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“Don’t move,” I ordered, “or things will get ugly.”

He glanced at the men surrounding him.

“Empty your pockets and place everything on the table. If you don’t,I’ll toss you over the railing, and you’ll discover how hard Chicago sidewalks are.” I looked at him. “I’m not as patient as I used to be.”

He placed his phone and wallet on the table. One of my men approached, patted him down, and moved Milton’s phone and wallet to another table.

When he was cleared, I gestured to the chair across from me. “Sit.”

“What do you want?” He sat in the chair.

“What do I want?” I finished my whiskey and placed the tumbler down. “That’s a loaded question. But since you asked, here goes—I want Ashton to pay for what he did to my family and me. I want him todielike Bobby and Harry.” I smiled. “But his death will be worse.”

A question sparked in his eyes. “You killed them?”

“It took me a long time to locate them.” I leaned into the table. “I want everyone involved in my family’s murder and my beating to pay. Blood for blood. Even the person who took the video.”

Color drained from his face. “How do you know?”

“I know a lot of things, Milton. In war, you need patience to win. And I had years to figure things out.”

He shook his head. “It’s not what you think.”

“What should I think?” I eyed him. “If you’re trying to tell me it wasn’t Ashton, Bobby, and Harry who broke my leg and left me crippled, don’t bother. I know what happened that day.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He scratched the back of his head, looking nervous. “What happened to you was awful, but they didn’t burn down your house.”

This was something I hadn’t expected. “Who did?”

His lips trembled. “They’re going to kill me.”

“Who?” I demanded. “If you don’t tell me, what do you think will happen to you? Do you think I’ll have more mercy than they will? Who murdered my family and burned down my house?”

“The Trogyn.”

Shock washed over me, but I didn’t want him to see it. “Why did they murder my family?”

“I don’t know. But the Lindor and Harris families work for them. Your mom knows something about them.”

My mother?She was a lunch lady at an elementary school. She wasn’t a threat to anybody. Had I gotten everything wrong? It didn’t make any sense.

“Where is Ashton? Who’s hiding him?”

“I don’t know.” Fear sparked in his eyes. “You can toss me over the railing if you want, but I don’t know. Whenever he needs something, he calls me from a burner phone. But something is different about him.”

“Like what?”

“He sounds different.”

Maybe Ashton had assumed a new identity and was playing out the new role. He was in the drama club in high school, so acting wasn’t hard for him.

“So he calls you, but you never call him?”

Milton shook his head. “He calls when he needs something. Then he wires money into my bank account.”

“You killed Emmanuel, and you killed Miranda. Why?”

“I didn’t kill them!” he exclaimed, losing the French accent altogether.