Page 12 of Dark Soul

“That’s for me to worry about. But they’ll say yes. Don’t worry about that.”

“And you think you can just put us together and we will be a team?”

“That’s what I have you for, Dark.” He looked down at his watch. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other things to attend to.”

And with a sharp turn of his heels, and a click clack of his shiny dress shoes, Thorne disappeared down the hallways.

More important things, no doubt.

Now that he was alone, Dark didn’t waste any time. He opened the first folder, stared at the picture of a gaunt-looking man and a few pages of heavily redacted text. An IT scientist with the Australian Army Corps of Engineers. Brilliant resume. And a drug addict. He looked again at the gaunt, haunted face, at the stone-gray, bloodshot eyes—the eyes of a man who would do anything for his next fix. The crime he’d been accused of was redacted, but looking at that picture, Dark could fill in the blanks.

Jesus.

He put that folder down and picked up the next one. There were two pictures in this one, of two men who could be—hell, who were, judging by their matching last names—brothers.

What kind of family environment results in a CIA intelligence analyst and a Navy SEAL?

He kept reading. The analyst had been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release, but there was no explanation as to what had happened.

What the fuck did you do?

Dark turned the page to read about the SEAL, but the following pages were completely redacted, to the point of being useless. The only words left open, other than the names of the two men, were the man’s area of expertise—medic—and the name of a place—Kabul.

Sighing, Dark picked up the last remaining file. This one was the only one that wasn’t redacted. It showed a picture of a tanned, smiling soldier. American father, Italian mother, but always lived in the States. At age twenty-eight, he’d already been a Sergeant First Class.

Impressive.

An expert in close quarter combat.

Dark read quickly all the way to the bottom of the page. The more he read, the less likely it seemed a man like that would touch this team with a ten-foot pole.

Then he turned the page.

Fuck.

He’d assaulted an eighteen-year-old girl in Syria—hurt her badly enough that she’d needed to be flown to Germany for emergency medical care.

No fucking way am I working with that animal.

Hands shaking, Dark dropped the folder and went to find Thorne.

5

* * *

Dark

There was a soft knock on the door of his studio.

Too soft to be Thorne, even if they were on speaking terms, which they hadn’t been, not since Dark had found him the previous afternoon to tell him he wouldn’t be working with a fucking rapist, and Thorne had told him where he could stick his concerns.

Dark opened it to find Carrie there, looking for all the world like all she wanted to do was run back down the hallway. Or at least take a step back.

Dark didn’t know what she was so scared of, but he took a step back himself, widening the space between them.

She raised her eyes to his, her soft brown eyes widening, as if she hadn’t expected him to extend that courtesy to her.

“Uh, the other men have just arrived. Mr. Thorne asked me to tell you they’re waiting for you in the conference room.”