Page 21 of Home Team Advantage
Sean looked up. “Hey, kid. Heard you were back. You up for a game?”
Matt shrugged. He knew from experience that Sean was a damn good player and he’d probably get his ass whipped, but he had nowhere he had to be and nothing he had to do. “Sure.”
Sean gathered the balls and racked them up while Matt grabbed a cue. Sean won the first game. Matt won the second.
“You’ve learned a few tricks,” Sean commented, approval in his eyes. “Best of three?”
Matt nodded. Beyond calculating angles and placements, it was a relatively mindless activity. That was a good thing because the conversation with Ian kept banging around in his head, along with potential ways of cozying up to Anna. Bonus: Sean wasn’t a big talker, so conversation was minimal. Or it had been.
“So, how was Honduras?” Sean asked casually out of the blue, lining up his shot.
Matt kept his expression carefully guarded. “Excuse me?”
“That’s where they sent you, wasn’t it?” Sean sank the ball and eyed the table. “Always been a hot spot. I hear it’s even more of a shit show now than it was thirty years ago.”
Matt cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t know.”
Sean smirked. “Right, me neither. Because I was never there.” Another shot, another perfect sink in the pocket.
Sean was playing so well; Matt wondered if he’d deliberately slacked off during the second game, letting him get the win so he’d let his guard down.
“You know,” Sean continued, “you remind me a lot of my friend, T. He had the look too.”
“What look is that?”
“Ultra-rich young playboy, looking to feed his dark appetites. Drugs. Sex. Weapons. Whatever. Different strokes, am I right?”
Matt said nothing. He remained off to the side and kept his eyes on the table. His poker face was a hell of a lot better than his pool game. When Sean finally missed a shot, Matt grabbed the chalk and ran it along the tip of his cue stick.
“Thing was, T wasn’t into any of that, but he did whatever his country asked him to do. He was young. Stupid. Believed he was doing something for the greater good.”
“So, what changed?” Matt couldn’t help but ask.
“He was too good at his job. Better even than they gave him credit for. He discovered who the true power was behind those multimillion-dollar deals, and spoiler alert: it wasn’t who they said it was. Needless to say, he became a liability. Those people he’d been working for all those years? They betrayed him. Set him up and left him to die in the goddamn rainforest.”
The seven ball kissed the corner pocket, but didn’t go in. Matt straightened and stepped back. Sean eyed the table and moved around to the far side.
“Did he? Die, I mean.”
Sean leaned down and took his shot, a smooth glide made by rock-steady hands. “Officially, yes.”
“What about unofficially?”
“Unofficially, one of his teammates wasn’t quite as naive as he was, followed him in, and saved his ass.”
Matt didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.
Sean sank two more in quick succession. “The thing about people who die violent deaths though, they sometimes become vengeful spirits. Righting wrongs. Dispensing justice. They’re not bound by the rules of the living. Or their laws.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Call it a cautionary tale. When you’re really good at what you do, like he was, the powers that be want to take you to the next level. They promise you great things. Tell you how awesome you are, how you can make a real difference, yada yada yada. But what they don’t tell you is, you’re not fighting for freedom and democracy anymore. You’re working for them. They own you. And you are very much expendable, no matter how much smoke they blow up your ass. Eight ball, side pocket.”
Sean completed the run and straightened, returning the cue to the rack against the wall.
“What about the other guy?” Matt asked. “The one who saved him?”
“He kept his mouth shut. Finished his commitment and walked away.”
