Mercenary by Lizzy Ford Read Free Book Online

leave me,” I added
under my breath.
    “Only because you were about to walk out on
me. In my book, you left me!” she replied.
    “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”
    “Can this night get any worse?”
    “It’s definitely not how I planned to spend
it,” I agreed. “What happened back there? You weren’t you.”
    “What?”
    I gave her a look. I knew when someone was
hedging.
    “It’s complicated,” she said more
quietly.
    “Second time I’ve heard that tonight.”
    She said nothing.
    “You almost pointed a loaded gun at our son
after you murdered three men, or do you not remember that?” I
pressed.
    “I would never do either of those
things!”
    “Ask the Queen or Cleon. They saw you.”
    I felt her eyes on me briefly before she
twisted to view someone in the back of the van. When she
straightened once more, she was silent, frowning.
    “You’ve got potential. You need a good
combat trainer,” I said. “I can teach you to fight better.”
    “I don’t want you in my
life! In our lives!”
    “Too late for that,” I said. “If the world
is done, and we’re both going to have to defend our son, I want to
know you can do it as well as I can. You already know no one can
get by me. You’re the weak link here, Dosy.”
    She wrung her hands together in her lap.
    I had no idea what she was thinking.
    I drove in silence for thirty minutes. I was
moving us closer to our destination a little at a time, doing my
best to keep us off the radar of anyone and everyone.
    “I don’t want that,” Dosy said through
gritted teeth.
    “Don’t want what?” I asked.
    “I’m not talking to you.”
    I glanced in the rearview mirror at the
Queen, who was gazing intently at Dosy.
    “Phoibe’s right. I’ll be okay, Mommy,” Tommy
chimed in. “Daddy’s here.”
    Theodocia gripped her temples. “We’ll talk
about it later.”
    “What’s wrong?” I asked.
    “None of your business.”
    “How can you not remember killing three
men?”
    Dosy sighed. “Just drive, Niko.”
    Whatever it was, she was serious about
shutting me out. I wasn’t as upset as I thought I would be. After
all, it had been seven years since we last saw one another. If not
for Tommy, we never would’ve seen each other again.
    I began to notice SISA roadblocks the closer
we drove to the compound Cleon spoke of. I avoided several.
However, it soon became clear the compound had layers of security
extending outward in every direction, blocking any attempts at
entering illicitly. We’d have to bypass the outer layer
somehow.
    Drawing to a stop in front of a set of
barricades, I evaluated the ten men on guard, displaying SISA riot
gear. Behind them, a block away, was an armored vehicle blockade
with some serious firepower and beyond that, a metal gate topped
with barbed wire and probably sporting some serious security
deterrents I wasn’t able to see from here.
    “Cleon,” I said. “This is an official
blockade. I suggest, before I smash through it, you do what you do
best and see if you can’t get us in another way.”
    “I’ll handle this,” he said and opened the
back door of the van.
    I put the vehicle in park then leaned down
to grab weapons, just in case Cleon’s political sweet talking
didn’t pan out. He approached the SISAns with his hands up and
began to talk. Several minutes later, one of them radioed back to
someone else. Cleon remained where he was, and my eyes stayed glued
to the situation.
    A full ten minutes later, two armored cars
drove through the second layer of blockades to us. Two men dressed
in purple exited the lead car.
    “Oh, thank the gods,” Dosy said when she saw
them. “It’s the Queen’s royal guard.”
    Cleon led them to the van and opened the
back doors.
    The two men bowed deeply to the teen girl.
“We thought you dead, Your Majesty!” one exclaimed. “Praise the
gods!”
    “Screw the gods,” I muttered under my
breath.
    Dosy slapped my arm before she got out of
the van and circled it to act