Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
Kieran
Nicholas Grimaldi lived in downtown Buffalo at the Nova, a full-service luxury high-rise condominium.
The building itself was a landmark but had been renovated so it didn’t show its century-old age.
Personally, I thought the glass exterior erased its history and made it look like a massive house of mirrors, but for a clown like Grimaldi, I supposed it was the perfect roost.
“You sure about this?” Ghost asked, gazing out the windshield and down the block at the building.
“You didn’t have to come.” I reminded him.
“And let you have all the fun?” He scoffed. “Please. Besides, we both know you aren’t getting in there without me.”
I cut him a sideways glance. “I’d figure something out.”
“Yeah, and probably take a bullet while doing it.”
Wouldn’t be the first time. Or the last. I didn’t care. I’d take more than one bullet if it meant keeping Hazard safe.
Ghost sighed. “Listen, I know you’re all in love for the first time and half-pint is pretty cute—”
My hand shot across the SUV to fist in Ghost’s jacket. The fabric whooshed when I pulled him halfway over the center console. “You looking at what’s mine?”
“Eyes look at things. It’s what they do,” he remarked like I wasn’t about to rip his head off his shoulders and use it as a bowling ball.
“Wrong answer,” I intoned.
“I can’t help that we have the same type,” he defended. “I’m here to help you.”
“I don’t have a type,” I said, pushing him back into his seat.
“Yeah, because up until two days ago, you didn’t have a heart,” he cracked.
“What’s your excuse?” I retorted. Ghost wasn’t “heartless” like me, but in the ten years I’d known him, he never had a relationship.
“You know what we do is risky. The lives we live, the things we’ve seen, it doesn’t really go too well with our type,”
I shot him a look.
Chuckling, he held up his hands. “My type.”
“And what type is that?” I asked. I couldn’t help but be curious that he seemed to think I had a type.
Even more so that it was the same as his.
I’d never thought about my type. Usually, when I wanted to hook up, I just looked for someone who was willing.
I guess I did prefer men smaller than me, but I didn’t specifically seek it out.
“Soft.”
I snorted. “Soft? What the fuck are you on about?”
“Snort and scoff all you want, my guy,” Ghost said, grabbing a bag of nuts out of his jacket pocket and popping a few in his mouth. “But the facts are facting.”
I shook my head. This entire conversation was a waste of time and brain cells.
Crunch. Crunch. Ghost smacked his lips. “All right, go ahead and tell me that the entire reason you even went to the hospital wasn’t because you looked at his profile pic and got punched in the gut by those big-ass eyes right there on his face.
” He tossed another nut in his mouth. Crunch.
Crunch. “He was hurt and in the hospital all alone, and you couldn’t bear the thought of someone so innocent and small with no one to protect them. ”
“He left me on read,” I replied, woefully regretting that I’d even told this moron how we met. I was distracted, trying to sneak out of the condo without Hazard hearing, and Ghost asked, so I just answered.
Ghost cackled. Crunch. Crunch. “Probably drove you nuts because Mr. Control Freak had no idea what he was doing or what happened. By the time you got to the hospital, you were probably frothing at the mouth with all the scenarios you’d dreamed up.”
“Getting shot would be better than this conversation,” I said, reaching for the door handle.
Ghost’s hand slammed onto my arm, stopping me.
“Guys like us need a little softness,” he said, all trace of humor gone.
“We’ve been through some shit. Done even more.
We’re hard because life made us that way and dangerous because we gotta be.
Is it really any wonder we’d be drawn to something—someone—that offered a little reprieve?
Who is a rare reminder there is still some beauty left in life, that not everyone and everything are inherently bad. ”
“I thought that didn’t exist anymore,” I confided.
“Yeah, I know. Who could blame you? That shit went extinct a long time ago where we’re from. But you never poke your head out long enough to realize it’s still there.”
“And you have?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes I need a reminder of why I do what I do.”
That hit me hard, an instant gut-check I didn’t like. Because I didn’t do what I did out of some sense of protecting the innocent or making the world better. It started out that way but quickly and definitively twisted into something angry and vengeful.
“That’s where we’re different,” I said.
Ghost was silent a moment. Then, “Nahhh.” Crunch. Crunch. “You might tell yourself otherwise, but deep down, you’re a protector just like me.”
A protector? Was that what he thought? More like a killer. “I belong in jail.”
“If you were in jail, the streets would be a far more dangerous place.”
The fucked-up thing was he was right. It was the reason I was not in jail. Why I sometimes had carte blanche to do my worst. Because sometimes to kill a monster, you had to be one.
“He told me he trusts me,” I confessed like it was some mortal sin.
I didn’t want to be Haz’s sin.
But I was, wasn’t I?
Ghost hummed. “So tell him the truth.”
My eyebrow must have been doing that thing again because Ghost’s did the same. “You mean after nearly choking me out over questioning his loyalty, you think he won’t accept it?”
“I’m a hitman.”
“Yeah, and he’s a twink with mismatched eyes, anxiety, and more innocence than he has any business having. But that ain’t all he is. He got away from three of Grimaldi’s men. He lives in the worst part of town. He’s soft, but he ain’t weak. He can handle it.”
Hadn’t Hazard pretty much said the same? My lips twisted derisively. “A twink.”
“Not surprised you went down. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
“Fuck off.”
He laughed. Crunch. Crunch.
“Jesus. How big is that bag?” I snapped.
The bag crinkled when he balled it up and shoved it in the cup holder. My eyelid twitched at the mess. Before I could tell him he was a pig, he slapped me on the shoulder.
“Follow me and try not to give us away,” he said, slipping out of the car and blending into the shadows so well I’d have thought I was alone if he hadn’t just been annoying the ever-loving shit out of me.
Pulling the black ball cap low over my head, I made sure the gun at the small of my back was there and then started down the block.
The black tactical pants I wore were functional but casual enough that they didn’t scream I was up to no good.
Over the pants, I wore a black T-shirt with no sleeves and a black blazer, unbuttoned.
I kept my posture relaxed, pace unhurried as I approached the building.
I didn’t look around for Ghost or indicate I wasn’t alone.
I also didn’t bother trying to be untraceable like him because any attempt would have just drawn attention.
Acting like I was supposed to be there and not doing anything wrong was the best cover.
As I approached the front of the building, there was a low, brief whistle, and I pivoted away from the front entrance and around the side of the building. Once there, I turned again so I was at the back. A service door was propped open, and I slipped inside, closing it quietly behind me.
Ghost materialized out of the dark and pointed to the stairwell. We went up fifteen flights, but before we could get to the top floor, Ghost pulled me out of the stairs and into a hall.
I followed along silently, wondering, and rolled my eyes when he disappeared into a supply closet. Inside the dark closet, he was gone, but the vent opening in the ceiling was ajar.
“Fucking dramatic,” I uttered as I pulled myself into the hole. The space inside was limited, my shoulders touching each side. The air was stale and hot. After closing the vent behind me, I army-crawled along the metal sheeting, gritting my teeth and trying not to make a sound.
I caught up to Ghost a short while later, the asshole looking like he hadn’t even broken a sweat. I scowled, and he put his finger to his lips, which made me scowl more.
Did he think I was stupid?
He gestured to a grate in the floor between us, and I squinted through the tiny slats to make out two bodyguards stationed outside a door. I knew it was Grimaldi’s place and also the reason Ghost decided not to use the rest of the stairs.
He gestured, and we continued until stopping at another grate that looked into a home office. I pointed to it, and Ghost nodded. In seconds, he was dropping silently into the empty room. After a quick thumbs-up, I kept going until the sound of obnoxious snoring blasted through the next grate.
I couldn’t see anything below. The room was pitch black, but the snoring was a pretty obvious giveaway. Pulling it open, I gazed down, not making out much more than a few shapes of furniture. After another moment of listening for any movement, I grew impatient and dropped into the room.
The carpet muffled the sound I made, and I stayed crouched low for a minute before standing. My eyes adjusted quickly, and I noted his closed bedroom door and the drawn curtains over a large set of windows that probably offered a view of the lake.
Creeping over to the side of the bed, I stared down at a sleeping Grimaldi, smirking to myself at what a pompous ass he was. I was tempted to just grab my gun and put a bullet in his skull, let the hit on Hazard die with the man who ordered it.
I didn’t just want Grimaldi dead, though. I wanted information.
Keeping my movements slow and controlled, I reached behind to draw my gun and screw a silencer on the end.
A thunderous snore erupted out of him, and I used the opportunity to flip off the safety and jam the cold butt of the gun right against his temple.
His eyes flew open immediately, and his arm dove beneath the pillow, likely for a weapon.