Lancelot (The Theriot Family 3)

“I’m going to call the police.”

“No, you’re not. Right now you’re alive and well, despite putting my man in danger. If you stay here, that won’t last.”

“Your man? What the hell?”

“Julian is under my protection. Is that clear?”

Tony shook his finger at the man and said something that sounded very much like he was repeating my words.

When the asshole didn’t move, I recited his address, phone number, social security number, and other personal information. Now he looked scared.

“I just wanted you to know how easily I can find you to let you know when you should return to work again.”

“This is—”

“Do you really want to argue with me?”

The man looked at the ground and shook his head.

“You’ve got about ten seconds to get out of here before your life takes a turn for the worse.”

The man walked off, muttering.

Once my men were in place, I gave Julian a goodbye kiss, wished him luck with his potential donor, and headed out to meet my cousin Dax. We were going hunting.

19

Lancelot

“Where are we headed?” I asked when I picked Dax up in front of his house. He’d been in contact with Blackjack, our computer expert, who’d been doing some digging for us. We wanted to find the man who’d broken into the library. I had a suspicion it was the same man who’d killed Remy’s contact. Remy had texted to let me know there was nothing left behind but his friend’s body. The scene was totally clean. I hoped to hell Blackjack had found us a lead.

“Remember the Landrys’ warehouse?”

“Of course I do.

“Head there.”

“Blackjack thinks they’ve taken over the Landrys’ old stomping ground?”

“It’s a guess based on flimsy evidence, but—”

“It’s a good one. People would expect an operation like theirs to be somewhere more luxurious.”

Dax snorted. “Basically anything’s more luxurious than the Landrys’ old warehouse.”

“Especially after we shot it all to hell.”

Dax laughed. “Right? We got rid of the Landrys, and we’ll get rid of these bastards too.”

“It’s going to take a little more effort.”

“We’ll have to be more careful this time.” He gave me a pointed look, and I glared at him.

“I know how to behave myself when I need to.”

“I’m going to trust you on that. Don’t make me regret it.”

“Like you’re the picture of calm?”

Dax grinned. “At least I don’t take a monkey everywhere I go.”

Tony popped up from the backseat, and I reached over to pet his head. “Tony helps me. I keep telling you guys how useful he is.”

“Well, it’s too bad he’s not a bloodhound who could sniff out the man we’re looking for.”

“We could borrow one if—”

“Let’s check this lead before we resort to that. Besides, you nearly count as a bloodhound anyway.”

I was a damn fine tracker, but I usually needed a little more to go on than what we had at the moment.

We found nothing at the abandoned warehouse. Dax ran a hand through his hair as we walked back to the nondescript SUV I’d chosen for our hunt. “What about the store the Landrys worked out of?”

“The one where they had something on the owner?”

“Yeah, that one. He was laundering money for them, and we were pretty sure at least one of the twins lived in the apartment above the store. It would be a good place to hide out.”

I liked that idea. “Let’s go.”

We parked in the alley that ran behind the store. The property was surrounded by a metal fence, and the gate was held shut with a rusty padlock that would take too long to pick and would also be noisy, so we scaled the fence and dropped down silently onto the small strip of grass behind the gravel parking area.

It didn’t look like anyone had taken over the space since we ran the Landrys out of town. Still, we approached slowly. Hopefully if anyone was in there, they wouldn’t be looking out the back windows.

I started up the stairs to the second-floor apartment. When the next to last step creaked loudly, I froze. Tony clung tightly to my neck, and Dax waited behind me for my signal to keep moving.

I heard a scraping sound like a chair being pushed across the floor. I pulled my gun, and Dax followed suit. The door handle turned when I tried it. Maybe whoever was inside was just a squatter. Surely the man we were looking for would have secured the door.

I held up three fingers and did a countdown before pushing the door open.

A man dressed in ragged, dirty clothes held up his hands and scurried back until he tripped and landed on a mattress that looked like it had been there for decades.

“Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot,” he begged as I approached him.

“What are you doing in here?” The answer didn’t really matter. There was no way in hell this was our guy. He had a limp, and he wheezed as he spoke. He couldn’t have jumped out of the second floor and landed easily like the intruder had.