2
Knox gripped the shot glass. He raised it to his lips and grimaced as the astringent aroma assaulted his nostrils. Had he really ever done this for fun?
Nah. Truth was, he’d done it to get numb, but neither drugs nor alcohol had ever entirely chased away his suffering in the moment. Plus, they’d only made his agony far worse in the long run. And now here he was, utterly ruined. He’d thought the night he’d OD’d along with Riggs—the one where only he’d pulled through—had been rock bottom, but he’d unfortunately survived that one without his best friend and sometimes fuck buddy. Now he had a feeling he’d seen the sun for the last time.
Did he really want to go out sober and completely aware?
Knox set the drink back down, glanced around the room, then snarled a curse. His life was so fucked up, a series of bad decisions, that one more shot wasn’t going to make it worse. It might mute some of the anxious thoughts screaming at him in competition with the crappy country music blaring in the rundown honkytonk he was sitting in.
Despite lurking in the middle of some backwoods swamp, the Vipers would find him. They were probably slithering through the long grass outside on their way to ambush him right then. There was nowhere he could run they wouldn’t look eventually. It’d be better if he wasn’t too alert when they caught up with him.
Cheap whiskey set his throat on fire as it absorbed into his gullet. It disguised the acid churning there at the thought of the dead end he’d backed his dumb ass into. The Vipers weren’t the sort of organization that would accept a resignation letter. He knew too much…haddonetoo much for them to ever let him simply walk away.
But neither could he bring himself to sell the shit they’d given him, which was right now sitting unattended in the cabin he’d rented out back. Twenty-five pounds of some new hyper-opioid worth over a million bucks. Ordinarily he’d have subcontracted a whole team for security. Would have tested the dope himself several times to make sure it was as good as they said. Instead, all he could see when he looked at those bricks were Riggs’s dead eyes staring up at him. Hell, he’d even had nightmares about Kennedy again since quitting cold turkey, her well-deserved disappointment in him slicing his soul. Maybe that’s why he’d chosen this dump, the secret hangout they’d found when they’d been young and he liked to party while underage. She’d never hit the bar with him, but she’d danced far past her curfew with him. That seemed like a lifetime ago.
Funny how things changed when you didn’t give a shit anymore.
Knox had gone rogue, in more ways than one. And despite the fact that he had been an outlaw long enough to be trusted by one of the world’s most nefarious cartels, there were consequences when that loyalty so much as wavered, never mind disintegrated. As soon as they realized it had been him who had tipped off the cops, there would be swift justice. His seconds were slipping away.
So, basically, this was his last drink. For real this time. No matter how often he’d sworn the same, pretended like he might be able to get his demons under control and right some of his wrongs, this was it. He was done. Hopefully, a slight buzz—stronger than he would have thought after barely a sip, probably because he’d abstained from drinking and drugs for a few months—would dull the pain when someone, whoever the Vipers sent to do the job, took him out.
He looked over his shoulder for the five-thousandth time that hour. Hell, he was shocked they hadn’t done it last week, right after he’d “spilled” a few strategic secrets to that dude he’d damn well known was an undercover agent of some sort.
Knox could only hope his too-late change of heart had saved a life or two. It wouldn’t make up for all the shit he’d done wrong, but it would be nice to go out knowing he’d refrained from doing any more harm. In fact, maybe he could feed some of his delivery to the inky black waters out back before they caught up with him. It probably wouldn’t save his soul, but it was the least he could do.
His mind made up, Knox grimaced, then stood too fast. His bar stool rocked. It would have toppled, but a slender, pale hand tipped with trim, pink nails reached out to catch it.
“Thanks,” he mumbled. But when he looked up, the whole universe tilted. And it had nothing to do with the shot he’d downed either. The absolute last person he expected to see stood right in front of him. And that’s when he was certain he was worse off than he’d realized. Because there was no chance in hell it was a coincidence she reappeared in his life during its final hours.
“Kennedy?” He groaned. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Knox reached behind himself for the bar. Because if Riggs had been one of his biggest regrets, the only one that could top it was right there in front of him, like the ghost of all his past mistakes, staring straight into his soul with neon-blue eyes that hadn’t dimmed one damn bit since he’d last gazed lovingly into them, begging her to understand that he wasn’t as strong as she’d given him credit for.
Knox wished he’d slammed the whole bottle instead of one measly shot.