The Long Way Home (Corps Security #6)(41)
“Shit,” Saint breathes, shame written all over his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
Evan shrugs, but the pain is slashed on his face. He doesn’t talk about it a lot, but his chance to disappear came when a car accident stole his wife and child at the same time he “died.” He left behind a large family who felt that loss a lot harder because it wasn’t just him.
“Long time ago,” he mutters, looking down at his hands.
“Still sorry.”
“Can we talk about Ray?” Evan asks, clearly done with this conversation.
I move back to the other side of the island and toss them each over a folder. It’s not thick, but it contains what we’ve been waiting for.
“Surveillance footage of Ray Graves leaving Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam a week ago. Confirmed from both facial recognition software and voice confirmation during his chat with the gate agent. From what we could gather, he was coming from a flight leaving Charles de Gaulle Airport, but he hasn’t been staying in Paris or our contacts would have picked him up on CCTV already. Best we can tell is he’s been jumping around Europe for the past month so much that we lost track of him. Staying under the radar well enough not to get picked up on camera. Mafia’s after that fuck, so it’s not us he’s hiding from. He has no idea we’re after him. But, it’s clear he’s trying to get back to get the money that he knows Olivia and Riley have, that will clear the path for him to start funneling guns back into the states and we can’t let that happen. Last shipment ended up in a mass casualty gang war in Chicago.”
“What’s the plan when he makes contact on US soil?”
“The flight he boarded landed in Rome. He caught his tail ten minutes into his travel from the airport. We’re watching, but the thought is that he’s making his way back to Boston with a few distraction flights. I suspect he’s looking for a private charter at this point. His money might be running out, but it’s not all gone yet. He needs to get here, undetected, in order to make his move and get what he needs from Olivia.”
“And,” Hunt starts with a deep breath. “What exactly do you think he plans on doing with Olivia?”
I lean on the counter and look at each of the men who have made up my team. Men who I trust with my life, and in turn Olivia and Riley’s. Men who I’m proud to have been living the life of dead men with.
“I think he’s planning on taking Riley and forcing Olivia’s hand with a ransom demand.”
Equal heated words are grumbled on under of their breaths.
“Not anything we can do other than stick close. One of you at the shop every day. I’ll stick close to Olivia and Riley. We do what we need to do to get Ray, and I do what I need to do to make sure the girls who restarted my heart aren’t harmed.”
We continue to make small talk for a bit, catching up on sports and the women who Hunt and Saint met at the bar the other night that turned their backs into a mess of scratch marks. Those two, not sure why, but enjoy sharing way too much. It isn’t until I’m shutting the door on them that I realize what felt so wrong about my space this morning. Something that I didn’t notice because I was too busy focusing on Riley’s doll shit in the corner to see anything else.
I see it now though.
And it sends a chill through my veins.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter, walking over to the bookshelves.
Right there in the center, where it’s stayed for over twenty years, is the jar that meant the world to me: both the old and new me. The jar that I watched my family cry over as one of the most loving men I ever knew mourned his friend … me.
Only this isn’t that jar.
That jar is moved a little farther back, but not to hide it. No, it was moved back so that another could take its place. Identical in every way. Only perfect and new, not handled with so many touches and too many years of deep rooted sadness.
Tentative steps take me to the shelf and I see the folded piece of paper in the space behind it, tucked between the old and new jar.
If you weren’t so handsome, I would kill you for real.
Tomorrow. 2:00 pm, I’ll be at your door.
Don’t think of locking me out either, you hunk. You think Sway didn’t learn a thing or two from you brooding alphas?
2:00 pm, Zeke Cooper.
You’ve got a lot to explain.
And I have a lot to get off my fabulous chest.
Secret’s safe with me, for now. I’ll see how I feel after you explain your actions.
Tata for now,
Sway
“Fuck,” I hiss, my eyes burning at Sway’s words.
Only he could put so much flamboyance into a letter like this. I know, if he knows I’m here, that he can’t be feeling as carefree as it sounds. I just have to figure out what the hell he does knows and who he’s told. How the fuck could he have even seen me to find me? He would have to know someone in my building to get in, but if he’s learned from my old brothers, he could have scaled the fucking wall and no one would have noticed.
I picture Sway, short and round in his crossdressing ways, scaling my high-rise with his platform heels. His long blond wig dancing in the Boston breeze. Glitter blowing in the air as it passes him.
I check the clock and realize I have an hour before I come face-to-face with my past.