Instead he asks, “Do you believe him? That he wants to go home?”
“That’s not his fucking home!”
I’m on my feet now. I grab one of the kitchen chairs and sling it across the room. I start pacing.
Noah is silent at first, then he says, “Answer me, Andre. Do you believe him?”
I make myself stop even as the waves of anger roll through me. But it’s not just anger. It’s fear too. Because …
“No,” I answer. “I don’t believe him.”
“I don’t either,” Noah says. “So why would he do that?”
A terrifying thought occurs to me. I start walking. I leave the apartment and take the elevator. The call drops.
My phone starts ringing as I walk across the moonlit office to the overturned desk. There are only two things that Elias mighthave come up here for. The first I find lying on the floor, separate from everything else like Elias pulled it out to use it. It’s Piero’s card, and Elias needing it means he didn’t already have his father’s number.
The other thing I can’t find.
The ringing stops when my phone goes to voicemail, but it starts ringing against almost instantly. I answer it.
“He took my gun,” I tell Noah.
“Shit,” Noah says, though he doesn’t sound surprised. “He’s gone after his father.”
“But what car is he in? He doesn’t have one and—hold on.” I pull up the security footage for the parking garage. My vehicles are still there. Then I pull up the exterior cameras, going back to the time Elias left. I see him walking. I watch until he’s out of frame.
“Andre?” comes distantly from my phone.
I put it to my ear and say, “He must have walked to the park and met someone. He must have gotten in their car. But I need to check there. I need to see if—”
“I’ll do it on my way. I’m coming to get you. Do not leave. Promise me.Andre,” he growls when I don’t reply. “We do this together. Fucking promise me you’ll be there when I arrive.”
I close my eyes. I make myself remember that I can trust Noah. I make myself yield.
“I promise.”
***
I’m standing outside The Axis in a black hat and the black clothes that I’ve often worn to stalk Elias, when a familiar black van pulls up. Wes glances at me from the driver’s seat, but he doesn’t roll down the window to say anything.
A second van, different make and model, pulls up behind.
The back doors of Wes’s van open and Noah, also dressed in black, steps out. “Andre. I’ll explain on the way.”
I walk toward Noah, studying the second van. There’s a tough-looking guy driving it, and I can tell there are men in the back.
There are men in the back of Wes’s van too. Rafael and Dominic, plus another that I don’t know. They’re all dressed in black, all armed and armored, all with gaiters around their necks ready to cover their faces. I have one too. We can’t be caught on camera.
I get in and sit on the bench beside Rafael. Noah gets in behind me and pulls the doors shut. He sits on the bench across from me, beside the man I don’t know.
“Nothing at the park?” I ask as the van starts rolling. I feel weirdly calm. I’m not sure why.
“Nothing,” Noah confirms. “And no sign of struggle.”
Dominic leans forward to look around Rafael. “And you’re really fucking sure Elias wouldn’t have legitimately gone back to his father?”
Even in the faint glow of light through the back windows, I can see the ever-present aggression written across his handsome face.
