Kane stepped in first, a blade in hand, his voice deceptively calm. “Evening.”
The woman screamed. The man stood too fast, his chair scraping back. Wine spilled.
Convict was behind him in a blink, arm locking around his chest, knife appearing without ceremony and resting under the man’s jaw. “Sit,” he said pleasantly. “Or don’t. Your call.”
Cassie cackled. “Your boy’s a menace, Mila.”
Down the line, Mila answered with a laugh, “Tell me about it.” She sounded proud.
Ash caught the woman before she bolted, guiding her down with a hand at her shoulder, firm but not cruel. “Easy. Nobody’s here to ruin dinner. Permanently.”
“There’s cash. In a safe in the office. I have the code,” the man spluttered. “My wife has jewellery.”
Heretic appeared at the doorway, blocking escape routes with a casual lean.
The husband stopped talking.
“Who else is here?” Kane asked.
“No one,” the woman squeaked.
With no further heat signals, no second car, and a table set for two, it felt truthful.
“Push her on it,” I ordered in his ear.
“Another vehicle was seen coming and going,” Kane said.
Her eyes widened, perhaps at the assumption they’d been watched. “Our son. He left this morning. He isn’t coming back.”
“Where did he go?”
She pressed her lips together, darting her gaze to her husband. I didn’t like the look of either of them. Their middle-class swag rubbed me up wrong. The clothes, the fact they were fine dining in a dead man’s house while the police sought them. It all smacked of a superior, entitled air of people who thought themselves better than others. The type who believed money made them untouchable.
At the head of the table, Kane sighed and lifted his chin to Convict. Con raised his blade a millimetre. Blood beaded and ran down the husband’s throat in a line.
My heart thumped faster.
If we were right, and they were traffickers, they deserved a whole lot more pain. I wanted it. My pulse picked up.
“Answer or he’ll be cut into pieces and fed to the lake,” Kane added.
“We…we don’t know. He left after an argument.”
“Give us your best guess. If you lie, you won’t like what happens next.”
“Maybe his girlfriend’s?” She rattled off an address in Deadwater.
“Nature of the argument?” I asked.
Kane repeated the question, and the woman dropped her gaze to her plate.
“Money. He wanted more than we had. He called us selfish.”
“Yet ye have cash in the safe.”
She snapped her focus back up, a sudden viciousness in her eyes, shown on Convict’s bodycam. “Take it, you thugs. That’s all people like you want. Take it and go.”
Kane huffed a cold laugh at the cousin who didn’t recognise him. “This is no home invasion, ye stupid fuck?—”
