ALLIANCE by Michele Callahan

Author:Michele Callahan [Callahan, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ALLIANCE, A Timewalker Novel, Science Fiction
Publisher: Michele Callahan
Published: 2015-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The front doorbell chimed, sending a shiver of dread down Trent’s spine. Mr. Kline’s men must be here for the package.

“They’re early.” No one would hear him, but Trent spoke aloud regardless. The sound of his own voice made him feel alive and more in control. More real. Less afraid.

A few months ago, Trent would have settled a little deeper into his leather chair when the ring of the bell filled the house. His wife or the maid would have answered the door and he would have stayed right here, in his home office, enjoying a glass of whiskey and a cigar. Hell, six months ago he was sitting right here with his feet up on the leather footstool and a collection of crashing symphony music pounding at him through the speakers. A few months ago, the world had been his oyster.

Trent had sworn, years ago, never to be in this position. Never to be what his father had been. Poor. Broken. His father had worked eighty hours a week to make sure Trent and his mother didn’t starve. And Trent had watched. Many nights, Trent had gone to bed hungry. But he’d learned what it would take to survive in this world. He’d worked and clawed and made something of himself.

Then he’d fucked up and made the deal in Peru.

He took a deep drag on the cigar, the smoke burning its way down his throat and into his lungs. He’d be tasting the damn thing for days, the acrid taste on his tongue.

He exhaled and watched the cloud of smoke drift in random waves in the air above his desk before dissipating.

The deaths of the villagers were his failure. Sure, he’d lost a couple nights’ sleep over it, but nothing he couldn’t live with. No, his big mistake had been dedicating his life to his job. Work was a thankless bitch, and it had cost him everything. Even his wife was gone, and she’d taken the damn maid with her to her new house and her new life. She’d had a new husband, too. The old stack of divorce papers sat in a pile on the edge of his desk, the red-tabbed stickers poking out from its side taunting him for his failures.

No wife. No vaccine. No contract. And now, some asshole government spook blackmailing him.

The stupid divorce papers were just a fly in the ointment at this point. He used to feel like signing them would be equivalent to signing his life away. Ironic. He had no fucking life. Never had, really. But this empty house was salt in the wound.

Trent leaned forward and crushed out the end of his lit cigar in the crystal tray near his computer monitor. He ground it out a little harder than he needed to, snapping the remainder in the middle, the tobacco leaking from the edges of the broken wrapper. Ruined. Just like his life.

His desk was clean of paper, other than the divorce documents, which he’d refused to touch in the long months they’d been there.

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