Page 133 of Until the End

“Why target the Outliers?” Castle asked.

“Ever Shield. You and I both know it was a threat that couldn’t be left unchecked.”

He was right. Another harsh, bitter truth. “But why kill them?”

“If they were good and meant no harm, then why did they accept a job that they knew was dirty?”

CONTRA84 had passed his test, rejecting the offer of two million in exchange for doing something illegal. Proved their skills weren’t for sale to the highest bidder. So they got to live. Unlike the Outliers.

Castle’s gaze flickered to the boat. “Kit isn’t a threat to you.”

“Isn’t she?” Sanborn cocked his head to the side. “She knows too much. She’s a liability and can’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut—not like you. Let me finish what I have to do here today, and things can go back to normal. I’ll resign and let Knox take over.”

Knox. He’d been gone an eternity on some mystery mission, too classified to discuss. “Is his op even real?”

“I have him chasing his tail. He would’ve gotten in my way otherwise, and I didn’t want to have to kill him.”

“What about me?” Castle asked. “I’m standing in your way.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t want to kill you either. It doesn’t have to come to that.” Sanborn sighed. “Hackers like Kit are human garbage. She’s beneath you. She’ll never understand or respect people like us.” His voice quieted, a lethal edge creeping into it. “Once she’s gone, your head will clear, and you’ll come back to your senses, son.”

Castle’s heart dropped into the bottomless pit of his stomach.

He understood what Sanborn was fighting for, the necessary lengths he’d gone to, and why. Some of it he agreed with, was even grateful to Sanborn for ensuring the Gray Box had adequate funding, for taking a stand against a horrific biological weapons program. And all the rest of it—to his shame—Castle would’ve accepted and conceded. If it hadn’t been for Kit.

“Let her live.” Castle was pleading, for both their sakes. He needed Sanborn to understand what this meant to him. What Kit meant to him.

For a moment, in the silence thickening between them, an irrational stab of hope speared Castle.

Then Sanborn’s eyes hardened. Ice-cold dread spilled through Castle, saturating every muscle, drowning that hope.

“You’re conflicted because you blatantly disregarded my orders and got invested in that parasite, but the world will be a safer place without her.” Sanborn’s tone turned glacial. “I have endeavored to protect this country for most of my life. Since you came to the Gray Box, I’ve protected you too, kept all of you under my charge safe from harm. But you seem to have forgotten who I am. That we’re family!”

There was no reasoning with Sanborn and there would be no peaceful resolution.

Inches of physical space separated them, yet they were miles apart in every other way that mattered.

“I don’t make decisions lightly, without careful consideration.” Sanborn glared at him, reeking of disappointment. “You look at me right now and think I’m some misguided, heartless monster. I. Am. Not. When I strike, it is with precision and it is with justified cause. It is your duty, your responsibility not to interfere. Not to get in my way.” Each word burned with fury and vitriol. “And you are never, absolutely never to choose one of them”—Sanborn stepped back and pointed to the boat—“over me. Is that clear?”

The bedrock of Castle’s life disintegrated. He’d always counted on being able to tell the good guys from the bad guys and now it was a blur. The one thing anchoring him was Kit—a woman he was never supposed to like, never supposed to get close to, never supposed to love, but he did. He loved her.

Kit’s life was nonnegotiable. The idea of Sanborn killing her sent a bolt of intense rage surging through him, but this battle wouldn’t be won with unchecked emotions.

“If you’re not with me,” Sanborn said, his face darkening until he was almost unrecognizable, “then you’re against me. And you will lose.”

Sanborn had drawn a line of blood in the sand, forcing Castle to make an impossible choice.

“I can’t stand with you on this.” A revving sensation sparked inside Castle as he shut down emotion, reined in anything that might keep him from saving Kit. The second his gaze reflexively dropped to the gun and detonator on the grass, he knew Sanborn would take it as a declaration of war.

So he acted first.

Castle launched himself, lowering his shoulder, and rammed into Sanborn’s torso. The force of the impact sent both men crashing down onto the dock. A crunch resounded beneath their weight. They tumbled, kicking and punching until Castle’s back slammed into a post, knocking the wind from him.

Spinning, Sanborn grabbed a broken piece of wood from the dock, raised it over his head, and bashed Castle in the abdomen.

Blinding pain exploded through Castle’s body. For a second, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He fought through it, cleared his vision in time to see Sanborn aiming the two-by-four at his head.

Castle rolled out of the way.