2. Logan

CHAPTER 2

Logan

M y scar itches. Still half asleep, I scratch at it, working hard in my mind before I even open my eyes to forget the recurring dream that jars me awake a dozen times a night.

Hearing the envelope I already know is thick, brown, and oblong sliding under my apartment door, my eyes snap open like steel traps.

Taking a long breath through my nose, I absently scratch my jaw again, reminding myself it'll be the last time.

I've got plenty of scars, but when my latest one itches, I know it's not just because I have another assignment.

I earned the scar the same day I lost my kid brother Jase and my military career. Lucked out by winning an honorable ‘psychiatric' medical discharge for my troubles. Ruined my chances at any official military employment but I somehow managed to escape with my life.

No family left to look out for. No official duties from the only life I've ever known. Nightmares for the rest of my days. Worse than that, I'm a loose cannon now.

A solo operative. No platoon, no rank or C.O., and what should worry folks the most—no rules for me to follow.

An ex-black ops soldier who has a chip on his shoulder as well as an ax to grind with his former employer. Who, as fate would have it, still has plenty of work for highly trained, specialized killers, but none of it's on the record.

A mercenary assassin for hire, a bodyguard, or even sometimes just a common thief—if that's what the assignment entails. It's not who I am, it's what I've become.

A darker shadow than the one that took Jase and my men that night.

This mission though, ‘the last mission' I'd call it out of habit. This one really is, I can feel it in my gut, on my scar.

It feels different before I even spot the telltale mail call. A ripple of something I haven't felt since Jase and my team were ambushed that night in a jungle so dense, there's no way it was a chance encounter.

We were sent there to be slaughtered. A team of perfect killers who had seen too much. Collateral damage removed. Wiped clean.

Except I was the only one who managed to get away, leaving my men, leaving Jase behind. That's what keeps me up most nights.

I've never run from anything, but that night, I know every one of my men, Jase included, would have ordered me to save myself over being bushwhacked by our own like that.

The same caution, my gut instinct that I ignored only feels like yesterday, letting him go ahead when it should have been me who got his face blown off.

The same bullet that was meant for me gave me my scar after passing through Jase's skull. So when it itches and I get this feeling, when I've been re-living the same ambush over and over every night for days on end like this, I know to be more than just careful.

Every mission's my last because I know deep down that all this, this life I've made for myself, it could all just be another setup to finish the job, using me as a sweeper in the meantime, cleaning up their other shit before they take me out properly this time.

And to be honest, since Jase went, well, I don't much care when or even how I die now. He was all the family I had left, as well as the only soldier I knew I could count on every time.

Jase isn't here though, is he, chief?

Maybe he would still be if I went first. But that tape's already playing twenty-four-seven.

Mechanically, I disassemble the envelope, tossing the contents. Folding it inside out and flicking on the black light I have set up in front of the mirror inside a kitchen cabinet, I slide it under.

My morning mug of joe can wait. If this is my last mission, I want to open my present early.

At the right angle, even my aging eyes can make out the neon blue-white of my assignment details. It's 1950s, film noir stuff, but old tech is good tech. Sometimes.

Scanning the short brief, I memorize the relevant names and addresses, fishing in the trash for the original contents.

Stephanie Foster. Daughter of Ret Foster, millionaire state senator.

There's a photo of my mark amongst the sheets of junk mail from the envelope according to the brief.

A girl.

A glossy, color photo. Like a portrait off her mantlepiece.

I recoil at first, but only because my soldier-trained brain refuses to accept that this girl and my active kill mission could be the same thing.

No. No, I won't. It must be a mistake, they must mean her father.

Forcing calm, I pinch my eyes a moment before returning to the brief. It's her alright and a GK assignment.

Ghost kill. No noise, no trace of anything.

Whoever wants her dead wants it done quietly and at a specific time.

Tonight.

Fuck.

No! No, I won't.

She's too… She's too… too perfect.

I know I won't.

My lip curls into a rare smile as I return to the photo, already feeling a pulse of need from the sight of her sweet smile.

The unwelcome thrill of a final mission swiftly replaced with the kind of urge I haven't felt in a very long time.

I've never refused a mission, there isn't exactly an option to do that with this kind of work. But what good is a loose-cannon mercenary who won't follow orders if he follows every set of orders he gets, huh?

Golden curls and blue eyes. A dimple on one cheek from her brilliant smile is the only distortion in her porcelain skin. My hammering pulse floods my groin as I stifle an involuntary groan.

The palm of my hand is already gripping myself through my camo boxers, already feeling the warm wetness of what she's drawing from me without even knowing I exist.

But she will. I'm gonna make certain of it.

She must be half my age, but she's the kind of pretty that makes me give in to the fantasy that little bit quicker, giving me the courage to believe that maybe there is something worth living for.

A girl like her on my arm and in my bed every night?

That is living. It's the life I want the longer I keep myself under the spell of her picture.

"I can't kill her," I reason aloud to myself. "But I can rescue her. Save her from being killed, I mean…"

Save her from being killed by you? What a brilliant idea, chief.

It's all I can think of on the fly, and almost against my own will, it seems. My boxers are yanked down in seconds, my hand greedily pumping my already stiff organ as I growl with satisfaction.

She makes me feel her age all over again, the same sense of wonder mixed with need and a hardness to match.

Having her look at me and showing her what I have for her, it's enough to set my aching cock twitching violently with each stroke.

"Ohhhh… Fuuuuccckkkk!!!"

I can't hold it any longer. Moaning aloud, my own legs shudder as I stand in my kitchen, yanking off to a picture of a girl I've been hired to kill.

"It's perfect!" I decide aloud. "Once she falls into my arms after I rescue her, I mean."

Hey, it's my fantasy, I'll play it how I want.

But tonight?

The only real question I have for myself is, can I wait until tonight?