Darkest Before Dawn

“Bad mojo,” Mojo muttered, a deep scowl on his battered features.

Viper, Henderson and Copeland didn’t look any less pissed.

“Nothing like turning a lamb loose among a pack of wolves,” Copeland said in disgust.

“Look,” Hancock said, simmering with impatience. “I don’t like it any more than you all do. I’m not a complete heartless bastard.” Even if until recent times he would have argued to the death that he was anything but just that. An unfeeling asshole whose soul was black and his heart long ago gone. He didn’t regret saving Elizabeth, an innocent twelve-year-old girl. He didn’t regret saving Grace, Rio’s wife. And he damn sure didn’t regret letting Maksimov slip through his fingers again to save Maren, a woman who was good to her toes and had a heart as big as China. But this time, he couldn’t allow guilt, conscience or anything else to deter him from his mission. “But Maksimov has to be taken down. I let emotion cloud my judgment, not once, but twice when I was this close to taking Maksimov out. We won’t get another opportunity. This is our last and only chance. Do I like what we have to do? Hell no. But can you live with your conscience if we save one woman at the expense of hundreds of thousands? Because Maksimov grows bolder and more powerful by the day. If he isn’t stopped, many will suffer. If we stop him, only one suffers. Honor.”

“And that’s supposed to make us feel better?” Henderson muttered, shocking Hancock by expressing that he felt anything at all. For that matter, all of his men had turned into men Hancock no longer recognized. They were all unfeeling bastards. It was what made them efficient killers.

“There has to be another way,” Conrad said stubbornly. “Can’t we fake it? Send pictures of Honor and arrange a meet-up for the exchange and then take his ass out without Honor ever being at risk?”

“You know we can’t do that,” Hancock said in a low voice. “You’re forgetting Bristow. We’re bringing her to Bristow because Honor is a way for Bristow to get in tight with Maksimov, and for Maksimov, Honor is the ultimate bargaining chip with ANE. He won’t take anything at face value. He’s too smart to fall for a trick. He will know if we even try to fuck him over.”

A round of vicious curses rent the air. Hancock echoed every one of them in his mind, but damn it, they didn’t have a choice. Sometimes the greater good sucked balls. He was tired of deciding what the greater good even was. He wasn’t judge and executioner, even if that was precisely what he’d been for the last decade. But years of being judge and jury and being an instrument of justice was weighing heavily on him, and he was tired. Tired of the deception. Tired of aligning his loyalty with the enemy so he could become the very thing he despised above all else. He just wanted . . . peace. To be able to sleep at night without the nightmares of his past replaying over and over in his tortured mind. He was a damned fool for ever thinking that was even a possibility. He knew that now, when before he’d been able to lie to himself and think it would all be okay once he stepped down. Because Honor would torture not only his dreams, but every waking moment. He’d never have peace. He didn’t deserve it.

Without a word, Conrad hoisted himself over the backseat, to where Hancock still lay with Honor nestled in his arms. At any other time, he’d cut off his arm before ever allowing his men to see him displaying tenderness. Anything but the robotic, inhuman persona that had become second nature to him. But now? He didn’t give a shit. All his men had a soft spot for Honor. They wouldn’t think anything of him offering her comfort. Especially since it was the least he could do when he planned to turn her over to a monster.

Conrad dug into the med kit and prepared a sedative. Then he glanced over at Hancock.

“How long you want her to be out?”

“Until we take her to Bristow. I’d rather she awaken in a bed and not immediately know her . . . fate.”

It was delaying the inevitable, but he wanted to give her these last moments. As long as he could grant her. It was cruel, he supposed, to give her that much more hope. But if she could have just a few hours more devoid of fear and the horrific sense of betrayal she would feel the moment she learned the truth, then he’d give those hours to her.

Conrad scowled again but drew more of the medication into the syringe.

“She’ll be out for a while,” he said as he gently inserted the needle into her hip.

When he was done, he put away the supplies and then hauled himself over into the backseat without another word.

The atmosphere was tense in the vehicle. No one spoke, but then that wasn’t unusual. They weren’t a chatty group by any stretch of the imagination. Most of their communication wasn’t verbal anyway. They’d worked together too many years. They could anticipate each other’s moves without needing to be told. And they had their own set of hand signals.

But this silence was different. It wasn’t the silence embraced by the men who lived and breathed the team. It was a pissed-off, surly, helpless silence, and none of them were happy about it at all. They were pissed that they cared. And they were pissed that they’d considered, even for a moment, aborting their mission to save one courageous woman.

•   •   •

HONOR had slept, as Hancock intended, for the remainder of their hazardous trek over the desert to the airfield where the plane waited that would take them to Bristow. He never moved from her side, and in her sleep, she’d sought out his body heat, snuggling into his hard frame, her softness melding seamlessly. Like they fit. It was an absurd, stupid thought, but he couldn’t prevent it from flickering through his mind. Just as he couldn’t deny the comfort her closeness gave him. Comfort he didn’t deserve.