Thinking about how easily things could have gone wrong and Merrick could’ve been killed, I had to swallow down the lump in my throat before I could speak. “Did you find him?”
His arms tightened around me as he answered, “Yes, and then I did what I’d been trained to do—eliminate the threat.”
Maybe it made me a bad person, but I couldn’t feel bad about the death of someone who’d put money above the lives of the men he served with and their innocent families. They would’ve been responsible for Merrick’s death if things had gone down differently. But I did worry about what had happened to him. “Did anyone find out what you did?”
“Fuck no, the military had trained me too well. The identity of that bastard’s killer still remains a mystery to this day.” His deep chuckle didn’t hold much humor. “Not that the NCIS team assigned to the case looked into his death too closely. The top brass assumed he was connected to the leak and didn’t want the whole clusterfuck to become public. So they buried that shit deep and didn’t ask questions when I didn’t re-up. I received an honorable discharge instead of a court martial, and the Navy got to keep their dirty little secret.”
“I’m sorry you were put in the position of having to make that decision.” I was glad that he wasn’t rotting in a military prison for what he’d done, but I was also a little pissed that he’d had to give up his military career because of someone else’s greed. “What happened after you left the Navy?”
His hand slid up my back to wrap around the back of my neck, collaring me in place. “I crossed a line that I couldn’t ever come back from when I pulled that trigger, which made it easier for me to accept a position with an outfit who had use for the unique skill set I learned while serving.”
Merrick was surrounded by mystery, but some of the puzzle pieces were falling into place now that he was opening up to me. But I still couldn’t see the whole picture and felt as though I was missing something major—like what he’d been doing in Stacey’s room the day we met. “Did Jonah hire you?”
9
Merrick
“Yes,” I answered quietly. I’d promised not to lie, but I wasn’t sure she was ready to hear the entire truth.
When I didn’t expound on my answer, her brow puckered, and she canted her head to the side. “Why would he do that? Jonah has his own guys all over the world, especially New York.”
“Using them would risk the job being traced back to him.” She pressed her lips into a thin line and narrowed her eyes.
“He didn’t want people to know he was looking into Stacey’s disappearance?”
I sighed and let her go with the exception of her hand. Holding it tight in mine, I led her out to the living room and sat on one of the large, comfortable couches. With one quick, hard tug, she tumbled into my lap, and I shifted her body until she was straddling me. Then I wrapped her in my arms in case she tried to get away.
“I wasn’t hired to find your friend, kitten. That wasn’t the job. Looking into that was strictly a favor from my employer to Jonah.”
“What was the job?”
I held my breath for a moment, knowing this information would decide the course of our lives and possibly change how she looked at me.
I wasn’t ashamed of my choices in life. This was me, and I didn’t have any qualms over that. But she might, and if she couldn’t handle it, I wasn’t sure I had the strength to let her go.
“Barrington,” I finally murmured.
She chewed on her bottom lip for a minute, and I could practically see the cogs turning in her mind through her beautiful green eyes. “Paul Barrington.”
I nodded.
“He’s dead now.”
Another nod.
I knew the exact moment she put it all together. “Merrick, are you a contract killer?”
“I prefer the label hitman,” I tried to tease with a strained smile.
Her eyes widened and filled with fear.
Shit.
“I have rules, though,” I assured her. “The only targets I’ll agree to kill deserve to be thrown into hell. They’re bad, bad people, kitten.”
“But, but...you-you could,” she sputtered, struggling to find the right combination of words.
The fear hadn’t dissipated in the least after my explanation, and she began to struggle in an attempt to escape my arms. No fucking way was I letting her go until we’d straightened this out.
“I’ll never hurt you, Audrey,” I said in a low tone while moving my head a fraction to meet her gaze.
“I know that!” she retorted, rolling her eyes.
“Is it the fact that I kill other people that’s making you afraid of me?” I asked quietly.
“I’m not afraid of you, you big oaf!” she yelled. “I’m afraid for you!”