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Private Caller.
Fuck. Not now.
“Is everything okay?” Winter asks, stretching her neck to see my screen.
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” I speak quickly. “It’s probably the landlord. His wife said he’d call. I’ll be right back.”
She nods as I walk to the double sliding glass doors and step onto the balcony. A frosty wind ripples my clothes as I lean against the railing and glance back inside the apartment over my shoulder. Winter’s out of sight.
“What the fuck, Ricky? I told you not to call me during the day.”
A deep laugh lingers down the line.
“How else were you going to tell me you moved to Canada?”
My breath catches in my lungs.
“Nice of you to join us, by the way.”
“How do you know about that?” Questions I can’t answer wreck my brain. “And what do you mean join us? You’re here?”
“Of course we are. We go where the scumbags go, man. They sent me over as soon as they got suspicious. Plus, we got a few more guys we think might be hiding out here.”
The dots connect themselves. He was probably already in Canada when he called me at the airport.
“So, you’re all here?”
“Nah, it’s just a few of us for now. Trust me, my bosses got way better things to do.”
“Where are you?” I tap my fingers against the metal barrier, terrified that someone is going to come bursting out of the apartment any second and hear me.
“Manitoba. You?”
I curse under my breath. We just couldn’t be in the same place. That would’ve been too easy. How the fuck am I going to justify going out of town to follow a lead?
“Toronto.”
He scoffs. “Maybe you should tell that pretty little girlfriend of yours her city choice isn’t helping your revenge.”
Every single muscle in my body tenses up.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“Oh, yeah, we know about her, too.”
I clench my fists so tightly I can feel the blood drain from my hands.
“How?” I say through gritted teeth.
“Same way we knew you moved here. Come on, man, we’re chasing wanted criminals. You really thought we wouldn’t check up on our clients? You know a lot about us. We’re partners, but we don’t like loose ends. Just making sure you’re not one.”
I fight the urge to belt out that he’s wrong and I don’t actually know shit about them. When Tanner hooked me up with these shady-ass guys for tips, he told me the strict minimum. The organization is what he called it. Apparently, they owed him big-time, which is why they agreed to pay back a debt and help me out. He said they get every job done—I don’t even want to think about what that means—find the guys you want found, and sometimes, if you’re lucky like I am, they hate the guy you hate just as much as you do and put the bounty on him on top of the pile.
Marcus slipped through the cop’s fingers for years. They had nothing—no suspects, not even one fucking lead—on the robberies in the rich neighborhoods near my hometown and my sister’s murder. But these guys, who knows how many of them there are, they don’t follow rules, or the law. As much as I hate relying on an illegal organization, without them, I wouldn’t even know where to start. Or what the bastard looks like, or should I say looked like.
Since I never saw his face during the attack, they showed me pictures of him when he was much younger. It’s all they had. Brown hair, wicked smile, crooked nose: regular-looking fella. He looked around my age.
Crazy to think he’s a coldhearted murderer.
