FAZER LOGINChapter 67 Gawin “The men who pulled the trigger are being picked up right now. Two of them. A traffic camera caught their car leaving that street and the plates came back to a rental under a fake name, but the fake name has been used before, and I have friends who remember things like that. The police will have them before sunrise. As for the photographer, Derek Pryce was handed over an hour ago with every file off his phone. Voss fired the entire contracting firm the moment I called him. He was, and I’m quoting him here, sick to his stomach.”Arnold let out a long breath and leaned back in the chair. Boston’s hand found his knee without either of them seeming to notice.“You did all that tonight,” Joss said. It wasn’t quite a question.“I did all that in the last three hours, actually. It turns out when someone threatens my family I can move a lot faster than when I’m threatening it myself.” His voice went rough on the last part, and there was a long silence where nobody knew what
Chapter 66 GawinThe apartment Joss’s security people found for us was on the twelfth floor of a building I’d driven past a hundred times and never once looked at twice, which I guess was the whole point. Two bedrooms, a kitchen nobody had ever cooked in, and a couch so stiff it felt like sitting on a closed suitcase. One of the guards checked every room before he let us in, then stood outside the door like a statue, and I remember thinking that a month ago my biggest problem was understeer in turn six.Joss didn’t sit down once. He paced from the window to the kitchen and back again with his phone in his hand, checking it every ten seconds like it might have changed its mind about ringing.“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” I said.“Then they can bill me for it.”“Joss, sit down before you make me throw up just from watching you.”That actually stopped him. He looked at me, then at my hand resting on my stomach, and he came over and sat next to me on the suitcase couch like
Chapter 65 JossWe were barely inside the house when my phone started buzzing in my pocket, over and over, the kind of buzzing that meant somebody wasn’t going to stop calling until I picked up, and when I finally pulled it out and saw Arnold’s name flashing across the screen my stomach dropped before he’d even said a single word.“I need you to sit down,” he said the second I answered, no hello, no warm up, just straight into it, and something about the flatness in his voice made the hair on my arms stand up.“I’m not sitting down, Arnold, tell me what’s wrong.”“Joss.”“Tell me.”He took a breath I could hear all the way through the phone, shaky, like he was trying to steady himself before he said the next part, and I felt Gawin’s hand find my arm again, gripping tight, because he could see my face changing even though he couldn’t hear anything on the other end yet.“There’s a body,” Arnold said. “Found about an hour ago, two streets over from Gawin’s mom’s place. One of my contact
Chapter 64 Gawin Sunday came faster than any of us were ready for, and I spent most of Saturday night convinced my mother was going to poison Joss’s food out of pure spite, which honestly wouldn’t have surprised me given the mood she’d been in all week. Joss showed up at six on the dot wearing an actual tie like he’d promised, hair combed in a way that made him look like he was heading to a job interview instead of dinner with a woman who’d already threatened to end him.“You look ridiculous,” I said, opening the door before he could knock.“I look respectful.”“You look like you’re about to ask my mother for a business loan.”He laughed, but I could tell he was nervous underneath it, shifting his weight on the front step like he wasn’t sure he was actually allowed inside yet. My mother appeared behind me a second later, arms crossed, studying him head to toe with the same expression she used to give race officials who tried to argue with her about penalty calls.“You’re on time,” s
Chapter 63GawinNobody said anything for a while after Joss’s father walked out of the study, which left the three of us standing there in that huge cold room not sure what to do with the silence he left behind. Boston stuck his head in from the hallway eventually, took one look at my face, and must have decided I hadn’t been murdered or dragged off anywhere, because he came all the way in with Arnold right behind him.“Well,” Boston said. “Did we just watch a hostile takeover or a family reunion, because I genuinely cannot tell from your faces.”“Neither,” I said. “I think we watched a very rich man realize he might have to actually try being a decent person for once.”“That’s new for him,” Arnold said.“Don’t,” Joss said, but there wasn’t any real heat in it, just exhaustion, and he sat down hard in the chair his father had vacated like his legs had finally given out on him. “I can’t tell if that went well or if I just bought us a week before he changes his mind again.”I reached o
Chapter 62 GawinI sat down because Joss’s father told me to, and some old instinct in me still said don’t argue with rich men in their own houses, but the second I was in that chair I regretted it, because now I was lower than everyone else in the room and it felt exactly as small as I’m sure he wanted me to feel.Joss didn’t sit. He stood right behind my chair, one hand resting on the back of it, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him, and I understood without him saying a single word that he wasn’t planning on letting anyone forget he was standing there too.“Let’s be efficient about this,” Mr. Voss said, folding his hands on the desk like he was about to close a business deal instead of talk about a baby. “I understand there are feelings involved. I’m not unsympathetic to that. But feelings don’t change the practical reality of the situation, and I think it’s better for everyone if we deal with the practical reality first.”“What reality,” I said, and my voice c







