Chapter 20 My little liability – Koen
MY LITTLE LIABILITY
KOEN
Now
“Anything?”
“No, Koen.” Liam levels me an irate stare from over his laptop screen. “I don’t have anything new since the last time you asked me—thirty seconds ago.”
I get up and pace the room.
“It might help if I had something more to go on other than ‘her name isn’t Rose.’ You wanna tell me how you know her? Maybe that will help?”
“I don’t know her.”
He scoffs. “Okay. Your reaction in the warehouse says otherwise.”
“Just find her. Preferably before she starts running her mouth.”
“We did save her ass. I doubt she’s going to turn around and narc to the police. But I am going to need a little bit more to go on…”
“That’s all I got,” I growl. Wracking my brain as I’ve been doing over the last twelve hours to recall any identifying information about the girl from the warehouse.
I remember every fucking little thing about her: the silky feel of her dark hair when I had it wrapped around my fist; how she smelled of jasmine; and the eighteen freckles she has scattered across her cheeks.
I hadn’t wanted to know anything more about her, didn’t learn her real name, or where she went to school, because I knew if I did… I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from making her mine. She was perfect, beautiful and too good for me.
“She was a dancer,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “In school for it, I think. Definitely came from money.”
“So not the stripper variety then?”
“No,” I growl out. “Ballet, I think.”
Liam looks up from his screen to watch me pace the length of the living room. “Why’s this girl getting to you so much?”
“She’s not!” I snap.
His answering smirk makes me want to punch him in the face.
“Will you just find her?”
“Find who?” A quick glance over my shoulder reveals my sister Reagan wandering into the room. She’s still in her pajamas, her red hair in a messy bun on top of her head.
“None of your—”
“A girl,” Liam supplies and I glare daggers at him.
Reagan’s light green eyes sparkle with interest and to my dismay, she plops down on the sofa next to Liam with her coffee mug pulled up to her lips.
”Well this is intriguing. Tell me more.”
“There’s nothing to—
“Koen saved her life last night, and she ran away from him,” Liam informs our sister.
“Ouch.” She winces playfully before smirking at me over the rim of her cup.
“I’m going to kill you both,” I seethe, pulling out my phone to check it for probably the hundredth time this hour. Mac and Alex are going through everything we stole from the warehouse, and talking to the girls we pulled out of there. I’m hoping at least one of them knows my girl’s name.
“Oh, he’s touchy.” Reagan exchanges a glance with Liam, unfazed by my threats. “And what did you do to this girl to make her run away from you?”
“Nothing,” I growl.
“Then why did she run?” she presses.
“I’m not talking to you.” To prove my point, I press my phone to my ear, listening to a new voicemail from Mac.
Reagan turns her attention to Liam. “Spill the tea, what’s the story?”
He shrugs before opening his mouth.
I tug the phone down to snap in his direction, “Do not tell her anything.” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I take a deep breath to keep my calm. My head is pounding from lack of sleep and stress. “Reagan, so help me god…”
Whatever she’s going to say gets cut off by the ding of the elevator. We all turn to see Alex and Aidan walking in, the latter looking a little worse for wear. Dark circles ring my brother’s eyes. He’s probably gotten just as much sleep as I have since last night.
Alex takes the long way around the sectional, rounding behind Reagan and Liam. With his free hand, he reaches down and plucks Reagan’s coffee straight out of her hands.
“Hey!” she shouts in protest, trying to snatch the drink back, but Alex has already got the cup tipped back to his lips, taking a long, drawn-out sip. “Thanks for the coffee, Rae.”
He hands Reagan her cup back but she eyes it as though it’s been poisoned, a pout evident on her face.
“The shipment?” I meet Alex’s eye as he takes a seat a safe throwing distance away from Reagan.
“Secure.” He nods, knowing what I’m referencing. The girls. It was important to move them out of the city—and out of the reach of Matteo and his little minions.
“And the clean-up?” My eyes slide to Aidan, who lets out a heavy sigh.
“Done.” He leans back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest.
“Any new complications?”
His jaw flexes at my words. I love my brother, but he’s gotten sloppy in his time away from the family business, leaving more than a few problems for me to clean up.
He made a big mistake last night when he took off his mask before killing that Italian; he was lucky the warehouse didn’t have cameras.
But he did leave behind an eyewitness who could I.D. him and then we lost her.
“No.”
“Good. Now we just need to locate the girl.”
“C’mon Koen,” Liam tries again. “You saved her from a world of hurt or worse, she’s not going to tell anyone what she saw.”
“The girl is a liability,” I say almost robotically. “A loose end.”
My gaze is drawn to Alex who’s busy digging something out of his pocket. “Aidan and I found these while we were”—his eyes dart to Reagan before clearing his throat—“cleaning up.”
She narrows her eyes, not fooled by our use of code words. They were taking care of the bodies, ensuring nothing could be traced back to the Devils.
He reaches out and I take the small stack of plastic cards from him.
“IDs.” My eyes widen as I take in his discovery, shuffling through the stack, looking for my little liability.
“What are you going to do if you find her?” It’s Aidan who asks. I don’t look up, my entire body going still when I get to the second to last driver’s license in the stack.
Briar Elizabeth Ralston, 301 Ironworks Street, Apt 5B, Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Found you little Rose.
Tucking Briar’s ID into my back pocket, I hand the rest of the stack back to Alex before heading for the door.
“I’m going to take care of it.”