Page 29 of The Killer Who Kept Me

His grin widened, and his cheeks blushed. “Deal.”

I left Em with that grin on his face, and I was more than a little surprised by how much his happiness meant to me.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.”

~ Marcus Aurelius

Saros

Cosmo,Benny, and Mike were all in the dining room by the time I entered. I’d stopped by the kitchen to talk to Martha, and she said she’d get Em food and talk to him about what kind of clothes he liked so we could get more. Paulo messaged that he’d be here in an hour, so hopefully by this afternoon Em would be feeling better.

“Before we begin, I have some news.” I took my seat at the head of the table. Food was out, and we were serving ourselves.

“Something from Em?” Cosmo asked.

“Actually, yeah.” I looked at Mike. “First off, his name is November. No idea more than that, but he was born in the month of November, and I don’t imagine there are a lot of people with that name born in that month.”

“You’d be surprised how untrue that is, Boss. But I’ll do my best. I have his face, but the facial recognition didn’t pick anything up.”

“What about his blood?” Benny scooped some scrambled eggs onto his plate.

“I can ask Em if he’s okay with that. I don’t want to take more than already has been ripped from him.” I gritted my teeth. “Anyway, other news. Brandi, she might be a problem.”

“Brandi from The Vine?” Mike cocked his head.

“The very one. Apparently, she reported news to Ramsey regarding last week’s pickup that ended with Em having a broken finger and a limp.”

Mike cleared his throat. “Look, Boss, I get it. Em’s a soft spot, but how sure are you that you can trust him?”

Mike’s worry was coming from a good place, but I’d be damned if I answered to anyone. I slammed my hand on the table, cutlery and crystal shook, and all three men sat back.

“Do an updated background on Brandi. I want her followed, I want to know everything.”

“Yes, Boss.” Mike didn’t say anything further on the issue.

“So you know Em is November, but do we know how he ended up with Ramsey Brookes?” Benny began eating. “Human trafficking? Frazee might know something about it.”

It was true—Frazee dealt with that ugly shit. It was why I had the warehouses he’d taken over watched.

“He might.” I jerked my chin at Cosmo. “You got people watching the warehouses?”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing fucked up?”

“So far it’s all good.”

“If we need to, we’ll ask Frazee, but I don’t want more people in on Em’s existence if I can help it just yet.”

We were silent for a few minutes, filling our bellies.

“Mike, anything on Ramsey?”

He snorted. “He’s not happy you took Em. There’s been a lot of talk about him reaching out to people, wanting info, maybe even paying for extra guns.”

“How’d you find that out?”

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