Liam nips his nose. “Nothing but the best for my murderlove.”
I snort, and Erik glares at Liam. “Don’t encourage him.”
“Which one of us are you talking to?” Hopper asks, gesturing his thumb between Liam and himself.
“Both of you are a bad influence. Don’t encourage Ant with this lunacy. He’s going to think that’s what love looks like, and he will be disappointed when he doesn’t get a crematorium of his own.”
Hopper and Liam exchange glances, then double over with laughter.
Seeing Erik’s annoyed face, Liam ratchets it back to a snicker. “Oh. You were serious. Sorry.”
Hopper, however, pulls me into a big, messy hug. “Sorry, brother. I have no intention of being a good influence.”
“That’s why I love you, Hop.”
12
ERIK
“Why are you in such a bad mood?” Ant asks as he changes out of his school-girl gear.
We’re back in Hopper’s apartment, and I’ve been biting my tongue the entire ride back, so I let him have it.
“I don’t like how hectic that was. We barely had time to talk in the bar before Hopper dragged you upstairs as bait in a room witheightchild predators. Nothing about that felt safe.”
Ant, down to the world’s smallest pair of lime-green boxer briefs, puts his hand on my arm. “Erik, it was planned out. Me and Hopper have been discussing it for weeks. It was all laid out in the notes I gave you for each location.”
“No. The original plan was in the notes. The wholecocks outthing? Not in the plan!”
He arches his brow at me. “We already told you it was a last-minute addition. Weren’t you the one who told me I should leave room for flexibility?”
“Not about this,” I say, pounding the side of my fist on the kitchen island. “It happened way too fast, and the whole thing would have fallen apart if any one of those men had, I dunno, removed his mask? It’s not like any of those guys think the rules apply to them. And God, the cleanup…”
Ant lets out a patient breath. “Here’s the thing. We had to kill them efficiently and with as little drama as possible. So we kept it simple. Things go to hell when we get elaborate, so we just made it a game.
“As for the cleanup, save for Park Avenue, there was hardly any blood. Hop killed seven guys in under a minute and most were dead before they hit the ground. We ruined a couch and a rug, and those were being thrown out anyway.”
“Liam found Park Avenue’s pinky in the tub!”
“Hey! I got, like, ninety percent of him on the plastic sheeting. It was fine.”
“It wasnotfine. It was sloppy. Also, you still haven’t told me how you’re going to explain away eight missing bodies.”
“It’s in the notes, Erik.I don’t know how many other ways I can say those exact words. Park Avenue is going into the Hudson with evidence he was killed by the child trafficker he liked using.”
“Oh,” I say, pulling up short. “That’s really smart. Puts authorities on the trail of the trafficker.”
Ant raises his brows. Fuck, he’s so beautiful.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I just think there was a better way to do some of that.”
He shakes his head, bending to grab something from his bag. “I swear the mayor of Boca is going to send you a key to the city any minute now.”
I rip my eyes from his adorable ass. “Hey! Stop calling me old. I’m not old. I just like things to be done in a certain way.”
He sends me another scathing look. “I know, but this is my op. I liked working with Hopper because he’s fun and knows how to enjoy a murder. Unlike some people who suck the joy out of things,” he tosses over his shoulder as he walks into the bathroom.
I come up with a few other salient points, but he’s already got the shower going. While he’s wet and naked a mere five feet away, I pull up my email again to go through the notes he sent me. This time I do a thorough read-through, and it doesn’t take long to see what a freaking genius he is.
