When Dylan kissed him - when she looked at him full in the face and her eyes reflected back only honesty - Rio could believe, at least for a moment, that he wasn't just a pitiful waste of air and space. When he'd looked into Dylan's eyes and felt her hand cradling his scars, he could believe life might actually be worth living after all.
And he was a selfish bastard for thinking that he had anything to offer a woman like her. He'd already destroyed one woman's life, and nearly his own; he wasn't about to take a second chance with Dylan's life.
Rio narrowed his gaze on the target down the way and forced an iron steadiness into his hold on the gun. He pulled the trigger, felt the familiar kick of his weapon as the Beretta discharged and a bullet went blasting into the smallest center ring of the target's bull's-eye.
"Good to see you haven't lost a bit of your aim. Still dead-on like always."
Rio set the weapon down on the shelf in front of him. When he turned around it was to find Nikolai standing behind him, his broad back leaned up against the wall. Rio had known he wasn't alone here; he'd heard Niko and the three other unmated warriors talking on the far end of the facility as they cleaned their weapons and rehashed their late-night prowl of the human after-hours club.
"How was the hunting topside?"
Niko shrugged. "A lot of the usual."
"Hot babes without enough sense to run when they see you coming?" Rio asked, a tentative stab at breaking the ice that was present between them since his arrival at the compound.
To his relief, Niko chuckled. "Nothing wrong with loose and easy when it comes to women, my man. Maybe next time you should hang with us. I can hook you up with something sweet and nasty." Twin dimples notched his lean cheeks. "You know, if you're not planning to off yourself or anything in the meantime. You dumb bastard."
It was said without venom, only the solemn knowledge of a friend concerned about one of his own.
"I'll let you know," Rio said, and he could tell by Nikolai's narrowed look that the warrior understood he wasn't talking about the prospect of getting a little action topside.
Niko's voice dropped to a confidential tone. "You can't let her win, you know? 'Cause that's what giving up is. Yeah, she screwed you over, and I'm not saying you need to forgive and forget because frankly I don't think I could if I were you. But you're still here. So f**k her ," Niko said harshly. "Fuck Eva. And f**k the bomb that went off in that warehouse. Because you, my friend, are still here."
Rio scoffed, but it was a weak sound in his tight throat. He tried to clear the obstruction, feeling awkward as hell for caring that someone cared about him. "Damn, amigo. Just how much Oprah have you been watching since I've been gone? Because coming from you, that was really touching."
Niko chortled. "On second thought, forget all that shit I just said. Fuck you too."
Rio laughed, the first real laugh to come out of his mouth...Jesus, in about a full year's time.
"Hey, Niko." Kade came strolling up from the other end of the facility, the Alaskan's black spiky hair and sharp silver eyes giving him a wild, wolflike look. "I'm turning in. Tonight if we run into that other Rogue out of the Darkhavens, don't forget you promised he was mine."
"If I don't get to the suckhead first," Brock put in, coming up behind the other warrior and smiling as he artfully placed the edge of a huge dagger under Kade's chin.
Brock's rich chuckle boomed out of him good-naturedly enough, but it was plain to see that the warrior the Order had recruited from Detroit would be as grim and thorough as the Reaper himself in combat. He let Kade go, and the two of them continued to argue over dibs on the Rogue as they headed out of the weapons room to their own separate corners of the compound.
Chase was the last to come around from the back of the facility. His black tee-shirt had a long rip down the front, like someone had tried to get a piece of him. Judging by the sated color of the vampire's glyphs and the chilled-out look in his normally hard-ass eyes, it appeared he'd taken his fill of everything the club girls were offering topside tonight.
He gave Rio a slight incline of his head in greeting, then spoke to Nikolai. "If you hear anything more out of Seattle, let me know. I'm curious why a killing of this nature hasn't been acknowledged by the Agency yet."
"Yeah," Niko said. "I'd like to know that myself."
Rio frowned. "Who turned up dead in Seattle?"
"One of the longest-standing members of the Darkhaven out there," Niko said. "The guy was Gen One, in fact."
The hairs at the back of Rio's neck did a sudden ten-hut at that bit of news. "How was he killed?"
Nikolai's look was grave. "Bullet to the brain, pointblank range."
"Where?"
"Typically the brain is located in the head region," Chase drawled, his thick arms crossed over his chest.
Rio slid a narrowed glare on the male. "Thanks for the anatomy lesson, Harvard. I mean where was this Gen One at when he was killed?"
Niko met Rio's sober look. "Shot in the backseat of his chauffeured limousine. My contact said the poor bastard was returning from the opera or the ballet or some damn thing, and while he was waiting at a traffic light, someone popped him in the head and vanished before the driver even realized what had happened. Why?"
Rio shrugged. "Maybe nothing, but when I was in Berlin, Andreas Reichen told me about a Gen One killing that happened recently over there. Only this Darkhaven elder ate it at a blood club."
"Those private sports clubs have been outlawed for decades," Chase said.
"Right," Rio agreed, all sarcasm, since the ex - Darkhaven Agent seemed intent on being a prick. "So now they print the invitations in invisible ink and you need a secret decoder ring to get past the door."