Only this innocent he couldn’t save. Her fate had already been decided and written. Unchangeable. It would have been far more merciful for her if she had died in the clinic bombing. Because the short future she faced wouldn’t go by quickly. It wouldn’t be merciful. In fact, it would tear her down to her soul, and in the end, that would fade too, leaving only a hollow shell of the fierce woman she used to be. She would welcome death. Pray for it. And it would only make her captors all the more determined to prolong her hour-to-hour agony.
And he was responsible. He would have done that to her. Make it possible for her to be treated with less regard than an animal. And for what? The greater good? It was the philosophy Titan had always held as their creed, even when Rio led Titan. The man who’d taught Hancock everything he knew.
Hancock had always believed in that motto. He understood it. He lived it, breathed it, risked his life to uphold it. But for the first time, the idea of Honor’s sacrifice being responsible for Maksimov, Bristow and ANE going down and saving hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the process made him . . . sick. It disgusted him.
Maybe it was time to hang it up. Disappear somewhere and start a new life where he would be known to no one and not relentlessly hunted. Somewhere he could be alone, never having to deal with the oblivious people he’d lost his soul for in order for them to continue their ignorant, happy existence.
But no. He had family. By love, not blood. They were the only people in the world he felt . . . anything . . . for. Affection. Love. Unwavering loyalty. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for any of them.
He couldn’t simply walk out of their lives and never return. They deserved better of him after all they’d done for him. They’d saved him. They’d given him purpose and a place in the world, even if it was a place so steeped in shadows and sins that he doubted he’d ever see the light again.
He’d long ago made peace with the fact that he wasn’t a good man. He’d never be a good man. But for his family, he could and would be that man even if it was all a lie. Big Eddie, his foster father. And his brothers—Raid, a policeman, and Ryker, a former military man who went into personal security after his discharge. He’d heard from Eden that KGI was considering taking Ryker on. But he’d last spoken to her months before and only then to let her know he’d be out of touch for an indefinite period of time.
Eden. His baby sister who meant the world to him. She was everything good. Everything he wasn’t. He wasn’t a man who scared easily, or at all for that matter. He was calm in the face of adversity, his mind always calculating like a computer his options and possibilities. And he kept all his missions impersonal. Never forming any attachment or bond with anyone.
But nearly losing Eden—losing her for several hours when she endured horrific torture—had unhinged him. He’d been terrified. Out of control. Shaking. Emotional. All the things he considered weaknesses in his work.
Even as he considered that if he had no family he’d never face those very uncomfortable emotions and reactions, he knew that he loved the Sinclairs when he loved no one else. They were his only anchor in the dark world he was being absorbed into more and more with every passing day.
Shaking himself back to the task at hand, he glanced up at Honor to see if she was still conscious. She was, but her eyes were glazed with pain, though not a single sound passed her tightly closed lips. No betraying quiver in her body. The only evidence of her strain was her tightly curled fists on either side of her.
“I’ll be careful,” he said in an attempt to reassure her.