“You have fucked up everything,” Cassel snaps.
The man laughs and shoves Cassel out of the way before exiting the house.
“Let’s go,” Cassel says.
I look up toward where the gun that killed Raul Barlow lies and then glance around the house.
“Burn the house,” I say.
“What? Why?” Cassel asks.
“I don’t trust him. I don’t trust him not to have left something of mine behind—to expose me or get rid of me or force more to come after me. Burn the house.”
Cassel nods and hurries over to a gas stove, and the house goes up with ease.
TWENTY-TWO
JACKSON
When the house Leland had gone into suddenly bursts into flames, panic floods me. How can chaos just explode around him? I rush toward it, my heart pounding hard in my chest, but I don’t get far before Leland and Cassel come dashing out like nothing strange is happening behind them. I wait until Leland catches up with me before hurrying back to the vehicle which I push Leland and Cassel into before climbing in myself a moment before Jeremy guns it and we’re off.
“Where to?” Jeremy asks.
“I have a hotel booked,” Cassel says. “We’re staying there for the night to see what I can figure out.”
“Raul is dead,” Leland announces.
Everyone shifts their attention over to him. “You shot him?” Everly asks. “After all of that?”
“I did not. My amazing stalker chose to. Cassel, do you have footage of what happened on Raul’s end? I wasn’t able to see and was only able to go off what he told me.”
“Hold tight,” Cassel says as he settles in his seat and Ellis hands him his laptop. Cassel sets to work on it while Leland hovers over his shoulder and I peek around the seat to see.
He slows the playback down when he finds what he’s looking for, but all I can see are people running. He moves the recording back a bit and presses play, and we watch Raul quickly moving across the yard, likely looking for his guards or us. He is saying something to his son and waving at him, telling me he’s trying to end the party, just as the bullet hits him right in the head. It’s a good shot, but our gunman had a clear opening if he was firing from the window. Still… knowing that he was skilled enough and ruthless enough to take that shot in the middle of a party filled with children makes me anxious.
The blood splatters the man Raul had been talking to and everyone at the party freezes. Parents rush for their children as people scatter and run.
“They’re going to come after you harder than ever before,” Micah says.
The look Leland gives tells us that he knows that, and he sounds discouraged when he asks, “What is the right answer here? Do I shoot the man who killed Raul? He’s not harmed a single innocent person, but he’s hellbent on ruining my life.”
“I blocked him in the stairway for a reason,” Cassel says as he switches to something else. It looks like a map and I see a dot moving on it. “When he shoved past me, I slipped a GPS tracker into his pocket. Let’s hope he leads us to his home.”
When we reach the hotel, all of us head into the room Leland and I are in, planning to talk before we go our separate ways for the night. I turn to Leland, who sighs as he sinks down into a chair.
“Tavish, on your hands and knees, I need a footrest for my best thinking,” he demands.
“The only feet allowed to walk all over me are attached to Ellis,” Tavish says.
Leland seems displeased by that as he sighs again and rubs his forehead. “How badly did I fuck up?”
“Is it really your fuckup when you had no control over it?” Micah asks curiously.
“I feel like things are spiraling and I’m just dragging all of you along for a life-threatening ride,” Leland says, althoughagain, I’m not sure why he’s trying to blame himself. Does chaos latch on to him? It sure as fuck does, but it’s not his fault… most of the time.
“Has Leland grown a heart? Does he care what happens to others?” Cassel asks with a gasp.
“I’m going to stop caring about anyone but my fence, Jackson, and Waylon if you don’t shut it,” Leland hisses.
