Page 75 of Killer Heart (The Chaos Crew 3)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Decima

“Right,”Julius said into his phone as Talon drove us back into the city. “Take care of all the bodies and wipe down the house and barn. Leave everything else as is.”

I sank into the back seat between Blaze and Garrison, grappling with mixed feelings about our leader’s instructions to the local clean-up crew he’d gotten in touch with. On one hand, we didn’t want to risk leaving any evidence at all of our involvement once the murders of my family were discovered. But on the other, there was probably evidence of all the murders they’d committed on the country property, and the cleaners might erase that too.

Well, they were dead. I wasn’t sure their crimes needed to come to light now that their legacy could end here. Surely the few remaining Maliks couldn’t keep up such a horrific conspiracy on their own?

We’d just passed the city limits when Blaze’s phone pinged. He fished it out and glanced at the screen.

“Huh,” he said, and glanced over at us like he had something he wanted to say but wasn’t sure the news would be welcome.

I elbowed him. “What is it?”

“Well, not to send us off on another chase after all of today’s excitement, but… I did get a partial license plate for the Hunter’s bike when he met you this morning. I had it running through the system, and I’ve just gotten a match from some street-cam footage in downtown DC.”

I jerked over to peer at his phone. “Really?” I might have been exhausted from everything we’d been through, but the news set my nerves on high alert all over again.

Blaze motioned to the screen, which showed a man getting off a motorcycle outside what looked like a nightclub from the exterior décor.

I frowned at the image. “That’s not the guy I talked to.” He was too thin, and when he pulled off his helmet, he was clearly too young as well, not much older than I was.

Talon had tuned into our conversation. “It’s not uncommon for an organization to have a pool of vehicles if they don’t want any individual member to be easily tracked.”

“Or he could have stolen it and returned it,” Garrison suggested.

“He’s supposed to be law enforcement,” I reminded him, but my need to say “supposed” reminded me of how little we still knew about the man who’d reached out to me with his ominous warnings.

“It doesn’t make much sense to me,” Julius said, his forehead furrowing as he turned in his seat to join the conversation. “How a man with the kind of resources he obviously had and a clear enough idea of what the Maliks were doing couldn’t manage to prove it.”

Blaze nodded slowly. “You’re right. Not to downplay how brilliant we all are, but we put the pieces together in just a few weeks, partly because of the tips he gave us. Sure, Dess had more access to their house, but anyone could have broken in. I haven’t matched an entry to the girl he said was his daughter yet, but I’ve IDed the kids from the last five years, so it’s farther back than that. He must have been investigating this for a while.”

I rubbed my arms, abruptly chilled. “It’s a loose end. I don’t like not knowing how he really fits into the whole situation. Why don’t we go over to the club and just see what we see? Even if he’s not there, maybe we’ll find something out about the people he works with if that guy with the bike is a colleague of his. And if not, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a drink and unwind, right?”

“Here, here,” Garrison said in a mildly sardonic voice, and knocked his knuckles against my hand as if offering a toast. I grinned at him, the gleam of his eyes sparking renewed heat in me after the interlude we’d just shared and the emotional declarations made on both sides.

Whatever we found, whatever we faced, the five of us had each other’s backs. That was a hell of a lot more than I could say for the “real” family that’d kidnapped Garrison and tried to murder the rest of us today.

By the time we reached the club, the sky had darkened with the setting of the sun. We parked a block away and walked over, scanning the street as we went.

Garrison stopped us a few storefronts shy of the club itself. A few patrons were standing outside, being waved in one by one.

“It doesn’t look like a public event,” he said. “The bouncers are checking something—looks like some kind of invitation.”

Julius took in the club-goers and then us. “I think we can blend in if we find an alternate entrance. They’re dressed a little fancier than we are, but nothing that should make us stand out too much.”

I nodded. I’d ended up decked out in linen pants and a silky blouse since there hadn’t been anything less fancy on offer in the Maliks’ country home. “We’ll just take a quick look around then?” I suggested. “In and out?”

“In and out,” he agreed.

Being five mercenaries with plenty of experience penetrating buildings without being noticed, we found a moment to slip through a back door with barely any trouble at all. Inside, we slunk through a hall and out into the main room of the club.

It was a pretty upscale place with a sleek steel bar counter, mahogany tables in the booths, and marble tiles covering the floor. Amber lights fixed along the middle of the ceiling gave the room an atmospheric glow. Servers circulated the room with flutes of champagne, weaving between the crowd of party-goers who were laughing and chattering with each other energetically. The whole event had a celebratory vibe.

It was mostly men, I realized as I studied the crowd. There were women here and there, hanging off the guys’ arms in skimpy dresses, but they appeared to be there for the men’s entertainment rather than their own. The back of my neck prickled.

“I wonder what they’re celebrating,” I said.

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