The feed cuts. Not glitches. The screen goes black for a second before returning to the icon of the camera system.
CHAPTER 28
Axle AND Colt are on me as I cross the yard. Dogs on a bone.
“Do you know what that was about?” Axle asks, scowl locked on his face.
I unclench my jaw. Count to ten. “He probably got my public records. Easy enough.”
Axle snorts as he shoves the face-cover he just took off into his back pocket.
“Then why do you look like you swallowed a bomb, mate?”
Without thought, my hand presses to my knotted up abs.Feelslike I swallowed something explosive too.
We close the distance to the house and as expected, Axle puts himself in front of me, blocking the entrance. “She was listeningto that. You’re going to have to answer to us and her. Might as well do it now. Practice makes perfect, you know.”
A vibration simmers through me. This mother fucker likes to push buttons.
“My brother’s name is Brandt Stowe. Or it was. Who knows what it is now. He’s six years older?—”
I search for the right words to finish. There are never any easy words when it comes to him.
Colt and Axle hold their stance on either side of me. Symbolically caging me in. Waiting.
The pressure rises inside my veins. I’m not sure if it’s them or Brandt.
“We don’t have a relationship. Haven’t for a long time.” I stare at the front door ready for this conversation to be done. “He likes to create trouble.”
“I’ve spent a career solving it.”
“What kind of trouble?” Colt asks.
“Big money. People who know people.” I roll my shoulder, trying to work out the knot that’s been sitting there since Trevor said the name. “He’s not a good man. Charismatic—the dangerous kind.”
That draws them a few inches closer.
“This Trevor bastard really knows him?”
“Claims to.” I hold up a hand before either of them can run with it. “Trevor’s cornered. He’s smart enough to know the best card he can play is one that rattles me. The play that shakes up the whole investigation.”
They both turn this over in their heads and share a glance.
Meanwhile this bitch headache is growing to the size of a wrecking ball. I press two fingers hard against my temple. “He rattled me, I’ll admit that.”
“Do I hear a but in that statement?” Colt asks as he props a foot on the front steps of the house.
“Rattling me doesn’t make it true, even if it gives Trevor what he wants—a distraction or an emotional time-bomb.”
None of us moves.
“We have to chase it,” Axle says.
“Correct.” The word comes out sounding like tumbled gravel. “Right now I need to check on Jade. Then we deal with this like we do any other leads.”
Neither of them argue and both step out of the way, but I can feel them watching as I go.
I hit the head, wash my hands. Splash my face. Look at myself in the mirror and try not to see Brandt reflected back.
