But there was no way I could let my brother die when there was a way to save him.
“No,” he rushed out. Suspicion naturally perked up at his rejection, but I shook it off. “We don’t kill him.”
For some reason, I heard the unspoken ‘yet’ in his statement.
“Why not?”
“Because if we kill him then another will take his place. It won’t bring down his organization. We need to do this carefully. We need evidence, and we need Arthur vulnerable. If we flush out everyone, we can take his organization.”
“I don’t want to take anything. I want him dead or rotting in a jail cell. Either way, he suffers.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” he laughed.
“Just fix it, Mario.” I hung up the phone and texted Q and Dash to meet me at my place. First, I needed to get her home.
“How did you find me?” Her small voice infiltrated my attempt to block her out.
“Would you believe me if I told you I was passing by?”
“No.”
“It’s true. I passed you on the way into town. I wasn’t going to follow you, but that lasted only a few miles. I had no clue where you were going, but—”
Hell, I had no clue what I was doing. I was prepared to track her all night if need be. This had to be the first time when my obsession with her came in handy.
“But what?” she pressed.
“But nothing. I’m just glad I did.”
“So if he knew how to find me, why did he come after me and not you? He said he wanted to take me as an alternative payment.”
I felt my blood boil and my knuckles whiten further as I gripped the steering wheel tighter. I was surprised it didn’t bend under the pressure.
“He was likely going to use you as leverage rather than payment. He still wants Mario, and as long as I can deliver him, he won’t do anything drastic.”
“You don’t call public kidnapping in broad daylight drastic?”
“He could have killed you.” I couldn’t resist meeting her gaze if only for a moment.
“I am done getting caught in the middle of your shit storm, Keiran.”
“I tried doing the right thing and letting you go. You are just as much to blame.” When she turned me in, she broke any resolve I managed to build to stay away from her, and now my biggest enemy knew about her. Of course, I had no idea who was feeding him information, so it was likely she would have been a target whether I stayed away or not. It all began when I decided I had to have her and used revenge as an excuse.
“You killed Trevor and Anya!” she shouted.
“You’re beginning to sound like a broken record.”
“What are we going to do about my car?” It only just occurred to me that it was left behind. I wasn’t even sure what station it was we had just left. From the corner of my eye, I watched her pull out her phone as she sent a text message.
“What were you going to dinner with Jesse for?” I asked instead of answering her question.
“I don’t know. What do people usually go to dinner for?”
“Have I ever told you that I find your sarcastic nature sexy?”
“Don’t make this about sex, Keiran.”
“It’s always about sex.”
“Yeah, well… I’m not your sex toy anymore so you’ll have to get reacquainted with your hand.”
“I’d rather get reacquainted with your *.”
I enjoyed the answering, lustful growl disguised as anger that passed through her lips.
Chapter Eighteen
Keiran
Ten Years Ago