Read The Bounty Hunter: Soldier's Wrath for Free Online

Worst of all was Cass. She expected him to deal
with it and to recover, stabilize and handle things as well she could. Worst of
all was his fear that he would disappoint her.
    “I need a minute,” he said lowly.
    “Burke,” Natalie began.
    He closed his eyes and inhaled
deeply. He felt her hand once again on his shoulder. He shrugged away from her
and walked quickly out of the room.
     
     
    * * *
     
     
    Isaac felt anxious as he stared
around his room. The lone cat he owned was on his lap and he stroked her head
absentmindedly. The cat, a large tabby named Sunday, sat nicely and purred to
his touch. He barely felt it.
    He had paid extravagant amounts of
money making sure his time in isolation was a comfortable one. He had been high
enough in the ranks of the Torrentus Cartel to justify handling things
remotely, through the many proxy agents he had established over the years. He
used credits from his own savings, and slaves from his personal stock, to
construct the facility ship that he now lived in. The ship was large but he had
many needs.
    His personal ship had been built
into the larger one. He often moved between his personal rooms in the larger
ship—protected by several reinforced doors at its only entrance—and his old
vessel. Combined, they felt like a larger home. Much of his furniture was made
from non-synthetic materials, an unnecessary luxury that he refused to live
without. The rich colors of the wooden desks and cabinets complemented any color
he chose for the carpets and walls; most surfaces were alterable, capable of
changing at a simple command at the room’s main terminal. The walls and carpets
could change from red to brown, or white to gray. The tall picture frames
dotted around the room housed display screens that could also change and cycled
through multiple paintings each day.
    On his ship, he had access to the
vessel’s multimedia centre and recreation rooms. He had access to movies,
television, video games, and books as they were released. He had spent many of
his days lost in that entertainment, working only when he had to, and
justifying it to himself that it helped take his mind off the pathetic life he
now led. He didn’t like that he was hiding, but he liked living out in the
open, exposed and afraid, even less. After six years in hiding, he took no
pleasure in the entertainment he had set up for himself.
    “Sunday is a good cat,” he murmured,
still staring around the room.
    He had two separate bedrooms: one
for himself, and one for whichever slaves he currently kept close to him. He
took men and women from his personal stock, usually one at a time but not
always, and would use them himself. He took better care of them when they were
close by and visible, giving them food and clothes and access to whatever
entertainment they liked. When he was bored of them, he’d send them back into
the outer sections of the facility ship where the rest of the slaves were kept.
When they were once again out of sight, he lost interest in how they were
treated. He honestly didn’t know if the conditions for his slaves were poor or
not. He didn’t care.
    Only a small handful of guards were
kept on the ship, and even those few were sometimes too much for Isaac’s paranoia.
He allowed only one delivery, once a month, to bring supplies to the ship.
Toward the sixth year in hiding, he requested more slaves to be brought to him,
sometimes even purchasing some for himself. The comforts of his protective room
bored him. Some nights they even had the opposite effect, taunting him into a
rage. The expensive decorations and meticulously crafted life laughed at him, a
reminder that he wasn’t suddenly forced into isolation, but actively planned for
it. The word coward jumped at him from every detail of the prison he had crafted
for himself. The word coward would always remind him of Burke Monrow.
    He remembered well the small taste
of freedom he had experienced over a year earlier. He often lost himself in