just comes with being wrapped up in organized crime. Our relationships, if we have any at all, are never good ones.
When he says something about Raine’s friends not liking him, I realize Lia doesn’t have any friends at all. In my desire to always keep her safe at my side, she’s sacrificed anything that ever might have looked like a normal life. At least Stark had attempted to try to be a boyfriend. I am probably better described as a keeper.
A fucked up keeper.
I tell Stark about how I plan my hits around Lia’s school schedule; he says I’m crazy.
“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “I’ve got the diagnosis to prove it.”
He stares pointedly into my eyes.
“PTSD,” I tell him, not seeing any reason to lie about it. “I’m a certified nut.”
“From being in the Marines?”
“From being a POW, yeah.” I take a breath and hold it for a minute, trying to keep my mind from immediately going back to that hole in the sand where I spent a year and a half. Maybe it is an excuse for how I act with Lia, but there are things in my head I just can’t control. Considering the other characteristics Stark and I seem to share, I wonder how he justifies his actions, so I ask. “Why are you such a dick to your girl?”
“I just…have a nasty temper. I used to drink to make up for it.”
“Not anymore?”
“That’s the one thing she’d leave me for,” he admits. “If I drink, she’s gone.”
“And that’s enough to keep you off it?”
“Yeah,” Stark says. “Well, mostly. I’ve fucked up but just once.”
“She forgave you?”
“She did.”
I wonder how many times Lia has forgiven my misdeeds. There are the number of deaths she knows I’d had a hand in and countless others she knows nothing about. If she had any idea I was s
till working for Rinaldo, would she forgive me? No, probably not.
“I don’t think Lia would be so forgiving if she knew I was still in the business.”
“If she’s anything like Raine, she’d have your balls.”
I have to laugh because it does sound like Lia. Apparently, Stark and I have something else in common—the women who put up with us would probably be great friends. Of course, they might compare notes and decide to just get the fuck away from both of us.
The mounting similarities between my half-brother and me are interesting, especially since we hadn’t grown up anywhere near each other. There are a few times I’m tempted to tell him, but I don’t. There is no point. Instead, I watch him become agitated as he finds new energy to try to dig his way out of the hole he’s in. There’s no way—not with his leg stuck the way it is. I give a half-hearted effort myself, but I know it’s pointless.
“I want a fucking cigarette,” I say out loud.
I can’t hide my shock as he hands me one.
As the smoke fills my lungs, I think about how pissed off Lia would be if she caught me smoking. The irony that I worry about that instead of the fact that she’s never going to know why I never came home isn’t lost on me.
As Bastian and I continue to discuss how pissed off our women would be at us and the various ways we are likely to die, he says something that does catch my attention, a quote from his father figure, Landon.
“Victory is in your head first. If you decide that’s how it’s going to be, then that’s how it will be.”
Even as I spout off the possible outcomes—all bad—other thoughts creep into my head. I look at Bastian’s leg caught in the rocks and realize I could reach it with my foot easily enough. If I could kick the rock away, he just might be able to pull his leg out. It would hurt like a bitch, but if anyone could handle the pain, he could. If he were freed, he could free me. There’s no camera for anyone to see what happened to us.
And then what?
I think back to how things have been over the past year: living a double life with Lia on one side of it and Rinaldo on the other. I’d be just as trapped between the two of them as I am trapped between rocks and ice now.
Death seemed like the only way out. As long as I am alive, Rinaldo will still have a hold over me. I will still feel obligated to him, and I will still do whatever he asks me to do. Lia will eventually catch on to what I’m doing, and I have no idea how she’ll react.
Well, I have some idea. It won’t be good; that’s for sure.
I’ve been a selfish bastard. I want her and I want my ties to Rinaldo. When we first left Chicago, I really did intend to live life on the straight and narrow, but I’m not capable of denying Rinaldo what he wants from me. It’s just not possible. Now I keep her in the dark about my activities, and she is stuck with me when she’d probably be better off if I never came back. She could move on then, live a normal life without my interference, except I can’t go on without her.
Selfish asshole.
If Rinaldo would really let me go, maybe it could be different. He won’t do that though—not as long as I’m alive.
What if he thinks I’m dead?
If he really, truly believed me to be dead, our relationship would be severed. I wouldn’t be called on to do his bidding, and he would no longer have a hold over me. Without the obligation, I could be a real partner to Lia. No more lies. No more hiding.
I can feel my energy shift. I want what Bastian has managed to achieve despite his temper and other transgressions. He is here to fight for his life with her, and I realize that I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave Lia like that. I need her, and if Bastian Stark and I work together, I can finally be there for her. Always.
A plan begins to form in my head. There’s only one thing to do, only one hope left. It will be tricky, but it’s possible. The loss of my Barrett might prove to be a positive thing—it will help convince Rinaldo that I’m really gone. All I need to do is convince Stark that this could work.
I decide to strike a deal with him.
“A deal?” Bastian Stark is hesitant. More than hesitant, really—he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.
“Yeah,” I say, “a deal where we both end up retired for real with the women we fight for.”
“The only way that happens is when one of us dies,” he says. “There isn’t a prize for second place.”
“Yeah, I get that.” I take a breath and look at him. He’s not thinking beyond the norm, and I have to convince him to consider options that wouldn’t usually be possible. The loss of our cameras in the avalanche has left us in a unique situation. Without any communication to the group, we have freedom of movement. We can plan without their knowledge. Bastian’s only thoughts are of winning, but that isn’t my priority. “You can have the trophy—I don’t give a shit about that. I just want to walk away with people thinking I’m dead.”
He’s not convinced and argues with me, calling me insane. I can’t refute the facts there and decide to let him know just how far gone I really am. Maybe it will be enough to convince him that I’m crazy enough to make this work.
“Look over there,” I say as I point near the top of the ridge. The kid stands there, staring down at me with his hand pressed against the bomb at his stomach. “You see anyone?”
He looks quickly before telling me he doesn’t.
“I still see him,” I say. The kid crosses his arms over his chest and glares as if he can’t believe I’m admitting to his existence.
“Who?”
“A kid I killed in Iraq. He follows me everywhere. He’ll go away for a while—sometimes for months—but he always comes back when shit gets real.”
Bastian stares at me with an open mouth for a moment and then glares.
“Dude—there’s no one there.”
“I know,” I say with a shrug. “I still see him. I have nightmares all the time about killing him. Not just him, but being in the desert, tied up in a hole for months. Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about it, and when I do, I can’t sleep at all—sometimes for days. When I’m with Lia, I sleep better.”
Bastian’s shock is apparent, but even I am surprised when he says he also has nightmares, and that Raine makes sleeping easier. It becomes clear to me that we both rely on our women to survive mentally, and I have to get him to see a way for both of us to come out of this alive without our pasts continuing to follow us. My devotion to Rinaldo holds me to the life, and I realize who has a hold over Bastian.
“I’ll kill Franks,” I tell him.
I can practically see the little wheels in his head spinning. I’d do it far away from wherever Stark ends up and wait several weeks before completing the task. It would never be traced back to the tournament, and Stark still comes out the winner. Franks would be my last kill.
I come out presumed dead, which is exactly what I want.
“So what’s your plan?” Bastian asks although it’s clear his guard is up.
“Neither of us can move without help.” I point out the obvious and continue. “I’m guessing you can’t see what I see.”
“A kid I’ve killed in the past?” he says with bite. “No, I don’t see that.”
“Not him.” I shake my head, not wanting to think about the vision on the ledge above, let alone talk about it. “The position of the rock next to your leg.”
“Where?” Bastian twists his neck around.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to see it, but it’s jammed up against your leg, holding it to the ice. With that angle, there’s no way you can pull it out. The rock has to go.”
“So what are you going to do? Yell at it?”
“I’m pretty sure I can move the rock up against your leg out of the way with my foot. Once it’s gone, you should be able to pull yourself out and keep your leg intact. Well, as intact as it is now. It’s broken.”
“Yeah, I can tell that.”
As much as it has to hurt now, it’s gonna hurt a lot more w
hen I kick it out of the way, but he knows it’s better than dying where he is.
“Do it,” he commands.
I don’t hesitate.
“Fuck!” Bastian yells. His body tenses as he grips the edge of the hole with his fingers.
“Almost got it,” I tell him.
“Fucking hurry.”
I raise an eyebrow at him.
“That’ll hurt more.”
“I don’t give a shit!” he yells back. “Just fucking do it!”
I pull my leg up to my chest and slam it forward as hard as I can. He screams like a wounded animal as it rips its flesh on the teeth of a trap. The rock tumbles down the edge of the mountain, and Bastian manages to move his leg a little.
He looks like he’s about to pass out from the pain. I can see him fighting against the urge to vomit, but he manages to get himself back together.
“I think that did it,” I inform him as he curses.
“I should have asked for a bullet to bite on.” He shakes his head and blows out puffs of vapor from his mouth.
“I have a few,” I say with a smile. “I should have offered.”
“Bastard.”
He tries to pull his leg out again as his face goes red with the exertion. My stomach knots as I begin to think he won’t be able to do it—he’ll pass out before he can free himself. He doesn’t. He grits his teeth and keeps pulling even though I can hear tearing sounds as he finally moves another couple of inches.
There’s one more rock, and I start to tell him to hold on a second so I can kick it away but decide to just do it instead. He screams and curses at me, but he finally gets his leg loose before he drops his head against the ice, panting.
Bastian’s eyes are closed, and I think maybe he did finally pass out from the pain. He only takes a few seconds before he opens his eyes again, twists and turns his body, and eventually pulls himself out of the hole and drops to the ground beside me.
I’m beyond tense as I wait for him to catch his breath. There was no avoiding this moment, and I don’t know what he will do. As it is, he has the option to just pick up a rock and bash my skull. There’s no way I can stop him if he decides to end me now.