Page 40 of A Dirty Business
He picked up on the first ring. “There’s a situation.”
I prepared myself, hardening. “What is it?”
“You know where your aunt lives?”
“My aunt? Yeah ...”
“Can you go and get her?”
“What?” I bit out, alarm filling my chest. “What’s happened?”
“A domestic situation happened. Your aunt is leaving him. Her and the kids. They’re at a local shelter, but I talked to a guy I know up there, one I trust. Your uncle has a reputation, and he’s not one to stay away from the shelter. Your aunt’s best bet is to get out of town ASAP. I volunteered to go up, but your mom overheard and started howling about it. She’s not receptive to taking care of your aunt here.”
“Shit, Leo. You’ve been there all night long?”
His voice came out gruff. “I don’t mind. Don’t have much else going on today anyways.”
Right. Because taking care of a drunk, especially the drunk of your best friend’s wife, who wasn’t quiet on the attitude side when she was liquored up, was totally something I’d be up for handling on my day off. But Leo asked.
“I know where she lives, but there’s basically no relationship with her. I’ll head up, see what I can do, though.”
“You good to drive?”
“Wired for a fight, to be honest.”
He chuckled, relaxing a little. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that.”
I laughed, starting the engine and noting I’d need another tank of gas and a couple big drinks of straight caffeine. I had a two-hour drive ahead of me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TRACE
We arrived, and the plan had been to grab the uncle and take him somewhere else for our interrogation. That was until we walked in and found the house in shambles.
The plan changed.
The place was empty. Ashton walked through the house while I surveyed the primary bedroom. The wife’s clothes were gone; an empty suitcase was thrown on the bed. There were more empty spaces in the closet. Spaces where other suitcases might’ve been but weren’t anymore.
Ashton came in. “Kids’ stuff is gone. Wife left him.”
I nodded. “We wait. He’ll be back.”
“And if she’s with him?”
I gave him a dry look. “She look like she’ll be coming back?”
“Domestic fight.” He was noting the holes in the wall, the shattered glass. “A lot of times they come back before finally leaving or getting dead.”
“We stay and wait. This is a small town. If we start looking for him, it’ll raise flags.”
Ashton gave me a nod.
Demetri, one of my guards, came in as we were in the kitchen. He gestured outside. “They got a shed in the back. We can take him in there?” He pointed at the other door. “Or the basement. There’s a room in the back that looks built for shit like this.”
Demetri and Pajn. My two guards. They’d grown up with me, guys we knew from the neighborhood, guys that got into trouble with Ashton and me when we were teenagers.
“What do you mean it looks built for this shit?”
