Page 20 of The King's Pawn

“Forget Noah. It’s done. I need you on the docks, and I need it to happen now.”

I dropped the boss off at his brownstone and crossed town to Simon’s apartment building. I parked on the curb outside, hurried up to his floor, and knocked. “Hey, man, it’s Killian, open up.” Simon and I often crossed paths. He’d been around a lot longer than me but kept his head down, did as he was told, and didn’t make waves.

No sound came from behind the door. I knocked again before calling his phone. “Probably should have called first.” With my head full of Noah, my game was off.

The phone rang, but Simon didn’t answer.

There were a hundred places he could be. But as I was supposed to take on the Southie docks fuckup, I had to find him sooner rather than later anyway. Whether he’d tell me anything about Noah sleeping around with Southies was another unknown. But I was here, so…

I tried the door handle and gave the door a shove. The frame creaked. The locks were new, however the doorframe had probably been in since the apartment was built back in the nineties. I rolled my shoulders, gripped the handle again, and putting all my weight behind the next shove, popped the door off the frame enough for the lock to slip out of its niche.

“Si?” I called, entering the apartment. After checking each room, it was clear Simon wasn’t home. But his laptop was, humming to itself on the coffee table.

He’d have it passcode protected. I flipped the screen up, and the desktop blinked to life, showing a dozen folders open. No passcode. Idiot.

I scanned the documents: docks info, shipping manifests. He’d been working on it before he’d left.

It was all info I’d need but nothing that was going to help me save Noah, until I minimized a window and a Google map popped up, its pin in the middle of nameless greenery. Nowhere near any docks or water.

I leaned in closer and zoomed out on the map, trying to figure out the area. The zoom jerked, whizzing out too far, showing Boston, and the pin was far up the I95 in New Hampshire.

Over the cabin.

“Fuck!”

I knew where Simon was.

CHAPTER

TEN

Noah

There was no TV in the cabin, and Killian had smashed my phone. I’d have gone crazy if I’d had to stare at the walls any longer, so I’d dug up some pens and a sheet of old paper from the kitchen drawers. I preferred to work with paints, but I could make pens work in an emergency, which this was. Ineededto draw Killian, like I needed to breathe him in, to taste him, to wrap myself around him and absorb him into my veins.

The grumpy asshole had gotten into my head, and my heart. But as tonight would be our last night together, I needed something of him to take with me.

The sketches started out rough. I tried to capture his ridiculously pretty eyes, then that snarling mouth and his lopsided smile, as though his face would crack if he managed a full, genuine smile.

With my head down, pen scribbling, the hours evaporated until it was dark again outside. The whole fold-out kitchen table was covered in pieces of Killian. Now, all I had to do was put all I’d learned together in his final portrait.

I leaned back and frowned at the black window. How long did it take to ask my father a question?

He could have called him, but Killian did everything face-to-face, said it was the only way to get the truth. What if my father hadn’t liked how he’d asked, what if Killian was face down in the dirt somewhere? No, my father trusted him. He wouldn’t turn on him so fast. Even if Killian had his own motives foreverything.

I fixed a pot of coffee, gearing up to start the final drawing, and leaned against the kitchen counter.

He hadn’t said what had happened to his lover, but it seemed pretty clear his man had gotten caught up in my father’s crossfire—wrong place, wrong time. The Back Bay Mafia didn’t give a shit for collateral damage. But they’d killed the wrong bystander in Killian’s man. Because I knew that look in Killian’s eyes now. He’d kill them all. It was a shame I wouldn’t be around to see him drop my father to his knees and make him eat his gun.

The yard outside shimmered silver in the moonlight. No snowfall. Just clear skies.

Something glinted out there in the gloom between the trees, where the light didn’t reach. I leaned over the sink—the same position Killian had me in last night. Goddamn, he’d fucked me like a jackhammer. I could still feel his hands on me, the twinge of soreness behind my balls. Damn, I wanted more, wanted forever?—

A short, sharp sound split the air. I spun sideways by someone or something grabbing my shoulder. Only there wasn’t anyone in the kitchen. The coffee mug slipped from my hands and shattered. Heat, like boiling water, scorched down my left arm. I stumbled against the table, gasping. What—why was my shirt wet? I touched its dark gleam. My fingers came away glistening red.Blood.My blood.

The window—I saw it then, the hole. A shot.

I’d been shot.