Shattered (The Protectors 11)

Ronan didn’t speak for the longest time and I was about to hang up when he said, “Caleb’s due to testify in a pre-trial hearing in three weeks. If he’s not back here by then, his father will walk.”

“Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” I said. My trigger finger practically itched at the prospect of getting Jack Cortano in the sights of my scope. Ironically, the man was safest in prison. It was one of the few places beyond Ronan’s reach.

“Look at the young man sitting next to you, Jace.”

I couldn’t help but do as Ronan said.

“Now tell me if you think he’s strong enough to carry the weight of his father’s death on his shoulders.”

I sighed because I didn’t need to look at Caleb to know that.

“If the jury in Caleb’s case pulls the same shit the one in Eli’s did, then you and Mav can battle it out for which one of you gets to take the fucker out. But until then, we need to play it by the book – for Caleb’s sake.”

I didn’t say anything because Ronan already knew I was in agreement.

“You have three weeks of radio silence,” Ronan murmured. “But just remember that you’re not the only one who’s worried about Caleb, okay?”

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“If you get anything out of him, fuck radio silence and reach out, do you hear me? I don’t care if you have to use goddamn carrier pigeons, you get word to me so we can figure out what the fuck is going on.”

I smiled at that. “I will.” Ronan and I were on the same page – the chances that Caleb knew something about who was after him was high. Even if he didn’t know exactly who it was, he’d clearly been hiding secrets. The encounter with Jennings had been proof of that.

“Mav and Memphis will clean the scene at the cabin,” Ronan said.

“Memphis was hurt,” I said.

“He says it’s a flesh wound. I’m already working to find someone to treat it before he and Mav fly home.”

Ronan’s words made sense. If Memphis went to a hospital, they’d have to report the gunshot wound to the authorities. As for the cabin, it had seemed remote enough that the gunshots wouldn’t have alerted any neighbors, but there was always the possibility of a hunter or hiker having heard something. Which meant Mav and Memphis would have to work fast to get rid of the evidence that Caleb and I had been there.

“Take care of yourself, Jace,” Ronan murmured, then he hung up. I didn’t waste any time in powering the phone off so it was no longer traceable.

“What was that back there?” Caleb asked. I turned to see that he was hunched over like he was in pain.

“A hit,” I said, not wanting to pull any punches with him. If I wanted his cooperation with what would happen next, I needed him to understand the full weight of the situation.

“A hit?” he said, shaking his head. “No, that’s not possible.”

“Those men were there to kill you, Caleb. The flash grenade, the suppressors—”

“The what?”

“Silencers,” I clarified.

I didn’t think it possible, but he paled even more. He was quiet for a moment before saying, “I thought he’d do it himself.”

“Who?” I asked as I tried to keep my focus on the winding road as we began heading down the mountain.

“My dad.”

“You think your dad put the hit out on you?”

“He hired those guys to hurt Eli,” he murmured.

I knew who he was talking about, of course. I’d been with Caleb when we’d joined Mav and Eli on the journey to Seattle after I’d gotten Caleb out of the psychiatric hospital. The plan had been to go to Eli’s apartment to get his dog, but the scene we’d walked in on had been pure chaos. Two men had broken into the apartment to find the flash drive that’d had proof of Jack Cortano’s crimes against his sons and Eli on it. Eli’s friend had been at the apartment instead and had ended up getting shot. Fortunately, the young man had survived the incident. The men Jack had hired had been ex-military… mercenaries. They’d likely been contacts he’d made through his work in both the army and at the Department of Defense.

I knew Caleb’s theory had some merit to it. While it seemed odd that Jack would wait two years to finally take out one of the witnesses to his crime, the fact that he’d been acquitted in Eli’s case could have been the catalyst. It would have been too risky to take out both Eli and Caleb before the trials, but with only Caleb left, maybe he’d gotten nervous. Especially since he didn’t have anything from Caleb’s past to use against him, like he’d had with Eli. Not to mention the added charge of murder that Jack was facing in Virginia for killing Nick. The prosecutors were planning on going after him for first-degree murder there, a charge that could potentially carry the death penalty. If Jack had had someone monitoring Caleb and had discovered his son had disappeared, it would have been the perfect time to eliminate him. If those men had succeeded in taking us all out, they would have likely done what Memphis and Mav were going to do – burn the cabin and the bodies to get rid of as much evidence as possible and make it virtually impossible to identify the men. If it’d been our bodies burned beyond recognition in that cabin, our identities likely never would have been discovered. It would have just appeared that Caleb had up and vanished, and Jack would have walked away a free man.