Bound In Secrets

Traitor

Carter

"Hello, Orpheus. I'm surprised you are alive, little traitor. If Ryder or Storm were Griffen, you'd be dead. Traitors end up disintegrating in a barrel until they become traitor soup. Isn't that right, Book?" Ajax asks after we load the bed of the truck and climb in. He is sitting behind me with a blade pressed against my cerebral vertebrae.

Booker is in the backseat beside Ajax while Jensen starts the truck. I look up into the rearview mirror to see a curved knife against Ajax's throat with blood trickling down it. "I warned you before. Don't call me Book," he snarls at Ajax.

I gulp. Sweat is sliding down my face. I'm about to die. I know it. Callum almost killed me and would have if it weren't for Sawyer and Natalie the day Razor Grothman had me service, Julia Snipe. She could have raped Ransom that day, but there was no way I was going to let her do that. I was bad enough that Razor had scooped his eye out.

Ransom was still my twin sister's loyal guard dog. If it weren't for him watching over her for me, so much bad could have happened to her over the years because I was a horrible protector of my twin sister. I should have been protective of her growing up, but I wasn't. I was a resentful little shithead.

"Leave Carter alone. He went deep undercover and got lost. It happens. Even to the best," Booker says as if he has personal knowledge of what I went through.

Booker was the last man chosen to join the Fury Team. He is a master infiltrator and skilled in a variety of weaponry. It's plausible that in his past he has either known someone who got too involved in their undercover life or he has personal experience.

"Not everyone can be a turncoat like you," Ajax comments.

Instead of the knife going deeper into his throat, it's removed and Book smacks him upside the head, grumbling that he is an idiot. He then threatens to tell Avery.

"I'll behave. Please don't tell Avery. His cousin will remove my dick for threatening her nephew," Ajax begs, removing the knife from my neck.

Finally, I can breathe. Why didn't I think of threatening by using my aunt? She is the most terrifying woman I've ever met.

"Exactly," Booker says succinctly before leaning his head back against the rest. His eyes close. He must be exhausted.

Booker looks as though he is younger than us, but in actuality, he is the eldest of the Fury Team. I want to know why Ajax called him a turncoat, but I don't dare ask Ajax and Booker is breathing heavily, already caught in the throes of slumber.

"I hear this city of Grêle is now home base from Tempest. How's that going with the Viper King around?" Ajax asks us.

"It makes buying things difficult. The moment we catch a whiff of a business being for sale, Viper buys it out from underneath us," Jensen informs him. "We got lucky with the few businesses we do own like JT's strip club."

"What do you do, Romeo?"

"Forensics to keep us all from going to jail. I work for the Crime Scene Investigation unit."

"Storm?"

"You're going to love this...funeral director," I tell him with amusement.

"You've got to be shitting me!" Ajax exclaims. "I did not see that one coming!" Ajax laughs so hard he clutches his stomach.

Jensen and I just shrug at one another. Owning and the funeral home is right up Storm's alley. What most people don't know about Storm is he is a Shaman. His parents raised him on the Chitimacha reservation. It's important to him that souls are laid to rest properly.

"What do you do, traitor?"

"I'm a political consultant."

"Following in your old man's footsteps, huh?"

"Not quite, but I'll think about running for a political office. If we are in the public eye like the Kings, then we can better cover the whole killing for more thing we have going on."

"You have a point. But that won't ever be for Fury Team. We operate in the shadows we always have. None of us were ever meant for the whole public eye thing."

"We prefer it that way. Especially now that Finley was killed," Ajax comments. "We owe it to Fin to see this job through."

"We heard about that. Our condolences. Fin was a fun guy," Jensen tells him.

"He got whatever when he would give those puppy dog eyes. No grown should have been as good at that as Fin was," I joke, attempting to lighten the somber mood.

"He was like having a permanent puppy around," Ajax agrees. "Especially when he was drunk and pissed in Booker's potted plants."

Booker yawns. "I rubbed his nose in one when I caught him," he adds.

When all laugh, remembering the then man who left a hole in the lives of Fury and us. He was my favorite to train with and we connected. He made me feel more myself than anyone else since Sawyer.

The rest of the car rideis silent until we make it to the apartment, that is.