“Sit back, Harper,” I growl as I yank her by the arm and push her against the door. I pull back onto the road before one of these girls decides to get out of the car. I am not in the mood to chase them down in this heat.

“I don’t want to travel with you anymore,” Harper says as she crosses her arms and turns her back to me. “I’m leaving when we get back to civilization.”

“I’m leaving too. I’d rather die than go back to Merc. I’ll find Ford on my own.”

Called that one.

Fuck. Thirty minutes ago I was having warm fuzzies for that little brat and dreaming about Harper’s lips wrapped around my cock. And now this.

I drive in silence as the anger and resentment lingers in the air like a cloud of dust. I roll over all the possibilities in my head, replay the conversation to figure out where it all went wrong. And then make a decision to take one for the team. “OK,” I say.

“OK, what?” Harper asks without looking at me.

“Two years ago,” I start. “Two years ago I had a meeting about my brother.” I check Harper in my peripheral vision, then the rear view. Both girls are listening, I know that much.

“Lots of people wanted him dead and I can’t say I disagreed. He was one f**ked-up individual. I admit, I am one f**ked-up individual. But Tony… Tony was the worst of all of us. He was too young when he started doing jobs. Three years younger than me, and I was only sixteen. I was sent away, learned my trade and completed my contracts in faraway places, filled with faces I never cared about. Entire populations of people who meant nothing to me. It was a movie. A video game. A book. It was not me killing and they were not real people. But Tony did jobs in f**king San Diego on the weekends and went to school on Monday like he was just another kid. He never had the chance to dissociate.”

“Dissociate?” Sasha asks, leaning forward into the front seat. “What’s that mean?”

“They tell me,” I continue, irritated with her, “they being the Company shrinks—that the dissociation from society is normal. Key, really. It’s the only way to kill people for a living and not go off the rails. Of course, we all go off the rails. That’s why there’s only two of us left. And I’m the only one still here.”

“You really killed them all?” Harper asks, appalled.

“I really did.”

“But,” Sasha interrupts, “there’s more than ten assassins, James.”

“Thank you, Sasha. I’m so f**king glad you’re here to school me.” I catch her rolling her eyes in the rear-view. “I know there’s more than ten f**king assassins.”

“Who gave you those jobs?” Harper asks.

I don’t look at her as the words come out. I just stare straight ahead. “Your father.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea. I just do what I’m told.”

“You’re lying,” Harper says. Her anger is almost dripping off her, that’s how hot she is right now. “You’re lying and I’m sick of it. Just tell me what the hell is going on before you get us all killed!”

“Harper, believe me, if I f**king knew, I would. But I don’t know what’s going on.”

“What if more assassins show up?” Sasha asks. “What do we do then?”

“You don’t do anything. You let me handle them.”

“Pow,” Sasha says quietly as she shoots her finger at the windshield, her arm extending between Harper and me. “They’ll be dead with a shot to the head.” She laughs a little and sits back. “He’s probably gonna kill Nick, Harper. Just like you killed your brother, huh, Tet?”

I don’t take her bait. I let it ride. Because if I stop right now, I’ll snap her little Smurf neck and leave her body in the desert.

Chapter Seventeen - Harper

Just like your brother… I replay that sentence in my head over and over. She emphasized your when she said that. But why be so obvious? This kid is confusing me. One second she’s on our side—if we even have a side—and then the next minute she’s not. She’s creating problems for James on purpose, like she’s warning me not to trust him.

And this just pisses me off. That this stupid thirteen-year-old girl thinks I’m dumb. Of course, I do my best to play dumb, and in fairness, she didn’t catch the show when I snapped the guy’s neck during the daring rescue. So I should cut her some slack.

But nothing about this group makes sense. Nothing about what we’re doing makes sense. If James is after Nick because my father ordered a contract on him like the other assassins, then why all this bullshitting around? I have no idea where Nick is. I’m pretty sure he’s not waiting for us in Palm Springs at this Merc guy’s house. So… “What the hell are we doing?”

“Taking a piss, Harper,” James says as he pulls off the road and into a parking lot and stops the Hummer in front of a place that claims to be a visitor center. There are two cars in the parking lot. Including us. “They have food here too. Next chance is couple hours away.”

“I want food!” Sasha says as she opens her door and jumps out. I open mine as well, and the heat blast is so powerful I almost can’t breathe. All three of us hurry under the shade of the front awning and then sigh with relief when we enter the air-conditioned building.

“Here,” James says to Sasha as he thrusts some cash at her. “Get something for everyone.” She smiles at the bills and then trots away. I’m still watching her, wondering about her story, when James tugs me off in the other direction. We head towards the bathrooms and just as I’m about to pull away and go into the ladies, he ushers me into the men’s with him.