Page 64 of Heart Stopping
HARLOW
"This is awkward." I stood between Boner and Archer, watching Cass and Jules look down at Fairfield.
"It's dangerous," Boner said. "What guaranteed do we have we can trust this asshat?"
"I don't think he'd betray his brother," I said.
Archer pulled out his phone and took a photo of them. "Right now he's an accessory. He'd be throwing himself under the bus too." Instead of putting his phone away, started scrolling through his social media feed like we weren't standing in a bathroom with a man being slowly deconstructed by acid.
"This is the fuck who destroyed our brother," Jules said, his voice devoid of expression.
"This is him." Cass put a hand on his older brother's shoulder. "Not for much longer."
"I can't decide if this is as messed up as shit or…" Jules shook his head.
Boner smirked. "Of course it's as messed up as shit. So was he." He pointed a beringed finger at Fairfield.
"You think he would have hesitated to do the same thing to you? To Harlow? It's only luck that what happened was to your siblings and not to you."
Jules looked at me like he couldn't have cared less if it was me. That if he could swap me with his youngest brother, he'd strongly consider it.
Honestly, I'd do the same, but I'd never wish what happened to Lettie on anyone else except the people who did it to her. They deserved to be covered in honey and tied out in the hot sun, beside an ant hill so the ants could slowly peel off their skin, then feast on their internal organs.
"This is still fucked up," he muttered.
"How did you know he was missing?" I asked.
His lips thinned, jaw squared. For a moment I thought he wasn't going to answer.
Only when Cass turned to him questioningly, he said, "I went over there to take care of him myself. Saw the gun on the floor. The doors were unlocked. Figured you got to him before I did.”
"You figured right." Boner looked suitably smug.
Jules smirked at him. "You forgot something." He pulled a phone out of the back pocket of his faded black jeans.
"I've got mine," Boner said, tapping his own pocket.
"It's not yours, dickhead." Jules rolled his eyes. "This belongs to him." He pointed the phone toward Fairfield. "It was lying on the floor near the back door."
I winced. "We must have missed it." No doubt it fell out when the men were carrying him out of the brownstone. I wondered why he didn't have one on him, but not everyone was attached to their phones twenty-four seven. He could just as easily have put it aside somewhere and we didn't see where. We'd been too busy trying to leave before the cops came, to look for it.
If Jules was able to walk through the place, I guess Fairfield hadn't called them after all. That figured. We could have taken our time.
"No shit," Jules said with a derisive snort. "This could have all sorts of incriminating information on it."
Judging by the way Fairfield stared at him, his eyes wider than ever, he wasn't wrong. He couldn't be worried about what they'd do to him for letting us get our hands on their information, could they? What could they do to him that we weren't already doing? The fact he was so scared spoke volumes about how powerful these men were. How dangerous.
My heart skipped. That phone might contain the details of the last three men I was hunting. One quick look and I could know their names. That was all I needed to track them down and end them.
"Have you looked at it?" Cass asked, eyeing the device like it was a gold nugget.
"It's locked," Jules said. He hesitated for a moment before handing it to his brother.
Cass tapped at the screen, swallowed hard and glanced up at me. "It needs…a thumbprint." He looked nauseous again.
To be honest, I was relieved. A thumbprint was easier than a passcode or facial recognition. Trying to figure out the passcode could take forever, and we'd have to remove the gag from Fairfield to use his face. He'd scream or cry the moment we did. Perhaps plead for his life. We couldn't risk the neighbors hearing.
Boner grinned. "That won't be a problem. We happen to have a couple of spare thumbs lying around." As if that was an everyday occurrence for regular people. Thumbs scattered throughout the house like phone chargers, or tissue boxes.
