Page 7

My first instinct when slammed into darkness is to yank the blade at my thigh in front of me and take several long backward steps. Movement creaks near the kitchen, and I know he’s running. Ghost is freaking running. In darkness lie chickenshit assassins. What the hell is it with all the chickenshit men in my life right now?

Still, I don’t move, listening for more movement, waiting for a trap. I mean, the dude is the second highest-rated assassin in the world. A full soundless two minutes tick by, and the lights flicker and illuminate the room. I don’t bother hiking it after Ghost. He’s gone. The cameras are off, and as my eyes land on the coffee table, I find the pie and all plates and utensils are also gone. Damn it to hell.

I snake my phone from my pocket and dial my brother, who answers on the first ring. “What’s happening?”

“You are, or you aren’t still chief?”

“Don’t be a smartass, Lilah. You know I am.”

“You bought a place in New York City.”

“What do you want, Lilah?”

“I need a team to Mark Walker’s place. He’s dead. And yes, it’s another assassination.”

He curses. “On my way.” He hangs up.

Always calm and cool under pressure, my brother. No wonder my father wants him by his side. I set the knife down, open my bag at my hip where it’s rested since the airport, and glove up before bagging the knife. It’s the only thing Ghost touched and left behind. It’s a stupid mistake, which tells me he knows his prints aren’t in the system. Thus the nickname, Ghost.

I’m not handing it over to law enforcement, and therefore, it goes straight into my bag. I’m sure my father would approve. I’m trying to catch the assassin that promised to kill him, which hasn’t quite sunk in, nor have I decided if I plan to stop him or not.

For now, I stay in the moment, lifting the coffee table up and out before squatting, scanning for a hair or fiber. I don’t find any, but the forensic team will have the ability to see what I cannot. Ghost has to know that was a risk of hanging out at a crime scene, but I suspect DNA doesn’t worry him. He’s unknown to law enforcement—the true number one assassin for a reason. He’s a rockstar at killing people. And yet, he didn’t try to kill me. I’ll contemplate why later.

We won’t find Ghost from anything he left behind today, and why the hell he’s decided to be my savior by killing my father I do not know, nor do I look forward to telling Kane.

“Lilah!”

At the sound of Enrique’s voice, I rotate and call out, “Stop right now!” I quickly cross the room as he curses and appears in the doorway. “Why the fuck are you inside my crime scene without my permission?”

“The lights went out. You said Ghost—”

“Fuck me, when did you turn into the grandma next door, afraid of the boogeyman? And now your prints are on the door. You’re here before law enforcement has logged the crime scene. Now you’ll have to be registered, printed, and talked to, or you become a suspect. Neither of us needed that complication tonight.”

He curses and scrubs his jaw. “Fuck.”

“Yeah. Fuck.”

He grits his teeth and lifts his chin toward the body. “What happened in here?”

“He was tired and took a nap. What do you think happened in here? As social media likes to say, he got unalived.” I dig out a pair of gloves, complete my path to stand in front of him, and slap him in the arm with them. “Put them on and help me search the place before Andrew and his team get here. Unless you want me to unalive you.”

He accepts the gloves and pulls them on. “We both know you know who did this, so what are we looking for?”

“It’s as if you don’t follow me all the time,” I snipe. “Or maybe you just don’t pay attention unless it’s Kane talking. I’m not sure how that keeps either of us safe.”

“Lilah,” he breathes out. “I was just—”

I cut him off. “Society bullshit, and that includes anything Murphy.” I’m already walking away, heading toward that closed door I’d bypassed earlier that I’m betting is a private office. A few steps later, I discover the door is locked and grunt before calling out, “Enrique!”

He appears almost instantly, his brow arched in silent question. “Be a good criminal and break into the door.” I jiggle the knob.

He scowls. I ignore him. “My time is limited here. Call me when it’s open.” I hurry off and do a cursory look around, lingering in the bedroom, searching under the mattress, inside pillowcases, and under the nightstand.

It’s on the bottom of a bottle of Advil that I find what looks like a phone number. He didn’t put it in his phone for a reason. And he didn’t trust himself to remember it either, which means he didn’t dial it often or at all. I pull the taped note off the bottle, shoot a photo, and send it to Tic Tac without an explanation when I hear, “Lilah!”

Wonderful. My pain-in-the-ass brother is already here. Enrique fails again. I stick the paper in a sealed bag before it goes in my bag, but don’t rush downstairs. What’s the point? Enrique failed and clearly isn’t as gangster as he pretends.

I walk into the closet and start checking pockets, but find nothing of interest. My phone buzzes with a text from Tic Tac: It’s a burner phone that’s presently located in Mark Walker’s house.

“Holy hell,” I murmur and check my call log. It’s the same number Ghost has been texting me from.

I rush down the stairs to find my brother waiting at the bottom, and I bypass him, ignoring him, as I walk to the couch and kneel beside it. I punch the number into my phone, which Ghost has communicated on, and a cell rings beneath the couch. I bend down and retrieve it, aware that Ghost has just won the game, at least this round.

I’m questioning why Mark has his number, which, of course, was Ghost’s intention. Ghost claimed he didn’t kill the directors, but what if he did? And if he took the jobs, if Mark and his sister were paying him, why did he kill Mark? Did he kill Mark? Or was he here to save him?

Did the sister hire him to kill Mark?

In which case, is he really, truly still the number one assassin in the world and on the way to kill my father?