Page 53 of Duality

“Soon.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that, brother.” And he would. He absolutely would. He had let me run from this conversationfor too long. I was surprised he hadn’t forced the issue sooner, actually.

“I’ll be back later.” I turned back to the door. I had someone to meet. Secrets to discover.

The drive wasn’t long, and soon I was pulling into the parking lot for a small building that looked like it used to be an old mechanic’s shop.

“Here.”I texted Finch when I parked.

“Inside.”

I opened the door. Finch was leaning over a table towards the back of the room. “Hey, man, what’s?—”

Something hit the back of my head hard, and there was a pinch at my neck.

Fuck, Adrian was going to kill?—

A sharp painradiating from the back of my skull was the first thing to come into my awareness. Fuck, I was really tired of being unconscious. The groggy feeling of trying to fight your way back to consciousness sucked and drained me. Slowly, bit by bit, my body came online. I stayed still, mentally assessing where I was hurt and what I could pick up from the room around me. The last memory I had before falling to the ground was seeing Finch’s face. I had been betrayed. We had been betrayed. He was a Ghost. A member of one of the most fearsome mercenary groups in the country. Was the whole group compromised? Had Carter betrayed Evelyn? Shit, were my brothers okay?

“I can practically hear you thinking,” Finch drawled from somewhere in the room.

My ruse was up, so I lifted my head and glared at him. His fuzzy image became clearer after a few seconds.

“What the hell, man?” I sneered at him. “What are you doing?”

Finch had always been a little off to me, but I didn’t think he was capable of this.

He crouched down next to me but stayed out of striking distance. Even though my hands and feet were bound with rope, he wisely understood I was a threat. “First of all, I want you to know this isn’t personal; it’s just business.”

“Business?” I glared at him. “The Archers saved Carter’s sister, and this is how you repay them?”

Finch waved a hand. “That’s Ghost business. I’m not obligated to observe that favor.”

Ghost business? What? Carter wasn’t involved? A tendril of hope broke through the panic wracking my body. If Finch acted alone, then the Ghosts weren’t a threat. At least not to us.

“You’ve betrayed the Ghosts,” I said flatly as I put it all together.

“Betrayal is such a strong term.” His smile was just as sleazy and punchable as I remembered. “Our interests no longer align, so we parted ways.”

“We?”

Finch beckoned someone out of the shadows, and I recognized him as one of the men who’d visited the Archers HQ. Fuck, the Archers were compromised in ways they had no idea about.

“Why?”

“Why does anyone do anything?” Finch shrugged. “Money. That’s why I said it wasn’t personal. Citadel was paying handsomely for you and your brothers’ deaths, but I’m an opportunist. I figured I would see how much you were worth to your brothers alive.”

“You’re ransoming me?” My eyes widened.

“Why so surprised? Your company does well for itself. The Archers must, too, with how high tech their operations are.”

I kept my face blank. Maybe he didn’t know as much as he thought. The Archers made enough to keep their operations running, but they weren’t in this for the cash. If my ransom depended on the Archers ponying up money, well, half of them would probably just let me rot.

“Why are you getting involved in the first place?” I needed more information. Finch was self-serving. He always had been, but he also usually avoided messy situations.

Finch shrugged. “I owed Citadel a favor. They gave me a job after I got out and paid well.”

The fact that he was telling me this did not bode well for my survival chances. But Finch was always a cocky little shit from the day he had strolled onto base, so he might be thinking he could get away with this. He was a braggart, and that meant I could probably pump him for information.