Page 56 of Natural-Born Cullers

Back then, it had never been about turning Gray’s head as an MI5 director. And Gray’s time away… his stay away from the manor lately. Stupid… oh he’d been so fucking stupid.

“Deal,” Light snarled. “What fucking deal with the cullers have you both done?”

Simon stepped in so close. “Easy. Back… off.”

Only Light didn’t. He stepped in closer. “All you ever wanted to be washim.” He kept his voice so flat. “You said that, remember? But you weren’t ever talking about his MI5 side. You—”

Breath and body never calmer, Light grabbed the back of Simon’s hair, exposing his throat. He focused on the patio window, denying their reflection as much as he denied Simon by looking at him.

“You’rebothback to whoring yourself outforthem, where he says ‘fuck,’ and you say ‘For how long with your son, sir?’”

The door came open behind him, but Simon gave a quick shake of head to whoever came in, warning them off.

“And you’restillnot denying.” Light tilted Simon’s head back, running his thumb along the length as he watched Gray’s security guard in the reflection, how his hand levelled on his firearm.

“Mark… fucking remember from here on in,” he said flatly. “I gave you time to finish what I started. I gavehimtime to finish exactly what I started.” Light pushed him away as Simon frowned. “But neither of you did.”

“Back off to your room.” Simon steadied himself, but no anger played there in his eyes, no colour around him, just a concern, maybe realisation. “Go calm down. Please.”

Light looked him over. “Perfectly fucking calm here,” he said flatly. “Because we all knowexactlywhere we stand now, right?” He turned away, leaving him there as he headed for the quiet of his bedroom.

Even Brin had lost all his colour now.

Chapter 17

TLC

Coated in the early morning light filtering through the bedroom patio windows and playing mosaic with shadows at his feet, Gray swiped a hand over his mouth as he sat on the couch, looking down at his phone.

Jan stayed lost in the tangle of bedcover not too far away from him. Gray had taken Jan’s call of enough and hadn’t made it back to work after his time at the MC, and he’d spent a good portion of that with Jan, going over why Martin had been allowed to pull a knife on him. Jan’s reaction had mirrored Jack’s: the worry over the MC doing a deal with the cullers, but his quiet said he understood. Not long after something to eat, Gray had gone to bed, and with it being mid-afternoon, still daylight, that was really saying something. He hadn’t been tired, but there’d been sense behind Jan’s words with needing to get his head back to working in… normal parameters.

Martin had gone on through to the east side as Jan had checked Gray’s knife wound. He had his own room for a reason: he drew a fine line between personal space, and as Gray had watched him leave, it riled seeing him walk away. It riled him more with how he needed Martin with him in that moment and not Jack.

And that… that really fucked with his head. He just breathed a little easier knowing Martin was up and walking around when he was down and out a little himself.

Jan had originally fallen to sleep, on one of the white leather couches Gray sat on, but Gray had made sure he found their bed not long after, hearing his coughing as he slept. He’d checked his temperature, found none, then made damn sure Jan always found his place in bed next to him, especially with what had gone down lately.

Now, with the early hours of the morning, it left the manor quiet and Gray sitting on the couch, still staring down at his phone as he brushed a touch at his lip.

Three files lay unopened.

The first gave details on the current training ground for trainee cullers, with its six personnel in total.

But the other two?

Bruin König.

Thomas Hunt.

The only two active cullers besides Gray himself.

Cath had only been a trainee, and it wasn’t hard to see that the field-marshal general had been training her to take Gray’s place, or he’d used the promise of it, at least. Cath had just been foolish to go after the bone once it had been thrown Gray’s way.

The two files on König and Hunt would list the basics: age, height, weight, schooling, then training history, killing signature marks, targets: past, those being marked in the present, those they’d signalled to take in the future…. His own file had been in there too, but Gray had long since deleted that.

He wasn’t a fool: he knew his own files would have been copied by the Monarchy over the years to ensure he kept in line, or would if he went rogue, but that didn’t bother Gray.

What really bothered him was how he sat staring at the fucking phone, not interested in any way, shape, or form with opening the files.

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