She walks forward and takes my hand and I pull her into a hug. I lift her up off the ground and let her wrap her arms and legs around me like an octopus.

“I’ll be good to you, I promise. I’ll do whatever it takes to set it right. I think you’re amazing. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met because you did it all alone. You pulled yourself up with no help at all. You fucking astonish me with your strength. And you’re so beautiful. I don’t understand how they never loved you. I really don’t. Hurting you is the last thing I want. I want to make you happy, make you smile. See the confidence I know you have. When you drove away out there in Montana, you split me in half, Sydney. You said you hoped I felt that pain one day, and I did. I felt it. You ripped my heart out when you drove off and I knew I fucked it all up. My father never recovered after he caused my mom’s death and I came here to beg for you. Fight for you. Because I don’t think I can recover if you never forgive me. Even if you walk away right now, as long as you know I’m sorry—”

She leans back from my embrace and stops me with two fingers over my mouth. “Hush.”

I let myself crack a small smile as I squeeze her. “It doesn’t work on me, cowgirl. It doesn’t need to though. Because I already love you.”

She kisses me on the neck and leans into my ear whispering, “It doesn’t work on me either. It never did, Case. I saw the man you could be back when I was sixteen. I just saw him eight years before you did. I put my trust in you for a reason. And maybe we didn’t fall into love the way most people do. And maybe it took us a lot longer than most to find our true selves. But I’m OK with that. We’re here. We made it. Together. I have always loved you and no word could fill me up the way you do right now.”

“I owe you a happy ending.”

“This might qualify.”

“So I guess we’re even.”

“I guess we are.”

I set her down and we walk back into the bar to close it up. Maybe not for good. But for now. All the mistakes we made need to stay where they belong. In the past. Because the only thing worth living for is the future.

We slip out of the darkness like that. We get in the truck and back on the road so I can take her somewhere bright.

We never look back.

We only look forward, our eyes fixed on the sun.

“You can live in the heat of hell and still be happy. As long as that hell is your home.”

– Case

“You know why we like the desert, Syd?”

She’s looking at my safehouse on the outskirts of Palm Springs with utter disgust as I try to find the right key for the front door. I don’t blame her. I have a four-million-dollar log home up in Montana and this is… well, I think the whole thing cost me seventy-five grand after renovations.

“Who’s we?” she asks, simultaneously shaking off a spider that is trying its best to crawl up her flip-flop and wiping the sweat off her brow. It’s ninety-seven degrees today. And it’s only late March. We’ve been traveling for weeks, just enjoying each other. And the freedom we have to be ourselves. But I’m ready to settle down, so I brought her here. My favorite place in the whole fucking world.

Plus, it’s nothing but sunshine for as far as the eye can see.

“Uhh…” Fuck. I’m not an assassin anymore, and I’m not here to dry out, either. But I already started to tell her that us assassins like to come to the desert to dry out after the kill. So I have to say something. “Me and you,” I answer back, recovering.

“It’s hot here.”

“It’s supposed to be hot. It’s the desert.”

“And this place, Case… I’ve lived in the woods for weeks on end at times. But”—she fans herself now as I try another key in the lock—“it’s hot here. Is this house even up to code?”

The door swings open and a rush of cool air hits her in the face. She remembers I was talking and looks up at me with a smile. I love that smile. “Why do we like it here?”

I pull her inside and watch her face as she takes it in. She walks down the stairs to the sunken living room and with each step, the temperature drops. Three-feet-thick adobe mud walls will do that for a desert house. Especially one that is mostly underground.

She takes in the comfy couches and the cool tile floor. There’s artwork on the whitewashed walls and a guitar over by the Spanish-tiled fireplace, which I use on cold winter nights. And then she wanders over to the archway that leads into the kitchen. A chef’s kitchen with industrial appliances, white cabinets, and a nice stone countertop. I follow her in there, enjoying her reaction.

“We like it here,” I say, pulling her attention and her body back to me, “because I’m gonna make love to you in every room here. And get you pregnant here. And we’re gonna raise kids here and build an oasis in the backyard with a pool and a water slide. We can do anything we want here. Be ourselves forever here. We’re gonna start our new life here, Syd. And that’s why we like it here. We like it here… because it’s home.”

Read other books by JA HUSS

Jana Aston, my seriously talented personal assistant and BFF, just messaged me on Facebook and asked if I was raised by killers. I shit you not. Well, first she asked me, all innocent like, “Dude. When u write shit do u worry people will think u r fucked in the head or r u past that?”

I laughed. (I am past that, if you’re wondering. I am not this book. I am not these characters. I am merely their voice.)

But I started asking myself where the hell this book came from about halfway through writing it. This mind control stuff freaked me the fuck out. I had to do research, so I Googled it, and six hours later I was convinced Al Roker and Tila Tequila were under the influence of Illuminati MKUltra mind control. I slept with my gun that night, I swear to God. I even loaded an extra magazine I had sitting empty in a drawer for five years, and put it within easy reach. (Jana: “But the illuminati can mind fuck around your gun.”) #ThanksForYourSupportJana

I did not like the research at all, and even though the mind control stuff in this story is pretty intense, it’s nothing like the shit I saw and read online. I tamed it down by huge orders of magnitude because it really bothered me.

I don’t know where I get these ideas, they just pop into my head. But I will tell you a little bit about this process as it relates to Merc, because he is really the only character where I had so many background constraints that came out of so many completely different scenarios.

Merc first appears in Slack: A Day in the Life of Ford Aston which released in December 2013. And in that book Ford picks him up at the airport and delivers him to Cheyenne where Ford first encounters Sasha as a twelve-year-old girl. Slack took place on the same Christmas Eve as this book. Then Ford got Merc involved in another scheme in Taut. Merc was also mentioned, though not present, in Come Back with Sasha, Harper, and James. And he had his biggest role yet in Coming For You.

I went into Slack knowing I wanted to write some twisty suspense about this dude and that he was “on a list” of killers being used by high and powerful people. I didn’t invent “the Company” until I wrote Come for the BEND Anthology in May 2014, but I knew in Slack there would be a secret organization in a future book to explain what Merc was doing that night. In fact, thinking back, I had written out some scenes where Ford actually went with Merc to that job, but I deleted them all, and left Ford out of it to keep Slack on track.