Bound to Break: Men of Honor, Book 6 (26 page)

“But you nearly did. Fucking drugs, Zak? Can’t you see what they’re doing to you?”

“I’ll stop.”
Soon.
One day.

His father didn’t bother responding to that. He looked him up and down. “You couldn’t have made an effort?”

Zak glanced at the ripped jeans that hung off his hips, his creased shirt and scruffy leather jacket. “I’m here, aren’t I? You didn’t tell me what I had to make an effort for. Another lecture about what a mess I am?”

He threw himself into one of the leather armchairs in front of his father’s desk and sprawled with his legs crossed at the ankle. He noticed he’d put on socks that didn’t match and snorted. His father looked his usual immaculate self in a sharp gray suit with a white shirt and red tie.

“How was that audition?” his father asked.

“It went really well.”

“Did you even go?”

They stared at each other across the desk. Zak didn’t blink.

Eventually his father sighed. “There are five people in the conference room. One of them is going to be your bodyguard.”

Zak sat up.
He believes me?
Pleasure slid fast to dismay. He didn’t want a bodyguard. Someone watching what he did 24/7 and reporting back to his father?
Hell no.
He wished he’d never mentioned the incident with the car and the knife. He unconsciously rubbed his chest. The scratch had just about healed. No one was trying to kill him. If they had been, he’d be dead. A bit of him wished he was, and then he’d get rid of this never-ending clamor in his head of everyone telling him what to do, his father, his dead mother and worst of all, himself. Music used to calm his mind, now it made him feel worse because it reminded him of what he’d screwed up.

He opened his mouth to argue and his father held up his hand. “Don’t bother. This is non-negotiable. I’m taking Ludmilla to Vegas for a week. I don’t want you left unsupervised.”

“I’m twenty-five, not five,” he spat.

His father leaned over the desk. “Then fucking act like it.”

Zak pressed his lips together.

“Unless you want to come to Vegas with us?”

He’d rather eat his own eyeballs. “Going to marry Twin Peaks?”

“Don’t call her that.”

“Sorry.” He wasn’t.

“Would it bother you if I did marry Ludmilla?”

Less than a year after his mother died? The piece of silicon-enhanced fluff barely older than him with nails like claws? Why would it bother him? His parents had rowed all the time. Zak had been amazed they’d stayed together as long as they had. His mother was a bitch. His father was a bastard. But they were still his parents. And if his mother hadn’t died, they’d still have been together.

His father tapped his fingers on the desk. “I had three reputable companies send nine candidates. Seven men and two women. I whittled it down to five while I was waiting for you to get out of bed. You can pick any of them. They all signed nondisclosures and are waiting in the conference room. I’ll call them in one by one.”

Zak rose to his feet. “Don’t bother.”

His father jumped up. “Zak! You
will
choose one of them. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you. Your mother would never forgive me.”

Zak sucked in his cheeks.

“Sit down. Think of a few sensible questions to ask.”

“I’ll see them all together.” He stalked out of the room with his father on his heels.

Inside the conference room, he scanned from left to right as everyone rose to their feet. Then he got stuck.
Oh shit.
Not a good idea to choose a guy who made his heart leap with one look. Zak turned his head away from trouble and faced the nearest guy who wore a sharp dark gray suit and had a military buzz cut.

“Who’s your favorite composer?” Zak asked.

“Er…Beethoven?”

“You can leave,” Zak said.

The guy gave a short laugh and walked out.

“Zak!” his father barked in his ear.

“What?” He turned to face him. “They’re all okay or you wouldn’t have let them get this far. What am I supposed to fucking ask them? Why are you looking for a job? Did you cock-up and your last client died?” He turned to the second man who had to be older than his father. “Well, did he or she?”

“Still alive.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

He could hear his father grumbling behind him.

“No.”

“Would you?”

“Not unless it was absolutely necessary. Incapacitation is usually sufficient.”

“You can leave.”

“Jesus.” His father groaned.

The third person was a woman. A blonde in her thirties, dressed in a red trouser suit with a face like a bulldog. He definitely didn’t want her. She walked toward him with her hand out. Zak ignored it.

“You’ve got something stuck to your shoe,” he lied.

She glanced down and then looked back at him and glared. He smirked, lifted his hand and waved his fingers. The woman stomped out.

The next guy looked like he’d eaten an elephant for breakfast. He radiated menace. His arms and legs strained the seams of his suit and his chin disappeared into his neck. All Zak had to do was hide behind him and he’d be safe.

“What did you have for breakfast?” Zak asked.

“Sugar Puffs.”

He grinned. So he had a sense of humor. “What worries you most?”

“Letting a client down.”

He forced himself to look at the last guy.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Not a good idea to choose him, but when had he ever done something sensible? Number Five was taller than him, had hair just as dark, and a face that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a magazine advertising aftershave or boxer shorts. His suit looked expensive, but at least he wasn’t wearing a tie.

“How big’s your dick?” Zak blurted.

His father gave a roar of outrage.

“How good’s your dental plan?” asked Number Five.

Zak laughed.

“You can’t ask that,” his father snapped at his side.

“My favorite composer is Rachmaninov. My last client moved to New Zealand. There’s nothing stuck to my shoe. I had fruit for breakfast and I don’t waste my time worrying. I make sure there’s never anything to worry about.” He walked across the room and put his mouth close to Zak’s ear. “In answer to your last. How responsive’s your gag reflex?”

The guy walked out and left Zak gulping.

“I get the job?” asked the tank.

“No. He does.” Zak ran into the corridor. “Hey,” he shouted. The guy kept walking and his stomach clenched. “Number Five!”

The man stopped and turned.

“Would you like the job?”

He came back down the corridor and stopped a couple of yards away from where Zak stood. The other guy and his father came up either side of Zak.

Number Five stared Zak in the eyes. “Let me think. Do I really want to spend my time looking after a jumped-up, arrogant, ungrateful little shit the world would probably be better off without?”

His father stepped forward. “That’s quite—”

Zak put out his hand and stopped him. “He’s right. I don’t want either of you. Thank you so much for coming. Sorry you’ve wasted your time.”

Sinking his teeth into his cheeks, Zak walked to the elevator. No one called after him. He hadn’t expected them to. He disappointed everyone, he always had, always would. The elevator was empty and he was glad about that because it gave him chance to get himself back under control before he emerged at the base. He hadn’t had a cigarette in weeks but he wanted one now. Well, he actually wanted a drink or some more efficient mind-emptying substance, but he was trying to get himself back together.

He paused in the foyer, wondering where to go, what to do when he heard the ting of the other elevator descending. Fear of coming face-to-face with Number Five and the humiliation that would bring pushed him to the doors and he stepped outside. He had nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to see. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, but he wasn’t hungry.

Zak heard a cough right next to his ear and spun round, but there was no one there.
What the fuck?
Dust flew off the concrete step at his feet, he heard another weird cough and the next moment he was on the ground underneath someone.

“Jesus, get off me.” Zak struggled to get free. How much worse could things get? Now he was being mugged?

“Lie still.”

He registered it was Number Five sprawled over him and laughed. That had been easier than he’d thought.

“Someone’s trying to shoot you and you’re laughing?”

There was a squeal of brakes and an engine roared as a car raced away.

Someone’s just shot at me? What the hell’s going on?

The guy rolled off him and pulled him to his feet. There was dust all over his suit and Zak reached to brush it off, but curled his fingers into a fist and dropped his hand before he touched him.

“Why would someone want to shoot you?”

“I have no idea. You think I’m a waste of a bullet and you’re right.”

Dark eyes stared at him for a long minute. “We need to talk.” He glanced around and nodded toward a Caffé Nero across the road.

Zak followed. This guy was his Pied Piper and Zak suspected he’d follow him anywhere.

Bound to Break

SE Jakes

Four men fighting against their pasts…and for each other.

Men of Honor, Book 6

Several years after washing up on a beach in South Africa with absolutely no memory—not even his name—Lucky would rather
not
remember his past. Based on the number of scars on his body, it couldn’t have been anything good.
 

Then a man claiming to be his former Navy SEAL teammate walks into the bar and insists that Lucky’s real name is Josiah Joshua Kent. Turns out he’s been listed as KIA, and since he’s not dead, he’s now considered a deserter.

Discovering Josh is alive throws Rex, and his relationship with Sawyer, into a tailspin. Rex can finally lay to rest the nightmares of the night he couldn’t save his teammate. And Sawyer is faced with his
worst
nightmare—a relationship threatened by a very real ghost from the past.

As Josh begins to piece his memories back together, another man with a shadowy connection to his past—and maybe his heart—holds the key that could free him. Or send him to a traitor’s fate.

Warning: Contains rough language, rougher sex and warriors who fall hard for one another.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Bound to Break

Copyright © 2013 by SE Jakes

ISBN: 978-1-61921-749-2

Edited by Jennifer Miller

Cover by Angela Waters

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: December 2013

www.samhainpublishing.com