Chapter 40
Tyler
I’d broken my rule. I didn’t regret it. Not for a second. Dixie loved me.
The knowledge woke me with a strange happiness I didn’t deserve, and I brushed her blonde hair from her eyes. Held back from kissing her awake.
She loved me.
Impossible. Incredible.
From the floor, a low drone stole my attention. My phone, vibrating with a call. I ignored it until it timed out, but there was no way I’d sleep now. Not here.
We needed to return upstairs, so I climbed from the bed and pulled on my clothes. Collected hers and set them on the sheet, then bundled her into it and lifted her in my arms.
I stole out of the room, to the lift, and up to floor seven without anyone seeing us, though from the sex noises, someone was still working. My phone buzzed again, this time deep in my pocket, but my hands were full of a precious load.
In our apartment, I settled Dixie into the bed, and she curled up without waking.
I pressed a kiss to her temple.
I should never have checked my screen.
Shouldn’t have taken in the words from my uncle, ones that took me straight back to a black hole of teenage years.
Jonas: Ignoring me won’t change anything. We need to talk about Seamus Johnston. I’m in your building. Come down now.
Johnston was the bastard who executed my family. Whatever my uncle had to say about him couldn’t be good.
His words twisted my quiet contentment to something oily and cold, memories forced to the surface. A rough floor, cold under my cheek. Anger brewing but fear following pain.
My blood.
My call log showed me security had tried me twice, presumably with Jonas complaining at them, so I called back.
“Ghost,” the guy on the desk said. One of the guards pulling dawn duty. “There was a guy here for you, door two.”
Was, he’d said. “Is he gone?”
“He left a note. Wouldn’t leave without me swearing to get it to you.”
“How long ago?” I asked.
“Just a few minutes.”
Which meant Jonas wouldn’t be far. My uncle drank like a fish, so he’d be stumbling down the harbour in search of a taxi to wherever he was staying tonight.
I hesitated, caught between the strongest need to curl up again around the woman in my bed and to find out what he wanted. The fact he’d left a note pissed me off. I pictured the old boy scrawling my business for anyone to read.
That final thought dragged me into action. “I’ll be right there.”
I hung up and took a breath, that need holding me in place for a few beats longer.
Dixie had made me hers. That meant protecting her, but it also meant handling a past I wished had stayed buried. Arran had told me so.
After everything I’d been through, it wasn’t done with me. Not even close.
I left the apartment, loading the app where we managed camera access while I descended the stairs. I wouldn’t be long, so I didn’t text her. Didn’t want her phone to wake her when I’d be back in minutes.
All was quiet around the warehouse, the clubs closed and corridors empty. It was almost dawn, the air still.
Who the hell walked up to a building and handed over a written message?
At the back desk, a sleepy-eyed guard sat taller and pushed a folded piece of paper across the counter to me. Unsealed, as I’d expected.
I sighed and read the messy scrawl.
Tyler, Johnston is getting out. Tomorrow. You need to handle that fucker – Jonas.
My pulse spiked.
Wrong. All wrong.
Johnston was in prison for life. My uncle couldn’t be right.
“You say he just left,” I breathed.
The guard nodded. “Just a minute before you called. He was, uh, staggering.”
On my phone, I switched the camera view to the exterior ones and scrolled back until Jonas appeared. He lumbered up from a concrete bollard, his focus up like he was watching something. The time stamp said I wouldn’t be far behind if I chased him down.
I balled up the note, tossed it into the bin, and addressed the guard. “Add floor seven to the patrol.” Then I exited the building.
Cold air swirled over my black t-shirt sleeves, and deep shadows spread across the car park.
The scent brushed over me of the swampy river, a metallic tang from iron railings, and the urban undertone of the city.
I tracked Jonas, adrenaline rising in my veins.
He’d left barely a few minutes ago, which meant he couldn’t have got far.
It could’ve waited. But his words had sparked something to life inside me. I needed to know everything he’d found out.
Circling the warehouse, I took the cobbled walkway that ran down the river to join the harbour, water lapping stone. There was not a soul around. Nothing but the trees that lined the path, their leaves rustling in the spring breeze.
Something hung from a branch.
I slowed, horror stalling my steps. It was a body. Dangling limp from a rope around its neck. The frame tall and slender.
After Esther in the water, and Karla on the opposite bank, this felt purposeful, displayed.
Left to be discovered.
Except the swing to it suggested it had only just been tied up there.
The timing… I drew closer, needing that confirmation that it couldn’t be Jonas.
An arm locked around me from behind. A hand clamped over my nose and mouth and something stabbed into my arm.
I slammed an elbow back, connecting with bone, but even as my attacker fell, so did I.
“No witnesses,” a familiar voice grunted.
I hit the cobbles, and everything cut out.