The God Game: Evangeline Heart Book 2 (Evangeline Heart Adventures) Read online

  “Pull past it and park on the right hand side.” I pointed.

  “Are we the only ones here?”

  “Probably not, but everyone else uses the front entrance.”

  He looked around, studying the landscape and absence of life, then parked the Kia and killed the engine, then twisted in his chair. “What kind of security clearance do you have, anyway?”

  I shrugged. “Whatever I need, mostly.”

  He blinked, not expecting that answer. “That’s pretty impressive.”

  “I guess.” I got out and grabbed the bag of weapons, slinging it over my shoulder. I headed toward the shed. “It’s only impressive the first time, then you realize most everyone gets that kind of clearance. At least the ones in my line of business.”

  He slammed the driver-side door and jogged to catch up to me. “I’d think they’d keep assassins on a tighter leash.”

  I laughed and entered another code into a hidden keypad on the side of the shed. “Nah. They’d rather pretend we don’t exist. If we’re always asking for clearance for the things we need, then someone has to pay attention. Easier to give us carte blanche and hope we don’t screw too much up.”

  He grunted. The door slid open on silent hinges and I stepped inside, glancing around to see if anything had changed in the years while I’d been away. The cavernous entry of smooth concrete was dull as ever, not showing a single sign of upgrade or wear. It was definitely still being used because it was clean and there weren’t any obvious signs of disuse like cobwebs up in the corners or the dusky smell of unused spaces. I started toward the back stairs that led down to the training rooms.

  Clay grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. “You’re sure this isn’t a trap?”

  I frowned and looked up and down the wide hallway. “No. Not from this end.” I elbowed him in the ribs, desperate to lighten the tension. “But I’m glad you’re at least starting to think about your six a little.”

  “Yeah, well, getting chased down and shot at made that a little higher on my priority list.”

  “Maybe if you’d have listened to me before the first shooting you wouldn’t have had to learn it that way.”

  “Whatever.” He let go of my arm and I moved us deeper into the facility. The hallway ended at a set of industrial, open-tread stairs leading down four stories. I hesitated, but only for a second. Clay’s warning was warranted but I had to trust something and so far, no one on my end had been compromised. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be, or truly that they hadn’t, only that we hadn’t been exposed to them yet. If Azazel was limited to corrupting people who had vendettas against us, there weren’t enough people in MI6 who even knew I existed, let alone any who hated me. I did their dirty work, so eliminating me didn’t serve them. Yes, like I’d told Clay, there were other people who could do their dirty work, but not many who took on the jobs I did.

  Clay had pissed people off and I assumed that anger, fear, and revenge were probably the easiest emotions to manipulate. If the ultimate goal was to take someone out, it wouldn’t be hard to turn an emotion like fear into an unchecked hatred. If Clay’s buyer had been pissed about me getting the relic, he would have been prime breeding ground for Azazel to add in even the tiniest amount of bitterness that could fester into a need to take Clay out. I’d already seen the proof that Clay’s buyer used other thieves, so it wasn’t like he needed Clay to do all his dirty work. Clay might be the best, but two crappy thieves were better than one great one that you couldn’t trust to either do the work. Or not flip sides like Clay had.

  I still wanted to do more research into Clay’s buyer.

  At the bottom of the final flight of stairs, a trio of big, steel, soundproof doors opened into the separate training areas. “We want this one” I pointed toward the one at the far end that led to the firing range.

  I punched in the code and opened the door for Clay. “I’m going to grab a couple other weapons,” I said, walking away and stopping at the first door that we’d passed. I entered the code for that door, a little surprised that they all still worked. They really did trust me with everything. But what I’d told Clay was true and I’d learned it early on—if you’re going to hire someone to do your dirty work, it’s easier to let them do their own thing instead of having to know what they’re doing and be accountable.

  I pulled the heavy door open and couldn’t help but grin at the arsenal on the other side. Sniper rifles, shotguns, handguns, automatic rifles. Even a surface-to-air rocket launcher. It was an impressive gluttony of the finest weaponry available. I thought about Clay—his style, his habits, and how all of those would play into a weapon he’d feel comfortable using without hesitation. Funny how silly things like that were factors but I knew he didn’t feel comfortable with my weapons and there was no point in making him fire them today. I wanted to find something that would become a natural extension of his body, something that wouldn’t feel foreign.

  I walked the room again, skipping over the SIG Sauers, Berettas, and Glocks, and settled on a pistol-grip Mossberg shotgun and a Colt .45 pistol, thinking that both would appeal to Clay’s sense of machismo with the nod to Jesse James.

  It might take us a couple times and adjustments to figure out what he preferred, but this would be a good start. I grabbed a box of ammo for my own weapons along with a box for him, and headed into the training room. His eyebrows rose as I handed him both guns.

  “Wow. Where’d you get these?”

  I jerked my thumb over my shoulder and pointed toward the other room. “Candy store down the hall.”

  He smiled. “You’re a fascinating woman, I’ll give you that.”

  “Thanks, I think.” I set the weapons on one of the low counters and grabbed ear protection off the wall rack and tossed him a pair of blue ones. “Safety first.”

  Chapter Ten

  Clay grinned, weapon in each hand. “Now what?”

  I pointed toward the targets hanging at the other end of the range. “Now you learn how to get good.”

  “I’m a decent shot.”

  I had yet to see him handle a weapon with any sort of confidence, so as much as I wanted to believe him, we had a lot of work to do. “Decent isn’t going to cut it anymore. We’re going to see more of what we did tonight. People are going to be coming after us with deadly intent. You have to be able to take them out.”

  “I didn’t need to tonight.”

  “You can’t count on me to be there.” I put ear protectors on and turned him toward the first target, taking the shotgun away from him and nudging the arm with the pistol.

  He scowled and his features hardened. “What are you saying? You’re going to teach me how to shoot, and then you’re ditching me to fend for myself now that I’m a liability?”

  “No. Of course not. But what if something happens to me? What if they shoot me first and injure me and you’re all that stands between us and death?”

  He shook his head and stared at the target. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “I need to know that you can protect yourself.”

  “Done a fine job so far,” he huffed.

  I patted his arm. “You have. Now let’s make you better. They’ll never expect it.”

  He lifted his weapon and aimed at the target. I stepped behind him and watched his posture, his breathing, his aim. This first shot was going to go wildly off target, but I wanted him to see that before I made suggestions and adjustments. Some people are naturals when it came to handling weapons and Clay’s skill lay elsewhere, but I could at least make him more accurate. Weapons would never be his first line of defense, but when you’re as stealthy as a shadow, you don’t have to be a fighter. And that had served him well. Until now.

  I felt bad that I’d brought this on him. They’d been watching him for a long time, well before we met, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t to blame. Azazel knew that I’d come to rely on Clay, that we’d become each other’s liabilities and I was grateful that we’d become allies before t
hey’d been able to either turn him against me or kill him. Now we had a chance of keeping him alive and I was going to do whatever it took to keep him that way.

  He squeezed the trigger, missing the target. “Man, I’m not used to this one.”

  “That’s okay,” I yelled so he could hear me through the headgear. “First few are always to get used to the weapon. Slow your breathing and concentrate. Don’t hold your breath when you fire, just pause when you sight and pull the trigger.”

  He fired the remaining shots in the gun, managing to hit the target with the last two. “Getting better.” I pushed the button to retrieve the target and swap it out while he reloaded. “Wait.” I let the paper flutter halfway to us and grabbed a couple bullets. “You have to be fast at this too. They’re not going to give you a chance to reload. That’s when they’re going to double their efforts to take you out.”

  His fingers trembled as he loaded them and I covered them with mine, pulling him to face me. “What’s wrong?”

  He looked away. “Nothing. Just nerves.”

  I shook my head. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why do you hate guns so much?”

  “I never said that, I’m just not as experienced as you are.” He pulled his fingers away and jammed the remaining bullets in the gun. “No one is as capable as you.”

  “Clay?” I grabbed his shirt and tugged him back toward me. “What’s going on?” This wasn’t about his inability or inexperience. This was something deeper. If it was about what a lousy shot he was—and who wasn’t the first hundred targets—he’d be joking and laughing and his usual self-deprecating-comedian self. “Talk to me.”

  The muscle in his jaw clenched and he stared at the concrete wall over my head. I took the weapon from him and set it on the firing shelf in front of us, then stepped closer and put both palms flat on his chest. “Clay, I’m here. Talk to me.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and tipped his chin up like he was trying to keep from drowning in the powerful emotions and memories. His arms hung limp at his sides, fingers clenched into tight fists. I’d never seen him like this and it made my heart hurt as it recognized grief and pain.

  “I had a brother,” he said. “Jeremy. He was two years younger than me.” He swallowed but still didn’t look at me, didn’t open his eyes. Beneath my fingers, his heart raced. “We were typical boys, into a lot of stupid shit and we gave my mom hell, always starting trouble. I was supposed to do a better job of setting an example.” He looked at me and the sorrow in his eyes startled me, but I didn’t say anything, knowing all too well the need to purge once the emotion starts flowing. He didn’t need my comfort right now, only a pair of ears to listen and for once, I could give him what he needed. “I wanted to. I wanted to be the great role model, the perfect older brother for him to look up to and emulate. I just always thought I’d have time to get my shit together.” He shook his head sadly. “My senior year of high school—his sophomore year—we went to a party. Some stupid drinkfest that didn’t matter, that was no different than the dozens we’d gone to that month … but I wish we hadn’t.”

  His voice lowered to a near whisper. “I wish we’d have stayed home that night to work on the chores Mom had asked us to do.” He laughed. “I remember being so pissed about it that night when she’d rattled off her list of things, the lawn, changing light bulbs, loading the dishwasher … stupid shit that I didn’t have time for.” His fingers curled around my elbows, anchoring him to the present as he swam in the dread of the past. “I drove, knowing that Jeremy would have to bring us home, but he was cool with it. He was always cool with it. If he was hanging with me, he didn’t care what we were doing or where we were going, he was down for anything.”

  “Sounds like a good kid.”

  His fingers tightened on my arms. “He was.” His voice tightened and he worked to get the words out, swallowing hard again. “He was.”

  I wasn’t sure how all of this connected to what we were doing down here in the firing range, but a dread welled up in me as we neared the climax of his story. On a subconscious level, I knew that Clay hadn’t become a thief because everything had been great at home and growing up. As someone who’d experienced the turmoil of a tough life, I didn’t want anyone else to live it, let alone someone that I was coming to care about. Part of me didn’t want him to finish the story so I could continue to imagine him having a fun, laughing childhood, not the pain and horror he was about to reveal.

  “What happened that night?” I asked.

  “It was the cliché high-school tragedy. Half a dozen guys from a neighboring school showed up at the party. There was too much beer, followed by an altercation about a girl, and a fight broke out. I was too busy getting wasted and telling stories to pay much attention to what was going on, but Jeremy…” He swallowed and looked away to gather himself, then brought his attention back to me. “Jeremy was always trying to keep the peace. Everywhere he went, he was the mediator, always trying to get everyone to get along. He hated confrontation.”

  My fingers slid down his chest and I linked them loosely behind his back, keeping a small circle of safety between our bodies, but afraid to let him go.

  “One of the guys had brought a gun.”

  I winced. Holy shit. No wonder he hated them.

  “Jeremy made a move, jumped in the middle of the fight, and the gun went off. There were a couple injuries, but his were fatal.” He pulled out of my arms and walked to the wall, lifting his arms and collapsing against it, fists still curled into tight balls of rage where they rested above his head. “I didn’t even know what was going on until the ambulance arrived. I barely pushed through the crowd to see him before they loaded him. They wouldn’t let me ride with him to the hospital. Said I was too drunk.”

  I turned and walked to him, settling my hand softly in the small of his back and rubbing slow circles. His breath came fast and heavy but I knew he wasn’t ready to put this to bed yet, so I didn’t insult him by placating him with apologies for his suffering, not about to be a raging hypocrite and offering the thing I’d hated the most when my grief for Griffin threatened to suffocate me. People and their I’m sorrys were hell to endure.

  He hit the wall with the meat of his hands, then straightened, pulling me to him. I let him, knowing it was out of a need to be close to someone, not necessarily me. His hands curled in my hair at the base of my neck and he pressed his cheek to the top of my head. I hooked my thumbs through his belt loops, letting my hands curl gently against the rise of his pockets.

  He sighed heavily, stirring my hair. “He died a week later, but he never came out of the coma. I never got to apologize, never got to tell him that I regretted it, us going that night. He died thinking I’d abandoned him at that party, that getting wasted was more important than he was that night.”

  My own regret mirrored his, squeezing my chest and constricting my heartbeat. There was no greater pain that knowing a loved one died with your name on their lips, wondering where you were and why you’d left them alone. Clay had beaten himself with the regret for years, and I still had that time and agony ahead of me. But I understood.

  And I also knew that there was nothing I could tell him that would lessen his guilt. I’d searched my own soul for the words that would have erased mine, and other than Griffin standing in front of me and telling me that it was okay, there was nothing anyone on this side of heaven could say that made the guilt ease even a fraction. “I know,” I whispered, offering up the only paltry thing I could.

  “Griffin knew you loved him.”

  I shook my head, my cheek rubbing against his shirt. “Maybe before that night. But run to ground, bleeding, dying, tortured…” My throat tightened, cutting off my air. I swallowed. “I’m pretty sure he condemned me to the lowest depths of hell as they finished him off.”

  His fingers tightened on my neck. “No,” he whispered. “No. His last thought was of you.” He lifted my face, cradling it between both of
his hands and searching my features. “Mine would be.”

  I wasn’t sure how we’d flipped to him comforting me, but I needed the balm. Needed to hear his words now that I’d exposed my own pain in trying to help him deal with his. He brushed his lips against mine, then tucked my head down against his chest again, his strong arms wrapped around me. “Mine would.” The whispered words echoed off the concrete walls, then hung in the air.

  Somewhere outside, men were hunting us, coming for us, bent on eliminating us for the sake of a holy war. But again, we’d managed to carve out a slice of solace, and I clung to it.

  Griffin lived with a slow-burning simmer, keeping his emotions tightly in check, nothing ever out of place. He’d learned it from his mother and since I lived bold enough for both of us (even if he hadn’t known it) I’d always felt like he was the perfect other half of me, the calm to my storm, the quiet springtime to my raging winter. Clay’s deep running grief and pain of a childhood torn by tragedy gave us a way to relate on a level at which Griffin hadn’t ever been able to reach me.

  A missing connection that I’d been oblivious to until this moment.

  Clay hid behind his laugher and goofball antics, but his depth hadn’t been easy to conceal, even without the details he’d just shared with me. He was loud and obnoxious and free, dancing along the cliff edge with everything he did. Whether it was his job, his truck, or the way he gave danger the bird on a regular basis.

  I’d connected with that because we’d met on the cliff face, and I’d recognized myself in him—though it was only becoming clear to me now.

  The power of the revelation made me step away and I scrambled for a place to settle. As was becoming both his right and contribution to our relationship, Clay stepped up to the plate and hit the slow, curving ball I needed.

  He smiled with a shrug of his shoulder, letting the normal Clay resurface and putting us back into our comfort zone. “Sucks that you got stuck with a pussy of a partner. I’d ask for an upgrade.”