Chapter 12
They have her
Declan
Acold shiver runs down my spine, and I start to sweat, my heart skipping a beat when I read the news.
The little light from Connor’s camera tells me he’s filming me. But when he realizes I’m serious, his smile drops, and he puts the camera away. “What’s wrong?”
“Tell me my rifle is in the closet.”
Connor blinks. “The rifle is not in the closet.”
Bile rises in my belly. My body is rejecting what I think happened that day. “Tell me the rifle is in the dungeon.”
Connor scratches his belly. “No, no. The rifle is not in the dungeon. The rifle isn’t in the Keep. Your mood is making me itchy. What’s wrong with you?”
“You found me under the bridge with my drag bag.”
Connor shakes his head. “It was just you.”
I leap out of bed and sway on my feet. I stretch out my arms to steady myself.
Connor is up too, scratching his arms, belly, and legs. “OMG, you make my skin crawl. What is going on with you?”
“Check the closet.”
He stills. “For the rifle?”
“Yeah. Double check.”
Connor opens my closet. “I told you. It’s not here.”
“Maybe you dumped it before you boarded the airplane?”
“No.”
“Maybe you forgot you had it and it’s—”
“Shut up, Declan. You’re freaking me out.”
“Fuck!” I rest my hands on my head. “Fuuuuck!”
“What? Whaaaat? You destroyed the rifle. That’s what you’d do if you have to leave it behind.”
“I couldn’t leave the weapon I needed to plant on Ivan.”
Connor gapes. “What? What? I sound like a canary. Since when were you going to plant it on Ivan?”
“The coroner was going to discover the cause of death. A bullet to the head, not the chest. If Ivan killed Massio, then it wasn’t Endo who did it, and then all Dad’s men wouldn’t trust Ivan anymore. Ta-da. Problem solved. One hit. Two down.”
“How genius of you,” Connor mocks, because obviously, the plan went to shit. Also, I didn’t tell him mainly because I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. I would need to sneak back into the mansion, which is under watch by both the police and Ivan, plant the rifle, and exit unnoticed.
Connor shakes his head. “Ivan has an alibi.”
“He could’ve hired someone.”
Connor sits back. “You. He could’ve hired you.” His eyes widen. “You would’ve gone down for it.”
“The rifle was on him. My prints would have been wiped. The only thing left would be speculation that he hired me.”
“You think Walter stole your rifle?” Connor asks.
“Forget Walter.” I limp to the bathroom and drop my pants so I can get in the shower. I wash in under a minute and throw up bile before I step outside to brush my teeth. Connor hands me my boxers and a suit. While I dress, I hear him opening the back of my closet, where I keep weapons.
He returns with my Walther, a holster, and a few other helpful trickers, such as a steel wire and some blades for a close-range, quiet approach. Our return to Selnoa will require close contact with many enemies. One never knows when I’ll need to slip a blade between someone’s ribs.
“This is pretty exciting,” Connor says as he holsters his own weapons. He likes Nighthawks. They’re golden. Flashy. Obnoxious. Loud. Very Connory.
“You can’t go, Con. It’s dangerous.”
“That’s exactly why I’m going. I’ve been knitting winter socks next to Uncle Cass’s bed. Waste of my talent.”
“To be fair, I could use your talent.” My brother is brilliant. He doesn’t give himself enough credit. Or any credit at all. My dad messed with Con’s head, and Con isn’t as resilient as I am. He’s delicate. Not like a flower. More like a detonator. Don’t flip the switch.
“What are you going to tell Endo?” he asks.
“The truth. That my rifle is in police custody and I’m going to retrieve it.”
“What the fuck?” Connor’s eyes are saucers.
“Yes.”
He snatches my phone and reads the article. “How did this woman get your rifle?” He snaps his fingers. “The hooker you said you paid.”
I pause, give it a moment, then decide I’m going with his version for now.
Connor’s shoulders slump. “I never understood your rules about civilians and civilian targets. Who the fuck cares about some hooker? If your prints aren’t on the rifle, even if hers are, nobody is going to believe this woman is a professional hitman.
Hitwoman.” He purses his lips. “She doesn’t look like a hooker. ”
“How do you mean that?”
“I don’t know. She looks like a teacher.”
“Maybe she is a teacher.”
“Now see, that’s hot.”
I pocket my phone and sit on the bed. “Help me with the bandages.”
He starts to unwrap my head. “There’s a hole in your head from where they drained the fluid.”
“That’s attractive,” I say.
“Very.”
“You smell nice,” I comment.
“It’s your cologne.”
“Damn it, Con, I told you you can’t steal my stuff.”
“I know, but I like to steal, so that’s what I did.”
“You should steal yourself a woman.”
“You think so?” he asks.
“No. I’m joking.”
He steps away. “They sewed up the hole.”
“That helps.”
Connor makes a face. “You’ll want to wear a hat. I’ll match you, and we can look like real gangsters from the nineteen hundreds.”
“No.” We walk out but stop at the top of the stairs.
I’m light-headed and so hungry, I could eat a whole cow, but first, we must convince Endo to agree to our departure.
Given how Uncle Endo took care of Connor and me when our father didn’t, he won’t want us near Selnoa or inside a snake pit.
He’ll want us safe and with him, where he can protect us.
We need his blessing. It’s how our family organization has worked and how it has survived for hundreds of years since its inception.
“Piggyback?” Con offers.
I climb onto his back, and he carries me down, all the way to the door of the morning room, where Endo eats breakfast and sometimes lunch. With a soft knock, we enter the bright space.
Our uncle sits by the window, basking in the sun. He jots down notes as an unlit cigar hangs from his mouth. He looks up when we enter, takes stock of us all dressed up, and puts his cigar away.
“I thought you were going to rest,” he says.
“We changed our mind,” Con says as if we have one brain. Sometimes my brother is funny. Other times, I wish he would get serious.
“I changed my mind, and Con has no choice because I need him.”
Endo offers us chairs across from the bench he occupies. We each take seats.
My belly growls at the smell of the eggs and bacon he finished. Endo picks up a comm device we use for short-distance communication. The devices can’t be traced, and they only work within the parameters we define.
“Mary,” he calls our pastry chef, “Con and Dec are in the breakfast room.”
“I don’t have time to eat,” I say.
Endo raises an eyebrow. “What’s the urgency?”
“I have to return to Selnoa.”
Endo blinks. “Right away?”
I nod.
“What for?”
“I didn’t close the shop properly. I left the key behind.”
“Loving this coded language,” Connor whispers. “I feel like I’m part of the gang.”
I whack him upside his head, at which he laughs.
Endo scrubs his short beard. “You returned from there half dead. I’m grateful, as you should be, that we were able to save your life. In fact, we all could’ve died in that city, but now you want to go back?”
“The police have my rifle.” I grit my teeth.
“I’m humiliated to have to admit I didn’t secure the weapon.
I didn’t anticipate… There was an accident, and I thought I had it all under control, but there was a human element involved, and the civilian who helped me didn’t follow orders.
I depended on her.” I pause. “Almost entirely.”
My uncle nods. “Go on. What’s the current situation?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“I know you will. But I want to know what the situation is, so tell me what’s going on.”
“Declan’s hooker made the news,” Con says, just as Mary enters with a cart full of breakfast. Before she puts a tray on the table, I snatch a croissant.
When I bite into it, I lean in over the plate so the flakes fall on it and not in my lap.
I moan at the buttery taste. Mary serves me a pile of three croissants with bacon and eggs.
“You’ve lost so much weight,” she says.
“I’ll lose more when I can’t take you with me.”
“Leaving already?” Mary makes a disapproving face, then looks to Endo, who crosses his arms over his chest.
“I’m not sending him away.”
Mary snorts and grabs the dirty dishes, then leaves us be.
Endo pins me with a stare. “You’re not going anywhere.” He slides his dark gaze to Con. “You can go.”
“No,” I say. “He can’t go in my place.”
“Why not?” Con asks. “We’ve done it thousands of times before. I dress in a suit, behave like I’ve got a stick up my ass, and put in one brown contact.” He lowers his voice, mimicking my speech pattern. “Your hooker won’t know the difference.”
Lord, what have I done? He won’t stop calling Dina my hooker. It grates on my nerves, but the less they know about her, the better. If I can extract her by myself, nobody has to know anything about her.
“I’m sorry, Uncle, but I’ve got to go back.”
Endo tilts his head. “I said no.”
I wipe my mouth. “I don’t want to do this with you today, but I will if I have to.”
“Do what?” Endo asks.
“Argue. I need a plane, volunteers, and boats full of weapons docking on Selnoa’s shores in a few days.”
Endo’s eyes widen. “Are you planning a siege?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know that’s what we’re planning,” Connor says, his voice high-pitched. I don’t know if that tone means the idea freaks him out or excites him. I bet on the latter.
“To what end?” Endo asks.
“Connor and I are taking over Dad’s business.”