Savage Ending (Savage Trilogy 4)

“My God,” she whispers. “What else?”

“Max stopped taking my calls. I had no way to make the drop he wanted me to make. I hid it on the property where I was supposed to make the drop. That way if he calls, I can tell him where it is.”

“I thought you were taking him money after the drop?” she asks.

“We got to his cabin in Colorado to do just that and there was no Max. The cabin was in disarray, a cup of coffee shattered on the ground. Someone was there and left. Again, one can assume it was Max.”

“Okay. But if Max set you up, surely he wouldn’t have given you the right address to find him.”

I blink. “So did Max set you up or was he set-up?” Candace asks.

“I’d like to think Max is a good guy—he saved my life—but I can’t make that work in my head. How did those men that attacked us know when and where to go if he didn’t tell them?”

“So obviously you found the data drive. Did you look at it? What was on it?”

It’s a question I’d hoped she wouldn’t ask because it tells a story, and it’s not a good one. “A list of five locations.” I hesitate, but I decide I can’t hold back. “And all five locations are places I did jobs with Max.”

“Oh God,” she says again, and then she goes exactly where I knew she’d go next. “This is about you. You kept insurance on all your hits. Could he have stolen that insurance? Could he be using it to blackmail someone? Could he have blamed you when the situation went south?”

It’s exactly where my head is, but I don’t want to fuel her worry. “Don’t turn this into an earthquake when it’s a thunderstorm.”

“Should you have delivered the drive if it connects to you?”

“As I told Asher and Adam, I might have been drunk back then, but not stupid. I didn’t hide anything in the places Max thinks I hid them. Maybe he went behind me and hid his own insurance. But if he gambled on a fact that wasn’t a fact, that’s on him,”

“That answer feels like trouble,” she says. “What did you say no to on the phone and to whom?” she asks.

“Asher wanted me to come and look at the data he pulled on the guys who attacked us. I wasn’t going anywhere until I saw you.”

“You need to go see Asher,” she urges.

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Now,” she insists. “We have a few days until we get married, Rick” She tries to stand, and I catch her hand. “We need to go now,” she argues.

“I’ve barely slept in three days. Let’s go to bed.”

“Rick, we need—”

My cellphone rings and halts her words. Out of necessity, I snake it from my pocket and glance at the caller ID. The number is unknown. I show it to Candace and answer the line. “Who is this?”

“Max,” comes a rough familiar voice. “It’s Max. Tell me you got the data drive.”

“Well, what do you know?” I say, glancing at Candace and mouthing “Max” before I stand up and continue. “The big, fat, lying elephant in the room.” I walk to the window. “Or maybe it’s the slimy, slithering snake in the grass. I know it’s hard to believe, but I was just fucking thinking about you, like really thinking about what I want to do to you. I won’t keep you guessing. The story ends this way. You die.”

“You think I set you up.”

“I was ambushed by a bunch of losers in black who wanted to go to a funeral, Max, my man. Fucktard, pencil dick, this seems crystal clear. You were the only one who knew where I was.”

“I told no one,” he insists. “And they found me, too. I did everything right and they found me, too. If you went by the cabin, you know that.”

“You used my hidden insurance to blackmail someone,” I say and it’s not a question. “Who?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask that because you resemble a drunk two-year-old when you ask stupid questions. They came after me. I want to know who I’ll be killing next, besides you.”

“Stop being a prick.”

“You first,” I say. “But then it’s too late for you, now isn’t it?”

“Where’s the data drive?”

“We both know I looked on that drive, Max. It has five locations on it,” I say. “You don’t need the drive to relay that information.”

“There is a map to each location. I need that map in the right hands.”

“And I’m sure you have those memorized.”

“Do you?”

He’s reminding me I drank my way through those years. Bastard. “We’re not talking about me. I’m not blackmailing someone with that information. Who are you blackmailing?”

“More like the opposite. I’m paying a debt just like you. Once it’s paid, I’m free. And now you are too, from me.”