It looked like Hubbard was ready for an argument, because the raisin eyes had returned. Lying back in my seat, I closed my eyes. I let out a weary sigh and there was nothing faked about it. Then looking at him again I said calmly, “The HRT are good. Just make sure that they’re ready for anything. Rickard’s good as well.”

His mouth dropped open, as though he’d prepared his next speech, but nothing came. Instead, he licked his lips and tapped the window separating the driver from us. Walter shot me a wink, then shared a glance with Bryce over the back of Hubbard’s head.

The limousine headed south for Miami, followed by a car containing Walter’s bodyguards. It had been a long day, and the last sleep I’d had in the shack in Colombia hadn’t been what you’d call quality. I wanted to nap, just as my friends did beside me, but I couldn’t. Rink snored like an idling bulldozer but that wasn’t what kept me awake. Thoughts of Jimena Grajales’s hatred nipped at me, making me fidget. Funny, but the fact that I hadn’t shot her lover dead had made me her worst enemy. That animosity had festered for seven years and had finally erupted a continent’s length away. The number who’d died was lost to me now: I’d stopped counting after the photographs Bryce showed me at the beach house a couple of days ago, but the dead now numbered dozens. Senseless dozens. I still couldn’t blame the woman, though. My ire was centered directly on Luke Rickard and my inability to kill him when I’d had the chance. The small matter of a fragmentation grenade coming between us didn’t mean much. Not now.

We still had no idea who Rickard really was. I knew what he was: a monster. He was a cold-blooded murderer masquerading as a contract killer. If he wasn’t being paid for his services he’d be tagged with a different title: serial killer. He shared traits with Tubal Cain—the “Harvestman,” who’d almost succeeded in murdering my younger brother, and had come close to cutting a hole through my heart—and also the other psychopath I’d fought more recently who went by the name of Dantalion. I had the horrible feeling that Rickard was worse than either of those I’d stopped and that he was nowhere near finished with his murder spree yet.