That night in the land of sand when he’d been saved by Jim Heron had had repercussions, and a lot of them were the lead-and-steel kind—only not weapons. Thanks to that cocksucking soldier dragging him out of that ruined, dusty building and hauling him eight miles through the dunes in a fireman’s hold, Matthias was now part man, part mechanics, a creaky, clunky version of the strong, powerful fighter he’d once been. Put back together with pins and screws and bolts, he’d wondered in the beginning whether it would be a turning point. Whether the pain and suffering he’d gone through with all the surgeries would open a door to his becoming . . . a human.

As opposed to the sociopath he’d been born.

But, no. All he’d had since then were these precursors of the heart attacks that ran in his family. Which was a good thing. Unlike the bomb he’d set in the sand and deliberately stepped on, he knew a coronary would do the job—hell, he’d watched his father die from one.

Actually his father had been his first kill, courtesy of Matthias knowing exactly what to say to cause his old man’s ticker to seize up good and stop dead. He’d been fifteen at the time. Pops had been forty-one. And Matthias had sat on the floor of his bedroom and watched the whole thing, idly turning the knob on the radio that woke him up for school, looking for a good song among all the crap on the airwaves.

Meanwhile, his father had turned red, then blue . . . then faded out to gray.

Perverted fucker had deserved it. After all he’d done . . .

Pulling out of the past, Matthias drew on his coat, and as always the simple act of dressing was a production, his back straining to accommodate the shift of his arms. And then he was out of his office and walking the subterranean halls of the anonymous office complex he worked in, his body hating him for the ambulation.

His car and driver were waiting for him in the underground parking facility, and when he got into the rear of the sedan, he groaned.

Shallow breathing kept him conscious as the flaring pain grew volcanic . . . and then gradually subsided as the car eased forward.

From up front, he heard the driver say, “ETA eleven minutes.”

Matthias closed his eyes. He was not entirely sure why he was making this trip . . . but he was being drawn to the northeast United States by a compulsion not even his rational side could deny. He just had to go, even as he was surprised at the need.