Page 11 of Assassin's Heart
I stared at my brothers. I trusted them with my life, always had. But Leah… She’d been my secret for so long. Not because I was ashamed or guilty, but because she’d been a dream, something I knew I’d never really have. Why bother talking about it?
Now… I wanted to. I needed to.
I walked to the conference table and took a seat. My brothers followed.
“I—” Shit. Now that the time had come, I had no clue how to explain the unexplainable. “I couldn’t forget her,” I finally said. Completely inadequate, but…
“Then why haven’t we seen her since?” Eli asked. We—or rather, Eli and Levi—had released her as soon as I awoke from the coma and stabilized.
I snorted. “Right. I’ll just walk up to her and ask for a date. ‘Really, my brothers are okay guys. I know they kidnapped you, but give me a chance.’”
Eli grinned at my falsetto explanation. “Why not?”
But it was Levi who studied me, seeing far more than I was ready to reveal. “You’ve been following her.”
I dropped my gaze to the tabletop. Men like us, assassins, weren’t supposed to have weaknesses. And a woman you can’t stop thinking about, can’t control the urge to be near, was a hell of a weakness.
“Yes.”
Levi didn’t curse; I’d almost rather he did. Silence said he was thinking far too hard.
“What happened to her daughter?” Eli asked, seeming oblivious to our older brother’s stony look.
While I explained what I knew, I could see Levi working it out in his brain, see Eli’s fingers twitch with the need to start digging. In a sense this was what we did. Yes, that usually involved killing people, but it was more about justice than murder or money. That was how Levi had raised us, how he had maintained his integrity when he’d had no one to rely on but himself.
Never harm the innocent. The guilty are fair game.
“We need to get a cleaner to Leah’s, move the nanny’s body to her home,” I said finally.
“We’ll worry about that later,” Levi said, voice gravelly. “Where is your surveillance?”
Of course he’d know; he always knew. “Upstairs.”
He jerked a nod. “Reroute it down here, ASAP. Have you got outside only or—”
“Outside only.” I had refused to let myself go so far as to invade the privacy of Leah’s home. Probably a ridiculous line to draw since I had essentially been stalking her, but… I gave a mental shrug as I moved to a bank of computers and got to work.
A few minutes later the footage taken at the time of the kidnapping was up and ready to go.
Levi planted a fist on the desk next to Eli, with me on the other side. “Roll it.”
I clicked the Play button, and we all watched as a darkly tinted SUV pulled into Leah’s driveway. Two men got out, one tall with blond hair, dressed in khakis and a button-down. Very casual except for the bulge under his sports coat that said he was packing. The second man, dark hair, wore a black suit and too-fancy dress shoes to go with his multiple guns. Neither man made an effort to hide their faces as they walked toward the porch.
“Pause,” Eli said when they stepped in front of the door. They were directly facing a camera too small for them to detect with the naked eye.
I moved aside and let Eli work his magic. Our youngest brother was the most tech savvy. He had screen captures of the men’s faces and was running facial recognition faster than I could nail an unmoving target.
I hit Play again.
The men didn’t pause for more than a minute at the door. They didn’t knock either. Fancy Man pulled out a metal rod, leveraged it against the glass door’s handle, and yanked. The same rod gouged into the wood of the front door to pry it away from the jamb.
The scene went blank as they moved inside.
“The nanny is dead, from a fall against the dresser in the back bedroom. Probably trying to get Brooke out a back window.”
“And Leah hasn’t told you what it is the men were looking for?” Levi asked.
“Not yet.” She would, though.
