And as he stood over his boss, the back-flat was just too fucking metaphorical: The man had fallen in more ways than just in the here and now.

Jim didn’t believe for one second that the guy was sincere about taking Isaac back into the fold. That was just a draw to get the soldier within shooting range.

God knew Matthias was an excellent liar.

Jim bent down and put the man’s gun back into its holster; then he slipped his arms behind the guy’s knees and under his shoulders—shit, the cane. He reached across, picked it up, and laid the thing right down the center of the man’s chest.

Standing up was a breeze, and not just because Jim had strong shoulders. Damn . . . Matthias was so light; too light for the size of his frame. He couldn’t have weighed more than a buck fifty, whereas in his prime he’d been well into the two hundreds.

Jim walked through the closed doors of the embalming room and went up the stairwell to ground level.

Back in the desert, when he’d done this the first time with the fucker, he’d been prickling with adrenaline, on a race to get his boss back to camp before the fucker bled out—so that he wouldn’t be accused of murder. Now, he was calm. Matthias was not about to die, for one thing. For another, they were both in a bubble of no-can-see and safely in the States.

Passing through the locked front door, he figured he’d take Matthias over to the guy’s car—

“Hello, Jim.”

Jim froze. Then twisted his head to the left.

Strike that about the “safely,” he thought.

On the far side of the funeral home’s lawn, Devina stood on the grass in her black stilettos, her long, gorgeous brunette hair curling down to her breasts, her little black dress hugging all those curves. Her perfect facial features, from those black eyes to those red lips to that alabaster skin, positively glowed with health.

Evil had never looked so good.

But then again, that was part of her surface appeal, wasn’t it.

“What you got there, Jimmy,” she said. “And wherever are you going with him.”

Like the bitch didn’t already know, he thought, wondering how in the hell he was going to get out of this one.

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 26

From his vantage point in Grier’s pantry, Isaac could hear what was being said out in the kitchen—but he couldn’t see a damn thing.

Not that he needed a visual.

“Tell me where Isaac Rothe is,” Grier’s father repeated in a voice that had all the warmth of a January night.

Grier’s response was just as chilly. “I was hoping you’d come here to apologize.”

“Where is he, Grier.”