I’d been so furious last night, blaming Creighton, which was valid. Everything was his fault, but dammit ... My head was swimming.
Okay. New plan.
Day by day. I’d figure things out as I went and hopefully find a solution so I could ... I didn’t know, but my body was heating up and calling myself a liar. I was trying to delude myself.
Was that what I was doing?
I got up out of bed, heading for the door, when a pile of things on my desk caught my eye.
My heart stilled, and my mouth opened an inch.
A phone. A wallet. A set of keys. All mine. Like, not new items. They were mine from when I’d been taken last night.
I wasstaggered.
Creighton left them.
That meant he’d been given them.
He knew. Had he known the whole time? Before he saw me? After he saw me?
I snatched my phone up and googled for the crime report for the area where I worked. When it came up and I scrolled through it, tension eased in my chest. No shootings. No bodies found. No fires.
Creighton hadn’t retaliated yet, but he would.
God help us when that happened.
I sent a quick text to Spence.
Me: Effective immediately, I quit.
Chapter Twenty-One
Creighton
I was in an SUV, staring outside at an older woman leaving a house with a younger man. He was younger than her, but he had a hardened look to him. Black curly hair. Face hadn’t been shaved in a couple days. He had a thick upper lip. Very intense dark eyes. His face was a little boxy, too boxy to be considered handsome, but there was a ruggedness to him. Some women and men would like that hard look on him. He had her purse in one hand and his arm up so she could use it for balance.
I knew this woman.
The man was a surprise, and I wondered why he hadn’t initially been included in my first round of reports on my enemies. This was Tristian West’s mother-in-law. Judging by the same chin, similar bone structure, and the fact they both walked the same, this was the brother-in-law as well. “This is Isaac Montell?” I asked Lassiter, who was watching them with me.
He glanced my way, his eyebrows pinching together. His Viking braids were hidden underneath a black ball cap. I couldn’t read him either because his sunglasses hid his eyes. “You’re more on edge than normal. Something happen with Blake?”
I pressed my mouth together. “Why would you automatically assume there’s something wrong with Blake?”
He laughed. “Are you serious? She’s the only thing that affects you.”
Thing.
I wasn’t amused. “She’s not a thing, Last.”
He got quiet. “You know what I mean. What happened?”
I ignored that and said, “Show me the other two.” I gestured to the file on his lap.
He handed over images of two more individuals.
I knew these faces. I’d seen them before, and I shuffled through the information in my head until I placed their names to the images. Pialto Rodriguez and Sophie Iriston. They were employees and considered “like family” to Ashton Walden’s woman.
