21. Franco
21
FRANCO
“ I t’s so close to where the Giovannis started up a fight,” I commented once I joined Liam in the car and left the mansion. I did another double-take at the address on the navigation, the location where Liam’s former military buddy lived in Brooklyn.
“Yeah. I noticed that too.” Liam concentrated on the road as he sped away. “But I don’t see how that’d be relevant.”
“Who is this friend again?” I asked. I felt like I should’ve known this.
“Ethan Koone. We served together overseas. He retired a few years ago and sort of started up his, uh, own business.”
“In what field or industry?”
Liam glanced at me. “Killing. He’s a contracted hitman.”
I raised my brows. “No shit.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I spoke with him a little bit when I was debating whether I should join the Constella forces.”
I laughed once, wryly. “I’d say a hitman for hire would sway the black-and-white areas of your moral compass.”
He nodded. “He suggested that I work for him, actually, as partners. But that was right before I found out about Olivia, and I couldn’t do that then.”
“Of course not. And you’re one of us.” I checked my gun and slid it back into my holster. I didn’t take the time to shower after leaving Chloe so horny and needy in the gym. It killed me to leave her hanging like that—to give myself blue balls in walking away from her—but I had to. A lead on Wes Morrison was nothing to pass up on.
“I most certainly am. But Ethan’s a good guy. Older, but still fit and with it. He usually watches his grandson over longer breaks. I think the kid moved around a lot, but he got a pen pal through some program and they’re best friends. Ethan said he was at home with Brent, his grandson, and this friend who’s visiting, but if he were alone, he’d look into this nosy guy himself.”
“Will he have surveillance footage we could take a look at if this guy isn’t there when we arrive?” I checked the time on the dashboard, grimacing when I realized how many minutes had passed already. If Wes would be a hard guy to track down, we’d need to move fast before he hid again.
“Absolutely,” Liam answered.
On the drive there, I tried not to think back to the moment I’d been interrupted from having with Chloe. When she showed up, I thought it would be my chance to ask her about what she was hiding. After we shared those heated looks, though, we were both goners.
It was too damn easy to be tempted with her sexy body. One look was all it took. The moment we touched, the second we kissed, it was damn near impossible to resist each other.
But we had to talk. Not only according to me, either. She said she had something important on her mind to share with me, and I hated that we’d been interrupted. While it was hard to keep our hands and mouths off each other, we had a solid connection beyond raw, carnal sex.
It was the worst time to be interrupted, but catching Wes was crucial—for that shooting investigation and to go after Chloe’s biggest threat.
Before long, we pulled up to the apartment where Ethan lived.
“Ready?” Liam asked, scanning the area.
We were both packing, but there was not a chance we’d risk going in guns blazing. We had to handle this carefully, especially since it wasn’t in Constella territory. It wasn’t really anyone’s area. Long ago, the Cartel operated around here, but it was more like an unclaimed, complicated area of the city.
I nodded. “After you.”
Liam led the way up to Ethan’s floor. He knocked, and we waited outside. “Ethan? It’s me.”
No one answered, and I felt tension knotting up on my shoulders and over my upper back. Bracing for a hit, I stood off to the side and continued to look back and forth, watching out for Liam.
“Ethan?” Liam tried again, knocking louder.
He frowned, glancing down at his phone. “Huh.”
“What?”
“He says to smile. We’re on camera.”
I frowned. “Where is he?”
“Upstairs. He rents two separate units out.”
I raised my brows, spotting the camera hidden overhead. The tiny lens fit in well with the molding. “Huh is right. He’s a paranoid bastard, then, isn’t he?”
Liam nodded. “I can’t blame him after the shit we lived through and saw during our tours.” Tipping his head toward the stairwell, he indicated for me to follow him through there.
Upstairs, just one more level up, we repeated it all. He knocked, and I remained on a lookout.
Ethan answered the door quickly. He was just as I expected, older but trim and fit. He looked like he could kick ass, but he also had a general lack of a unique appearance. This man was likely very skilled at slipping in and out of tricky situations in his hitman assignments that he accepted.
“Liam. Good to see you.” He stepped back, letting us enter.
“This is my good friend, Franco,” Liam said. “Franco, this is Ethan.”
Ethan gave me a quick once-over as he gestured for me to enter. His scrutiny was brief, but I had no doubt he could size me up well in that glance. “Good to meet you.”
Liam could’ve identified me better than that. As his supervisor. As a colleague. As an acquaintance. This wasn’t a business call, though. This wasn’t an official business meeting but checking in with his old friend. I didn’t care about formalities in a situation like this. All I cared about was clearing out this “coincidence” of someone named Morrison snooping around here and being a nuisance.
“He slipped away,” Ethan grumbled as he shut the door. He shook his head while he engaged the multiple locks. “I got him on the cameras, so I can show ya. But he just ran off.”
Dammit!
Ethan noticed my cringe. “Mrs. Gehring down the hall got him kicked out. He was asking around by the laundromat downstairs about where the playground was. She got all in his face, shouting at him for being a pedophile and creep. He’s been hanging around for a couple of days, but that’s the first time he started asking around. Fucker.” He shook his head, disgusted. “If I knew one of those sick assholes were hanging around here, I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him. I had the boys out and about at the museum and the park, so I didn’t hear about this until after I ran into her in the hallway on the way to get my mail.”
“I can’t stand sick fuckers like that.”
“What got me calling you and asking for help was if he came back,” Ethan said. “Mrs. Gehring said that she threatened to call the cops on him and he laughed. Laughed . Like it wouldn’t have mattered to him if she did.”
Seeing that Wes Morrison used to be a lawman himself, that didn’t surprise me.
“She damn near beat him with her purse, and his wallet fell out. That was how her niece got his name. Little Beatrice swooped down and picked through his wallet before he could snatch it back. That’s how we got his name. I haven’t run a search on him yet, but I will. I just figure with your new, uh…” He glanced at me. “Your new employment and connection, you might be interested in killing a corrupt cop.”
We weren’t vigilantes at large. We weren’t crusading to act as another law enforcement agency, going after the sickos in the world. Our loyalty was to our family. But Wes was on our radar. Because he targeted Chloe, we damn well did want to kill him. His act of ordering an attack on our building hadn’t won him any favors, either. If he was behind that hit, he’d pay for the damages on our property and for killing any members of the organization, like Manny and Suzie.
“His name’s Wes Morrison,” a boy said.
He appeared in the hallway with another short boy.
“Go on back in the living room, boys,” Ethan said.
“But you don’t have to run a search or look him up,” the blond said.
I narrowed my eyes at him, struck with a sense of recognition. I’d never seen him before, but he looked familiar. Like… a younger version of me.
“Go on, Caleb. This conversation is for me and?—”
I stepped forward, unable to tear my attention from the kid. “ Caleb ?”
No. No fucking way. Of all the names this kid could’ve had, it had to be the one I swore I heard Chloe say when she was in that first room. The person she called as soon as she got her tampered burner phone back.
“ Caleb ?” I was rooted in shock, so confused and stunned by what had to be true.
“Yes.” Ethan frowned, volleying his focus between me and this boy.
Liam did the same, looking from me to him. “Oh… shit .”
It seemed that he’d made the same connection that I had. The tall, slim boy had my eyes. His nose looked like mine too. But his hair was like his mother’s.
“Yeah, I’m Caleb,” he said, sticking his chin up defiantly.
My heart raced. My chest felt too tight. Panicked and feeling like the rug had been pulled from beneath my feet, I gaped at this boy who had to be related to me.
“That’s my grandson’s friend,” Ethan said. “He’s been staying with us over his spring break while his mom starts a new job and gets settled in.”
“Oh, shit .” Liam repeated it with more conviction.
Starting a new job at a deli, I bet. And settling into a new home in New York somewhere, since she was always on the run from her stalker ex.
I couldn’t look away, more shocked than ever before.
“I know who you are too, Mister.” Caleb narrowed his eyes, suspicious and untrusting of me despite claiming to recognize me.
“What the…? You know who I am?” I pointed at myself unnecessarily. He was just as locked in this surprised stare-down as I was. He had yet to look away from me, checking me out as though he doubted I was real and here.
“Yeah. I’ve seen lots of pictures of you. I never met you before, but yeah, Mister, I know exactly who you are, Mr. Franco.”
Oh, fuck.
Denial could no longer work. It was my instinct to think it couldn’t be possible. That my eyes were playing tricks on me. That this kid just happened to look like me. Not that he was mine.
“My mom always showed me pictures of you.” He crossed his arms.
“Your mom—” I choked on my dry throat and strained to swallow. “Your mom showed you pictures of me .”
“Yeah. So I’d grow up knowing I had a daddy and what he looked like.” Caleb frowned at me, still so wary of my showing up here.
Daddy.
This boy, this kid, he thought I was his father.
The idea that I had a son nearly knocked me over. I felt blown away, so clueless and floundering for a shred of reality as I knew and recognized it.
I was a father?
I had a son ?
As I steadied my breaths and stared at Caleb, I felt my heart cracking and swelling. I was a mess, unsure what to think or how to feel. Elation was my first reaction, but just as swiftly, anger.
I fumed while I wanted to rejoice that I had a son. I seethed, combatting the wonderful marvel of knowing I was a father.
I knew Chloe had been keeping something from me.
But I hadn’t counted on something like finding out she’d hidden our son from me for years.