Chapter 2
I forced myself upright despite the doctor’s protests, my body still screaming from hours in frozen ground.
“Marcus,” I said to my right-hand man, “get the boy and his grandfather into protective custody immediately. Not police custody. Mine.”
“Sir, you’re barely conscious—”
“I’m conscious enough to know a professional killer with a twenty-four-hour deadline doesn’t care whether I’m resting comfortably.”
The boy, still standing near my hospital bed with Goliath pressed against his leg, watched the exchange with growing unease.
“Is someone trying to hurt you?” he asked.
I studied him carefully, weighing how much truth a nine-year-old could reasonably absorb. “Someone tried to hurt me, yes. And now that you’ve helped me, they might try to hurt you too.”
His grandfather, a weathered man named Walt who’d remained quietly protective near the doorway, straightened immediately. “Now wait just a minute. My grandson pulled you out of a snowbank. He’s not part of whatever business you’re mixed up in.”
“You’re right,” I said. “He shouldn’t be. But the men who did this to me won’t necessarily see it that way. They’ll want to eliminate anyone who could identify witnesses to my survival.”
Walt’s face paled slightly, protective instinct warring with disbelief at the surreal situation unfolding around his family.
“What exactly are you?” he asked directly.
I considered lying, offering some sanitized version of my identity. Instead, I chose honesty, given the stakes involved.
“Men call me the Reaper. I run operations across several states, some legal, most considerably less so. I have enemies who would very much like me dead, and one of them just discovered I’m not.”
The boy, whose name I still didn’t know, looked between his grandfather and me with the particular seriousness children summon when adults finally speak truthfully around them.
“What’s your real name?” he asked.
“Damon,” I said. “Damon Ashford.”
“I’m Toby,” he said. “That’s my grandpa, Walt.”
Marcus, still hovering near the door, cleared his throat. “Sir, transport’s ready. We need to move now if we’re moving at all.”
“Toby, Walt,” I said, “I need you to trust me for the next twenty-four hours. I can protect you, but only if you come with my people immediately.”
Walt hesitated, clearly torn between suspicion and the undeniable reality that his grandson had already been pulled into something dangerous.
“And if we refuse?”
“Then I’ll assign protection regardless, from a distance, whether you want it or not. I won’t let a child pay for my mistakes.”
Toby looked at Goliath, who whined softly, sensing the tension surrounding his young owner.
“Can Goliath come too?”
Despite everything, I felt something almost like a smile. “Goliath saved my life. He’s earned considerably better treatment than most people in mine.”
