Page 45 of Reaper
Before I shut down the uplink, I tracked the final, panicked transfer of hard assets from the Ares shell accounts. I found where the physical gold was being routed. A fortified compound thirty miles south of the Mexican border. The broker's last redoubt.
If Guardian HRS has the intel, they'll build a case. They'll wait for jurisdiction. They'll wrap the broker in red tape while he rebuilds his network and sends kill squads after me.
I don't build cases. I end them.
He didn't abandon me. The realization hits me with the force of a detonating charge. He did the only thing he could do. He's going to end this. He's avenging the death of that federal witness, enacting the justice only he can give, and he's protecting me.
Frost has it all wrong. Wyatt is more than a killer. He's a protector. An avenger. And he's the only man I've ever trusted.
I grab the notepad. I tilt it toward the harsh light of the bedside lamp.
The top sheet is blank, but the paper is cheap. Thin.
I grab the ballpoint pen. I don't use the tip. I angle the pen, using the side of the ballpoint casing, and begin to shade rapidly across the top sheet of the pad. The ink catches on the smooth paper, darkening the surface, but skipping over the deep, jagged indentations left by whatever was written on the sheet above it.
Numbers emerge from the dark shading.
A string of GPS coordinates.
I rip the sheet off the pad, and walk back out the door.
Frost is still standing by the lead SUV. He looks up as I march across the gravel.
"I told you to get your things?—"
"Shut up."
I stop two feet in front of him and shove the shaded piece of motel stationery against his chest. He instinctively catches it.
"Look at it."
"Where did you get this?" Frost glances down at the paper. His eyes scan the coordinates, his tactical mind instantly recognizing the GPS string.
"He wrote it down before he left. I used the pen impressions on the pad to pull it. Do you recognize the coordinates?" I shiver, fighting the freezing wind.
"It's thirty miles south of the border. It matches the intel on the Ares broker's secondary safe house." Frost looks up, his expression guarded.
"He didn't walk away from me. He went to kill the broker." I step closer, refusing to let Frost look away.
"Guardian HRS has the intel. We'll handle the broker." Frost's jaw tightens.
"When? In a month? In six months? When you get the clearance to cross the border? Wyatt knows how this ends. He knows the broker will never stop hunting me as long as he has breath in his lungs." The anger finally breaks through the panic, hot and absolute. "So you'll do what? Sit on your ass and wait for orders while he's out there alone?" I gesture wildly toward the dark timber line. "He's going to die out there, and you'll let it happen because you're judging him for a mistake he made four years ago. But he was just as much a victim as the man who died. He's been trying to atone for it ever since, and you've spent four years making sure he believes he's worth nothing."
Frost stares at me. A muscle feathers along his jaw. The rigid, uncompromising line of his shoulders finally drops.
"He made his decision. He walked out with a sidearm and a knife." Frost stares at the piece of paper in his hand.
"Because he thinks he deserves to die in the dark." I step directly into Frost's space, grabbing the thick canvas of his tactical vest. "He's the most honorable man I've ever known. He's throwing his life away to protect me because his brother convinced him he has no honor left. If you let him walk into a suicide mission while you stand here following orders, you're the one who is morally bankrupt. Not him."
Frost doesn't move. The wind howls across the asphalt, rattling the heavy chain-link fence at the edge of the lot.
I let go of his vest. I take a step back.
"You can put me in that SUV. You can drive me to a fortified safe house and put me in a cage for the rest of my life. You can follow your orders. Or you can stand by his side and be his brother. You can get in that truck, you can track those coordinates, and you can save him." I point to the dark timber line.
"He never told me it was a mistake." The words are quiet, stripped of all their tactical authority. "He never told me he was trying to make it right. That's on him."
"Why would he?" I step forward, driving my index finger hard into the center of his chest. "You shut him out. You left him in the cold and told him he was an unredeemable monster."
