He had shit to do.
People to kill.
Keltan sensed that. Saw that.
Hence his order.
“Rein it in?” Lance repeated. “First time I see her in a week, after a week of tryin’ to scrape her off my bones, I’m seein’ her unconscious in her burnin’ house,” he bit out.
He was pacing.
That was against the rules.
A clear sign of lack of control. A sign to the world, and most importantly, himself, that he could not keep his shit locked.
The fists clenched at his sides, another one. The edge of panic to his voice, the way it shook, the fact he was admitting to his fucking boss he had a connection to Elena that was beyond professional, yeah that was bad.
And he couldn’t control it.
Because. Elena. Almost. Died.
His vision blurred with that thought.
He stopped pacing, looked into the clear and steady gaze of the man in front of him. “Saw the kid, cryin’ in the middle of the yard, covered in smoke, tears, pointing at a house that was little more than inferno telling me to go and save his mother.”
That memory shook him. The reality of the moment fucking broke him, took him back to another time, another life, where he couldn’t save anyone.
Standing here, in the cool, air-conditioned offices at Greenstone, his skin was melting from his fucking bones. He was ready to tear it from them, his hold on his shit was that far gone. He was about to choke on it. All of it.
Then he calmed.
Instantly.
Most likely disturbing Keltan, the change from feral to empty. Lance sure as fuck felt disturbed at how instant the change was. How he hadn’t even tried to do it. Fuck, he didn’t think he could change back to what he was before.
But it was simple. He was thinking about how helpless he was in that other life. And he was remembering who he was now.
The man that was far from helpless.
“He’s dead,” he said, voice calm, familiar. Comfortable. “Don’t give a fuck about what Elena says about this shit anymore. What her morals tell her. Straight up, I’m ending him, and you can fire me, try to stop me, though I really wouldn’t consider the latter, since I respect you, like your wife, wouldn’t want to offend her by fucking you up.”
Keltan raised a skeptical brow at this but Lance kept going.
“You know me. Hired me ‘cause of what you know I can do. I’m the best at the worst. And I’m pointin’ all of my worst at that fucker. You’re with me, against me, I don’t give a fuck. Just don’t get in my way.”
Keltan hadn’t stopped him.
He wasn’t that stupid.
Likely he was making arrangements for some kind of damage control when Lance did what he said he was going to do.
Because Lance always did what he said he was going to do.
Especially when it pertained to killing.
Which was why he was sitting down the street from the fuck’s house.
Watching.
Waiting.
He knew he was home.
Saw him pull in.
Stupid enough to still be at the place where Lance had beaten the shit out of him before.
Or arrogant enough.
He almost kills his ex-wife and son, and he comes home with his fucking dry cleaning, not a care in the world.
Soon he wouldn’t have a care in the world.
Because he wouldn’t exist in this world.
Wouldn’t be able to harm Elena or Nathan again.
So why the fuck was he still in the car?
Because of the kid that woke him at six in the morning asking him where his superhero shield was.
Because of the woman who had cried herself to sleep in his arms last night.
Because she had felt so right in his arms when even breathing had felt wrong for the past ten years.
He knew, he fucking knew if he walked into that house, did what his blackened soul was urging him to do, he’d never feel that rightness again. He’d be crossing a line that he’d crossed many times before. But one that would make it sure that he could never have the thing he wanted.
The life he wanted.
He had a choice.
Kill the man who posed a threat to Elena and Nathan, kill the prospect of maybe having a life.
Or drive away. Leave it to chance. Leave a threat out there in the world so he could be selfish, have something he didn’t deserve.
Life or death.
Chapter Nineteen
Elena
Three Days Later
“What’s this?” I asked when I walked into the living room, going to throw my keys on the side table and catching myself just before I threw them onto the floor as I had for the past three days straight.
I knew this wasn’t my house.
I had to drive past my burned-out shell of a home in order to get here. The front door was different. There were no flowerpots outside it.
Nothing of mine or Nathan’s decorated the walls.
In fact, nothing decorated the walls.