Chapter 11 #2
The five-minute wait until Con returns seems like a century because I think about Dina.
With our Selnoan assets dead, I retrace my tracks to make sure she isn’t connected to any of us in any way.
Short of going into her apartment and swiping for DNA, there’s nothing.
I was careful. I instructed her on what to do, and she followed through.
She followed through, and that’s the only reason I’m alive.
Connor and I have an out that only we know about in each and every situation I could possibly think of.
In a pinch, I know who to call and how to reach him.
It’s why I never made contact from her phone or mine while in her apartment.
I needed to make it to the bridge so that he would know it was safe to extract me.
But Connor lost his shit. When I jumped from the tower, slid the steep hill, and ended up under Dina’s tire, he thought they’d caught me. I bet he searched for me and didn’t find my body. Instead of lying low the same way I did, he went looking for me. Like a man obsessed.
And when it comes to my brother, obsession is not a joke.
Connor’s not diagnosed with anything because he manipulated and tricked every professional we brought him to.
He reads social cues (but ignores them), and he’s highly intelligent.
This allows him to manipulate people, even people who want to help put him on the right meds.
The last incident where Connor felt he needed to intervene was with Scarlett, the woman Endo brought here as his collateral.
I caught Connor walking into her bedroom with a silencer on his weapon. He didn’t like that she got to sleep in a nice bed. He found it unjust and wanted to either scare her enough that she’d try to escape or silence her for good.
Since Endo runs this family, and his word is law, if my brother had hurt Scarlett or even scared her, he could’ve gotten exiled or worse, killed. Scarlett Pembroke fell under Endo’s protection. That was all we needed to know. It should’ve been enough.
Connor disagreed.
I walked in on him inside her bedroom. He punched me in the gut. I dragged him outside with a hand over his mouth and beat some sense into him. It’s how my brother and I learn best. The hard way.
“Endo has a stick up his hairy ass,” Connor says as he walks in.
“It’s because Doc’s not here.”
“She grew on me too. Not like cancer, though. More like a flower I watered until it bloomed. I’m sad someone picked off my flower.”
See? If I hadn’t stopped him that night and punched him in the face, he would have missed out on bonding with Scarlett. But also… “Make sure Endo doesn’t hear you call Scarlett a flower. He might take it the wrong way.”
“I know. I know.”
“Is Marquis still at the Keep?” Our head of security took a bullet for Endo and stayed here during his recovery.
“Endo sent him away when I brought you in.” Connor lies down on the bed and crosses his legs at the ankles.
We stare at the ceiling.
“Who called me?” he asks.
“A homeless woman I paid off.”
He purses his lips. “You were passed out when I came.”
“Mmhm.”
“Were you staying under the bridge the entire time?”
He might’ve monitored the bridge, so I can’t lie. “No. I holed up in an apartment I broke into.”
“You shouldn’t remove the trackers I put in you, Dec.”
My skin starts to crawl, and I start to unwrap my head. “Hell no, Connor. Not again. Damn it. Get that shit out of my head.”
“Relax. I didn’t put one under the cut in your head, only because there’s a cut on your biceps. Perfect size for me to slip in the tracker, but I’d hate to put in all that work only for you to cut it out again.”
“Okay, good.” I peel off the bandage over my biceps. My skin looks normal. No unnatural bumps. When it comes to this, I don’t trust Connor. “Now you’re going to make me check every cut.”
He sighs. “I didn’t do it.”
I check the wound on my belly. “Nothing.” I lie back down.
“Where was the apartment?” he asks.
The one I said I broke into. I give him an address.
“That sounds familiar.”
“It was Walter’s apartment.” One of the now-dead assets.
“Ah. Like a safe house.”
“Mmhm.”
“Dec?”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you lying to me?”
Since he can sense I’m lying, if I deny I am, he will seek the truth with a single-minded purpose. He’s incredibly dangerous when he’s hunting after something or someone. I never want Connor to find Dina. I never want our worlds to collide again.
My mother was a postal office clerk when Massio met her. They went out twice before he proposed. She said no. The rest is history.
Connor and I aren’t like other people. Massio’s sick genes are inside us. Connor’s probably crazy. I’m a professional killer. We should stay away from civilians. Nice female civilians, particularly. And we can never, EVER have children of our own.
“I’m concealing the fact that I didn’t have pain meds, so I scored a few grams and used them when I promised you I wouldn’t use them again.” I had a drug problem in my early teen years. Connor beat me until I stopped. I wouldn’t recommend our methods to anyone else. We’re aware they’re unorthodox.
“How did you get from Walter’s apartment to the bridge?”
“Walter drove me.”
Connor side-eyes me.
I pick up my phone, intending to catch up on the news. “What? Did you draw an asshole on my cheek again?” I wipe my right cheek. My hand comes away clean. I turn my head toward him. “What is it?”
He positions his phone and takes a picture of me.
“Hey.” I swat at his phone. “Cut it out.”
Con laughs and holds up the camera above me. “You are lying to me, Dec.”
I roll my eyes. If I protest, he’ll just take more pictures and get real obnoxious about it, so I keep scrolling on my phone. I type in Selnoa and bring up the news over there.
The headline reads:
Local woman arrested with illegal rifle
NOT brEATHING.
A local woman picked up by the police in the early hours of the morning was taken into custody for possession of an illegal firearm.
She is now believed to be carrying a professional-grade sniper rifle.
Sources say the police are investigating the connection between her and the shootout that happened at the Crossbow mansion this past weekend.
I summon my voice. “Hey, Con?”
“Changed your mind about the tracker?”
“No. Where did you put my rifle?”
When my brother stares at me blankly, I know something terrible has happened.