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We didn’t discuss the topic any longer, but I knew what I had to do.
“I don’t like this,” Raine said.
Her eyes were still red from crying. I hated to do things this way, but I didn’t have much of a choice. It’s not like I could tell her I was jaunting off to kill my father figure.
“I know, babe,” I said. “I’m sorry. Hopefully, I won’t be gone long.”
“Landon is making you do something, isn’t he?” she insisted—again.
“He’s not,” I said. “I’m not saying any more about it. It’s just something I have to do.”
“What about Alex?”
I reached over and touched the side of her face.
“I know he’s in good hands.” I bent down and pressed my lips against hers. They were warm and soft, and even if she was mad at me, she didn’t push me away. She ran her hand down my arm and held onto my fingers as our lips separated. I stepped backwards slowly, keeping my eyes on hers, until our hands slipped apart.
I wasn’t going to say goodbye.
With my backpack secured over my shoulders, I headed down the stairs to the parking garage. The bike was gassed up and ready to go. It was going to be a long ride, but I needed the time to keep my head clear and focused.
The motorcycle roared in the enclosed space, and I pulled out and onto the road. The highway loomed in front of me, and I took one last look back at the condo building before I kicked it up a notch and merged into traffic.
The research took a lot longer than I had hoped. Landon was a man on the move, and tracking him down hadn’t been easy. I used disposable phones to talk to Raine and Alex every day but still kept the calls short and ditched the phones right after we were done. She continued to ask me where I was and what I was doing, but I wouldn’t tell her.
She just didn’t need to know this shit.
I ended my evening call with Raine and got up from the hotel bed. Pushing the curtain aside, I looked out the window with a pair of binoculars. There was another hotel directly opposite mine, and I focused on the window of an eighth floor room. The sheer curtains were drawn but not the blackout curtains. I could still see a figure inside. I’d spent more than enough time in my life watching Landon move, and I had no doubt he was the one on the other side.
If I were a sniper, I could take him out from here.
If I ever saw him again, maybe Evan Arden would teach me. I smirked to myself and shook my head a little. Raine would love that idea.
Focusing the binoculars on Landon’s silhouette, I saw him sit down at the desk inside the hotel room. Now was as good a time as any, so I set the binoculars down on the table beside me and pulled a Beretta out of my backpack.
I bought it along the way through a contact I remembered from the games I was in years ago. He was a meth-head, and I was pretty certain he wouldn’t remember our encounter five minutes after I left. As far as he was concerned, selling a gun meant more money for drugs, which was all he cared about.
Leaning away from the hotel window, I checked over the weapon, made sure there was a bullet in the chamber, and tucked it away inside a shoulder holster. I took the stairs down to the ground floor and made my way across the street. I waited until the valets were all occupied with customers before slipping inside the building and heading to the front desk.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah, sorry,” I told the clerk at the desk, “I’m an idiot. I lost my key.”
“No problem at all, sir,” she said. “Your name?”
“Landon Stark.”
“Can I see a picture ID, please?”
I handed her a false driver’s license that was far more perfectly forged than would ever be needed for a hotel clerk. She checked it briefly before handing me a new key card.
I smiled and thanked her before heading to the stairway. Once I arrived at his floor, I easily found Landon’s room in the corner of the building. I took a deep breath, centered myself as much as I could, took the gun out of its holster, and swiped the card. It made a slight beeping sound, and Landon looked up as the door swung open.
Our eyes met, and there was no question in my mind that he knew exactly what I was there to do. He didn’t even need to look at the weapon in my hand to understand. The door swung closed behind me, and Landon quickly stood up, reaching toward one of the drawers in the dresser.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said.
Landon paused and then slowly raised his hands up in the air.
