Chapter Eleven
LUKE
“Why now?” Parker presses again, drawing me out of my speculation about Kurt’s financial woes.
“They, whoever they are, must have thought the package was in one set of hands, an unattainable set of hands. Until someone tried to unload it, which set off some sort of alert.”
“Trevor,” he assumes. “Now I see where you’re going with this.”
The garage door alert goes off again and I can instantly hear Savage running his mouth. “And then she said, fuck you and your billy goat, but I didn’t laugh. Who has a billy goat?”
Parker arches a brow. “Savage runs his mouth in all kinds of directions,” I explain. “You get used to it and him.”
Savage and Adam appear in the kitchen. “Better running my mouth than running around like a chicken with my head cut off,” Savage says, walking toward the fridge.
Adam stops at the end of the island and sets a couple of bags on top, sliding one of them in front of me. “I thought Ana might need a change of clothes. We did the best two guys and no help can do.”
Savage joins us and sets a six-pack on the island before producing a bottle of whiskey and sliding it in my direction. “I thought Ana might need this after watching her partner get splattered all over her tonight. Unless you’re as cold as me, that shit gets to you.”
He’s not wrong.
Ana is a ball of torment layered on top of more torment, and it’s about to get worse, considering this conversation with Parker has led me down a jagged path I don’t want to travel and one she will not as well. One that leads to her father. I don’t believe he’s alive, but then again, his body never made it home. He’s involved in this, even if it’s from the grave. I can’t prove it, but I also can’t wait until I can talk to Ana, not when we’re on the run and I’m trying to keep her alive.
She knows things she might not even know she knows.
It’s our job together to figure out what those things might be.
I glance at Adam. “Tell Blake to look up Ana’s stepfather and dig into his final affairs, in every context possible. Kasey was working because Kasey had to work. Because Kurt left him with bills and not enough resources to cover those bills.”
“Kurt was dead when we ran that mission,” Parker points out.
“So is Trevor supposedly,” I reply, “but the worst kind of dead is the kind still walking around and taking shots at you from behind.”
“Are you saying Kurt’s alive?” Parker asks.
“At least in the sense that he has more to do with all of this than I realized at first.” I grab the bottle and meet Adam’s stare. “I need to go bring Ana up to speed. What’s our plan?”
“I hear you made a five-day deal,” he replies. “So, I think I should be the one asking you what’s the plan.”
“To kill these motherfuckers, which I’ll enjoy more with some sleep.”
“Eat, sleep, kill, eat,” Savage chimes in. “Sounds like a movie title I can get into.”
Adam gives a short nod. “Agreed.”
Parker is more of the same. “No complaints here.”
I snap up the bag of clothes and start walking, dreading the conversation I have to have with Ana now rather than later. She’s angry at me for walking away. She’s angry at me for killing Kasey. Now I have to go after her stepfather. It’s almost as if I want her to hate me because if she didn’t already, she might before this night is over.