Page 9 of Lethal Torture
But behind the piercing stare and rugged good looks, Luke Macarthur is something else, too. Something much more dangerous.
He’s kind.
I can see it in the slight quirk of his mouth, the creases of laughter and sorrow in his face. Captain Luke Macarthur might be all Mak clearly believes him to be—but he’s also as wholesome as apple pie.
Wholesome. Kind.
Neither trait has any place in the dark world I inhabit.
I close the file, determined to tell Mak to find someone else.
Because I know all too well that there are only two ways wholesome, kind men ever leave my world.
In the middle of the night, with their life and the few things they can carry—or in a fucking body bag, buried by the darkness.
2
LUKE
“I’ve gota job for you, Macarthur.” Makari Tereschenko’s clipped British accent crackles from my phone, sending a familiar thrill through my veins.
“Of course you do.” I lean on my balcony railing, staring at the slow-moving Thames. “I imagine it involves heat, sand, and a lot of fuckers trying to kill me?”
“Actually, no. Not this time. Or at least, not the heat and sand part.” Mak sounds as amused as ever, the prick. I’ve been private contracting for him ever since I left the SAS several years ago, and never once, even when the bullets are flying, have I seen him even mildly ruffled.
“Not the heat and sand part, huh?” I take a mouthful of Scotch, more to calm the sudden, fierce rush of adrenaline than because I actually crave the alcohol.
I know what’s coming.
A bratva contract.
Part of me wants it more than I care to admit, even to myself.
The smarter part is telling me to run a thousand miles in the opposite direction, back to the heat, sand, and wars that everyone understands.
I don’t listen, of course.
I never have.
“When?” I say instead.
He chuckles. “London starting to bore you, is it, Luke?”
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, Mak.”
“If you’re quoting Samuel Johnson, then you’ve definitely got too much time on your hands. But since the job in question is actually in London, I’m glad you take his view.” Mak pauses long enough for me to hear distant gunfire in the background. “I’ll explain more when I get back to town,” he goes on. “Just making sure your calendar is clear for the next few months.”
I can’t help but smile. “You’re not going to tell me anything else about the job?”
“Can’t. I don’t have a brief yet.”
My smile widens. “So you’re calling from some desert shithole to make sure I’m free to take a contract that doesn’t even exist?”
“I don’t need a brief to know you’re the best man for the job. You remember that scam farm in Myanmar eighteen months ago?”
My smile vanishes. “Of course I remember.”
I doubt I’ll ever forget the haunted faces of the people we rescued from the heavily guarded compound deep in the Myanmar jungle. Several thousand people—men and women, boys and girls—all severely traumatized after months, sometimes years, of captivity.
