Page 70 of Crossfire

Goddammit. So much for hoping he would come the moment I told him I needed help.

“I haven’t heard from you since you left me at that bar and left me with the impression I might never see you again,” Hunter growled. “And now, you’re calling me out of the blue, asking me to meet you in the middle of the night?”

“How soon can you leave?” I couldn’t contain the impatience in my tone this time.

When Hunter gave one of his long sighs, frustration crept into my chest. Maybe it wasn’t fair to ask him to come without any explanation, but had he forgotten what happened between us recently?

“Whenyoucalled me”—I pressed the phone harder against my ear—“I showed up, did I not?”

Silence.

“I need you to come over here right now. And I need you to be discreet. Make sure no one follows you.”

As a criminal lawyer, my brother was probably pinching his nose right now, but he couldn’t exactly push back on me, could he? Not with all his dark secrets that I helped him bury.

“Where?” Hunter asked.

My shoulders relaxed for the first time this evening.

“I’ll text you the address. There’s an alley in the back. Park there, no headlights. Oh, and, Hunter? Don’t bring your main vehicle.”

I vaguely heard my brother cursing just before I disconnected the call.

While I waited for him to show, I packed Ivy a small bag. Whether we needed any of its belongings depended on how the next phase of my plan went…

Thirty minutes later, when the soft groan of an engine pulled into the back alley, my brother’s silhouette emerged from hissedan and glanced to his left and right before walking up to the door.

I opened it without saying a word and motioned for him to come inside.

Once the door was safely latched behind him, I faced my brother in the small kitchen, where the muted ticking of a wall clock echoed through the space. His dark hair looked like he’d barely taken the time to run his fingers through it, and in the limited lighting from a soft lamp I’d turned on in the next room, his eyes looked almost silver from exhaustion.

“What’s going on?” Hunter asked. “Whose place is this?”

“Does anyone know you’re here?” I asked.

“No.”

“Not even Luna?”

“She was still sleeping. I left her a note in case she woke up. Let’s hope she doesn’t wake up, or she might ask questions. Like the million I’m having right now.”

“I need a favor,” I started. “This is ano questions askedkind of a favor. I can’t tell you what’s going on, you can’t tell anyone about it, and what I’m about to ask you to do is illegal.”

Shadows clung to every corner of the room, swallowing my brother’s expression as he swept his thumb over his lower lip.

“Will you help me?” I asked.

With a sigh that carried years of brotherly battles and begrudging assistance, Hunter’s hand fell to his side in a gesture of reluctant participation.

“What do you need?”

I tossed my mask to him. “Put this on and disguise your voice.”

He hesitated, his leer attempting to electrocute the shit out of me with a look that said,What the hell?

I shot him back a silent,Need I remind you of the man I killed and dumped into the lake for you?

I guess that did the trick, because after a few seconds, he put the mask on as he grumbled, “I should’ve known better than to expect a normal favor from you.”

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