I raised my eyebrows. “Does she know his name?”

“No,” Jake answered, and swiftly. “I’m not that stupid.”

I kept on, staring only at Raize, “Relationships end for all different reasons. He can tell her his mom fell ill and he’s gotta go see her. He can wait, break up with her in a week. Two weeks even.”

“She’s going to ask questions.”

I shook my head, hard.

Jake and Cavers had fallen silent. This was between Raize and me, and I was bargaining for this woman’s life.

“No,” from me.

“He ends it now, she’s going to start remembering all their past times and their past conversations. She’s going to realize she knows nothing about him and she’s going to start getting angry. She’s going to feel duped by him and that’s when she’ll start searching for him. It’ll be one internet search. She ain’t going to find a ‘Brian’ and it’s a matter of time before she’s going to pull on the string she’s got hanging in front of her.” Raize glanced at Jake. “I can’t use threats this time.”

“You kill her and that’ll set off the questions.” My chest was tight and getting tighter.

Raize already had his mind made up, but no, no, no.

I was wrong again. I thought I didn’t have any more lines left not to cross. This was it. Innocents. This was my stand.

I whispered, “She’s an innocent, Raize. No.”

He barely blinked. “She’s a loose end. The sister knows a first name and that’s it. The connection ends there.”

“No.” Jake stepped forward, his head swinging from left to right. “I go to the grocery store. The liquor store. Those have cameras. You kill her and the brother-in-law will make calls, get that footage pulled. They’ll get a face. Ash is right. We go and I tell her my mom’s got cancer. A week later, it’s real bad. I can’t get back. I’ll string her along until I’m just gone. She’ll hurt, but not in the way where she’s going to get curious and start doing google searches for me. It’ll be fine.”

“I can destroy security footage. I can’t stop a woman’s curiosity.”

He was right, but no.

Just, no.

“No, Raize.”

His jaw clenched, and he stared right at me, his eyes dropping the dead affect. They were burning, and I almost winced because it was me. I was standing in his way, and in his mind, it was his way of making me safe.

“I just got a call. We need to go back. Roman’s orders.” His gaze swept the room. “Pack up and wipe the house. We leave in an hour.” He turned to Jake. “You make that all about your mother, but do it from the road.”

I almost sagged from the relief.

He was trying my way.

Jake clipped his head in a nod and he was off to start packing.

Cavers went to do the same.

Raize came over to me, standing so close, he was touching me. His eyes were on mine. And his finger reached out, stroking my stomach through my shirt. “Your way this time.”

My throat got all full. I dropped my voice, barely a whisper, “Thank you.”

His eyes were still burning, and I knew he didn’t like it.

50

Raize

“I want to meet your whole team,” Roman had said on the phone earlier.

We’d arrived in Boston, a city that I didn’t understand why we were here, but it was where Downer told me to go. Now, an hour after that phone call, I was walking into a large mansion.

I hadn’t cared for the whole estate or the gate that I’d needed to wait to be admitted through, but I was coming alone. I was taking this victory.

I had replied, “No.”

Roman sucked in his breath and he got quiet. He got real quiet. “That’s an order from me.”

“Then you can give the order for my execution. I’m not bringing them in.”

Another beat of silence. “You’re not bringing them in, or you’re not bringing her in?”

“She’s on my team. I’ve become protective of my entire team.”

Roman chuckled. “I am not going to lie that I don’t know how to take this insubordination, and especially from you.”

I was his best.

I knew Downer was good, but I was better and it was the unspoken acknowledgement we all knew.

I wasn’t the type of employee who started to think about what he was entitled to or had earned, but I didn’t care. I was willing to risk that he wouldn’t want to lose me when I drew my line. No Ash. That was how it was going to be for me.

“Fine.” Roman sighed, then griped, “I’m allowing this one time, but I do not like having ghosts work for me. I will meet all of them at some point.”

We’d see, but I said, “Where am I meeting you?”

He gave me the coordinates and here I was, my car getting valeted and I was walking into this mansion with thirty guns around me. It was making my back itch.

I preferred our other way of meeting, in the dark, with his men in their cars, where I could disappear.

Downer met me at the door, giving me a nod before indicating I should follow him.

In every room, there were men.

The kitchen. The dining room.

I was getting déjà vu from when we went to Carloni’s home, sans the working girls.

Downer led me to a back office, also reminiscent of Carloni’s home’s layout and I stepped inside, seeing Roman standing in the corner with a phone to his ear. He turned, seeing me, and held up a finger. He went back to his conversation, and I glanced around the room.

Noting the exits.

A large window faced a pool and backyard that was tiled, with another poolhouse on the side, and a fence going all around the yard.

If I had to make a run, that was my exit. Over that fence, behind the poolhouse. I was guessing there would be the blind spot in their whole security system because the camera was facing the front of the poolhouse and there was another perched on top of the poolhouse, sweeping the backyard.

Yes. That was the blind spot.

“Raize! Welcome. Hope the trip wasn’t too exhausting.” He signed off from his call, slipping his phone into his pocket. Then he regarded me, his head cocking to the side. His eyes narrowed. “You look irritated.”

Downer snorted.

I ignored both, asking, “Why did you call me here?”

The feeling in the room shifted, grew more tense, more alarmed.

Downer had been grinning, and he was still grinning, but it was fading. His eyes were alert, trained on me. He was studying me so intently that he didn’t realize I was studying him back.

A feeling shifted in my gut.

Something had happened. Something concerning me.

Was this how Ash felt? When she just knew the answer?

I hoped not, because this feeling sucked. I didn’t like it.

“There was a hit on Morales.”

My mother? “On only Morales?”

The answer flashed in Roman’s eyes first. “Your mother was killed, too. I’m sorry, Raize.”

My mother.

I almost rocked back.

I should’ve been expecting it. A part of me had been. I knew it was a matter of time. She was Morales’ girlfriend. Her time would come and I figured it would be a bloody end, but hearing it—that was another matter.