‘Exactly. Anyway, I told the hit-man that I still felt guilty for telling him where to find my father, and he said that he would have found the cabin in the public record eventually and gone hunting. Then he said, “When I said it was done, I mean it’s all done. You don’t have to worry about either of the other two guys ever coming back.” It was like he really cared, which was strange. I guess in his eyes he’d righted a wrong. Then he said that they’d suffered for what they’d done to my brothers.’ He exhaled heavily. ‘And I was glad.’

‘Me too. What about the money?’

‘He said he got all but a few thousand that they’d blown on drugs. That his boss had been paid and the slate was clean.’

‘But you still haven’t told me about that damn gun.’

‘I’m getting to it. After he told me about the kidnappers, he gave me a paper bag with that gun in it.’

‘Holy shit. He gave you a gun? Why?’

‘He said he’d found it with my father’s things, saw my grandfather’s name engraved on the grip and thought I might want to have it. I wanted to know if it was the gun that he’d used to kill them all, but I was afraid to ask. I wanted it to be and I didn’t want it to be, all at once.’

‘I think I can understand that. The gun symbolized justice, but also your freedom because they couldn’t come back to get you. But I didn’t see a name on the grip.’

‘I scratched it off.’ He gave her a sideways glance. ‘At the same time that I scratched off the serial number.’

‘You scratched them off? Why?’

‘Because if it had been used to kill someone, I didn’t want my grandfather to get dragged through the mud. He’d already been through enough.’

‘You’re a kind man. In a twisted sort of way. But I still can’t believe he gave a gun to a little kid.’

‘I know. I remember gazing up at this terrifying-looking man and saying, “Mister, you realize I’m only eight years old. I’m not even allowed to touch guns.”’

Scarlett chuckled. ‘What did he say?’

‘He patted my head and said, “You won’t always be eight, kid.” Then he wished me luck and left. I shut the door and thought that was the end of it.’ He drew a breath and let it out. ‘And then I turned around and there was Gayle, stepping out of the shadows.’

‘Shit. Busted big time.’

‘She was pale and shaking and holding a rifle I didn’t even know she owned. She thought the man was there to kidnap me and she was going to blow his head off. But when she saw I wasn’t afraid, she listened to the conversation. She asked me why I’d done it. I told her everything, and she sat down on the floor and cried. Big, huge sobs. I hugged her, told her it would be all right. She said she was crying for me because I’d had to make that decision, because I’d felt so alone and had no one to help me. I thought she’d tell my mother, but she never did. She did take the gun away, though, and gave it to my grandfather when we moved to Ohio once Stone was able to travel. Mom sold the apartment in Lexington and never went back. My grandfather put the gun in his safe, but his combination was easy to guess.’

‘The date of the liberation of Bataan?’

‘You got it. When we moved to Cincinnati, I was still having nightmares. Stone’s were worse, so I took the gun and slept with it under my pillow. My grandfather’s house – which now belongs to my mother – has eight bedrooms, but Stone and I shared a room until I joined the Army. When he was really little, my having the gun made him feel better, knowing I could protect him. Later, he got his own guns.’ He sighed. ‘He has more weapons than a lot of small countries. Knows how to use them, too. He’s a helluva shot and he has black belts in three different martial arts.’

She was quiet a long moment. ‘Did you ever tell him what your father had done?’

‘No. He was so fragile for so long that I didn’t dare. But I did tell him that the men who hurt him were dead. I cut out the article from the newspaper and showed it to him.’ Marcus swallowed hard. ‘He slept with that article under his pillow until the paper disintegrated. I went to the library and downloaded a copy and laminated it at school. I don’t know what he did with it after that.’

‘You protect him.’

‘He’s my brother. He knows I carry a lot of guilt, but he thinks my hero complex is because I didn’t save him from the men that hurt him. And because I couldn’t save Matty. I’ve considered telling him a thousand times, but I always figure, what’s the point? He has enough issues to work through.’

She was quiet for so long that he glanced over at her. ‘You don’t agree?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘He’s your brother. But I suspect he may be stronger than you think. Anyway, back to the gun. Didn’t your grandfather ever miss it out of his safe?’

Marcus smiled grimly. ‘He knew. Who do you think taught me to shoot?’

She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘He let an eight-year-old have a loaded gun? What kind of man was your grandfather?’

‘A man who knew what it was like to fight with demons in your dreams. And he didn’t let me have it. Not at first. He kept putting it back in the safe and I kept taking it out. He kept changing the combination and I kept figuring it out. Finally we came to an understanding that I wouldn’t keep it loaded. He took the clip. He didn’t know I’d hidden a loaded clip of my own.’

She frowned. ‘That gun could have gone off in the middle of the night!’

‘No, because I kept the gun under one pillow and the clip under the other. I practiced until I could load it in seconds. But I was careful. I didn’t want Stone to get shot by mistake.’

She shook her head again, harder. ‘I was thinking about it going off and shooting you in the middle of the night.’

He hesitated, then decided to trust her with the rest of it. ‘I don’t think I would have cared, Scarlett. There were times I almost hoped it would.’

She turned fully in her seat to face him and it took only a glance to see that all the color had drained from her beautiful face. ‘What?’ she whispered.

‘I still wrestle with what I did that day. I know you think I’m absolved because of my age, but three people are dead who never got their day in court.’

‘You think they deserved their day in court?’

‘No, but my mother deserved to look her husband in the face and know that she wasn’t to blame for Matty’s death because she called in the FBI. I could never tell her.’

‘Because if you’d told her, you’d have had to tell her what you did too. Oh, Marcus.’

‘I made my bed. I’ve had to lie in it all these years. It’s hard enough now that I’m old enough to process everything that happened, but then I was just a messed-up kid. The year I was nine, I came damn close to not seeing ten.’

‘You wanted to kill yourself?’ she asked in a trembling voice. ‘When you were nine?’

He nodded gravely. ‘But I never did. Partly because of Gayle. That she knew and still loved me . . . it made a difference. And partly because Stone still needed me. I couldn’t leave him alone. But some days I wished for quiet in my mind because all I heard was killer, killer, killer.’

‘How did you survive the Army? You had to have killed the enemy.’

‘More than my share,’ he murmured. ‘The Army helped Stone conquer some of his fears. It helped me too. Because by the time I joined up, I was old enough to understand what I was doing and it helped me keep the perspective that the people who kidnapped Matty, Stone and me were the enemy. It helped me square it in my own mind. But it still haunts me. All of my kills do. That’s one of the reasons we rarely get physical with the people we target at the Ledger. I draw the line at gentle coercion. Although recently . . . especially after Mikhail, it’s been hard. I’ve found myself tempted so many times to just shoot the damn bastards and be done with it. Then they can’t hurt their families again. But I’ve stayed on my side of the line. Just barely.’