Chapter Six #4
Good. If this guy had really set that place on fire, he deserved to be in pain.
Hell, he deserved much more, and Liam was sure he’d get that.
It wasn’t his and Ethan’s place to extract any information from the guy, but Liam was sure that the cops would be happy to hear what was going on.
They’d have to fudge the truth a bit so as not to mention shifters, even though there were plenty of shifters on the police force.
There was no way to know who would catch this case, though.
Liam hated that he’d only been working as a firefighter for a few weeks, and he was already dealing with this kind of thing.
He knew that most people around the world were decent and wanted to live peaceful lives, but not this guy.
This guy had wanted to destroy lives. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair.
Ethan pulled the man away from the wall, probably to slam him back against it, but before he could, the man raised his hands. “Look, I don’t care what you are,” he said.
“You just called me a monster.”
“That’s just how that guy describes you.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who paid me to do this.”
That gave Liam pause. For some reason, he’d thought the guy had set fire to the factory because he hated shifters.
Maybe it was the way he’d thrown out the word monster earlier.
Maybe it was because it was obvious that he hated Ethan.
Or maybe he’d felt that way because of the way Ethan was manhandling him.
This guy had to know that once Ethan was done, they would be calling the cops.
He had to know that whatever he’d done, it was over.
Apparently, he was willing and ready to throw his employer under the bus.
Liam thought it was sad, but he was also relieved.
They didn’t know who was behind all of this. Hopefully, that person would pay, too.
“Who’s that guy?” Ethan asked with a growl that was pretty impressive and sent a shiver down Liam’s spine.
Liam could’ve sworn that Ethan’s eyes flashed yellow and that for a second, scales appeared on his skin. He wanted to reach out and touch, but he knew better.
“I don’t know his name. He contacted me online and said that shifters needed to leave town and that he wanted help cleaning up the neighborhood. He paid me, and I didn’t have to do much, so I thought why not?”
Liam took out his phone. He could see that Ethan was getting angrier, and he didn’t want the situation to spiral. He quickly texted Taylor, knowing his captain would answer immediately. Sure enough, his phone vibrated just a few seconds later with a thumbs-up. Taylor was sending help.
Luckily, it only took a few minutes. Ethan tried to get more answers out of the guy, but Liam suspected that he really didn’t know much about the person who’d paid him.
The guy was so scared of Ethan that he would’ve given him anything Ethan asked for.
He just repeated the same answers again and again, no matter how frustrated Ethan became.
“What’s going on here?” a man asked.
Liam turned to see a couple of cops coming toward them. Luckily, he was still wearing his turnouts, and it was obvious he’d been involved in the fire. “My captain sent you. I warned him that we caught the guy who set the fire in the factory,” he explained.
The cop who’d spoken looked from Liam to Ethan and the arsonist. “This guy?”
Ethan finally pushed himself away from the man, who slid down the wall to the ground.
Apparently, he was too scared of Ethan to try to get up, which was a good thing because Ethan looked like he was seconds away from slamming him against the wall again.
The man’s cheek was scratched up badly, and there was blood dripping from one of the deeper cuts near his eye.
“I thought the way he was watching the fire was weird,” Ethan said, still staring at the man. “I was here because I was afraid for my boyfriend.”
Liam raised a hand. “That would be me.”
“I just wanted to make sure that Liam was okay with my own two eyes. I noticed the guy, but I didn’t do anything about it until he saw Liam coming toward me and ran. I think he thought that Liam was coming for him.”
“You thought it was a good idea to follow him and slam him against the wall?”
“He wouldn’t have confessed to getting paid to set the fire if I hadn’t caught him,” Ethan snapped.
“Look,” he said after taking a deep breath.
“I’m not trying to do your job here. I’m just telling you what happened.
The guy confessed to me and Liam that he’d set the place on fire and that he’d been paid to do it.
Believe it or not, but even if you don’t, at least talk to him. ”
The cop stared at Ethan for a moment before nodding curtly. “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll interrogate him. First, though, he needs to go to the hospital.”
Liam could see that Ethan wanted to argue that, but what could he say? The arsonist was bleeding.
Liam stepped closer to Ethan and put a hand on his arm. Ethan frowned, but he took a step back from the man and allowed the cops to grab him. Together, Ethan and Liam watched the cops drag the guy out of the alley. The guy wasn’t saying much.
“It’s over now, right?” Ethan asked in a whisper.
Liam wished he could say yes, but he didn’t know.