Page 48 of Under His Embrace

“Ready?” Liam asked, scanning the area.

We were both packing, but there was not a chance we’d risk going in guns blazing. We had to handle this carefully, especially since it wasn’t in Constella territory. It wasn’t really anyone’s area. Long ago, the Cartel operated around here, but it was more like an unclaimed, complicated area of the city.

I nodded. “After you.”

Liam led the way up to Ethan’s floor. He knocked, and we waited outside. “Ethan? It’s me.”

No one answered, and I felt tension knotting up on my shoulders and over my upper back. Bracing for a hit, I stood off to the side and continued to look back and forth, watching out for Liam.

“Ethan?” Liam tried again, knocking louder.

He frowned, glancing down at his phone. “Huh.”

“What?”

“He says to smile. We’re on camera.”

I frowned. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs. He rents two separate units out.”

I raised my brows, spotting the camera hidden overhead. The tiny lens fit in well with the molding. “Huh is right. He’s a paranoid bastard, then, isn’t he?”

Liam nodded. “I can’t blame him after the shit we lived through and saw during our tours.” Tipping his head toward the stairwell, he indicated for me to follow him through there.

Upstairs, just one more level up, we repeated it all. He knocked, and I remained on a lookout.

Ethan answered the door quickly. He was just as I expected, older but trim and fit. He looked like he could kick ass, but he also had a general lack of a unique appearance. This man was likely very skilled at slipping in and out of tricky situations in his hitman assignments that he accepted.

“Liam. Good to see you.” He stepped back, letting us enter.

“This is my good friend, Franco,” Liam said. “Franco, this is Ethan.”

Ethan gave me a quick once-over as he gestured for me to enter. His scrutiny was brief, but I had no doubt he could size me up well in that glance. “Good to meet you.”

Liam could’ve identified me better than that. As his supervisor. As a colleague. As an acquaintance. This wasn’t a business call, though. This wasn’t an official business meeting but checking in with his old friend. I didn’t care about formalities in a situation like this. All I cared about was clearing out this “coincidence” of someone named Morrison snooping around here and being a nuisance.

“He slipped away,” Ethan grumbled as he shut the door. He shook his head while he engaged the multiple locks. “I got him on the cameras, so I can show ya. But he just ran off.”

Dammit!

Ethan noticed my cringe. “Mrs. Gehring down the hall got him kicked out. He was asking around by the laundromat downstairs about where the playground was. She got all in his face, shouting at him for being a pedophile and creep. He’s been hanging around for a couple of days, but that’s the first time he started asking around. Fucker.” He shook his head, disgusted. “If I knew one of those sick assholes were hanging around here, I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him. I had the boys out and about at the museum and the park, so I didn’t hear about this until after I ran into her in the hallway on the way to get my mail.”

“I can’t stand sick fuckers like that.”

“What got me calling you and asking for help was if he came back,” Ethan said. “Mrs. Gehring said that she threatened to call the cops on him and he laughed.Laughed. Like it wouldn’t have mattered to him if she did.”

Seeing that Wes Morrison used to be a lawman himself, that didn’t surprise me.

“She damn near beat him with her purse, and his wallet fell out. That was how her niece got his name. Little Beatrice swooped down and picked through his wallet before he could snatch it back. That’s how we got his name. I haven’t run a search on him yet, but I will. I just figure with your new, uh…” He glanced at me. “Your new employment and connection, you might be interested in killing a corrupt cop.”

We weren’t vigilantes at large. We weren’t crusading to act as another law enforcement agency, going after the sickos in the world. Our loyalty was to our family. But Wes was on our radar. Because he targeted Chloe, we damn well did want to kill him. His act of ordering an attack on our building hadn’t won him any favors, either. If he was behind that hit, he’d pay for the damages on our property and for killing any members of the organization, like Manny and Suzie.

“His name’s Wes Morrison,” a boy said.

He appeared in the hallway with another short boy.

“Go on back in the living room, boys,” Ethan said.

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