Page 28 of Hartley

“My name is Lane Everhart.” I knew that last name, heard it in my fucking nightmares. Saw imaginary scenarios of that family taking out my small son and me many years ago. But the first name wasn’t the same. Not the one of the man who’d been killed before he could carry out murders in my home.

“Why are you not dead somewhere?” I asked.

“My father is sick. My brother is running the business now. I’ve been on the run for two months.”

“Why?” His family disappeared off the radar. Last I’d heard, they’d fled the country and hadn’t come back since. I had ears on the ground, people who constantly looked for news as well, like Lawson. If he caught any chatter that they were on their way to the U.S., I would have known.

“They’re back in the country. In North Carolina. In this very town. Once you and your partners made the news, my father put a plan into motion with my brother to take you down for destroying all they had.” There was the father and three sons. I’d already had one killed and was damn close to killing this one.

“They should have been dead.”

“Should have but weren’t. We went underground, fled, but they haven’t been able to build back to where they once were, on top of the world with more money than they knew what to do with. Instead, they’re scraping by, only a handful of guards,and barely enough money to get into the U.S. without triggering alarms.”

“And yet here you are.”

“I didn’t stay with them once we arrived,” he said. His hands were still raised, and he stood a considerable distance from me. The farther away, the better. “I ran the moment I could. I knew you had a connection to here and hoped you’d eventually come. When I saw two men around the town who didn’t belong, I knew you were on your way.”

“Why are you here?” I bit out through clenched teeth.

“I have something they want and they’re looking for me. I’ve seen them, but they can’t find me. All my life I’ve been looked over, never considered because I was the youngest. What they did to you, or attempted to do, was wrong.”

“Yet you stayed with them,” Sheldon stated.

“Where else would I go? I had no cash. No possessions. What I had was given to me by them and could just as easily be taken away. I lost what I had when we fled. Returning was my chance to finally get away, to live for myself.”

“What do you have?”

His eyes held mine, dark orbs that begged me to believe him. My gut told me he spoke the truth. “Six point nine million.”

“Bullshit,” Oleander said. “With that kind of money, why are you hiding out here, looking like you haven’t showered in a month?”

“Does the sound count?”

“That explains the smell,” Sheldon muttered.

“The money isn’t here. It’s not like I’m walking around with it in my pocket. It’s in an offshore account. My mom had put it in the account for me when I was younger. She didn’t tell me until we had fled and made me promise not to tellthem. My mom lied to my father and said she didn’t know where the money went. For years he spent money hand over fist. Before she took her last breath earlier this year, she begged me never to tell them. To run and go far. She hated the life they led but couldn’t walk away from her sons, no matter how old we were.”

“That’s the real reason you stayed,” Sheldon said. “Sure, you had few options, but you stayed for her.”

Lane glanced away, his eyes on the floor rather than on me or the others in the room.

“They found out.”

He nodded. “I overheard them say they were going to kill me as soon as I told them where it was. They would too. I didn’t doubt it.”

“Why come to me?” I asked. He could have gone to anyone. Changed his name, fled the country again. The world was wide open to someone with that much money. Yet, here he was in Hartley’s childhood home, looking like he really did crawl out of the sound next to the house.

“I don’t want to keep running. I need to be free of them, but don’t know how to do it outside of killing them.”

I scoffed, “When did you assume I would be so fucking charitable to save you from the family that was going to kill me and my son?” In truth, if I could find his father and brother, I’d kill them both, with no other reason than what they conspired to do decades ago. I would have had them killed then, but they disappeared off the fucking planet before I could do anything. Plus, I had Jordan to worry about. He was so young and without a mother.

“I’ll give you the money. All but a mil.”

“You’re going to give me over five million for killing your father and brother?”

There was zero hesitation when he said, “Yes.”

“Why me?”

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