Chapter Two

“Hello, Ice.”

“Jaxon,” Ice said softly. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

He sighed deeply and turned around. While he could only make out the blond hair surrounding the guy’s head, gorgeous didn’t begin to describe the man he knew only as Ice. They’d met during a disastrous dark op that involved both Erebus and Pegasus.

“Looking for Hayden,” Jaxon answered, catching the glint of the handgun in the guy’s hand.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Why?”

“You were fucking miles away in your head.”

He was right and Jaxon grimaced. He’d been so caught up with Hayden that he hadn’t been paying attention and that could mean the difference between life and death.

“Anyone could have ended you,” Ice rasped.

“What are you doing here?” he countered instead of commenting on the accuracy of Ice’s statement.

“I’m on a job.”

“With Hayden?”

“No.” Ice frowned and the blond hair, held back by a clip, came loose and fell over the man’s shoulders.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Yes.”

He thought maybe he’d crack a crown with how tight he clenched his teeth.

“Where?”

“I called him in to assist me,” the man said, irritating the fuck out of him at the vague answers.

A hot streak of something hit Jaxon’s gut and he reassessed the hot as fuck man in front of him.

Wait a minute…assist Ice?

“I didn’t know you worked for Erebus,” Jaxon said, and made sure he kept his voice low, the words almost inaudible to keep their location hidden.

“It’s a recent move,” the assassin said. “Now shut the fuck up so I can do my job.”

What job? And since when did the assassins work in pairs?

Jaxon squinted but kept his mouth shut, and without another moment to spare, he slipped into the shadows and left Ice, with his sexy eyes and blond good looks, and disappeared.

He may not be as young as Ice, but he had come from that world and knew it like nobody’s business. He didn’t need to stop and think as instinct kicked and before Ice was even aware of which way he’d gone, Jaxon was all the way across the complex on the other side of a few buildings and sliding inside another alley.

He’d fucked up by letting thoughts of Hayden distract him from his mission—finding Hayden, but it wouldn’t happen again. His distraction when thinking of or being around Hayden was what had sent him off to help one of Dave’s covert units in the first place. It had all started when he had become aware he needed to reassess where their friendship was going.

Stay friends or become something more had been on his mind too much to stay still, and as was his way when he grew restless, he changed locations. It was during that time he’d come to a decision that was aided by the fact that the people he dated never seemed to hang around long. Did he really want that for him and Hayden?

And the answer was a plain and simple no.

He really was better off alone. Wasn’t he? Or at the very least, casually dating and keeping Hayden as a friend.

Now, as he combed through the night, Jaxon heard the familiar snick, snick, of a silencer going off in the distance, but when he reached the location he thought the sound had come from, he found the area vacant. He waited, completely hidden for the next several hours, but there were no signs of Hayden.

He started to wonder if he’d gotten the wrong information. Perhaps this was someone else’s job and the longer the night went on the more his irritation increased.

When he got his hands on Hayden, he was going to…Well, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do, but one thing was for certain, he needed the smart mouthed flirt safe and once that happened then maybe, just maybe, he could get rid of this permanent fucking heartburn.

An hour before sunrise, Jaxon left the area and returned to the room he’d rented in the run-down motel just north of the job Hayden was supposed to be working. Pulling his keycard, Jaxon was just about to open the door when a slight movement to his left had him ducking. He pulled his weapon and pointed it straight into the face of the man who thought to sneak up on him.

“What the fuck, Gunner?” Jaxon snarled, not happy to see the man at all.

“Jaxon,” Gunner drawled.

“What are you doing here?”

“Tracking you.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?”

Gunner’s mouth drew tight. “Logan sent me. I thought we already buried the hatchet.”

Jaxon gnashed his teeth. Yeah, they had settled their disagreement, but he was still kind of irritated with Gunner—the man had made a pass, one of a few that he knew of, at Felix and then ghosted the guy. People didn’t do that shit to his friends. Felix had really liked Gunner and although Gunner was very good-looking in a big cowboy, shit kicking kind of way with snug-fitting, stone-washed blue jeans and black dusty boots along with a tight button down, the man had been a fucking dick to one of his friends.

“Okay, yeah, we’re good, but you’re still an asshole and Felix doesn’t deserve it.”

Gunner rubbed at the hairs growing on his face and nodded with a tired sigh. The bodyguard had been on the fence about joining their team for quite some time, but over the past year, he’d shown up more and more. Jaxon figured Logan was wearing Gunner down.

“You’re right, Felix doesn’t.”

“So, you need to make it right with him, not me.”

“I made it right.” Gunner grimaced and Jaxon snorted before flipping the card against the lock. It hadn’t been and still wasn’t his business, but he was glad it was settled.

He walked into the motel room with Gunner behind him and then froze and all the breath left his lungs when he spotted the figure of a man across the room.

Gunner snapped the door shut and almost plowed into him. Too late, Gunner hadn’t seen the dark form in the corner until the sound of a bullet being chambered filled the air.

“Hello, Jaxon,” the darkly dressed man said and the Glock in the guy’s hand gleamed.

“Hello, Wrath.”

Jaxon stayed real still and Gunner took his cues from him. The assassin in the corner near the bathroom wasn’t one to ever fuck with.

“How’s Justice?” Jaxon asked the only question he knew that could make Wrath become almost human.

“He’s well,” the assassin said about his own brother. “Special Forces now. Dave created a Fury 2.0.”

Jaxon smirked. “So I heard. A new and improved version. Cool thing Rip went into the Army a few years after him. Aren’t they the same unit?”

“I really don’t know if that’s possible.”

“Are they coming home yet?”

“Not Justice. Rip came out a few years ago.” Wrath gave a heavy sigh.

“What?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Wait…you haven’t seen your brother in two years?”

“Try thirteen in the Army and add two to that.”

Jaxon went quiet, there wasn’t much he could say on the subject, but that kind of sucked.

“I’ve heard things,” Wrath said after a few moments.

“Like what?”

“You’re looking for Hayden.”

“What if I am?”

“Good.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s not cut out for this life,” Wrath rasped, keeping his face and eyes heavily shadowed. Jaxon couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen the color of Wrath’s eyes and figured he hadn’t and he really didn’t want to.

“Where is he?” he asked and when Wrath answered, he didn’t like the answer.