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His inner submissive sat pensively in the corner, awaiting orders. Well aware of his flaws and weaknesses, wondering how he was going to take on one man who'd already cost him plenty, and another who saw no reason not to use others like puppets to protect himself.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Thane brought up his contact list and selected the number he needed. His thumb hit Call, then he continued to pace, hoping Connie remained sleeping until all his goddamn ducks were lined up exactly where he needed them.
Dead and fucking buried.
“Heisler.”
It was ridiculous to be so relieved to hear another Dom's voice, but Thane didn't care. He knew he'd made the right decision when half the weight on his bare shoulders dissipated. Maybe he didn’t yet know the true extent of Atticus's operation, but the man would be able to give him some solid advice on how to bring the enemy down without civilian casualties.
“Thane, if you're prank calling me at this time in a morning, I'll kick your ass better than any Mistress.”
He winced, thinking of the power in those brutish biceps of Atticus's. Thanks but no thanks came to mind. “I need your help, Atticus. How much do you know about me? I’m guessing you ran a background check on me before you let me near Connie.”
“You followed in your father’s footsteps and joined the military at eighteen. Worked your way up from cannon fodder into the position of Sergeant, taking a detour into the Green Berets, and then falling off the map into a classified project. Exemplary record, right up until the day you walked away from an exceptional career and became a sniper for hire.” Atticus sighed. “The car accident three years ago put an end to that, as well, and you moved from Chicago to Arizona a few months ago. What’s going on, Thane?”
“My life apparently isn’t what I believed it was, and I’ve been set up.” He rested his forearms on the counter and breathed slowly, explaining everything. His voice choked as he finally grasped the reality of what he’d gone through, and why. “They have intel on Connie.”
The growl that rippled down the line was unlike anything Thane had ever heard before. It was something out of a horror movie, the sound of an unnatural predator driven by bloodlust. Whisper quiet, which made it all the more ominous. “What weapons do you have at hand?”
He stopped his march around the kitchen long enough to grab the cooling mug of coffee, then forced himself to think, take a long drink of caffeine, and lean his naked ass against the cold edge of the counter. “I’m done with it, Att. My weapons are in secure storage, aside from a couple of handguns. My SSG 3000, my M107, they’re locked up tight.”
“Goddamn it. I’ve got some contacts in the military, higher up than that jackass, Stevens. I’ll pull some strings, get the ball rolling on taking him down and out of the equation.” Another rumbling growl of discontent. “Full name of this Guthrie prick?”
“Mikhail Guthrie.”
“All right, I’ll send one of my guys to track him down. Are you at home?”
“Yeah. Connie's asleep upstairs. I came down to the kitchen to take the call.”
“Go upstairs, wake her up, and pack your shit. I'm pulling Anarchy in on this, and I’ll send Jasper to pick you up on their way in. They'll bring you to headquarters for around the clock protection until this is dealt with.” Atticus exhaled slowly. “I need details from you, Thane. Everything you can remember from when you met Guthrie.”
“You believe me,” Thane muttered.
“Any reason why I shouldn’t? We’re taking this threat seriously—Guthrie obviously isn’t concerned with killing uninvolved civilians to get to you. I dislike it when my friends come under fire.”
“There's more to you than meets the eye, isn't there?”
Atticus laughed, and it carried a husky edge that told Thane he didn't know the half of who the Master really was. “Second guessing your decision to offer to come work for me, Thane? I don't run a PI business, pussyfooting around with a camera in dark alleys. This is top level security. The kind where threats aren't just bundled into handcuffs and dragged off to the nearest cop shop. We identify a threat, we hunt it down, and then we eradicate it. In its entirety.”
Well, if he'd had any doubts about what Atticus did for a living, he didn't now, Thane thought with a slow exhale. Should he feel guilty that he'd just sic'd a team of mercenaries on his former superior, his ex-best friend? His mouth twisted thoughtfully. Nope. He felt not one iota of regret for hauling Atticus into this.
Stevens had made his bed with threats and blackmail—he could lie on the consequences. Same for Guthrie—if the man he’d loved like a brother for years could do the things Stevens said he had…oh, Thane had a lot of questions, and no sympathy for what was coming for both men.
Ruthlessly, he banished any memories of the funny, loyal friend he'd known. Or thought he'd known, he corrected himself. That man was long gone, if he'd ever existed anywhere but in his mind. Mikhail Guthrie had died sometime in the last twenty years and been reborn as a drug-dealing, murdering fuckwit.
“I’ll help where I can, Atticus, but I mean it when I say I’m done being a sniper. I’m done being an executioner. There are more important things than money, and I’ve contributed all I can to my country.”
“Understood.”
“Can you get your hands on the data pertaining to Connie's history? Stevens told me Guthrie managed to access it.” Thane swallowed down his rage with difficulty. “It needs erasing, Atticus. If one person can use it against her, so can another. I want it gone.”
“Sounds like someone’s house needs a deep clean. I'll get someone to dig into it, see if we can trace who pulled up the data and from where. Connie didn't report the shit with Evan to the cops, did she?”
“She didn't mention it, no. And the bastard went on to do the same to another girl.”
“Guthrie's tapped into her medical records, then. Maybe one of the nurses spoke to an officer about it and he logged it into the system for reference. I'll hunt it down and remove anything that could be used to hurt her in the future.”
“Thank you.”
