KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

      http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      Contents

      PROLOGUE

      CHAPTER 1

      CHAPTER 2

      CHAPTER 3

      CHAPTER 4

      CHAPTER 5

      CHAPTER 6

      CHAPTER 7

      CHAPTER 8

      CHAPTER 9

      CHAPTER 10

      CHAPTER 11

      CHAPTER 12

      CHAPTER 13

      CHAPTER 14

      CHAPTER 15

      CHAPTER 16

      CHAPTER 17

      CHAPTER 18

      CHAPTER 19

      CHAPTER 20

      CHAPTER 21

      CHAPTER 22

      CHAPTER 23

      CHAPTER 24

      CHAPTER 25

      CHAPTER 26

      CHAPTER 27

      CHAPTER 28

      CHAPTER 29

      CHAPTER 30

      CHAPTER 31

      CHAPTER 32

      CHAPTER 33

      CHAPTER 34

      CHAPTER 35

      CHAPTER 36

      CHAPTER 37

      CHAPTER 38

      CHAPTER 39

      CHAPTER 40

      PROLOGUE

      1994, Portland, Oregon

      Tony Ranieri sucked in smoke and fingered the tarnished dog tags in his hand. He had no patience for mysteries. Not in books, not on TV. Mind-squeezing, time-wasting bullshit. But there he was. In Tony’s face.

      He watched the kid squirt disinfectant into the bucket and start in on the floor, staring at the ponytail of streaky, dirt-blond hair, the thick muscles of the kid’s shoulders, emerging from the sprung out tank top of Tony’s, two sizes too big for him. The flesh-creeping pattern of scars snaked and spiraled over the kid’s skin. Those wounds had still been oozing the night he found the unlucky son of a bitch, almost two years ago, now. He hadn’t dared to take the kid to a hospital. The guys who’d done for him would be watching.

      Tony had braced himself to see those wounds go bad. There was internal bleeding, broken bones, too. And the kid’s face. Mother of God.

      He’d steeled himself to have to hide the body, pretend he’d never found the kid. Like he didn’t have enough shit on his conscience.

      But he hadn’t died. Tony sucked his cigarette, in defiance of the no smoking rule in the diner kitchen. His sister Rosa, colossal ballbreaker, was home, asleep. His young nephew Bruno had crashed hours ago upstairs. And the kid wasn’t going to rat him out. The kid couldn’t talk for shit. He could wash dishes, chop onions, scrape plates, and fight like a fucking demon from hell. But he couldn’t say a damn word.

      He wasn’t a kid, really, either. He’d been twentyish when Tony found him, but Tony hadn’t gotten a good handle on him yet, so he’d just stuck with “the kid.” He offered no other satisfying defining characteristic, besides his silence, and his scars. The kid would be movie-star good looking, if not for the scars. He was lucky they hadn’t taken his eyes. But Tony’d bet his left nut that the torturer had been working up to the eyes, the balls. Tony knew what got that kind of guy off. He knew it all too well.

      But something had interrupted the torture fest. The bastard had decided to finish the kid off. Just beat him to death and dump the body.

      Who knew why. Mysteries. Fuck ’em.

      The kid paused in his mopping, looked over his shoulder. He wanted to say something, wanted it bad. His green eyes burned with urgency. But nothing came out. The wires were cut. He was all fucked up. It hurt to look at him.

      The kid’s shoulders slumped. He got back to work. Slop, dip, swab.

      Tony’s fingers closed around the dog tags. He stubbed out the cigarette. He was a straight shooting guy. Kill or be killed, that was the kind of motto he could get behind. Ambiguity fucked with his digestion.

      Tony wound the chain round his hand til it burned his fingers. He’d found the tags in the kid’s blood-soaked jeans pocket, the night he’d chased off the killer. Not the kid’s own, though that was Tony’s first assumption.

      These tags were of an older soldier. Tony’s generation. Tony’s war.

      Tony had nosed around, asked his Marine buddies, and heard stories to curdle a guy’s blood. The name on that tag struck fear into the hearts of battle-hardened men. Sniper, killer, monster. Accused of unspeakable atrocities. Disappeared after Nam, before they could court-martial him. Probably slitting throats for the criminal underworld.

      He’d be Tony’s age, by now, with a team under him. Guys as badass as him, or worse. There was always worse.

      Tony stared at that lost, fucked-up kid bent over his bucket, and renewed the decision he made every night. The kid was in no shape to deal with the people who had reduced him to this. They would squish him like a cockroach. He was better off scraping plates, swabbing floors. Tony stared, breathing smoke. Hating the sick feeling of doubt in his guts.

      Eamon McCloud. What was he, to this kid? He cursed under his breath, in thick Calabrese dialect. He shoved the tags into his pocket.

      The name on those dog tags could put the kid’s broken life together.

      Or it could get him killed once and for all.

      CHAPTER

       1

      I am fucked.

      The thought flicked through Kev’s head, calm and detached. The roar of icy water filled his ears. The current would pull him loose in counted seconds. Seconds measured by the pounding pulse of blood through his brain. Each throb hurt like a raving motherlover, but there was nothing like imminent death to take a guy’s mind off a headache.

      His little angel’s face flashed through his mind. His dream companion, his spirit guide. Her big eyes looked sad,