Page 174 of Ruthless Claim

“Fuck,” I breathe, feeling nausea rise up in me. I move toward the door but Valentina grabs my arm.

“Don’t. You’re hurt. We need to⁠—”

“I need to find her!” I shout, unable to believe she’s gone. I pull out my phone, trying to dial my men. “She was right here. She couldn’t have gone far.”

But even as I say it, I know it’s too late. The drive-by had been too convenient.

Too well-timed.

Claire had been expecting it—or at least, whoever hired her had planned for the possibility of being cornered.

The shooting had been a distraction. A way to create chaos and give Claire time to disappear.

And it worked.

23

CILLIAN

By the time my men get to the coffee shop, she’s long gone.

No one has to tell me this.

I can feel it in my bones as I watch my men fan out across the surrounding blocks.

I’m standing on the sidewalk with glass still in my hair and blood seeping through the makeshift bandage someone pressed to my shoulders.

I’ve been in enough situations to know I’ve been outplayed.

And I fucking hate it.

I don’t move, standing there while the street churns around me. There are sirens somewhere close, a woman crying on the curb, someone’s coffee still dripping off an overturned table visible through the blown-out window. I clench my fists so tightly I can feel my nails bite into my skin, waiting for my men to come back and tell me what I already know.

Nothing. No one saw a woman leave with a young boy. No one remembers anything.

In ten seconds of chaos Claire Murphy picked up her son and walked out of my life like she’d never been in it, and not one person on a busy Midtown street can tell me which direction she went.

I send two guys to the address she had given me, to an apartment in Queens. I thought it had been an Airbnb, which on reflection I should have done some fucking digging on that.

I don’t expect my men to find anything, but I send them anyway because I need to know if there’s any clues left behind.

When my phone rings, Ryan tells me the news I already knew. The apartment was professionally cleaned out. Not packed-in-a-hurry, not grabbed-what-she-could—professionally.

There’s no fingerprints. No personal belongings. No indication that any human being had ever set foot inside.

Whoever prepped that apartment knew we’d eventually send someone there, and they wanted us to find absolutely nothing.

They succeeded.

My private investigator—Cal—calls me while I’m still on the sidewalk.

“Tell me something good,” I say when I pick up.

Cal pauses and I close my eyes. That’s never a good sign. “The offshore accounts are closed. All of them. Communications are wiped. Cillian, it’s—everything’s gone. Every thread I had, every trace. It’s like the whole operation just⁠—”

“How long?” I grip the phone harder.

“It had to have started when she came to meet you at the coffee shop.”