Page 113 of Jace 4Ever
“I need a first aid kit. A real one.” Logan was ripping Jerrod’s shirt up the side.
“In the closet, under the sink. Pull up the bottom. Full kit,” I said. “Now, keep going before I dig my fingers into that wound and make it worse.”
“My boy got a call from his contact. They said they had set up a hit and had distracted the other person so it didn’t get to be a huge incident and the target was alone. We took it. It was worth fifty large, each. I wasn’t pulling the trigger, so it didn’t matter to me. Not my business.”
“Death is not your business?” Noah snapped. “You do know there’s accessory after the fact.”
He snapped his eyes to the detective, who shrugged and nodded.
“Shit,” he hissed.
Logan walked back in with the huge Army medic kit I had stashed, and I could see he was pleased. He took up a position next to Jerrod as I kicked the couch and motioned for the assbag to keep talking.
“So, we busted in. We didn’t know the place was going to be so nice, and my boy just started busting up shit. We got into it, too, and just kinda went nuts. We didn’t know he was on the first floor, but when the door got kicked in, and I saw him there, I couldn’t...”
I didn’t know if the sob was from the realization he’d taken a contract hit on his brother, or the pain Logan was inflicting on the wound in his side. I didn’t know if I cared, and I could tell that Noah didn’t.
“I couldn’t do it. How the hell could I kill my own brother? I pulled off my mask and told him to run. I made him run. My boy took off after him, and the other guy shot me for letting him get away.”
“You made him run…” Noah said.
“I had to. They would have killed him. Nothing I could have done would have stopped that. They didn’t care, they wanted the money. I wanted the money, too. But he’s my little brother…”
“And you fucked him over enough already,” Noah said.
“Look, I ain’t here to beg for forgiveness. You never gonna give me that. I’m here to tell you what happened. Tell you to find him and get him safe.”
There was a polite knock on the wrecked door, and we all looked up. Bridget, Griffith, and Smoke all gasped as a very,verywell-dressed gentleman walked into the room, pulling off a set of leather driving gloves.
Smoke stood and stared at him. “Don Fitecchio.”
“Agent Gillam,” he said, with a tip of his head.
“What are you doing here, Fitecchio?” Griffith asked. I saw him rest his hand on his gun.
“I am here to help clear this matter up.” He picked a piece of lint off his jacket. “There seems to have been a great misunderstanding about what’s going on.”
“Misunderstanding.” I stood up from the table where I’d sat. “I was pulled to South Africa under false pretenses so that someone could complete a contract on my fiancé. Yourmisunderstandingis a massive understatement.”
He grunted. I wanted to shoot the bastard in the head.
“Mister McIntire was sent on an errand by one of my capos who fancies himself the next don.” He nodded at Jerrod as he pulled his jacket straight. “The activity the younger Mister McIntire interrupted was not an approved activity, and any action taken as a result of that goes against my wishes. So Mister Jerrod here was on a false task, really, and I am glad things went the way they did.”
“Marilyn Cartwright is still dead,” Griffith snapped.
“Yes, I realize that. I will hand over the perpetrators and disavow any knowledge of them or their activities. Will that suit you?”
“Do I have a choice?” Griffith grumbled.
“Not really, no.”
“No, I’m not happy,” I said. “I want her widower and children cared for. I’m sure you can arrange for college fees and mortgage paid off.”
Bridget’s eyes went wide, and she wanted to shake her head. I wasn’t going to back off from that, though. That woman was beheaded as a warning for something that shouldn’t have ever been an incident. “She had her head removed. The family needs to be taken care of.”
Fitecchio ran a hand over his jaw, considering what I’d said. After a moment he nodded. “This is a reasonable request, since it was my capo who fucked this up beyond belief.”
“Do you have any idea where Jace ran off to?” Noah asked.
