Page 39 of Vicious Intentions

“Don’t take offense, but you’re no poster child for good will. What makes you think it was him instead of one of your other enemies?”

I held up my arm, wiggling my fingers. “Scar on his right hand. More like a burn but strangely ornate like a symbol. Right?”

Cain took a deep breath. “Yeah. Exactly like that. I heard it was from a botched assignment. I’m curious. Did you get a good look at him?”

“No. He knocked out the power before coming inside. The only reason I managed to see his hand was because I almost broke it while smashing it into the window. The moonlight gave me a split-second look.”

“You let him get away?” He smirked.

“Let’s just say I wasn’t expecting an assassin at my private office for which no one knows the address. I didn’t have my weapon on me at the time.”

“Now you’ll learn never to go anywhere without it. It’s funny how the Iceman has a way of finding whatever information he wants. The guy has to be in his sixties minimum by now. Plus, there hasn’t been a sighting or report on him for…”

“Eight years,” I answered for him. So the idea was farfetched. That didn’t make it impossible. “Since the last time an attempted assassination was made.” Cain had been lucky to survive, the bullet centimeters from shattering his heart. He’d spent three weeks in the hospital while Cristiano and I had attempted to track the assassin down to no avail. He was like a ghost.

Two years later, Cristiano had been involved in an attempted assassination that couldn’t be confirmed as the work of the notorious man.

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t remind me. Why now, after all these years?”

“No clue. Maybe the anniversary of the death of his daughter.” The ten years since Sage had been hit by one of the Elite members driving like a maniac had recently played fresh in my mind. I’d never been able to get the horrific visions of her broken and bleeding body out of my mind. Fuck. I’d held her as blood had oozed past her lips, terror in her eyes as she’d gripped me with one hand until the ambulance had arrived. Just before she’d been taken away, she’d pressed her fingers against my face.

There were times when I looked into the mirror and could swear her bloody fingerprints had permanently stained my skin.

“I’d forgotten about that.” He took a gulp of his drink.

He hadn’t forgotten. None of us had. I could tell by the shadow crossing his face he had the same nightmares that Cristiano and I had. Sage had hung on for a week in the hospital after falling into a coma, but there’d been no brain activity, her parents finally pulling the plug. It had nearly gutted all three of us, although Cain had never admitted it.

“Ten years is a long time to suffer and grieve,” I offered.

“Maybe so. Perhaps he’s simply preparing to finish his list before he dies.”

List. The member who’d been behind the wheel had had been killed only six months after graduating, his lifeless body found thirty feet in front of his penthouse. While his death had been ruled a suicide, the three of us had known better. We’d expected The Iceman to continue his bloody path of revenge then, but the man had waited for eighteen months before attempting a hit on Cain.

Then Cristiano.

Now, this. While I’d looked over my shoulder for five years, I’d stopped doing so a couple years before. Cain was right. I had enough enemies who could have been responsible for making the hit, and I wouldn’t have suspected otherwise unless I’d seen the man’s hand.

“Maybe you’re right.” I rubbed my jaw, the memories kicking my ass all over again.

“Incidentally, I had a call from a Kentucky detective asking questions about Theo.”

Snorting, I narrowed my eyes. We’d never be free of the nightmare. And we shouldn’t be. “After this many years?” Hearing Theodore’s name always left a bad taste in my mouth. After the asshole had been stupid enough to try and rape Sage just to prove his worthiness, the three of us had handled him in the only acceptable manner. That didn’t mean his justifiable death didn’t weigh heavily on our minds.

Or maybe I was the only one of the three of us with a conscience.

William Watkins had done everything to pin a murder on the entire house when there’d been no body to find, no evidence of any kind as to what had occurred inside the third-floor laundry room.

“New to the job. Assigned a cold case,” Cain chortled. Ice remained in the man’s veins.

“And it’s getting colder.”

“I wanted you to know in case the asshole tracked you down. I’ve already warned Cristiano.” He gave me a look that was a clear reminder of my requirement to keep the code of silence until the day I died. There was no need to challenge him. All three of us knew the score and what we could lose.

“Noted. You and I know there’s nothing to find.”

He’d handled the disposal of the body, and I hadn’t asked questions then, nor did I plan to now.

As far as I was concerned, the kid was dead and buried where he belonged.

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