87. Vox Moretti
The toxic smoke of my cigarette curled around my head as I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel of my Aston Martin. I hadn’t been here long, but I was already anxious to get this over and done with so I could get back to Naomi’s campus.
The little blue dot on my tracking app told me she was nestled in her dorm room where I’d left her, and I flicked over to my hidden camera feed to briefly check that she was safe.
I was hoping she’d stay in for the night, but it was a Saturday, and she had a bad habit of letting her idiot roommate convince her to put herself in less-than-ideal situations.
As much as it irritated me to no end, I wasn’t going to keep her from experiencing ‘college life,’ or whatever the fuck it was that made her want to go to shitty frat parties or filthy college bars, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to let her do all that crap unsupervised, not after what happened to her at Apex.
She still hadn’t told anyone, which felt like it was probably a bad thing… but hey. Who was I to judge her for that? It’s not like I told anyone about my shit either.
Frankly, I didn’t tell anyone anything at all.
So what the fuck did I know?
I was the only person in the world who knew what Naomi had been through, and I would slit my own throat before I allowed anything like that to happen to her again.
So, whether she liked it or not, I was going to be her shadow.
Her knife in the dark.
And anyone who fucked with her would meet a very swift, very violent death.
The issue was that since Cass had informed me that the piece of shit she’d been defending was actually running a conversion camp that might very well double as an underground trafficking ring, I’d been pulled away from Naomi more than I liked.
But… if there was a ring like that operating in Silent Hollow, I needed to know about it. If it was as big as Cassandra seemed to think it was, it was a threat to my little bee, and it needed to be taken care of.
So, I was parked in front of Cassandra’s building instead of my usual spot outside of Naomi’s dorm, with a murder kit in my trunk and a fucking song in my heart.
It’d been a long time since I’d been able to execute a field mission.
Since Apex, I’d been doing mostly hacking jobs for sketchy assholes on the dark web. It made it easier for me to maintain a steady income without ever having to stray too far from my little bee’s side.
But after finding those videos, and knowing that evil piece of shit had done something similar to Theo when she was a child… well.
I’d never minded getting my hands dirty.
Happily, unlike her brother, Cassandra seemed to be much better with time management. I didn’t need to wait long for her to show up.
Soon, I spotted her Audi in my rearview, and she gave me a nod on her way by before pulling into the underground lot to park her car.
After another few minutes, she reappeared, coming out the front doors of her building wearing all black, expensive athleisure, and a mini black backpack.
Her hair was tied back in a high ponytail, and despite the fact that it was starting to get dark out, she had a large pair of designer sunglasses perched on her nose.
I flicked my butt out the window and unlocked the doors so she could slide into the passenger seat.
“Hey,” she greeted me, and I gave her a nod as I put the car in gear and pulled out of my parking spot.
“Were you able to get everything on the list?”
Nodding, I glanced over at her as I merged into traffic, but she wasn’t looking at me.
She was digging through her mini backpack, which was stuffed full of ammo and also seemed to house her matte black Beretta.
I wasn’t sure why the gun surprised me. We’d gone to the range together multiple times; it’s not like I thought she was a novice. Just… she was a lawyer. For some reason, I’d assumed she’d want me to do most of the shooting if it came to that.
But, judging from the firm line of her lips, she had no plans on taking the back seat in this mission.
Cassandra Walker was out for blood, and if the people we were going after weren’t disgusting pedophiles, I might have felt bad for them.
As it was, I was just more concerned about the clean-up.
This was supposed to be a simple snatch and grab, but from the methodical way Cassandra was checking the chamber of her Beretta and counting bullets, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to play out that way.
Fuck.
She was going to leave me with a shit ton of bodies to clean up, wasn’t she…
Ugh.
Whatever.
Once we got there, I’d text Logan and see if he and some of the guys could swing by the church and help with the wet work.
Because there was no doubt in my mind that Cass was going to leave me with a mess… But… It was fine. It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to cleaning up Walker messes.
I’d spent most of my life running missions like this with her brother, and that loveable goofball was the messiest mercenary I’d ever met.
Surely she wouldn’t be worse than Cal…Right?