Page 63 of Coup De Grâce
“Being hunted isn’t too much better. How the fuck did they even escape an attack like that?”
Johnny glanced at Jack and Jason, then his eyes landed on me for a moment before he turned back to Lock. “We’re not sure. He said he killed one of them and the rest fled.”
Murmurs of unease filled the room at his words. It didn’t make sense, and none of us understood why they would walk away when they’d been there to kill the family.
“They just fled,” Lock repeated. “Trained killers walked away from a hit. To what end?”
Johnny shrugged. “Not sure, but we got away clean.”
“As clean as you can when they’re tracking your every move,” I added, drawing more attention to myself than intended.
“Why would they track all of us for years? What’s the fucking purpose?” Lock spat.
“It all goes back to Michael,” Jack said. “All of it. It has to.”
“You think Michael put the hit out on Johnny’s family?”
“Does anyone ever really know what side Michael’s on?” I asked, my bitterness seeping through at the memory of Cash explaining what happened on the island. “He told Cash to shoot his son.”
“Because he was burning,” Jack cut in. “You wouldn’t have wanted him to suffer.”
After all that bastard put me through? I wasn’t so sure about that. I was on a pendulum, swinging back and forth between missing my husband desperately and wanting him to suffer for what he put me through. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“We can’t trust Michael. The senator’s last words were Shadow,” Dash cut in. “We all know he’s involved. Hell, Kavanaugh was shot at his old man’s funeral.”
“And then Cash ran off to work with his father,” IKE said from the background. “Tell me again why we’re helping him?”
“Because—” a deep voice said from the back of the room, instantly silencing us all. We turned and gave way to Knight, who made his way to the front of the room. “What the senator was trying to tell Kavanaugh was not Shadow, as in Michael.”
His eyes met all of ours for just a moment before he continued.
“The office you broke into…that man works for an entity that’s bigger than anything you could ever imagine. They’ve been watching us for so long because Michael is part of their organization.”
Knight’s eyes landed on me, and the intensity I saw burning there nearly had me turning away. “When Rafe took down The Syndicate, he pissed off some very powerful people. He just didn’t realize they were working to keep The Syndicate in power. If he didn’t die on that island, they would have come after him here. And they would have killed you along with him.”
I knew he thought that was supposed to be comforting, but instead, all I heard was that Rafe would have lived if he had never stepped foot on that island. His attempt at making me feel better landed like a dead weight in the pit of my stomach.
“Michael works for a group called the Shadow Government, which is what the senator was trying to tell Kavanaugh. Theywere watching him, and the moment they saw the senator talking to his son in that bar, they knew exactly what was going to happen, and that’s why they took him out. Because he knew too much.”
“Who are they?” Lock asked.
All eyes were on Knight, waiting for details on the elusive and mysterious group that supposedly had all this information on us.
“They’re a group of men who supposedly work for the greater good. They manipulate markets, swing elections, assassinate popes… Anyone who gets in the way of their agenda is eliminated.”
“And Michael works with them?” I scoffed. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Michael doesn’t matter,” Knight snapped. “Cash made his way inside.”
“By shooting you,” Lock surmised. “Please fucking tell me he didn’t turn on you.”
Knight gave a slight shake of his head. “We all knew what they would ask of him. Well, we suspected. Shadow informed us they were keeping an eye on me because I was with Cash. Everyone pays a price when they enter the Shadow Government. We were pretty damn sure what that price would be.”
“So, you allowed him to shoot you?” Brock asked incredulously. “That’s fucking insane.”
“The alternative was worse,” Knight bit out. “You have no idea the reach these men have. You know they’ve been watching all of you, but what you don’t fucking realize is that with one wrong move, you would all be wiped out. Rafe put something in motion, something that ruined their business. Cash was always going to be a target if he didn’t comply. His family, anyone who associated with him, was on their radar.”
He looked around the room, sending chills down my spine with that one cold look.
