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It was her.
“God, Tristan, he…he had a picture of me,” Adriana choked out, her voice wavering.
The knot in my throat tightened. “Anything else?”
“His phone,” she said.
“Give it to me.”
I took the phone from her, the screen asking for a password or biometric identifier. I flashed it in front of his face so I could unlock it, and it didn’t look like it was going to work, but then the screen’s brightness changed. “Anything in there?” Adriana asked.
“Looks like he had you on his radar for a while,” I said, scrolling through the numerous photos of her. Then something caught my eye, causing my blood to run cold. “Shit.”
“What?” she turned to look at me, her eyes wide.
I hesitated before showing her the screen. It was a photo of the two of us, taken the night before. When she had told me she was pregnant. “He was closer than we thought.”
Adriana glanced at the photo, her face draining of color. She turned away quickly, heaving onto the grass. I knelt beside her, rubbing soothing circles into her back as she retched.
“Easy,” I whispered, trying to keep my own rising panic at bay.
Once she finished, she wiped her mouth and sat back on her heels, giving me a grim look. “We need to move faster.”
“He won’t be the only person coming for us.”
“I’m aware,” I said.
Adriana nodded, determination etched into her features as she straightened. “Then let’s get this over with.”
We quickly gathered rocks, stuffing the man’s pockets until his body was almost impossible for the two of us to carry. Somehow, we managed to lift him, then we tossed him in the water from the end of a rickety old dock. The splash was loud–the only break in the quiet morning air–before silence fell again. We watched as the body sank slowly, disappearing beneath the cold, dark water.
“Are you going to get rid of his phone?” Adriana asked.
“No, we need it,” I answered, still playing with his keyboard so it wouldn't automatically lock me out. “I want to know who else knew about us, who else is after you. And it’s unlikely they’ll track us using his phone…especially if they think he’s alive.”
“Which will be because…?”
I pull up his text messages, finding a short thread of correspondence with an unknown number and asking for updates. I send a text right away.
Lost their trail. Poking around here and I’ll get in touch soon.
“That should give us a bit of time,” I mutter. “At least until we can get the phone to my people, who can make sure it’s untraceable.”
Adriana’s face was pale as she nodded, her eyes still on the spot where the body had disappeared. I could see the worry etched into her features. Even in the early morning light, she looked exhausted.
“Let’s get back to the cabin,” I suggested gently, placing a hand on her lower back. “You need rest.”
Adriana nodded, allowing me to guide her away from the lake. We walked in silence through the woods, each lost in our own thoughts. As we moved further away from the water, I could feel a knot forming in my chest.
The man was gone, but the threat was far from over. Whoever had sent him knew about us and had been watching us. They had been close enough to capture that intimate moment when Adriana had confided in me about her pregnancy. And if they were willing to send someone to take out one of their own, it was clear they weren’t afraid to escalate things even further.
Back at the cabin, Adriana immediately crashed in the bedroom. Her face was still pale and she looked more exhausted than ever.
I, on the other hand, pulled out the phone we’d retrieved from the man’s body and began scrolling through the messages and calls. The first few were mundane messages–checking in with whoever this man reported to. But as I dug deeper, things became more menacing.
His name was Tony, and he was a henchman of Rico Rossi.
Who was supposed to be in prison.
