Fear

He'd gotten himself into some pretty sticky situations before, but this was the first time he'd actually been scared. Properly scared. If this didn't go his way, he was done.

And that scared him.


It wasn't the sort of visceral fear he'd been used to. Not the 'get your heart racing, stare down the barrel of a gun' fear. That might have been easier to handle.

This was new. It was knowing that everything could be won or lost in an instant. Worse than every bad con and burned poker game gone horribly wrong. At least then, the option to lie low and disappear for a while is always present. When you burn a game, you're not looking at life without the possibility of parole (well, not unless you've seriously fucked up somewhere along the line, and burning the game also meant killing everyone else involved, or something equally screwed-up).

As it was, there were no other options. He'd played all of his cards, metaphorically and otherwise, and now it was up to someone else to decide what to do with him.


And that; not being in charge of the situation was what scared the hell out of him.