The more I watched him, the more I wanted to ensure he had the best fucking childhood anyone had ever given a kid. I wanted to make up for not being there when he was younger but also for what he had to go through living with Jillian and her husband. I didn’t know the details, but Alex’s reaction to his parents’ death was so…calm. There had to be more to it than he was sharing, but I didn’t know what. I just knew he didn’t talk about them much at all.

I had no idea how to handle it. I’d never been a father and certainly didn’t know shit about child psychology. My only experience was my own fucked up life, and I didn’t want his to be anything like that. Everything about Alex’s life needed to be the exact opposite of mine. That meant I had to change.

I had always been a selfish bastard.

Even when I considered everything I’d done to try to make Raine happy since we returned from our isolation on the island, I’d still been thinking more of myself than her. My focus was on how miserable I was and not on how I needed to be. I was supposed to be her partner in life, but I wasn’t. I had been focused on pitying myself and ignoring what she wanted and needed from me. She had put up with it, but it also reminded me of how unworthy I was of her, not because of my past, but because of the present.

As I lay in the bed, I was still being that man from the past. I couldn’t think of much of anything except how I was going to get rid of Landon. I also waited for news of Franks, but I was in the dark about everything that had happened after the tournament ended. By the time I was released, I presumed Evan hadn’t managed to get off that island after all, or if he had, that he wasn’t going to do the job. Thinking about it too much gave me a headache, and I just hoped Evan was waiting for the right time.

Maybe that was the concussion talking.

After I was released, Raine made me keep a huge-ass boot on my leg as it continued to heal. I had physical therapy three times a week until I could walk without it. I spent most of that time researching places to live and plotting Landon’s demise.

I hadn’t seen him since the hospital in Thompson.

John Paul had traded a few messages back and forth between Landon and me, but he wouldn’t come clean as to what Landon or Franks was doing. When Raine headed off to the university, John Paul stopped by and gave me some updates on the outcome of the war in Chicago.

“The Russians have gone back to wherever the hell they came from,” he said as he helped himself to a bottle of iced tea from the fridge.

He glared at the beverage, and I knew exactly what he was thinking, but I wasn’t keeping beer in the house. He could go fuck himself.

“Get over it,” I snapped.

“I didn’t say anything,” John Paul insisted.

“You were going to tell me about Chicago.” I leaned back on the couch and put my leg up on the coffee table. I’d taken the boot off; the damn thing was uncomfortable and itchy. Raine wouldn’t be back from meeting with her university advisor about taking online classes for at least another hour. I could put it back on then.

John Paul sat in the chair across from me.

“Greco’s organization stepped back and dropped out of the caviar business altogether. They’re still at odds with Moretti but in a relatively peaceful way.”

“What about Franks?”

“Back in Seattle,” John Paul said. “He’s taking a big chunk of Moretti’s profits from caviar sales, but there hasn’t been much grumbling about it. That dude is pissed, though.”

“Which dude?”

“The Chicago guy—Moretti.”

“About what?”

“Arden.”

“What, because he died?” My heart beat wildly in my chest. John Paul had known me way too long. If I showed any signs of hiding something, he was going to sense it and call me out. I had to be very careful about what I said.

“Yeah,” John Paul said. He glanced down at his tea bottle and began to peel the label from the glass. “He was a favorite, I guess, like the guy’s kid.”

“Were they related?”

“I don’t think so,” John Paul said, “but you know how some of these guys are. Sometimes what they do for each other goes deeper than blood.”

I swallowed and nodded. I knew exactly what he meant. The desire to both think and talk about Evan Arden was a dangerous one, so I changed the subject.

“Are you going to tell me where Landon is?”

John Paul shrugged.

“I don’t know for sure,” he said. “He was going back and forth between Seattle, New York, and Chicago, but I couldn’t tell you where he is right now.”

“What’s his game?” I pressed. “Is he going to lay off me now?”

John Paul looked at me, and his expression turned serious. He thought for a moment before answering.

“For now.”

“Bullshit,” I muttered.

We didn’t discuss the topic any longer, but I knew what I had to do.

* * *

“I don’t like this,” Raine said.

Her eyes were still red from crying. I hated to do things this way, but I didn’t have much of a choice. It’s not like I could tell her I was jaunting off to kill my father figure.

“I know, babe,” I said. “I’m sorry. Hopefully, I won’t be gone long.”

“Landon is making you do something, isn’t he?” she insisted—again.

“He’s not,” I said. “I’m not saying any more about it. It’s just something I have to do.”

“What about Alex?”

I reached over and touched the side of her face.

“I know he’s in good hands.” I bent down and pressed my lips against hers. They were warm and soft, and even if she was mad at me, she didn’t push me away. She ran her hand down my arm and held onto my fingers as our lips separated. I stepped backwards slowly, keeping my eyes on hers, until our hands slipped apart.

I wasn’t going to say goodbye.

With my backpack secured over my shoulders, I headed down the stairs to the parking garage. The bike was gassed up and ready to go. It was going to be a long ride, but I needed the time to keep my head clear and focused.

The motorcycle roared in the enclosed space, and I pulled out and onto the road. The highway loomed in front of me, and I took one last look back at the condo building before I kicked it up a notch and merged into traffic.

The research took a lot longer than I had hoped. Landon was a man on the move, and tracking him down hadn’t been easy. I used disposable phones to talk to Raine and Alex every day but still kept the calls short and ditched the phones right after we were done. She continued to ask me where I was and what I was doing, but I wouldn’t tell her.

She just didn’t need to know this shit.

I ended my evening call with Raine and got up from the hotel bed. Pushing the curtain aside, I looked out the window with a pair of binoculars. There was another hotel directly opposite mine, and I focused on the window of an eighth floor room. The sheer curtains were drawn but not the blackout curtains. I could still see a figure inside. I’d spent more than enough time in my life watching Landon move, and I had no doubt he was the one on the other side.

If I were a sniper, I could take him out from here.

If I ever saw him again, maybe Evan Arden would teach me. I smirked to myself and shook my head a little. Raine would love that idea.

Focusing the binoculars on Landon’s silhouette, I saw him sit down at the desk inside the hotel room. Now was as good a time as any, so I set the binoculars down on the table beside me and pulled a Beretta out of my backpack.

I bought it along the way through a contact I remembered from the games I was in years ago. He was a meth-head, and I was pretty certain he wouldn’t remember our encounter five minutes after I left. As far as he was concerned, selling a gun meant more money for drugs, which was all he cared about.

Leaning away from the hotel window, I checked over the weapon, made sure there was a bullet in the chamber, and tucked it away inside a shoulder holster. I took the stairs down to the ground floor and made my way across the street. I waited until the valets were all occupied with customers before slipping inside the building and heading to the front desk.

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, sorry,” I told the clerk at the desk, “I’m an idiot. I lost my key.”

“No problem at all, sir,” she said. “Your name?”

“Landon Stark.”

“Can I see a picture ID, please?”

I handed her a false driver’s license that was far more perfectly forged than would ever be needed for a hotel clerk. She checked it briefly before handing me a new key card.

I smiled and thanked her before heading to the stairway. Once I arrived at his floor, I easily found Landon’s room in the corner of the building. I took a deep breath, centered myself as much as I could, took the gun out of its holster, and swiped the card. It made a slight beeping sound, and Landon looked up as the door swung open.

Our eyes met, and there was no question in my mind that he knew exactly what I was there to do. He didn’t even need to look at the weapon in my hand to understand. The door swung closed behind me, and Landon quickly stood up, reaching toward one of the drawers in the dresser.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said.

Landon paused and then slowly raised his hands up in the air.

“Whatever’s going on in your head,” he said, “we can work it out.”

“I’ve already got it worked out,” I responded.

“I don’t think you’ve considered the consequences.” Landon’s voice was calm, and his face was expressionless. He was likely thinking I was acting on impulse as opposed to how much time I’d been thinking about how all this had to end.