Page 110 of Stolen Hearts

“Someone tried to killmy wife!”

The words roar out of me with a fury so venomous that it actually shocks me.

“Hang on, man! Castle—!”

“Here’s the fucking thing, dickhead,” I snarl, my eyes drawing to slits. “I’m done playing fucking games with you. So how about instead I just drop you and we’ll see what sort of secrets spill out all over the street down there?”

My grip on him loosens almost imperceptibly. Ken instantly screams bloody murder and scrabbles to grab my forearm tightly.

“It wasn’t me!!”

“Thenwho was it?” I hiss.

“I don’t know, man!” he sobs, choking as his legs kick and scramble for footing he won’t find. “But if there was a hit out on your woman, it wasn’t through me, okay?! I swear to Christ—”

“Swear tome,” I spit venomously.

“I am! I fucking swear to you, man! If there was an official hit out on you or Calliope Drakos, Iswear...In this city? I’d fuckingknow about it!”

My hand twists the collar of his shirt tightly as he quails under my glare.

“And there’s not! Not on either of you, not on anyone from either of your families!”

Ken has a reputation for being an vault of secrecy more impenetrable than Fort Knox. Part of me considers he might be bullshitting me about this. But then I truly drink in the sight of this man fearing for his life as he hangs over the edge of the building, sobbing and literally pissing himself.

Yeah, no. He might be good at keeping secrets. But Ken isn’t this good of an actor.No oneis that good of an actor when they’re being dangled fourteen stories above Broadway and West 79th.

He almost weeps in relief when I yank him back over to safety and slam him down into one of his fucking patio chairs.

“What about closed contracts?”

He shudders. “You meanwerethere any hits out on you and yours, but not anymore?” He quickly shakes his head. “No. No, I swear.”

“And you really know every single hit that goes down in this city.”

Ken nods vigorously. His eyes dart longingly to the table next to him, to the pack of cigarettes and a lighter sitting there. I nod, and he reaches for them with shaky hands, only managing to light the tip of his smoke on the third try.

“Honestly, Castle. If it’s going down in New York, it’s going down through me.”

“Then explain this.”

He flinches when I shove the phone into his face. On it, the surveillance videos that Ares showed me play. Ken’s brows furrow.

“Wait—what am I looking at?”

“The man who put two mags of fifty-cal BMG ammo through my fucking house from a neighboring rooftop.”

Ken shakes his head slowly. It’s still clear he’s not acting. He watches the video once, then again.

“Wait. Pause it?”

I tap the screen, watching his brows knit as he peers more closely.

“Huh.”

I glare at him. “What the fuck ishuhsupposed to mean?”

Ken shudders and points at the phone with a trembling finger. “That’s fucking El Cirujano, man.”

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