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Chapter 20
Gabriel Salvatore
“There’s something you need to see, boss.”
Anger boiled within me. “What do you want?” It had been two days since Chester was murdered. The contract on Robyn’s life was up and I had gotten nowhere. My men were fucking incompetent. “It had better be fucking good. I’m not in the mood for nonsense right now.”
“It’s about the guy Chester hired to take out Robyn.”
I straightened in my chair, my interest perked. “What about him?”
Cain hesitated. Was he trying to piss me off?
“I went to the café where Chester met with the hitman and convinced the owner to give me the footage from the security camera.”
“And?”
“I managed to get a decently clear photo of his face. I then went to a buddy of mine on the police force and had him run the photo.”
I waved my hand at him, urging him to hurry up and get to the bare bones of it.
“We lucked out. The man’s identity was in their database.” He stepped up to my desk and presented me with a sheet of paper. The paper contained the man’s mug shot, name and some odds and sods information.
Constantine Bateman.
Staring at the man’s photo, my eyes narrowed. It wasn’t the face I recognized, it was the name. Constantine was a rare name. I’d only ever heard it once – Robyn’s high school crush and Austin’s father. She was with him and he took out Chester to keep her safe, which meant his next stop would be me and my men. It’s what I would do.
Fucking Chester, even dead he was fucking me over. I should have known better than give him such an important task. Now I had a fucking hitman to deal with. And the fucker had my money!
I wanted to ball the piece of paper in my fist or rip it to shreds. I really needed to find an outlet for my anger. Instead I gathered myself and looked up to meet Cain’s stare as he awaited his orders.
“Find out everything you can about this man and report back to me. We’re going to end this once and for all.”
~*~TT~*~
Constantine
“What if we just ran away?”
I cocked a brow up at Robyn, as I went through my case containing my sniper rifle to ensure everything was intact and ready to go. I’d gotten a full rundown from Robyn of Gabriel’s routine, which synced up with what I had discovered on my own. It should have been a piece of cake – should be. But even the best-laid plans had a tendency to go sideways on occasion. Especially when I could pretty much count on the fact Gabriel knew I’d turned on him. The contract hadn’t been fulfilled and I’d received several calls on the phone he’d been given to contact me on. If there was a message center activated on that phone I was sure there would be a series of not-so-friendly messages.
“Just hear me out.”
My eyebrow raised a little further. This ought to be good.
“We disappear, try to make a go out of this. I was planning on going into the witness protection program so that was my plan all along.”
“We’ve been through this.” And we had. Running wasn’t an option. I refused to spend my life looking over my shoulder. And I wasn’t about to leave the life I’d built. Yes, it had been built on the blood of others, but it was mine. New York was my home and it was going to be the home of my son as well. I’d kill whomever I had to in order to make it happen.
She chewed at her lower lip, wringing the fingers of her hands in front of her. “What if it goes bad?”
“Bad how?” I wasn’t going to entertain any what ifs with her. The last thing I wanted was for her to worry or question my competence in getting the job done.
“So much could go wrong. What if you get killed or caught?”
“I won’t.” Satisfied everything was in good working order and ready to go, I left the closet, the case in my hands and her hot on my heels. “I’ve done this before, sweetheart, and to men a hell of a lot more powerful than your husband.”
I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know she was scowling behind my back. I shouldn’t have used the term “husband” – it seemed to put a very sour taste in her mouth and quite frankly with me as well. Maybe it was my bitterness that demanded I lash out at her from time to time, hitting her where it hurt.