“Burrows. He wouldn’t have even been out of college when my family were…” I swallow. “…murdered.” Blown up. Burned alive. I exhale and rake a hand through my hair and watch as Otto absorbs what we should have thought about instantly.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “He’s not working alone.”
I feel like my head is about to spin off. But who? “Where is she?” I ask, calm but not.
“We need to find this lawyer he’s seeing.” Otto’s phone starts screaming with the sound of an alarm, and he looks down. “Shit.”
“What? What is it?” I ask, not that I have to. Otto’s nervous sweat speaks volumes. He’s tracked Beau.
“Burrows address.”
I fly out of the bank and throw myself behind the wheel.
“What’s going on?” Danny asks from the back as Otto comes after me.
“You need to stay and clear up that mess,” I say, starting the engine.
“What mess?” Danny asks.
“I’m not fucking staying anywhere.” Otto runs around the front, hopping in the passenger seat. “Remember who he wants, James.” Otto looks at me with a face full of fury. This is one of those times when I won’t argue. “I’ll call Len and Bud to come sort this.” He goes straight to his phone as I wheel-spin away.
“Will someone tell me what the fuck is happening?” Danny orders shortly.
“Spittle’s dead.”
“Who killed him?”
“Beau.” I don’t question that. She’s a stellar shot. She also needed to keep her escape open, hence using Spittle as a doorstop.
“Now she’s at Burrows’s.”
“What?” Rose gasps, shooting forward in her seat, forcing Danny to pull her back.
“There was an empty box in there,” I explain. “Security guards dead, cameras cut. It’s Burrows.”Burrows and who the fuck else?“She’s at his place.” What I don’t know is whether she went there willingly, or if Burrows forced her.
“You realize this is a trap, don’t you?” Danny says. “He wants us, not Beau.”
“Do you want me to drop you off anywhere?” I ask, serious. I can see the mental battle he’s having. His loyalty to me but his love for Rose. I don’t envy him. This is the pinnacle moment in this fucking nightmare.
So I decide for him, screeching up at the curb and calling Fury, giving him the address. Rose is sobbing as she gets out, clinging to Danny like she’s afraid he might abandon her. His face is impassive. But his eyes? They blaze with a hatred I can relate to. He doesn’t need to speak. His icy eyes tell me everything he wants to say.
Make it messy.
He closes the door, and I pull away fast, looking at them on the roadside in the rearview mirror, Danny’s arms wrapped around his woman.
I exhale, rubbing at my temple, trying to remember how it feels to have Beau in my arms. In this moment, I can’t.
I return my eyes to the road, my head fucking bent.
This will be a crime of love.
But for who?
I park as close as I can to Burrows’s apartment without risking being detected and jog down the street, my gun in one hand, my phone in the other. The lights are on, the whole place glowing. I creep around the back, my body hard, tense, shaking.
“The curtain,” Otto whispers, nodding to a window. I look and see a slight gap, and breathe in my anticipation, looking back at Otto whose attention is on his screen. He nods. She’s in here. I peek through the small sliver between the curtains.
And my heart drops into my stomach when I see Beau unconscious on the floor.