Page 68 of Scarred Heir

“I can’t.” His lips turned purple as he gasped for air. “Please.”

There was a pretty good chance he was telling the truth. Most of these guys didn’t know who had hired them. We never found who was responsible for murdering my mother because the person who planted the bomb swore up until Marchello shot him that he didn’t know who hired him.

My best bet was to let him go and then keep an eye on him. Eventually, whoever paid him would come after him if they knew I was suspicious. They’d want to keep him quiet.

“I’ll start with your bank information,” I said. “I could hack into it, but that would take time, especially if it was wired into an off-shore account.” I looked at Ax and held up my hand. “Let him have someair.”

Once Ax released him, he fell to the floor, heaving as he touched his throat.

“It isn’t that easy.” He licked the blood from his swollen lip. “You don’t understand.”

“Keep him here overnight,” I said to my men. “If he survives the frigid temperatures, I’ll be back in the morning to see if he has any new information for me. Jog his memory a bit.”

A gust of wind whizzed by me followed by a round of quick blasts. Ax shielded me with his body as I pulled out my gun. My other guys took cover, defending us with a round of bullets.

“Fuck!” I dropped my gun when a burning sensation shredded the side of my hand.

“Are you okay?” Ax picked up my gun as we hurried to the exit that led to the water. “I have trinity three,” he yelled to the other guards.

I glanced over my shoulder and spotted our thief sprawled out on the pier floor with a single gunshot wound to the head. A sharpshooter had taken him out.Fuck!

In the distance, the sounds of sirens came toward us. The rest of my men followed behind once the shooting stopped.

“That was fast,” Ax said.

Too fast.

“Clear out of here,” I said. “Someone tipped the cops off before the shooting started. Go underground and make contact with Lucas once you’re there.”

They took off down the pier. I couldn’t leave anyone behind with the cops so close.

“We’re going to have to leave the body.” I checked my hand as warm blood trickled down my wrist. “Get me back to the main house.”

“You were hit.” Ax pointed at my hand. “Is it bad?”

“It’s nothing.” I hustled in the direction of the car. “We have to go.”

Ax did a scan of the pier before covering me to walk across the deserted docks. This area was too isolated for us to be spotted, which meant there were no businesses to install security cameras.

Once we reached the car, Ax pulled a knife from his ankle strap and quickly removed the plate on the back of the SUV. He looked up at me. “They’ll record us coming over the bridge into Jersey. I have the dummy plates in the trunk.”

“Hurry up.” I opened the passenger door and climbed in.

As Ax took care of the plates, I removed my tie and wound it around my hand, stopping the blood from spilling onto the leather seat. The graze wasn’t that bad. The sting was worse than the cut.

Ax got in and took off just as the lights from the police vehicles flashed behind us.

“Take your time getting out of here. We don’t need to get pulled over on the way back,” I said. “I need to get to the main house before the cops. I have to establish a timeline.”

“You think they’ll trace this back to you?” Ax kept his eyes on the road. “We were careful.”

“They took him out because they knew we had him. They made sure the police were minutes away, hoping we wouldn’t have reacted as quickly as we did. Even if we were careful, the cops will start with me, because this is Accetti territory.”

I grabbed my phone from my inside pocket and dialed Lucas.

“Milo,” he answered. “How did it go?”

“Meet me at the main house.” I rested my head against the seat. “I’m going to need my attorney.”