Matthias spent way too much time in the stone embrace of that church. And when he finally forced himself to leave, he assumed he'd been there a good hour or so, but the instant he looked at the sun's position in the sky, he realized he'd wasted all of the morning and most of the afternoon.

Yet he would have stayed longer if he could have.

He was hardly a religious man, but he'd found a shocking and rare peacefulness beneath the stained glass gallery and before the glorious altar. Even now, as his mind told him that it was all bullshit, that the place had been just another building, and that he was so tired you could have put him on a Disney ride and he would have fallen asleep, his heart knew better.

The pain had stopped. Shortly after he'd sat down, the pain in his left arm and chest had disappeared.

"Whatever," he said out loud as he got in his car. "Whatever, whatever . . ."

Getting back in the game was something he felt compelled to do, and there was a pleasurable, needling sting to it, as if he were picking a scab. On some level, he was captivated by what he'd found in the church, but his job, his deeds, his very way of life was a whirlpool that sucked him in and kept him down and he just didn't have the energy to fight it.

Still . . . maybe there was a middle way, he thought, when it came to Isaac Rothe. Maybe he could get the guy to keep working only in a different capacity. The soldier had obviously responded well to the threats against Grier Childe--that could be enough to keep him in line.

Or . . . he could let the guy go.

The instant the thought crossed his mind, some inner part of him slammed it down as if it was an utter blasphemy.

Annoyed with himself and the situation, he started the engine and checked his phone. Nothing from his number two. Where the hell was the bastard?

He sent a text demanding an update and giving his ETA, which would be well after dark at this point. Out of state his ass. That fucker had better be there with Isaac Rothe duct taped to a chair before Matthias rolled up--and God help him if he'd killed Rothe.

As impatience cranked his hands down on the wheel, Matthias eased away from the curb and headed for the highway thanks to the GPS screen on the dash. He'd gone less than a mile before the pain underneath his sternum came back, but it was like a familiar suit of clothes after he'd been trying on someone else's wardrobe: easy and comfortable in a fucked-up kind of way.

His phone went off. Picture message. From his number two.

As he accepted the thing, he was relieved. A little visual confirmation that Isaac was alive and in custody was a good thing--

It was not a picture of Isaac.

It was the remnants of his second in command's face. And that snake tattoo that ran around the man's throat was the only way he was sure who it was.

Underneath the picture: Come and get me--I.

Matthias's first and only thought was . . . the fucking nerve. The goddamn cocksucking nerve. What the hell was Rothe thinking? And shit, if threats against dear sweet lovely Grier Childe didn't work, Isaac was utterly uncontrollable and therefore he had to be put down.

Raw fury cast aside the last lingering remnants of his time in that church, a wellspring of vengeance letting loose to roar. As it hit him, in the back of his mind, he had a thought that this wasn't him, that the cool, knifelike precision of thought and action that had always been his hall-mark would have precluded this white-hot burn. He was, however, incapable of turning away from the need to act--and act personally.

Fuck delegation. . . . There were countless operatives he could have called in, but this he would handle himself.

In the same way he'd had to see Jim Heron's body with his own eyes, he was going to go and take down Rothe himself.

The man had to die.