Because now that Grier Childe had served her purpose, he had to get Isaac the hell away from the woman. Matthias had already killed the captain’s son, and so he considered their score even. However, the sonofabitch had already tried to leverage his way out once and that meant the daughter had to be used to keep her sanctimonious daddy-o in line: As long as she was alive, she could be killed, and that threat was better than duct tape over a flapping mouth any day.

“Follow him out of state as only you can,” Matthias heard himself say in a calm, level tone. “Wait for the right moment, and not around Childe’s daughter.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because I fucking said so. That’s why.”

Matthias ended the call and tossed the phone across the desk. All of his men were good at what they did, but his number two had tricks that no one else could come close to. This of course made the guy extremely useful, but also a danger if his ambitions or thirst for blood got away from them both.

The man was a demon, straight up—

Abruptly, Matthias had to take a deep breath to ease a pain in the center of his chest. Lately, the sharpshooters had been happening with increasing frequency, rendering him breathless and slightly nauseated. He had a feeling he knew what it was, but he was going to do nada to stop the myocardial infarction that was coming his way.

No doctor’s visit for him, no stress test, no Lipitor, no Coumadin.

On that note, he lit up a cheroot and exhaled. No Chantix to stop smoking, either. He was going to go hard with the coffin nails until he dropped dead from the big one—God knew he’d tried to kill himself with that bomb in the desert, and that had been a giant fuckup. Much better to ease into his grave the old-fashioned way, through bad diet, lack of exercise, and addictions.

As a chiming alarm went off, he braced his palms on the arms of his chair and prepared himself for getting vertical. Pain meds would have eased him tremendously, but they also would have dulled his brain, so that was a no-go. Besides, physical agony had never bothered him.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed hard on the chair and hefted his weight onto his legs. Moment to steady. Reach for the cane. Deep breath.