Page 106 of Stolen Hearts

Callie crowds in next to me to see too, which instantly wreaks havoc on my brain and its ability to think straight or function correctly. Like, the way she smells and the way her skin feels when it brushes against mine has been genetically programed to fuck withmespecifically.

I can’t help it. I steal a glance at her out of the corner of my eye. She’s looking right at me, an impish, cat-who-caught-the-canary grin on her face. Christ. I yank my gaze away to focus again on Ares’ phone.

The video looks like it was pulled from a CCTV camera somewhere in a stairwell, facing a door. In the footage, a man in black with a mask and holding a rifle case yanks open the door and comes stumbling into the stairwell. You can’t see his face, but it’s clear he’s wounded by the way he’s walking and clutching at his shoulder.

“I fuckin’knewI winged that motherfucker,” I mutter.

“Yeah, well, keep watching.”

The video changes to footage from another CCTV camera, this one showing the same man crashing out a side door into an alley before tossing his bag and the fifty-caliber into the trunk of a car, getting in, and roaring off.

“Please tell me you traced that fucking plate,” I grunt.

“Do I look like an idiot?” Ares mutters. “It’s a rental, which was returned to a location at JFK International.” He glances at me. “Rented under a fake name, of course.”

“Shit.”

“Here he is again…” Ares thumbs to a new video. “Going through security, and then boarding a flight to Houston.”

I frown. “What the fuck is in Houston?”

Ares shrugs. “I dunno. Decent BBQ? But what this tells me is that thiswasa hit.”

“So why leave town?”

I turn at the sound of Callie’s voice, our eyes locking before hers slip past me to her brother.

“Could be he got spooked by Castle shooting back,” Ares shrugs. “Or sometimes, a contract is just for anattempt.”

“There could be a million reasons,” I growl. “The problem is, we don’t know which one it is.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got us a way to find out.” Ares glances at me as he puts his phone away.

“Elaborate?”

“Ever heard of Ken Aoki? Also goes by the street name The Broker?”

I exhale slowly. “Yeah, actually.”

I have an especially deep-seated dislike for professional hitmen. I knewa lotof guys from the service who went on to work for mercenary outfits. And I hate to judge, but…well, I judge.

The way I see it, if you’re going to be a solider, you’d damn well better be fighting for more than just a paycheck. When I was a Ranger, I fought for the men next to me. I fought because if Ididn’t, they’d die. After that, I was a different kind of solider in a different kind of army. But working as muscle and a trigger man for the Kildares wasn’t about the paycheck either. It was about fighting for and protecting an adoptive family I didn’t deserve—a family I’d die for.

Mercenaries are bad enough. Hitmen take the murder-for-pay thing to another level, and I have nothing but contempt for people like that.

I have evenmorecontempt for the people who don’t even have the stones to get their hands dirty and merely facilitate the dark trade. People like Ken Aoki, aka The Broker. Ken’s sole purpose is to act as a neutral middleman connecting someone who wants someone else killed with the guy who’ll take money to make that happen.

To me, he’s a stain on humanity.

“I got you a meeting with him this afternoon.”

I raise my brow. “Oh yeah?”

He nods. “Just you by yourself. Aoki’s a pretty cautious guy.”

“I would be, too, if I was that big a piece of shit.”

Ares smirks. “Well, he might also be a lead. Look man, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job...”

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