Page 73 of The Broker

The wicked smile slowly faded from Ares’s rugged features. His eyes drifted toward Matteo, who sat staring out the window—his martini still untouched.

“Twice. Once with someone who was taken too soon, and the other…” his voice trailed off as if lost in a distant memory. “Let’s just say that our fires burn so severely that we often mistake it for hatred.”

Jared watched as the man’s once-hardened face softened until it was filled with nothing but sadness and loss.

Was it possible that one of Europe’s most feared men was actually… brokenhearted?

Jared wasn’t sure what Ares’s story was, but he was sure that it was an interesting and complex tale. Someone with that much sadness in his eyes had to have a truly heart-wrenching story.

The screen on his cell lit up blue, letting Jared know that yet another hour had passed.

God,he missed Isaac. The more he thought about the sweet, annoying, blue-haired punk, the more he just wanted to wrap his arms around his body and squeeze the fuck out of him.

“Don’t worry. In a few hours, you will be reunited with your man.”

Realizing he had spaced out, Jared looked over at Ares and gave the man a half smile. He wanted more than anything to see Isaac’s smiling face once again. Beat him at video games and kiss his stupid face.

“I hope so,” was all that he could manage.

26

JARED

“Argh! That’s fucking disgusting!” Diesel groaned, stepping around the rat carcass that was slowly floating by him, missing an eye.

Jared nudged him in the shoulder, giving him ashut the fuck upglare of his eye.

“What did you think you were going to be stepping into trudging around through a sewer?” Elijah asked from the head of the pack.

The man was leading the team through a complex network of sewers and underground tunnels that expanded all across Amsterdam—another one of Ares’s secret passages used to smuggle guns and other highly sensitive… items.

Ares was a purveyor of many things. His primary business was weapons, having conquered most of the illegal gun trade market across Europe, the UK, Mexico, and the United States. He claimed he didn’t do business in Canada, but everyone knew those Canadians were just pretending that they didn’t love their guns as well.Anti-gun, my ass.

Other than weapons, it was rumored that Ares moved military-grade technology and machinery—which no one couldever prove—as well as precious gems, including rare art pieces, when a favor was called in. None of these Ares would cop to.

Ares was a master of discretion and keeper of secrets. No doubt one of the reasons he was so good at what he did.

“I don’t know. Brown water and empty beer cans?” Diesel responded, still disgusted by the four-legged corpse on its way to join whatever other horrors lay at the end of the dark tunnel.

“Like brown water is any better?” Chase asked, glancing over his shoulder and looking at Diesel like he was an idiot.

“I’m going to get typhoid or cholera or something down here,” Diesel huffed, following close behind Jared, who smirked.

“I’m surprised you know what those are,” Jared whispered.

“If it makes you feel better, Matteo just ruined a five-hundred-dollar pair of shoes,” Ares added from the back of the group.

Matteo looked over his shoulder at the man who was following right behind him.

“Eight hundred, and just because I’m handsome and like nice things doesn’t mean I won’t pound your face in and cut your balls off with a dull razor,” Matteo noted, turning back toward the army of men quietly moving through the darkness.

“Oh, Matty, I love the way you flirt with me.”

Ares was relentless.

It was times like these when Jared missed being in the army. The undercover missions, the excitement, the danger, the joking around with friends… but then he remembered the other side. The death, the destruction, the fallen brothers…

He couldn’t think of such things while on a mission. He needed a clear head, and he needed to focus. Isaac’s life depended on it.

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