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“Well, you. I wasn’t on the menu since no one knew I was coming.”

“Are you kidding? What the hell is going on?”

“Someone is really sloppy, because this plan is bad.”

“What…? This doesn’t make any sense,” I said, leaning over, reaching for the holster, feeling around until I found it, pulling it out and showing it to him.

“Unscrew the silencer, holster the gun, and then pass me the silencer and then the gun.”

It was hot. I turned to him. “You fired the gun?”

“Of course. You don’t let people live who are trying to kill you. That’s, like, the number one rule of survival.”

“But we could have turned them over to the police. Maybe they could have led us to Landry.” My voice quavered.

“They had no idea where Landry is; all they were supposed to do was keep you from making it to the house. Period.”

I took a breath. “They weren’t very good.”

“No,” he agreed. “Which tells me a lot.”

“It does?”

He nodded. “This, combined with your earlier point that none of this makes any fuckin’ sense, because why?”

“I dunno, why?”

“Landry’s been gone—what’d you tell me when we were talking about this a while back— like, nine years?”

“Eight years.”

“Okay, so eight years he’s been out of the picture, and the second he’s back he’s a ransom target? Yeah? Does that make any sense?”

No. None at all.

“Think, Trevan. What could it be?”

“I don’t wanna learn anything here, Connie; just fuckin’ tell me what you think.”

“Well, logically, it can only be family bullshit or friend bullshit. Whoever took Landry knows him or knows of him. There’s no way someone waited all this time. This has crime of opportunity written all over it.”

“How do you know?”

“Like I said, nothing else makes sense, and those idiots back there, they were guys that somebody knows and asked for a favor or threw money at.”

“And you killed them.”

“Yes, I did, because a, that’s what I do, and b, they were trying to kill you. You stay safe because people know if they come for you, they die. If people ever find out that someone tried to kill you and lived through it—that’s my reputation.”

“You would kill people for your reputation.”

“It’s my name, Trevan. You don’t know. My name is all I have.”

“No one would have known if you let them go.”

“I would have known, and believe me, those assholes would have talked. People know that I’m your shadow; all they have to say is, ‘We tried to kill Trevan Bean and lived.’” He shook his head. “There’s no way.”

“Jesus.”