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He turns around, sitting on the edge of the desk. He crosses his arms and the miniature silver terrier around his neck glints between his open collar. My eyes dart down to his wrist. There’s a leather band with an o-ring barely visible under his cuff.
He follows my eyes and the corner of his mouth turns up.
“I’m not sharing this one,” he says.
“I’m not looking.”
I met Jack when I was young, in my mid-twenties, and just discovering that my tastes ranged outside the regular. We started talking at a bar one night and he offered to share his sub with me. Watching him guide her through fucking me without touching her once made me realize I wanted that too. They were my gateway drug to the intricacies of BDSM.
“Are you locked down?” he asks. “Is she your…girlfriend?”
“She’s my sub,” I say. “But I’m going to marry her, just haven’t told her yet. Back to the calling card.”
He blinks. “The card…so Clint hired me…sort of.”
Anger surges in my chest. “You broke our agreement.”
“I was playing both sides. I didn’t intend to follow through.”
He doesn’t look like he’s lying, but I’ve learned enough not to trust anyone. Especially not men like Jack Russell. I sink back on the couch and cross my ankle over my knee. The amount of debt Clint was in is starting to make more sense. Jack Russell’s services are expensive, and he would have charged thousands just for a consultation. I’ve seen his accounts. Most of his debt was bad investments, years where he was in the red, and a fuckload of money on cheating and gambling.
But this explains some of the gaps in his receipts.
“Who did he want you to kill?” I ask grimly.
He sighs. “Well, my confidentiality agreement is over because Clint is dead. It was his wife.”
Deep down, I knew the answer to my question and I knew it from the moment I saw the calling card. But that doesn’t keep white hot rage from pouring through my chest and making my vision flash. I don’t move, but I feel my nails pierce my palms.
“Did he tell you why?”
Jack saunters over and sinks down onto the coffee table a few feet from where I sit. I’m on high alert because he doesn’t have my trust anymore. Or maybe it’s because when it comes to Keira, I can’t be too careful.
“It’s pretty obvious.”
I stay silent.
“Clint married his wife because her father left her Stowe Farms,” he says. “He annexed her farm into his ranch and got what he wanted. Now, all he had to do was get rid of his unwanted wife.”
It feels like my heart is beating in absolute silence. Thump, thump, the way it does when it’s just me standing at the edge of the frozen lake at the top of the mountain.
In my head is a stark image of Keira, painted in high definition with every detail seared into my mind. She’s curled up in bed, the way she was the first night she slept with me. Bright hair spilling over the pillow, eyes closed, body relaxed.
If I hadn’t brought her to Sovereign Mountain when I did...what would have happened to my redbird? It’s not Jack’s way to kill women, but that wouldn’t have stopped the Garrisons from doing it themselves.
I clear my throat. “Was anyone else involved?”
He leans in, resting his elbows on his knees.
“That would be breaking confidentiality.” he says.
“So the people who hired you are still alive?”
“Very alive.”
“Both of them?”
He nods and then his jaw clenches, his narrowed eyes flashing a poisonous green. Now I know there are two more people involved in this plot. And I have a pretty good idea of who they are.
