That was a momentary lapse on my part. It made sense to go along with the story about Barnaby’s mom being sick—although we don’t know if Mrs. Fisher is even alive, but it seemed better than “actually, Barnaby’s throat is slit in the other room, so he’s busy.”
“We have to look for the hard drive, anyway,” I say. “It buys us time. We can stay here, get rid of Barnaby, find the hard drive, and …” I shrug, as casually as possible. “Explore the city.”
“Explore the crevices of the neighbor, more like.”
I pull a face. “Crevices? Really?” I stand and look at my arm, flexing my hand. It’s starting to throb. The things I doto save beautiful women. “Besides, she knows Barnaby; maybe she knows about the hard drive. We find out what she knows, we kill her, job done.”
The hard drive. The item that doubles our pay if we deliver it, along with confirming Barnaby’s death. We have no idea what’s on it, and that’s the way it’ll stay. Whatever information ended up in the hands of Barnaby Fisher is important enough for him to be assigned a bounty of fifty grand, one that popped up on my radar a little over two days ago, and I’d snatched at the chance to get it.
A hundred grand would be the perfect final job.
Barnaby had been easy to find, easier to kill, but had claimed to know nothing about a hard drive and had sobbed, begging for his life for three hours before Gable lost his temper and his patience and killed him. I can’t blame him. The apartment was disgusting; Gable hates mess and had been antsy the moment we walked into the place. The second Barnaby was dead, Gable had started organizing boxes to recycle.
“What makes you so sure she’d know where it is?” Gable asks, balling up the bloodied kitchen towel and tossing it into the trash.
“Because there’s a reason they want her dead, too.”
Ella’s bounty had popped up hours ago, and we’d taken the job simply for the ease of it, given she lives upstairs.
Gable leans against the kitchen counter, folding his arms. “What about her cop boyfriend?”
I grin. “Please, he’s already halfway out the picture. I’ll swoop in. I enjoy swooping.”
My foster brother narrows his eyes at me, likely seeing through my façade. Sure, it makes sense to stay, but I also think I’ll enjoy a little one-on-one time with Ella.
“Fine, we’ll stay a few days,” Gable says. “But only because I spent so long cleaning this place. I don’t know what pisses me off more: the fact he didn’t tell us where the drive is or how fucking messy he was.”
Knowing Gable, it’s the latter.
Chapter 4
Ella
“He’s an ass,” Dad says, pointing his fork at me. “I love that you take care of yourself, but he was standing right there and did nothing! Pathetic. I should take his fucking badge away.” He cuts into his steak with more vigor than necessary, given that it’s his second one. My dad is a big guy and, according to my best friend Matilda, “is a total DILF”. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve begged hernotto call him that. He played football in college and is probably in better shape than most men half his age, which is his go-to point when I point out that eating so much red meat can’t be good for him. “Although he is a damn sight better than the last guy. What was his name? Something Buttercup?”
“Reece,” I say. “He even had the gall to lecture me about it. My pen was in that purse! Mypen, Dad. I think I’m just gonna break up with him.”
It isn’t until I say it out loud that I realize I’m definitely going to break up with Deacon. The words don’t even stick inmy throat.
“If that’s what you want, baby,” he says. “I’ve heard living at home with your dad is very popular these days.”
“Dad, I’m twenty-five. I can’t move home. Maybe in another ten years.”
My dad’s been lonely since divorcing my stepmom (ding-dong, that witch is dead), and he doesn’t like me living in the city. I can’t blame him for that, but I also can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Besides, I live there for free. Matilda owns the place and is eye-wateringly rich. She left to live in Europe a year ago and has no plans to come home yet. She was more than happy for me to stay there because she’s owned the apartment for years and doesn’t want it empty. Who would give up a luxury apartment to move home?
Not us!
“So, what are the new neighbors like?” my dad asks.
This is his casual way of learning their names for background checks. Guy Gibson is not subtle, never has been, but I like that he’s protective. When I told him I was dating Deacon, he’d gone through his cases to see if he’d made any mistakes because, according to my dad, ‘a sloppy cop is a sloppy boyfriend.’
But I don’t want my dad to scare Asher off. Maybe Gable, he’s a total ass, but Asher is nice. And good-looking. And I like how he looks at me. He has nice hands, too. Rough, like he works hard for a living. I wonder what he does. Probably something sexy, like construction.
Yeah, I’m definitely breaking up with Deacon.
I have more butterflies between my legs from looking at Asher for ten minutes than I had for the last month of dating Deacon.
