Page 66 of Man of Lies

I’d asked him if he had any names, even soft leads.

“Couple,” he’d said. “But nothing I’d bet your life on.”

I cursed. If I wanted answers, I would need to get them straight from Gator’s mouth.

The address Colton gave me belonged to a shotgun house on the edge of the parish, not far from Eden itself. But it might as well have been a different world. The house came into view through sheets of water, sagging under its own weight and barely holding off the storm. Rain hammered the tin-roofed porch like a war drum, drowning out everything except the low snarl of my engine and the distant roll of thunder bleeding through the sky. The stench of mildew and something rotting hit me before I’d even cut the throttle.

I stepped down into ankle-deep mud, gravel giving way beneath my boots as I moved toward the warped screen door. This was Gator’s kingdom—half junkyard, half grave—and every inch of it reeked of bad decision.

I saw no working vehicles out front—just the overgrown yard and a rusted-out pickup missing two wheels. But Gator’s placehad a gravel loop that dipped around back, and it wouldn’t be the first time someone tucked a car behind the tree line to avoid attention.

The porch steps groaned under my weight, half-rotted and slick with algae. I tested each one like it might give way beneath me, rainwater sloshing in the treads of my boots. There were no lights inside, not even the glow of a TV or a lamp left burning to fake company. Just that relentless percussion of rain and the eerie stillness of a house that should’ve been humming with some sign of life.

Something was wrong.

I paused near the top step, the back of my neck prickling. Not from the cold—the rain was warm, practically steaming off my skin—but from how the world had gone too quiet. No radio. No voices. No movement inside. Just the creak of the porch swing drifting in the wind and a half-smoked cigarette guttering in an ashtray by the door, still curling smoke like somebody had just been there and gotten up fast. The screen door hung open an inch too wide, caught on the frame like it hadn’t been pulled shut.

None of it screamed danger on its own. But it felt wrong.

Crazily, I wished Silas were here. This was his world, not mine. My world was paperwork, courthouses, clean sheets, and early runs through magnolia-lined streets. Silas’s world was darker: roadhouse fights, backdoor deals, and rusted-out safehouses. He’d know how to read this. He wouldn’t hesitate or second-guess the silence.

Me? I didn’t even own a gun.

I pushed the door open cautiously, but the hinges groaned loud enough to act as a warning shot.

Then I saw it.

The barrel of a gun was leveled at my face.

I froze. Everything in me just…stopped. My breath. My thoughts. Even the rain seemed to hush. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think past the fact that the last thing I saw might be the black void of that muzzle…and the last words I spoke to Silas were to hurt him.

When a bullet didn’t instantly enter my brain, it managed to kick in, and my eyes finally slid past the barrel. Past the finger on the trigger, steady as stone. Up an expensively tailored sleeve. Over the sharp line of a shoulder I knew like my own. And finally, into the ice-cold stare of my brother.

Dominic didn’t flinch, and he didn’t lower the gun.

Behind him, Gator Hollis lay sprawled on the floor, one leg bent at a wrong angle, eyes wide open and glassy. Blood pooled beneath his head like it had been leaking for a while.

I didn’t know what I found more disturbing—the gun in Dominic’s hand, or the dead, emotionless expression on his face.

“Why?” It sounded like a stranger speaking. My voice echoed strangely in my head, hollow with shock. “Why’d you do it?”

Dominic didn’t answer.

The door creaked shut behind me as I stepped further into the house, leaving us in the gloom of stormy afternoon light leaking through the dirty windows. Dominic’s gun followed methe whole way, unwavering, like he hadn’t yet ruled out the possibility of needing it.

The living room air was thick with mildew and the copper tang of blood starting to settle into the floorboards.

“You could’ve turned him in,” I said. “We could’ve flipped him and gotten so many names. So much leverage. Now it’s just…gone.”

Still nothing from Dominic.

He looked down at Gator’s body, the slack jaw and blood-matted hair of a once handsome face. The faded tattoo on the side of the man’s neck had already started to wrinkle into the first signs of death. Then, without a word, he nudged the body with the toe of one gleaming leather boot. Not cruelly. Not even curiously. Just…testing.

Then he looked up again with eyes so cold I felt like I should check for frostbite.

“I didn’t do this,” he said.

That was it. No explanation. No shift in expression. Just a flat line of a voice, as calm and composed as if I’d asked him when the rain would clear.

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