Page 153 of The Thief
The fight goes out of Jason then. His shoulders slump, and for the first time since we found him, he looks like what he is—a broken man who made the wrong choices for understandable reasons.
"So what happens now?"
"Now you die."
"I figured."
I draw my gun and check the chamber. One bullet, clean and quick. It’s more mercy than he deserves, but I'm not a monster. And despite everything, despite the betrayal and the deaths and the months of lies, Jason was my friend once. That has to count for something.
"Any last words?"
"Tell Alastríona I'm sorry. Tell her I never wanted her to get hurt."
"She'll never hear your name again."
I pull the trigger. The shot echoes through the warehouse, and Jason slumps forward, dead before he hits the floor.
"Feel better?" Maverick asks.
"No. But it's done."
Henry emerges from the shadows, studying Jason's body with cold eyes. "Pity. He was a good man once."
"Good men don't betray their families."
"No. They don't."
We leave Jason where he fell. Someone else will clean up the mess, dispose of the body, erase the evidence. That's how our world works; violence followed by cleanup, death followed by forgetting.
But I won't forget. I will always remember that someone I trusted, someone I called brother, was willing to sacrifice everyone I care about for revenge against imagined wrongs.
Time to prepare. Time to gather our forces and protect what matters most.
Time to end this war permanently.
But first, I need to get back to Tríona. I need to hold her, reassure myself that she's safe, that Jason's betrayal hasn't already cost me the most important thing in my life.
Soon, Trace will make his move.
Tonight, I make sure I'm ready for him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
alastríona
Freddie's been different since he killed Jason.
He won't admit it, would probably deny it if I asked directly, but I can see the weight of it settling on his shoulders like a heavy coat he can't take off. Jason was his friend, his brother, someone he'd trusted for years. And Freddie put a bullet in his head without hesitation.
That kind of betrayal leaves marks, even on men like Freddie who've made peace with violence. Maybe especially on men like him.
He's sitting across from me now in Henry's study, cleaning his gun with methodical precision. The same gun he used to kill Jason, though he's cleaned it a dozen times since then. His hands are steady, his face calm, but I know him well enough to see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw tightens when he thinks no one's watching.
"You don't have to pretend it doesn't affect you," I say quietly.
"What doesn't affect me?"
"Killing someone you cared about."
