Page 73 of Trouble

Isaac breathed out, a small huff of air. His lips pulled up in a wry, joyless smile. “The one place that son of a bitch never dared to desecrate. They’re buried at Highgate Cemetery. In my mother’sgrave.”

35

Liam

Iknew goingon my own was a terrible idea. Whoever Dad had sent to order our hit, it would have been infinitely better if we’d been two to take him down. But that would have left Audrey alone, without any way of getting help if our dad’s men recognizedher.

As I crouched on the rooftop of the warehouse across from where I knew the London contact for the ??????s had his domain, I felt just a sliver of anger at Marcus and Blaine. They’d both left town, leaving Louis and I as the only hands we had in the city right now, because they wanted to protect their birds. Meanwhile Audrey, who’d hardly known what the underworld was up until a few weeks ago, was neck deep in it, and except for maybe tying her up and hiding her away in one of Blaine’s safe houses, there was nothing we could do to change it. Of course, they didn’t know we had a womaninvolved.

So fuckingstupid.

If I’d been any kind of smart, I’d have kept on jogging when I saw her flailing around in the park that morning. She’d beensafe.

Flashes of yesterday played for my mind’s eye. Of her moans and whispered words of affection as she writhed between us. The time she’d held me while I cried after having killed a man. Holding her hand as we went to see her parents together, like a normal fucking couple. Guilt gnawed at my stomach as I stared at the alleyway below, because I knew I didn’t want her to be safe. I wanted her to be with me more than I wanted to know she’d never get hurt by my darkworld.

Selfishfuck.

I growled at my idiotic angsting and pushed it away. It didn’t matter what I wanted, because right now I didn’t have a choice about it anyway. And if I didn’t focus, we’d all lose ourheads.

I waited for more than an hour on that rooftop. When a car finally pulled up, it’d started to rain and I was soaked through. At the sight of the driver, however, my adrenaline picked up, and I forgot about mydiscomfort.

I’d have known that face anywhere. Wesley was a large black man in his forties, and he’d been with our Family since his late teens. Or with our father, more precisely. He’d been unquestionably loyal to our father from the day Dad killed his abusive stepdad. According to Marcus, he was also the man who’d been sent to kill Jeremy. Of course he’d be the one to order a hit on us,too.

I quickly slipped across the rooftop and down the side, climbing down the wall where Wesley wouldn’t be able to spot me. When I crept around the corner, gun drawn, he’d finally made it out of the car and was holding a brown leather briefcase in one hand. Undoubtedly the blood money our father was willing to spend to get rid ofus.

He didn’t notice my presence until I pressed the gun against the back of his skull and growled, “Hello,Wesley.”

Wesley stiffened, his muscles bunching underneath his black wool coat as he slowly raised his arms. “Louis,” he greeted. “Or is it Liam? I never couldtell.”

No surprise there; our own father had never been able to tell thedifference.

“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” I tapped him with the gun. “Give me yourkeys.”

He obeyed, and I quickly unlocked the boot and motioned for him to getin.

“I won’t fit,” he protested. “That boot wasn’t made for anyone over5’10’’.”

“You and I’ve both seen bigger men than you fit into this exact car. Get in, or I’m putting a bullet through your skull. Your fucking choice.” I moved closer to make sure he complied, but that was exactly what Wesley had been waitingfor.

The second I was within range, he threw his elbow back into my ribs hard enough to windme.

I keeled over with a groan, but managed to twist away before his fist impacted with my face. When he went for my knees I was ready, and I kicked him hard across the thigh, making him stumble forward and right into the line of my fist. It connected with his chin, but as he spun around, he aimed a kick right at mystomach.

I flew backward, dropping the gun like a fucking untrained kid as pain exploded through my body. He was on me instantly, grabbing for the weapon while trying to hold meback.

I kicked, hitting him the gut, but not with enough power to get him off. He swung again, and I managed to block his punch, but I wasn’t fast enough to recover, and his fingers closed around the handle of thegun.

“You can fucking forget about it!” I punched him in the elbow just as he pulled back to aim, which is the only thing that saved me from getting shot in the chest. The gun went off, quieted by the silencer I’d attached to its barrel, and pain lanced through my rightbicep.

“Fuck!”I gritted my teeth to work through the pain, using the spike of adrenaline to land a blow to the side of Wesley’s face hard enough to send him to the ground and off my body. He didn’t recover before I’d wrestled the gun out of his hand and pulled back to aim it at hishead.

“Move, I fucking dare you,” Igrowled.

Wesley froze, eyes trained on the gun. For five long seconds, all that could be heard in the alleyway was our ragged breathing and the falling rain splattering against the ground and the tin roofs above us. When I was sure he wasn’t going to fight again, I got to my feet, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out at the pain in myarm.

Putting enough distance between us that he wouldn’t be able to surprise me again, I turned to the car and quickly fired two bullets into the boot, creating a couple of air holes and decreasing the resale value by tens of thousands. I smirked, knowing how pissed my dad got when the “company cars” gotdamaged.

“Get in the fucking boot, or suck on a bullet. Last chance,” I snarled at my father’s right handman.

---