4. Adam
Four
Adam
Just me and my stepdaughter.
Her words hit me from two directions at once, and I didn’t know which one to deal with first.
My stepdaughter. The way she said it. Soft. Fucking claiming. Like the lass is hers , blood or no blood, paperwork or not.
Fuck me, this woman.
Then there’s the other thing.
Nobody. No security. No one watching the gates, the perimeter, the doors.
Ray’s people walked out the day he died…
and from what I read in the file, Ray’s people were rats and bawbags, half of them dirty cops and the other half working for whoever paid the most that week.
They all walked out. But of course they fucking did.
And what they left behind in this falling-down house is a young widow and a twenty-year-old, with no locks worth a damn, no cameras, no protection, no fucking anything .
Weeks.
Fucking weeks they’ve been here alone. With the contract sitting open, the Venn name still hanging over the door, and every cunt in Halo City who used to deal with Ray, or against him, knowing exactly where to find them.
Bloody weeks.
My hand closes into a fist in my pocket, and I make myself slowly uncurl it.
I look past her at the hallway, the staircase, the cracked tile.
I’m taking inventory. Two entrances, probably more…
old house, this big, there’ll be a service door, kitchen door, maybe a cellar hatch.
No deadbolts that’d stop a determined invader with a strong shoulder.
The windows on the ground floor are big, with only single-pane glass.
Someone on foot could come up the gravel in under a minute.
The trees on the approach are tall, but the gate doesnae lock.
A child with a bloody kitchen knife could take this house…
Fucking weeks.
I feel something move behind my sternum. Not anger, exactly. But something much deeper, stronger. It’s the thing that makes me put men in coolers. The thing that has my da worried sick. It’s the thing my mother used to put a hand on my chest to stop when I was a boy and went still the wrong way.
I breathe through it. Don’t show her. Dinnae fucking show her, Adam . She’ll bloody spook.
When I bring my eyes back to Lisa, she’s looking at me with her big brown eyes wide, her arms still crossed over her big tits, her blue dress fluttering at the hem because her raggedy AC’s pushed a draft through the foyer. She doesn’t know what just happened in my head.
She doesn’t know she’s never gonna be unprotected again. Not ever.
I make my face do the thing my mother taught me. The terrifying gentleman thing. The hat off, fangs out move.
I keep my voice mild, the way I’d tell her the time. “I’ll be back later with my things. Have a room ready or dinnae, doesnae matter. I’ll sleep on the couch if I have to.”
“Mr. Maksimov…”
“Adam.”
“You…you can’t just…”
“Aye, love. I can.” I put my hand on the door. “Two women alone in this house.” I shake my head. “For fucking weeks… with the contract open.” I slowly inhale again. “I’ll be back tonight.”
“I haven’t agreed to any of this…”
My lips stretch. “I know.” I open the door. The wall of heat hits me again, but I barely feel it. “We’ll figure that part out later. The part we’re not figuring out later is whether anyone gets through that gate while ye sleep. That’s not a fucking option.”
I look at her one more time: standing in the foyer in her dress, bare feet on the wood, brown eyes huge, her full lips parted, her gorgeous, tired face trying to find the words to argue with me and failing.
“Tonight, lass.”
I tuck a wild curl behind her ear, then step out on the porch, waiting for the door to click shut behind me.
Then I get in my car and let my hand close around the steering wheel hard enough that the leather creaks.
Fucking weeks.
I start the engine.
I have fucking calls to make.