Page 107 of The Villain

Rob’s information hung like a cloud of uncertainty over my shoulders as we went into the kitchen. Athena went directly tothe coffee machine, filling the tank with water and letting it start to heat.

“What’s going on?”

Again, Rob looked at me, and my jaw tightened. I wanted to protect Athena from this, but that would always be my downfall—wanting to protect her from things that were out of my control.

“Rob said they found the shooter, but he’s dead,” I rasped.

It should be a good thing—it was a good thing. But my gut told me his death was just one more in this string that was going to leave us with more questions than answers. It was strikingly suspicious that everyone who’d tried to kill Athena ended up dead before we could interrogate them.

“Dead?” Athena gaped and looked at Rob. “Who is he? What happened?”

Rob sighed. “Last night, Monterey police got a call about an accident on the highway. A car veered off the road and down the embankment; the driver was pronounced dead at the scene.”

“And the driver is our guy? How do you know? How are you sure?”

“Well, it was the car. Black Mercedes with tinted windows. License plate 4GR03T3,” Rob said, her eyes flicking to Athena as she poured three cups of coffee. “Police got to the scene, ran the plate, and that pinged the nets Ty set up. Harm reached out to Rorik, who went up there early this morning to offer his assistance on the autopsy. Harm just called Ty with the update.”

“And Ty sent you?”

“No one else wanted to disturb…” She trailed off, biting the corner of her lip to stop a smile as Athena fumbled with one of the mugs, saving it before coffee sloshed everywhere and giving it to my sister.

“Do they have an ID on the body?” And a reason to believe he was our guy?

“Alan Brady.” Rob lifted the mug and took a sip. “His ID had another name, but AFIS matched his prints to his real identity. He was investigated for involvement in several homicides about a decade ago, but nothing stuck. And after that, it looks like he was living under aliases.”

Our gazes met, the reason passing between them:Brady was a fixer.

“What else?” The guy might be a criminal, but that didn’t make him the criminal responsible for shooting me.

She paused for only a second. “They found the gun in the trunk of the car. It was wrapped in a black garbage bag. He was probably going to toss it. They matched ballistics to the slug Rorik pulled from your shoulder.”

“I see.”I took the mug Athena offered me, murmuring my thanks as I let my fingers brush over hers.Less than ten minutes away from her body, and I was craving her touch more than I wanted coffee.

“There’s more,” she said, and I looked back at her. “Ty checked into his accounts. There was a fifty-thousand-dollar deposit made from the same account that paid Athena’s ex.”

“So, Ivans paid Brandon. When Brandon didn’t succeed and got arrested, Ivans helped him escape custody and then killed him because he could implicate him.”

“But he still wanted Athena dead.”

“So, he hired Brady to fix it.”My grip on the mug tightened, wishing it was around the dead man’s throat.

Rob nodded. “I talked to Ty and Harm. We think Brady sprung Brandon from custody and brought him back to Ivans to question him. Meanwhile, Ivans gave Brady Brandon’s original task of…”

“Killing me,” Athena filled in softly.

“Brady left to track you down. At some point, Ivans and Brandon ended up killing each other, and by the time Brady returned, you and Ty were on scene. We think he didn’t realize Ivans had been killed, too, and that’s why he continued to go after Athena, thinking the man who paid him was still alive.”

“And then he died.”

With that, the conversation stilled for a beat, but I couldn’t leave it there.“Cause of death?”

“Blunt force trauma from the accident. The car went off the side of the road and then off a cliff.”

“Right.”The hot coffee settled with bitter familiarity on my tongue. Just like the sense of unease and doubt in my chest. “And the reason he crashed?”

“His blood alcohol level was off the charts,” she replied, her eyes narrowing. “What are you thinking?”

I gritted my teeth. “I’m thinking that the people who keep trying to harm Athena conveniently keep turning up dead.”

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