Chapter 4 Wesley
Wesley
The warehouse was already humming with activity when I arrived. The air smelled of burnt coffee and gun oil—a familiar mixture, and sharp enough to wake me better than caffeine ever could.
I shrugged out of my coat and rolled my sleeves past my elbows, feeling every pair of eyes in the room hitch briefly my way before darting back to their screens, dossiers, and surveillance feeds.
“Morning,” I said, voice carrying across the command room. I made my way to my desk at the center of it all and took a seat.
Lena approached and slid a manila folder across my desk.
I was thankful that she made no comment about the break-in that had occurred the night prior.
“Three potentials. One corporate leech out of Miami—no bodies, he’s white collar.
One judge with too many skeletons in her closet—we can link at least one body to her, but it was a hit she hired out for.
Additionally, she has a history of issuing some overly lenient sentences and others overly harsh sentences, depending on who’s lining her pockets.
And lastly, a cartel broker—he’s got a whole ass list.”
I flipped the file open, scanning photographs, movements, reports in neat, coded shorthand.
The corporate man required additional surveillance.
I had a feeling there was more to him. The judge was, unfortunately, too useful to burn yet.
But the broker… Well, he indeed had a long list of things he needed to answer for.
“Option three,” I said, tapping the page with two fingers. “Set up observation. No engagement yet.”
A ripple of quiet relief passed through the room. They always breathed easier when I made the call. None of them wanted to be the one responsible for pulling the trigger.
I leaned back in my chair, stretching my shoulders. “Anything else?”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was expectant, uneasy.
I knew that silence.
And right on cue, the double doors swung open.
Hayes and Hudson entered like a storm, wearing matching grins. Tall, sharp, clean-cut in their black jackets, the kind of men you’d mistake for models until they smiled a little too wide. The room seemed to recoil around them.
“Uncle,” Hayes greeted, his voice all sugar. He leaned one elbow against the back of a chair, ignoring the way the analyst seated there went rigid. “We heard you’ve got fresh meat.”
Hudson came to stand at my shoulder, close enough that I caught the scent of his cologne. He bent low, whispering like it was a private joke meant only for me, “You’re not keeping the best toys for yourself again, are you?”
I gave him a look, steady and unamused, until he straightened. “Sit down,” I ordered, pointing to the empty chairs across from me.
They didn’t sit, and I knew better than to expect them actually to listen to me.
The rest of my team kept their eyes down, their keystrokes sounding too loud, their movements too forced. No one wanted to catch their gaze.
I couldn’t blame them.
“Enough,” I said, steel under the word. My gaze locked with Hayes’s first, then Hudson’s. “Were you two listening through the door or something like little fucking gremlins? Why are you even here? You haven’t graced us with your presence in person for weeks.”
Hayes smiled, seemingly ignoring the insult. “It’s fun to scare your little worker bees.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and exhaled. “They’re not here to be your playthings. They work for me. Same as you.”
“Not the same,” Hudson said smoothly, circling the edge of my desk. “They tap keys. We kill.”
“And if they don’t tap keys, you don’t get your targets,” I shot back. My tone snapped like a whip. Both men stilled for a beat, just long enough for me to see it—that flicker of recognition that my authority was absolute, at least for now.
I tapped the broker’s file with two fingers, pushing it across the desk toward them. “If you’re so eager to be useful, congratulations. He’s yours.”
Hayes’s grin spread slowly and cruelly, but Hudson tilted his head, frowning at the file. “Hold up. Observation only? Did we do something to make you mad?”
“Observation only,” I repeated, rolling my eyes. “You step outside those orders, you’ll answer to me. And no, although your existence never fails to annoy me, I just don’t have anything requiring an immediate dispatch right now.”
“Boring,” Hayes muttered, dragging a chair half a foot across the concrete. “But fine. If dear old Uncle insists.”
Hudson leaned on the back of my chair, far too close, speaking low so only I heard: “You’ll let us off the leash soon, won’t you? We need one we can really play with.”
My jaw tightened. “Go. Get the groundwork laid. I want updates in forty-eight hours, and then we’ll see. But I highly doubt he won’t end up in your basement, so just be patient.”
Hayes smiled brightly at that, while Hudson had the look of a cat that got the canary. Freaks. I’d raised insufferable goddamn freaks.
They finally moved, striding out of the office with all the restless energy of hungry predators. The room seemed to exhale with their absence, shoulders lowering, breaths releasing.
I stayed still, fingers drumming against the desk.
Raising them had been like holding fire in my bare hands—necessary, consuming, and impossible to let go of without burning everything down around us.
My eldest nephew Greyson had thought that killing their parents would save them, and it did, but then they ended up in the hands of a young bachelor who never wanted children and killed people for a living.
A truly excellent environment for childhood development.
My goal for the past however many years since they’d been dropped on my doorstep like murderous abandoned kittens was solely to keep them out of prison.
Somehow, I was still going strong on that goal.
The doors hadn’t even clicked shut before Lena muttered under her breath, “Christ, they give me the creeps.”
Several heads lifted just enough to catch my expression. I didn’t bother glaring—one look was enough. Lena paled and redirected her attention to the notes in her hand, though her jaw worked like she wanted to chew the words back in.
“Keep your opinions to yourself, Ms. Ford,” I said, voice calm but cold. The scrape of keyboards picked up again, jittery and uneven.
Ichabod appeared at my desk a moment later, his long umber fingers worrying the strap of his messenger bag.
He always looked like a man perpetually caught between sleep and a panic attack.
“Boss,” he said quietly, “are you sure about letting them handle the observation? You usually have Falcon or Yaz do this part.”
I leaned back in my chair, folding my arms across my chest. “They’ll be fine. They just need to map the broker’s habits, and if anything goes sideways, I’ll pull them out.”
Ichabod’s gaze flicked toward the door where the twins had exited, then back to me. His mouth pressed into a thin line, but he didn’t argue. Not out loud.
“They’re good at what they do,” I added, sharper than I intended. “Don’t mistake your discomfort for incompetence on their part.”
Lena risked another glance up. “With all due respect, sir… they like the job too much.”
I let the silence stretch. The kind that prickled on the skin and made people sweat. It was the only way to remind them that in this room, my word was final.
“Oh, really? I hadn’t fucking noticed,” I said sarcastically, my eyes narrowed at her.
The atmosphere thinned out again, though no one looked much reassured.
I reached for the coffee mug on my desk, stale and bitter as the brew inside, and took a swallow. They could doubt all they wanted. At the end of the day, Hayes and Hudson weren’t going anywhere.
I set the mug down, already regretting the sip. My stomach hated the cheap stuff these people brewed, but it was better than nothing.
Ich cleared his throat again, hovering like a man about to stick his hand in a bear trap. “There’s… one other thing, boss.”
I tilted my head. “Spit it out.”
He adjusted his wide-framed glasses, dark brown eyes flicking anywhere but mine. “The… guest… from last night…”
I asked tightly, “What about him?”
“I dug around like you asked.” Ichabod pulled a thin folder from his bag and set it on my desk, but didn’t immediately let go of it.
“There’s almost nothing. Age, twenty-nine.
No job history on paper. No higher education—looks like he was homeschooled, at least on the records I could find.
Address on file is the apartment he’s in now, but…
” His fingers finally slid off the folder.
“Ownership’s under an Elias Craig. Maybe a father since your guy’s name is Ronan Craig, but… ”
I flipped it open, scanning the meager notes.
Ich shifted on his feet. His discomfort set my teeth on edge.
“Go on.”
“There’s… an old report, too. I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up, but…” He rubbed at the back of his neck, eyes darting to the side. “It’s from about twenty years ago. Small-town police blotter, then it was all over the news.”
I looked up, waiting impatiently.
“They found a family murdered in their home. Two young parents, a seven-year-old boy, and a four-year-old girl—the house was a blood bath… But, there ended up being a third child that was missing from the scene. He would’ve been nine.
” He hesitated. “The reports all highlight him having a distinctive appearance. Albinism.”
The room seemed to tilt a fraction. I shut the folder, fingers pressing hard into the cardboard. “And?”
“He was never found.” Ichabod’s voice had gone thin, strained. “Technically, he’s still listed as missing. The name’s not the same, but the age and his appearance match up. I think he’s the kid.”
I leaned back, staring past him at the wall of monitors flickering with surveillance feeds. White noise filled the room, but I wasn’t hearing it.
So that’s what you are, I thought.
“Does anyone else know about this?” I asked.
“No,” Ichabod said quickly, his shoulders hunching. “Only me.”
“Keep it that way.” My voice was flat, final.
He gave a jerky nod and retreated, leaving the folder in front of me like it might bite.
Before he got far, I cleared my throat and asked, “What’s his name?”
Ichabod stopped, turned back towards me, and answered, “Andreas Hoff.”
I nodded curtly, dismissing him.
* * *
By the time I finally got home, the city was drowning itself in rain. The streets below my apartment ran slick with reflected neon, gutter rivers carrying the day’s filth out of sight. I shrugged off my coat, hung it with mechanical precision, and poured a glass of white wine.
Taking a sip, I toed on my house slippers and slid into an armchair, Ro’s file under my arm.
The surface notes were the same as earlier—age, no paper trail worth a damn, Elias Craig listed as the owner of his apartment. He was a ghost living under someone else’s roof. But deeper inside…
I unfolded the old news clipping. The grainy print photo looked like it had survived worse decades than me. A small boy stared up from the page, his pale hair distinctive even in the low-quality ink, eyes so light they looked silver in black-and-white.
But what made me pause was the boy’s beautiful, carefree smile.
It was him—the same man I’d had on my lap, only smaller, softer, untouched by the things I’d already seen in his eyes. Happiness clung to that photo like an echo. I pressed my thumb hard into the corner of the clipping, as if that might steady me, ground me.
Andreas Hoff. Missing. Presumed dead.
So how the hell had he ended up here, two decades later, and in my sights—in my bed with a gun in his mouth?
I exhaled slowly, a sound closer to a growl than a breath. I’d been asking myself the same question over and over again. Why hadn’t I done what I always did when someone dangerous wandered too close?
And he was dangerous—as much as I’d teased him for his missteps, I’d seen it in his posture, the reflexes in his body, the calculation behind his stillness. I could tell he’d survived people better than me trying to end him. Men like him didn’t make it this long unless they’d learned to kill back.
And yet… I’d let him walk away. Twice now.
I told myself it was practicality, but that wasn’t it, and I knew it.
The truth was harder to swallow.
When I’d looked at him, I’d recognized something in his eyes—that same hollowness I saw in the mirror every morning, but worse. A lot worse, actually.
And now I had proof that his life had been soaked in blood from the very start. He was a child cut out of a massacre.
I stared at the photograph until my wine glass was empty.
I shouldn’t have felt anything about this. He was just another stray, not mine.
But that smile—God help me—that smile in the photo lodged itself in my chest, sharper than any blade.
The clipping stayed on the table long after my drink was gone. I forced myself to close the folder, but I didn’t put it away. Couldn’t.
Instead, I turned toward my laptop. If I were already this far down the rabbit hole, I might as well keep digging.
Elias Craig.
The search of his name yielded neatly packaged headlines: boardroom triumphs, acquisitions, charity galas, and ribbon cuttings. Every image was a polished smile, a tailored suit, and the kind of applause money buys.
But nothing else.
No wife, no children, no mistresses with lawsuits. No divorces, no messy custody battles, no drinking scandals. It was all too clean. No one that powerful lived without dirt.
Not unless they’d buried it so deep you’d need a backhoe to find it.
I leaned back, rubbing at my neck. The lack of personal history told me more than if there’d been a dozen affairs to pick through. He kept himself spotless on purpose and controlled the narrative.
So, what the hell was his connection to Ro?
My mind circled back to the massacre report. A missing boy. A vanished trail. Then, years later, an apartment in Elias Craig’s name with Ro living in it.
Had Elias taken him back then? Was he involved with what happened to Ro’s family? Or had Ro run away that night, survived over the years, and crossed paths with him later, two predators recognizing one another?
What exactly was Ro to him? A protégé? A weapon? A possession? A partner?
My fingers hovered over the keys, but for once, I didn’t know what I was searching for. My questions weren’t about Elias anymore.
Why did it matter?
I told myself it was because every unanswered question was a weakness in my perimeter, but the truth gnawed at the edge of my mind.
I wanted to know what had happened to that boy in the photo.
And worse—I wanted to know if there was anything left of him in the man sent to kill me.
The laptop screen went dim, reflecting my face back at me in pale blue. I shut it harder than I needed to and sat in the quiet, jaw tight, fists resting heavy against the coffee table.