Chapter 31
balance of trust
“I’m doing just fine,” Darius said, but knew as soon as the words left his lips that Kit wouldn’t believe him. Perceptive little bastard.
Kit shifted, almost casual, but it left him backed against the arm of the couch, facing Darius. The better to observe. “How did you meet Felicity?”
That strange nostalgia surged again.
“When I was eighteen, a man tried to rob me on my walk home from school.” Darius felt the anger, the out-of-control helplessness, like it was yesterday. The feeling he wanted to avoid more than anything. “I killed him accidentally.”
Kit nearly dropped the phone. “Wait, that is not how I expected that to go.”
Chuckling, Darius set Felicity’s laptop aside. Story time. “I was pissed off. If he took my laptop, I wasn’t getting another one. Money was tight.”
That was a hell of an understatement. They’d been upper middle class before Darius’s teen years. Then Dad got sick and couldn’t work. Mom’s coping mechanisms were stupid and expensive. The debt was crushing.
“So, I flipped out and punched him in the head,” Darius continued. The guy had been younger than Darius was now. He’d looked shocked when Darius lunged for him. “He fell and hit his head on the curb. Next second, I was standing over a dead body in the middle of the fucking street.”
“Holy shit,” Kit breathed. “What did you… Wait, you covered it up, didn’t you?”
“You know me too well,” Darius said, and that might have terrified him once, but maybe he didn’t mind being known.
Telling this story felt right. “Self-defense, but no witnesses. If I’d been a rich white kid, that wouldn’t have been a problem, but I wasn’t.
Thankfully, this was before everyone had doorbell cameras.
I dragged him behind a dumpster. Then I borrowed a friend’s truck to move the body to the campgrounds.
It was the off-season, and nobody found him until he was too decomposed for it to matter. ”
“Holy shit,” Kit repeated, eyes wide. Not nearly as horrified as he should look. “That’s so logical. Like something Holden would do.”
Darius wanted to deny that. Holden killed for pleasure. For rage. But Kit was right, as usual. That one day was the most like Holden he’d ever been. The pure satisfaction of his fist colliding with the man’s skull…
Unfortunately, it was followed by the panic of improvisation. Darius never wanted to be caught without a plan again.
“Did it work?” Kit asked. “I mean, I assume so, you didn’t go to jail or anything.”
That might have been better.
No. Darius rejected the idea even as he thought it. A better man might have regrets about how his life turned out, but Darius didn’t.
“I got caught,” Darius said. “But not by the cops. My dead guy worked with a woman who worked with Felicity Carrow, and she reached out a week later. She was impressed with how well I hid the body.”
“Overachiever,” Kit muttered.
Darius grinned. “She offered me a deal. Training, education, and keeping my secrets—if she could use my services whenever she needed them. I said yes out of fear at first, but after a few months… I liked the training. I liked the job. I liked making money.”
“What was the catch?” Kit asked.
“If I ever crossed her, she knew where my sister lived.” Darius’s grin faded. “Felicity never liked loose ends. I always knew that if I wanted to retire for good, I would have to kill her.”
The disinfected coffee table loomed large. Felicity had been such a force of nature. Darius hadn’t expected her corpse to look so small.
Kit pressed his sock-covered feet against Darius’s thigh. “How do you feel now?”
“Happy,” Darius answered. “That’s the weird part. I don’t usually feel happy about killing people.”
“It’s usually just a job.”
“Yeah. Planned out. Some stranger that another stranger has a problem with. This was…” Darius’s hand fell to Kit’s ankle, because touching him felt right. “Impulsive. Personal.”
“You don’t sound happy,” Kit said.
Perceptive little bastard. Darius couldn’t believe how much he loved that about Kit. “Maybe I should have taken care of Felicity years ago. I could have dug up the Rat King shit, and saved James years of searching.”
Frowning, Kit set the phone on the coffee table. Then he scooted onto Darius’s lap. “We talked about momentum, once.” Kit touched the tender bruise along Darius’s jaw. “Maybe three years ago, this would have gone differently. I like how things went this time, with all of you okay.”
A thousand painful timelines flashed through Darius’s mind. They vanished in the soft heat of a kiss. Darius first met Kit chained to a stair railing. Now he was the one chained to Kit, and he never wanted to be free.
This wasn’t logical or planned. That was okay. That was better than okay.
“I like this part,” Darius murmured against Kit’s lips. “I’d like to introduce you and Miranda.”
“Just me?” Kit asked, eyes sparkling.
“And your other shitty boyfriends,” Darius said, winning a delighted laugh and another kiss.
Settling back on the couch would usually feel cozy to Kit.
Working together, basking in each other’s presence, regardless of how many murders had recently occurred in the building.
Darius moved onto a new laptop, and Kit grabbed a tablet.
Yet unease crept over Kit as he continued looking through Felicity’s devices.
He shouldn’t resent Darius’s sharing. It shouldn’t feel like something had shifted between them.
Self-awareness sucked. Kit could pinpoint the exact cause of his unease. Darius used to keep as many secrets as Kit. They were on the same level, each agreeing not to pry into the other’s past. Now Darius had shared his accidental teen assassin origin story. The balance of trust was unequal.
And Kit intended to leave it that way.
Easy enough. Darius was good about not prying.
Except when prying was the assignment. Kit caught the precise moment when Darius’s expression froze, even before Darius looked up from Felicity’s laptop.
“What did you find?” Kit asked.
“James said not to tell him anything about his family while he was in the office.” Darius angled the laptop so Kit could see. “You heard him say that, right?”
“Right,” Kit confirmed. His heart sank as he scooted closer.
The laptop was clunky. At least ten years old, judging by the quaint interface. There were only two folders on the desktop, and one was labeled About Nazario Bradach.
The other was labeled About Evelyn Zhou.
“This one wasn’t even locked,” Darius said, tense. “It was in the bedroom safe, the one with the daily code. She had to enter a password every day to keep it locked.”
“Insurance.” Kit could definitely see the connection between Darius and his mentor. “She wanted people to find this after she died.”
“Do you think James was telling the truth?” Darius asked, which explained his unusual hesitation. The proof of James’s hurt still shadowed Darius’s left cheek and jaw.
Darius wasn’t afraid of getting punched. Pain wasn’t a deterrent. Darius just didn’t want to betray James’s trust again.
Kit was nice enough not to point that out. He simply took the laptop. Damn, the thing was heavy. When were laptops invented? This thing felt as old as the hills. “I think he was telling the truth. But if he wasn’t, I’ll take responsibility for waiting.”
Kit expected an argument. Instead, Darius just leaned closer, to watch the screen as Kit double-clicked on About Evelyn Zhou.
Inside were dozens of subfolders, each helpfully and clearly named.
Trafficking - Firearms (Interstate)
Trafficking - Firearms (International)
Blackmail - Senator Wendi Voria
Death - Officer Jeremy Grith
Death - Agent Ora Tuvi
Kit clicked on one of the death folders, nerves buzzing with dread. Thankfully there were no photos. Just a summary, supported by saved documents and audio files Kit did not intend to click, of James’s mom asking Felicity to kill someone.
The next folder was the same.
“Fuck,” Darius muttered.
Pulse pounding, Kit set the laptop on the coffee table. This was something he never wanted to share with James—a parent responsible for dozens of murders. Even if Evelyn didn’t pull the trigger herself, her fingerprints were clear.
Kit remembered the razor-sharp betrayal. The realization Dad had never been the person Kit thought he was. Their happy family life was just a fresh coat of paint, hiding the rotten core.
Forget responsibility. Kit’s cowardice jumped into control. “Maybe we should make Bishop tell James about this.”
“Tell James about what?” Bishop asked from behind them.
Kit craned around. Bishop’s sleeves were rolled up, his strong hands pink and freshly washed. Must be taking a break from identifying bodies.
“Come and look,” Kit said, reluctantly grabbing the laptop again.
He intended to hand it over to Bishop, but before he could, Bishop leaned over his shoulder. Aftershave and disinfectant spun dizzyingly through Kit’s brain. He barely processed anything as Bishop scanned over the open document.
Kit clung to the physical distraction. Better than sinking into dark memories. Months ago, the thoughts would have left him numb or panicking. No in-between. Now, he could just think, then let go. He could be normal.
Bishop reached past Kit to scroll down, arm brushing Kit’s shoulder.
“That’s troubling,” Bishop commented, his breath stirring Kit’s hair. “Not surprising, but troubling.” He straightened up, which gave Kit room to think properly—until Bishop squeezed his shoulder in a comforting way. “You’re right. I should tell him about this.”
“You’re a saint,” Kit said, and hoped neither Bishop nor Darius could see Kit’s insides turning to goo. There was just something so invasively nice about Bishop’s firm touch.
“Where’s Holden?” Darius asked, sounding amused. Damn him.
“Probably not dismembering anyone,” Bishop said, finally letting go of Kit.
He took the laptop away, then moved to the chair across from the coffee table.
“We finished identifying everyone. Most of them didn’t have any record of working here, so we can stage out of town for authorities to find.
Their families will get closure, if not answers.
Two of them had known ties to Felicity, so we’ll process them more thoroughly. ”
“Lucky Holden,” Kit commented, stomach turning.
He grabbed the next burner phone in the pile, helpfully unlocked by James the day before. The proof of teamwork was weirdly sweet and reassuring. Kit’s mood lifted, until he reached the latest message on the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Bishop asked sharply, before Kit even noticed himself freezing.
Kit’s instinct was to say nothing was wrong. But Bishop wouldn’t believe that. Neither would Darius. And there was no reason to hide this, besides Kit’s deeply ingrained patterns of secrecy.
“You guys said the Viper hasn’t been active in years,” Kit said, scrolling up the message thread for context. Nothing clear. Just more ominous hints. “But Felicity had someone looking into him.”
Kit handed the phone to Darius, who frowned at the latest message too.
Unknown: You were right. We found the Viper’s weakness.