“How’s Violet?” I asked, feeling shitty that this was the first time I’d thought to check on him.
“Stable,” Keller replied. His jaw ticked, but that was the only sign he gave away at how much it was killing him. “Probably going to be a long recovery. Not sure he’ll ever be able to go in the field again.”
“Shit,” I said, shocked. “Really?”
Keller’s head nodded slowly.
“Lipton tortured him… or had him tortured. I don’t know the details yet, but it was really bad.” He paused and sucked in a deep breath. “I want Lipton to pay.”
I did too. For so many reasons. For all the people’s lives that he ruined. For the ones he ended.
My heart raced as my eyes locked on the shady older man walking across the street in the direction of the house.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” I asked, a deadly edge to my tone.
“Yeah,” answered Keller with the same edge in his tone.
“Fuck it,” I said as I popped open the door. “I’m taking this fucker down. You better get directions to the closest FBI office. We’re about to drag his ass in.”
I hopped out of the car before he could stop me.
Lipton locked eyes with me as I crossed the street. I didn’t think he knew me, but I was sure the fire in my eyes and the rage vibrating my body gave him a clue that I was coming for his ass.
His head whipped around. I bet he was calculating his best move. Trying to speculate if he had enough time to make it to the front door of his house. Or did he think it would be better to turn around and head away from me?
“Run, I dare you,” I muttered under my breath.
Yeah, I was feeling cocky. Iwasgoing to take him down. A two-lane street separated us. Then only feet. That was when instinct kicked in and he attempted to dash up the sidewalk in the direction of his house.
He didn’t make it to the first step before I snatched him up by the back of the shirt and slammed him down on the ground. He let out a grunt once his back collided with the sidewalk, his arms frantically cutting through the air as he attempted to slap at me.
The man fuckingslappedat me. Like this was some playground fight.
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me, right now?” I shook my head at him.
I grabbed the front of his button-up shirt and hauled him to his feet with one arm.
He wasn’t anything.
This big bad that we’d been trying to find for almost a year now was nothing more than a pathetic old man.
Here was the moment I said something grand.
Oh, and there was plenty I could think of to say.
Like vocalize how he’d fucked with the wrong person. Because Ford was mine, and I’d do anything for him. I could threaten to kill him in the most painful way possible, but then I’d tell him I couldn’t because we needed him for a confession, and after that, I’d make sure he knew that I only needed him alive to give that confession. Leave it up to his imagination all the ways I could torture him and still keep him breathing. This would be a good time to tell him that I was going to make him suffer for every kid The Sons of the Holy Fire had harmed. For every dead body I’d come across that he had a connection to. For leading such a sick group of people and helping them stay under the radar by exploiting his position.
I could have left him with a promise that I would find him after the truth had been set free. That I’d end him no matter where he ended up.
But what I did was… nothing.
It was Ford’s voice in my head, telling me that Lipton wasn’t worth it. Lipton didn’t deserve my emotions, not even the angry and violent ones.
“This is the end,” I simply said as I released him so Keller could slap a pair of sturdy plastic cuffs on him.
“That’s what you think,” he said, but he looked scared.
“We’ve got your master list. We’ve got your files. We’ve got Violet.” At that, his eyes went wide with surprise. Lipton knew that if we had Violet, then we had everything in the room we used to get to him. I held back a smirk that was so ready to be set free. “We’ve got you. And there is no way out of this. Even if youthink you have connections, you’ll have plenty of people turning on you soon enough that it won’t matter.”
