Unshackled

“Keep walking,” I growled.

“Wh-wh-I don’t—unhand me!”

I couldn’t fucking believe it. “You’re English?” I blurted out incredulously. “It’s always the fucking English in the end!” I blew through several new levels of rage and slammed the gun against his ribs, shielded by his arm. “We’re going back to your hideout, and if we’re not there in two minutes, I’m throwing your dog off the cliffs.”

That worked. “I-I can’t walk that fast! It takes at least five minutes!”

Once fear pushed a person’s heart rate toward 150 and higher, they tended to lose their smarts and the ability to lie. Did he actually think I was going to throw that yapping marshmallow off the cliffs? It would take me at least half an hour to get there, and we’d be surrounded by witnesses.

“Then you better hurry,” I replied, lowering my voice. A couple across the street watched us but prioritized getting away safely. They always did. “What hotel are you staying at?”

“I live here,” he huffed, out of breath. He was already limping without his cane. “Did Louise send you? I was just about to wire the money!”

“Pipe down,” I snapped.

We reached a crosswalk, and he didn’t even try to steer me wrong. It was a more heavily trafficked road running alongside an old cemetery, and he was following his muscle memory, looking both ways before crossing the street.

“Tell me about Louise,” I demanded.

He was too flustered to come up with any kind of strategy that might buy him freedom, but that one did give him a pause, at least. Gaping like a fish, he stared up at me and fumbled with what to say.

“You’re not a friend of hers.” Fear swam in his milky blue eyes. “That’s why she needs the money—she has enemies. You’re—”

“You’re not telling me about Louise, Sherlock.” I glanced around me, assessing the biggest risks. The dead buried in the cemetery next to us didn’t talk, and there weren’t any pedestrians nearby. The other side of the street, however, was lined with more timber house apartments; anyone looking out the window could get curious.

I adjusted my grip from his neck to around his shoulders.

“What’s your full name?” I asked. Questions demanding short answers might be the way to go.

“Albert George Bardsley.” He tried to regulate his breathing—tried and failed.

“What’s Louise’s full name?”

He huffed again, and he adjusted his little dog in his arms. “Louise Marielle Bardsley-Avellino.”

Ay-oh.

We had a winner. “How’s Louise related to you?”

“She’s my niece,” Albert gritted out. “State your business!” Now he was getting bossy. “I am not involved in whatever she’s doing. I don’t have any information! She told me to go to Le Havre to wire money, and that’s all I’ve done. But my hip—I can’t go that far every week.”

He had no clue he’d already given up a gold mine. We’d finally be able to track down the secret mother to Gio Avellino’s two sons.

“If you’re funding her operations, you’re definitely involved,” I told him. “Where’s your home?”

“I had no choice!” he defended, absentmindedly pointing toward two buildings past the cemetery, one burnt-orange timber house and one stone building, both historical, upscale, and three stories tall. “She has nobody, I tell you. She told me it was a matter of life and death.”

She wasn’t wrong about that last part.

I had half a mind to take Albert straight into the cemetery and finish him off there, but now more than ever, I wanted information. I wanted proof of his identity, I wanted to see his home, I wanted to be out of the public eye.

When we reached his building, the one in stone, he fumbled with his keys.

“You can’t hurt me,” he stammered. “I have nothing to do with this. I-I won’t send her any more money. I can disappear. I have homes in Nerja, Parham Town, and Bangkok. Nobody would find me.”

Just keep talking, old man.

I shoved him through the entrance and scanned the four mailboxes in the arched passage that led to an open courtyard full of exotic plants.

“Do you live alone?” I asked. The names on the mailboxes were French, except for one distinctly German and then Albert’s name.

“I have Lady.” He sniffed and lifted his chin.

I shifted the gun to press it against his lower spine as we entered an old elevator, and we took it to the top floor.

I made sure not to touch anything, and as soon as we were out of the elevator again, I stayed behind him and used him as a shield. Because I was struggling to accept that Louise—if she was really in charge of all this—hadn’t spared a single guard to keep an eye on their human wallet.

Holy fuck. My first glance into Albert’s apartment made me wanna cry. It opened up to a parlor, and it was cluttered from floor to ceiling with books, rugs, paintings, old newspapers, stacks of magazines, and an insane amount of mismatched furniture. A chair didn’t need two side tables. It was as if he’d crammed three living rooms into one. All antique shit.