Page 75 of Three of a Kind

Hell, he is supposed to be dead. Maybe they have some secret code or network to facilitate communication between them.

“Secondly, I looked into the guy you asked me to. Deveraux Noble, that’s a fuck of a name. Anyway, Bless is right. He does contract work—the kind Grady used to.” Merrick clicks away on his keyboard. “I could only tie him to three jobs and not through the clients. I had to hack the site servers. He’s good at hiding his tracks. He’s basically on par with the stuff we do, but he takes high-profile jobs.”

My hand flies up, swiping over my face.

High profile, meaning politicians, dirty cops, basically anyone the general public would take notice of when they go missing or meet their untimely demise.

That makes things significantly more dangerous for anyone he gets close to.

Me and him are going to need to have a serious conversation.

“Are you listening?” Merrick asks.

“Shit, yeah,” I say around a yawn. “Hit me with the info.”

“He’s off grid. Completely untraceable, and he has been all day.”

“He’s hunting,” I say absentmindedly.

“Yeah. He was forty-five seconds behind the SUV this afternoon.” Merrick clicks away. “And I only caught that because I watched the replay of Brooklyn’s near miss over a hundred times. He swapped vehicles somewhere after he left the apartment building this morning…” He pauses. “Okay, technically, that was yesterday morning. He likely has a backup vehicle in a storage unit or parking garage somewhere. My software caught half his face, but I was able to get a match.”

That means Noble knows someone is trying to kill Brooklyn, and he’s in the process of handling it.

That’s a huge relief.

“Here’s the issue,” Merrick says. “He followed that same SUV around all afternoon. No big deal, but then, at just after eight p.m., the SUV drove into the warehouse district. Neither vehicle has exited since. I don’t have access to exactly where they disappeared to in that dead zone, but it’s been seven hours.”

“Fuck,” I hiss, immediately knowing where this is headed.

If he was planning a hit, he would have been in and out in as little time as possible…unless something went wrong.

“Fuck is accurate,” Merrick agrees. “Guess who owns property smack-dab in the middle of that dead zone?”

My foot bounces against the floor petulantly because I already know.

I’m definitely not making it back to crawl into bed next to Brooklyn tonight.

“The Barretts,” Merrick says, like I was having trouble figuring it out.

Dammit.

I need to call Bless to get someone over here to keep eyes on Brooklyn while we rescue her boyfriend…

If he’s even still alive.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Noble

Several Hours Earlier

Ilet my fury simmer into cold rage. The urge to immediately execute the men in the SUV is strong. However, I’m more calculated than that. I need to find out who hired them and what they know. Then, I can put a bullet in each of their brains and, if all goes well, be back in time to cuddle Brooklyn before bed.

Sometimes, I wonder if my ability to compartmentalize work and my personal life means I’m a psychopath, but I truly don’t believe I meet the criteria. In my mind, I’m a product of my training and nothing more.

Sure, I excel at things that might be considered grim, but if I didn’t do them, someone else would.

It’s that simple.

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