Chapter 31 #3
I shook my head. “No. He’s really wary. He definitely doesn’t trust anyone, but I can see how hard it is for him. He…”
Enzo pounced. “He what?”
“He seems out of place. Being homeless must be new for him.”
“I wonder what happened,” Haz murmured.
“What else?” Enzo pressed.
I shook my head. “Nothing. I’ve tried to help him. I gave him money once. I offered to let him stay with me until he figured out what he wanted to do.”
Hiro turned to me. “You gave him money?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Exasperated, he said, “Because you could barely feed yourself.”
“But I have more than him,” I pointed out. I turned back to Enzo. “He wouldn’t stay with me. He ran off every time I mentioned it. I saw him talking to Tommy a couple weeks ago. After Tommy left, I told him to stay away from him, that he was bad news. But I haven’t seen him since.”
“One more thing…” Enzo began.
“Yes?”
“How did he look to you?”
I paused. “How did he look?”
Enzo nodded, his face still that mask of cold. “Was he injured? Thin?”
I thought back, slowly shaking my head. “He didn’t look injured. Unless he was hiding it.”
Enzo nodded. “And how did he seem on the phone last night?”
My hand looped around Hiro’s arm. His skin was warm. “Scared. He was screaming. They, uh…” I swallowed. “They electrocuted him.”
The cold mask that seemed to be Enzo’s default slipped, and beneath it was a burning inferno. “What?”
“T-they s-said he was unconscious too long and they needed to power him back up.”
Hiro’s arm slid around my back, tugging me firmly into his side. “That’s enough.” He was harsh. “No more questions.”
“Just one more.” Enzo asked, “Where are you meeting?”
Hiro glanced at Kieran. “You didn’t fill him in at all?”
“Need to know,” Kieran replied.
I rattled off the address and said, “But that’s only to meet an associate who will then give me the address once I get there.”
“I need to make a few calls,” Enzo said, pulling out a phone and going out the front door.
Once the door was latched behind him, Kieran turned to Hiro. “I’ll go to the first meetup. Get the address and then—”
“You can’t,” I interrupted. “They will only give me the address.”
Kieran glanced at me. “I will make him talk.”
“But what if he calls Tommy when he sees you and Tommy kills Wyatt because I didn’t listen?”
“It’s him or you,” Kieran said, matter-of-fact.
I gasped.
“And after you get the address, send it to me, and I’ll meet you there. We’ll clean house,” Hiro said.
Kieran nodded and gestured toward the door Enzo had just left through. “Then he can come collect his product and clean up the mess.”
“Easy peasy lemon squeezy,” Hiro sang.
“No. No lemon squeezy,” I hollered. Turning to Hiro, I said, “Don’t you remember the threat on your life?”
“That’s why Kieran is going to the first address. They’ll be on the lookout for me, but not him.”
“But they will know he isn’t me,” I pointed out. I mean, should I even need to? Kieran was like three times my size. There was no mistaking him for me.
“He won’t live long enough for it to matter,” Kieran said evenly.
“But Wyatt—”
“Wyatt is not my concern. You are,” Hiro deadpanned.
Stunned, I stood there feeling my heart thump against my ribs. Finally, I looked up. “You’d seriously sacrifice him for me?”
Hiro met my eyes. “I will sacrifice anyone for you. Even me.”
I knew this, right? I mean, he’d said as much before. He’d already taken a bullet for me.
So why, all of a sudden, did it all seem so much more real?
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No. I’m not worth more than anyone else.”
“To me, you are.”
My eyes snapped up to Hiro’s, and we stared unblinkingly at each other, the silence in the room so thick it was loud.
Enzo strode back inside. “I’m having a wire sent over. You will put it on him so we can hear everything that’s said when he goes to the first address. As soon as I hear the address, I’ll have people en route to neutralize the threat.”
Hiro laughed. The hair on the back of my neck stood. “Rett is not going anywhere near that building.”
“It’s the fastest, easiest way to get what we want,” Enzo said.
“You mean what you want.” Hiro corrected him.
“The second Kieran walks in, they’ll start shooting, and if they don’t kill Wyatt right away, they’ll take him and my product to a new location and we will be back to square one,” Enzo said.
“I don’t want Kieran to get hurt,” I said. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.
“Kieran can handle himself.” Hiro assured me.
Kieran cleared his throat.
We all turned.
“I smell betrayal,” Hiro said quietly.
Kieran’s eyes drilled into him. “It’s not, and you know it.”
“Yeah? Then what other reason would you have to side with that walking gel advertisement?” Hiro ground out.
Haz and I exchanged a look.
“Because if we don’t take these people off the board tonight, then you got a whole bunch of pissed-off, two-bit, wannabe mobsters with your address in their pocket.”
“I’m mad at you right now, but I still want to acknowledge that those were some top-tier insults,” Hiro cracked.
“Fuck you,” Kieran snarled. “You said it yourself, Maxfield. They had a tracker on that phone. They know where you are. Where Rett is.”
“What?” I said, the bottom falling out of my stomach.
“I took care of it, kitten.” Hiro tried to soothe me.
“Is that why the phone was in the sink this morning?” I wondered.
“Too little too late,” Enzo put in. “You were fucked the minute he walked into this house with it in his pocket.”
Guilt made my knees weak. And since the couch seemed so far away, I plopped down on the floor. Hiro was in front of me in seconds, his broad frame and dark eyes making up my entire world. A world I’d put in danger.
“Ahh, no. Don’t be doing that,” Hiro said, already swiping at the tears raining down my cheeks.
“I gave them our address,” I wailed. “I’m so stupid. I packed that phone without even knowing, and now—”
His lips stopped the self-loathing from rolling off my tongue, and my breath shuddered out around them.
“Shhh,” he shushed, his lips still plastered on mine. “That’s enough. This is not your fault.”
I nodded, the action still not enough to make him pull away. Our lips only disconnected when he dropped back onto his ass and folded his legs in front of him to pull me into my very own nest.
A nest of Hiro.
I cried harder. “I’m going,” I said between sobs. “I’m going to get that address because this is my fault, and I need to make it right. Those stupid pills…” I hiccupped and wrapped both arms around one of Hiro’s as he held me.
“None of this is your fault,” Hiro said again. “This is all Tommy. I should have fucking followed him out that window and killed him right then.”
But he didn’t. And now Wyatt was in danger. And so was Hiro because I’d led them straight to our doorstep.
“We should leave,” I said. “We aren’t safe here.”
“Yes, we are,” Kieran said.
I glanced over Hiro’s shoulder. “But they could be coming.”
“They won’t come unless you don’t show. And if they do, I’ll kill them,” Kieran told me.
“Not if I kill them first,” Hiro countered.
“Killing is not a competition,” Haz told the room.
Sitting up in Hiro’s lap, I pulled my suddenly foggy glasses off and swiped at my eyes. “I’ll wear the wire. I’ll get the address, and then you guys can go save Wyatt.”
It was the best option whether Hiro wanted to admit it or not. Which, judging by the way he was shaking his head, I knew he did not.
“The wire will be here within the hour,” Enzo said. “Rett, my men will be everywhere tonight. Even if you can’t see them, just know there will be backup.”
“It’s the fastest way to get this done,” Kieran said directly to Hiro.
“Yeah? Then send Haz.”
Kieran’s jaw locked. Pretty sure I heard his teeth grinding. “They didn’t ask for Haz.”
“But if they did, you’d send him?” Hiro challenged.
A dark expression overcame Kieran’s face.
Haz stepped forward. “He wouldn’t have a choice because I would go too.”
I glanced at Hiro who was already eating me alive with his dark, turbulent stare. “I can do this,” I whispered. “And you’ll be there watching from the shadows just like always.”
“I don’t like it,” he said.
“I know.”
“If anyone even looks at you funny, I will murder every single one of them,” he vowed.
It was the closest thing to an agreement we were going to get.