Page 20 of Ruthless Desires: Vol. One

“He’s not far from here.” Elliot stretches, his gaze roaming around his office until he finds Rhett. “Remember those brothers we offed last year?”

“Pretty sure we’ve only killed one set of brothers,” he replies.

Elliot nods to his computer. “This guy’s house is in the same neighborhood.”

The corner of Rhett’s mouth tips up, and a dark fire lights in his eyes. “Familiar territory.”

At that, I perk up. “Does that mean we could do it tonight?”

“Not sure.” Leaning back in his chair, Elliot rubs his thumb across his bottom lip. “We still want to be careful. Get a good look at his security system and all that.”

“We have time. It’s only a little after five. We could definitely burn down—” I glance at Elliot’s screen. “This Roger guy’s house.”

Elliot sighs. “Ol…”

A thousand protests are at the tip of my tongue, but I bite my lip before any slip out. We’ve jumped into action before without proper planning, and I almost got killed because of it.

With an apologetic look, Elliot runs a hand over his hair. “Figuring out his security system from afar is beyond my capabilities.”

“I know,” I mumble.

“So we need to case the place in person and make decisions from there. That means at least two nights. We also need to discuss if we’re burning his house down when he’s not home, or with him in it.”

Rhett shrugs. “I don’t mind burning him alive.”

“Fucker deserves it,” I say lowly. “No one hurts her like that and gets away with it.”

“Careful,” Elliot warns. The look in his eyes tells me he didn’t miss the hint of possessiveness in my voice.

I rub the back of my neck. “Sorry.”

“Just don’t want you to hurt yourself.” He reaches out and squeezes my arm before glancing at Rhett. “What’re you doing?”

Rhett doesn’t even look up from his phone, which he’s typing away on furiously. “Finn.”

The realization that flits across Elliot’s face has hope flaring in my chest all over again. Finn is one of our closest friends, andhecan hack into this guy’s security system from afar.

“He said he’ll do it,” Rhett says after a moment.

I grin. “We’resoon for tonight.”

***

Aside from the streetlights, Roger’s neighborhood is completely dark. Rhett and I creep through his backyard undetected, and a feeling of hyper-awareness settles over me. I’ve gotten used to it over the years—happens every time we’re on a job—and I’ve come to accept it. It makes my anxiety worse, but it also keeps me from missing things.

Finn was able to hack into Roger’s security system and disable it remotely. That’s the thing about being able to access everything from your phone. It leaves you more vulnerable than security companies would like you to know.

Finn was also able to get us some other information, including the fact that Roger, unfortunately, left for a long weekend trip this evening. Rhett was quite disappointed, but I’m looking on the bright side. With the way we’re staging the fire, it’ll look like an amateur tried to make it look like an accident.

In other words, this bitch isn’t getting a single penny of insurance money. He might even end up in prison for arson and insurance fraud.

I hope, anyway.

Rhett picks the lock to the back door without issue, and then we’re in. The house is large and well-decorated for a single man. Probably hired an interior designer.

Our plan is simple. We already took a storage unit out in Roger’s name with the credit card he used at the coffee shop. We’ll take anything that looks important—expensive watches, personal items, records, and paperwork—and stash it in the unit. Whoever investigates the fire will be sure to find it, and it’ll look like a classic case of insurance fraud gone wrong.

We don’t turn on any lights. Opening the garage is a big enough risk, but we unscrew the lightbulb first so that it stays dark. Elliot pulls in with a van that can’t be traced back to us, and we close the garage door again.