It’s the little things that get you through, Syd.

I know that. I live for little things. That way you’re never too disappointed.

The snow gets deeper and deeper as I go and my wheels slide around, creating a sea of slush. I see a huge drift up ahead on the road. At least six feet high. I look in my rear view, anxious about who might come after me if they notice I’m gone, and then gun it.

I’m not getting stuck on this mountain. I’m not. Once I’m in, I’m all in. I’ve never been someone who changes their mind once I hatch a plan. And quite frankly, I’m not up to witnessing the disappointment on Brett’s face if he finds out I tried to run and failed.

The tires slip to the right, making me correct the steering, and then they find purchase on some stones or twigs and the truck lurches forward. The snow mound acts like a ramp and then I’m flying through the air. A moment later the front end crashes into the ground and I am thrown forward, my head hitting the airbags so hard I see stars.

“Limits are for finding strength. Push yourself until you can’t move… and see what happens.”

– Case

There comes a time in every soldier’s life when they realize—all this bullshit is bigger than them. You are small. They are big. You are weak. They are strong. You are dead. They live on.

I picture myself standing out in a vast desert surrounded by nothing but sand on all sides. There’s a crashed plane nearby, smoking.

I’m in uniform, desert fatigues. But they are ripped from the crash. My body is burning from the sun and the pain. My lips are cracked and dry. Water is the only thing on my mind because that’s how you get through as a soldier. You only think of survival.

The problem with survival for most people is that it’s overwhelming.

I’m not most people.

When others see nothing but sand, I squint and see the outline of a mountain range hidden in the mirage of the desert heat.

When others feel their throats closing up as the dry wind whips past their face and threatens to choke them, I picture kissing a woman’s lips, still wet and cool after taking a refreshing drink of water.

When others realize this bullshit is bigger than they ever imagined and all they want is to go back home and fuck their girlfriends and drink beer, I remind myself there is no girlfriend. There is no back home. There is only me.

Other people walk away.

Other people give up.

Other people forgive and forget.

I am not other people. I am Merc and there are three things you should know about me.

Number one. You might be bigger, but I will last longer.

Number two. If you fuck me, I fuck everything you ever loved.

And number three. I never lose. My victory is only delayed.

The tracking app dings in my hand and then a light appears. A smile cracks before I can stop it. Because how fucking perfect am I? I know her so well. And after almost eight years of careful observation and planning, I should.

I tab a graphic on my phone app and pull up a satellite view. It’s real-time. Because while this bitch has been running her little country western bar in Cheyenne, planning cute little theme nights and trying to forget that she was once under the control of a ruthless man, I’ve been accumulating wealth, gathering technology, and feeding my desire for vengeance. I have all the tools. If revenge is a journey, then I’m well-supplied for it. I have anything and everything I want or need to pull off one last job before I disappear for good.

And it all starts now.

I check the laptop in the passenger seat, also showing the drone feed in real-time, and watch as it changes direction when she leaves the parking lot of the lodge that is heavily covered by ancient conifers. A few keystrokes later and I’ve got a pretty good bird’s-eye view of her truck as it turns onto the only road leading in and out of the almost deserted resort.

I knew back in June she’d run. I knew because she changed the wedding date four times. This was her last chance to settle down. And if she had, I might’ve called that a victory in and of itself and found another way to finish this job.

But—I let a smile crack—I’m so glad she didn’t. Her black truck winding down the mountain road is the only reminder I need of who and what she really is.

Sydney Helena Channing. Company kid. Use her, abuse her, and she always comes back for more. If the girl has a motto, that’s it. That’s the girl I’ve come to know and hate as I watched and waited patiently for all the many pieces to fall into place. Tonight is the first move of the endgame. And I’m about to put her motto to the test.

Sydney is the one who started this for me. Yeah, maybe the senator was the one who set me up—but there’s no way I’d have taken the job on Christmas Eve if a teenage girl wasn’t involved.

Channing knew that. He fucking knew that.

I grit my teeth and force myself to push the past away. What’s done is done. The present is coming up on me in a black truck showered in white flakes.

Almost eight years. That’s how long it took for this moment to arrive.

I light up a cigarette and roll the window down, letting in the frigid mountain air. The snow is picking up, and good God, could this night be any more perfect to pull this off?

I glance down at my phone tracker again and my heart rate jacks up a little with anticipation.

Today I get full access. For the first time in years, full, unobstructed access to her. But that’s not all I’m going to get. No, not by a long shot.

Her headlights wind down the mountain and a few minutes later there she is. She guns her truck to get through a heaping pile of snow. It’s hiding a tree that spans the whole width of the road.

No cars in. No cars out.

The resort is closed and so are the roads. Guests arrived two days ago and aren’t due to leave until after the wedding.

If there was a wedding. I’d usually feel a little guilty about taking a woman the night before her wedding. But not this woman and not this wedding.

I’m not the one running. She is.

The truck doesn’t plow through the snow like it should, like she expects. The hard-packed snow underneath the innocent-looking pile shoots her straight into the air.

I appreciate the beauty of a two-ton projectile completing a mid-air arc as it flies towards me and then gravity takes over and pulls her back down to earth front-end first. The crunching of metal almost drowns out the hiss of airbags being released, and then the mountain goes quiet. The only sound is the muted music coming from her radio.

A song I know well. A song she knows well too.

I smile at that. I smile at the crashed and smoking truck on the snow-covered road. I smile at all of it.

I open the door of my truck, and that little annoying alert dings through the stillness. I ignore the open-door alert and step out. My steel-toed boots crunch in the snow as I walk towards the tree, and then I place a hand on the frozen bark and hop over it, listening for her moans.

But what I get instead is swearing. “Fucking shit!”

Perfect. It would’ve really sucked if the crash had killed her before I got my chance to end this properly.

I wait as one gloved hand reaches outside of the broken window of the driver’s side door and pulls the handle. The truck is tilted at an angle, so she tumbles out onto the snow in a heap. “Shit,” she groans.

I watch silently as she gathers herself up onto her knees, and then, after a few wobbly seconds, she rises to her feet. She huffs out a long breath of air and wipes her brow, covering her hand with blood.