Page 21 of Assassin's Heart
I wanted it that way too. Leah might not believe me, but I envied her. From the time I was little, all I had wanted was us together—my parents, Levi, Eli, me. Afternoons with milk and cookies, mornings huddled around the kitchen table—hell, even Saturday evenings spent trooping to the temple with yarmulkes on our heads. Being together had meant everything.
And then my uncle ripped us apart. Those first couple of years on the streets, I had held out hope that the three of us could build our own family, that someday we’d have a home again.
Twenty years later, we finally did. But those dreams of after-school snacks and presents under the tree?
There would be no kids in our future. What we did was too dangerous for that. It had hardened us too much.
“Where is my breakfast, bro?”
Eli stood next to the coffee maker, cup in hand, eyes still bleary from sleep. As the youngest he’d been protected in ways Levi and I couldn’t afford for ourselves. Maybe that was why he slept at night.
“Fix it yourself, asshole.” But I was already moving toward the fridge for eggs and bacon.
“I fixed the coffee,” he protested.
“So pour me a cup and I’ll consider making omelets for all of us.” An onion and bell pepper waited in the crisper drawer. I pulled them out, along with the cheese, and started chopping.
Levi and Abby arrived minutes later, Abby taking over the bacon while I assembled omelets. Eli got off his ass long enough to throw some frozen biscuits in the oven. My culinary efforts didn’t quite extend to homemade.
“How’s Leah?” Abby asked quietly, her gaze on the crispy strips she was in charge of.
“Didn’t sleep,” I admitted.
“You don’t look like you got much either.”
Tipping my pan to peek under the eggs, see if they were done, I shrugged. I’d gone months without uninterrupted sleep before. As much as I told myself I shouldn’t store up memories of Leah while she was here, those hours with her in my arms had been worth the fatigue. They were far more than I’d ever expected to have. Certainly far more than I deserved.
One omelet down, I passed the plate to Abby. “Levi, get up here and take over so your woman can eat.”
Abby went to pass Levi with a cheeky grin, but my brother had other ideas. Circling her waist with an arm, he held her in place for a kiss that lasted until Eli began his “gross, get a room before I barf” routine. I could never admit it to anyone, but the open displays of affection made me uncomfortable too. Not in a teenage gross-out kind of way; more like I wanted to squirm, look away, get out of the same room with them, but at the same time I couldn’t stop watching.
I didn’t know why but suspected the instinct was in some way tied to those long-ago feelings I couldn’t quite forget—family, affection.
For fuck’s sake, I needed to get a grip. There were more important things to think about this morning.
I was finishing an omelet for Leah, ready to slip it into the oven to keep, when the phone in my pocket rang. Not my personal phone—that was on the counter where I could see it. This was Leah’s phone, the one I’d swiped from her. The one only her brother had called in the past twenty-four hours.
I was calling for Abby even as I reached into my pocket. “Run get Leah. Hurry!”
Sure enough, the UNKNOWN caller was back. My brothers gathered around the island, all eyes on the screen, waiting for me to answer. Watching my back.
I laid the phone on the island, then clicked answer. The speakerphone filled the room...with silence.
“Hello, Windon,” I said.
If he was surprised that I knew his name, he didn’t let it slip. This man had lived a double life for a long time. It would take a lot to shake him.
My brothers and I were a whole fucking lot.
“Who are you?” he asked, ignoring my greeting.
“I’m not a helpless woman or child, I can tell you that.” I let that sink in a moment. “I’m surprised, honestly. You come here to Atlanta, to my territory, and don’t know who you’re dealing with, who this area belongs to. You should’ve done your homework, cop.”
Like we had. Windon was behind in the knowledge race, and now he knew it.
“Whoever you are, you obviously know my sister well.”
“If you’d prepped, you’d have realized that before you made so many mistakes.”
