Hook (A Hitman's Bait 2)

Chapter 14

AfterupdatingLiamabout my current location, I strapped on my sidearm and stepped out of my car. Carrying an empty pizza box, I surveyed the streets. A group of men were gathered on the steps of the apartment building next door. A few looked over in my direction but didn’t say anything, their attention drifting away elsewhere.

I pulled the brim of my ball cap lower down my face and hurried toward 31 Mews Street. The interior wasn’t as run down as the exterior, but like most apartments on this street, security features to check whoever entered the building were conspicuously absent.

The elevator worked, a vast improvement over the last apartment Liam and I had visited. My phone rang. Thinking of the devil. I stepped into the cab, hit number four, and held the phone to my ear.

“Yes?”

“I told you I would go with you tomorrow,” Liam said. “Why are you in such a rush to do this?”

I know he did, but he didn’t sleep beside a restless Kit. He wasn’t the one who had to tuck the boy into his chest and soothe him back to sleep while promising that no one would hurt him. I hadn’t made that promise easily, and I’d do anything to keep it, including finding everyone responsible for taking him from the club that night.

It’d taken me some time to track him down, but I’d managed to get my hands on a copy of the security footage from the club on the night in question. Surprising what a little money in the right hands could accomplish. Liam had worked his magic and isolated the individuals in the video. Not everything on the tape was clear. Some images were a blur, but what we’d watched was enough to give us a timeline of exactly when what had happened to Kit.

And there was one more key player.

“I’m already here, Liam, and I’m not leaving until I have answers.”

“Sullivan, you know this is reckless. You have no idea what you’re walking into.”

“That’s pretty much my day every day, Liam. Is there something else you wanted?”

“Think about Kit and how if anything happens to you, the boy would be devastated.”

“I am thinking about Kit. That’s the only reason I am here. I’ll call you later when I have more information.”

“Sullivan—”

I hung up as the elevator creaked to a stop. I got out quickly. One thing was for sure. I’d be walking down the stairs after I was done. The elevator might function, but from the sounds of it, it was this close to falling apart.

I located the right apartment and knocked on the door.

“Who’s it?” a male voice slurred.

“Pizza delivery.”

“I didn’t order any pizza. You have the wrong apartment.”

“Aren’t you Everett Hall? It’s a meat lover’s pizza and already paid for. If you don’t want it, I bet the group of guys next door won’t mind.”

I took a few steps as if I were walking away.

“Wait! I just remembered I ordered it earlier.” The door opened, and the sturdy bouncer from the nightclub came into view. He was unkempt in a black shirt with white dust at the front and a pair of jeans that hung down under his belly.

I opened my jacket and showed him my gun. “Step inside, and let’s have a chat. No sudden moves, and you may still be breathing when I walk out of here.”

He held his hands up and stepped back. “Look, man. I ain’t do shit. Is it the coke you want? You can take it all and go.”

I marched in and closed the door. In one swift movement, I yanked out my gun and hit him across the face with it. He cried out and stumbled back, grabbing the wall to maintain his balance. Blood oozed from the cut on his cheek.

“Now I think I have your attention,” I said. “Walk slowly to the living room. No sudden moves. You had best believe me right now I’m looking for the slightest excuse to justify putting a bullet in your head.”

“You must have the wrong guy. I swear I’m not who you think I am.”

I shoved him down into an armchair and tossed the pizza box onto the coffee table, narrowly missing the white powder—cocaine, I assumed.

“Are you not Everett Hall?” I sat across from him on the long couch with my gun perched on my lap.