to stay calm. Freaking out right now won’t help matters. A litany of must-dos sounds off in my mind. Secure the trailer. Get Madelyn out of here and to somewhere safe—Jesus, is there somewhere safe? Haul ass back to the Palace, to Jaxson, to our hit in play.
“Listen and listen closely. Our orders are to terminate Novák. I need you to wait a half hour, keep Novák at Franco’s, then tell him Veronica is at the Palace.”
“Hayden authorized a hit? Who is making it?” Francis demands.
“Jaxson . . . and me.”
“I’m your partner. After everything I’ve done for you, covering for your absence with Hayden, and you exclude me from this?”
“I’m including you right now, Francis.” I kick at the dirt, immediately regretting bringing him into this. “How many Pricks are with Novák?”
Francis pauses and for several seconds, there’s silence. “One. It’s just him and his bodyguard.”
A cold wind kicks up. And I swear all I can smell is polyester and blood. Mobster blood. Blood not from my own hands . . . Who clued them in? Who knows about my situation, my sister . . .Hayden…
Francis.
My head is spinning, with no time to think. “Just his bodyguard?” I demand. God, there’s no reason Francis would send Franco’s men after me. If he wanted me off this job, he wouldn’t have covered for me with Hayden at Mama’s funeral.
“That’s what I said.”
I sigh with relief. “In thirty minutes, you’ll tell Novák?” I repeat.
“Yes.”
“Francis. Sorry I didn’t bring you into this. We’re still a team, right?”
“You bet.”
He disconnects first and I quickly text Jaxson:
Two men—Novák and his bodyguard prick.
They’ll be leaving Franco’s in thirty.
Be there ASAP.
There’s no sign of anyone else lurking about. No additional bodies, either.
Get Madelyn out of here.
I reenter the trailer to find her sitting on the couch in the living room. “Hurry up and grab you bags. We’ve got to go.” I rush down the narrow hallway and into my bedroom. Then grab and stuff whatever I can into a small duffel bag. “Five minutes is all I can afford,” I shout, hoping she catches on to the urgency in my tone.
“What’s going on, Kylie?” she replies from the doorway.
“No time,” I say, scooping up the few stray pictures on the bureau and shoving them inside my bag.
“Will you stop for one second? I have to share something with you. Late yesterday afternoon, I heard a strange noise, like kids shooting off fireworks. Pop. Pop. Pop. Almost like a gun was being fired. I thought about calling the cops, then calling you. I peeked outside the living room window but didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious. I waited for the slightest sound…which never came. Things grew quiet then I went back to sleep.”
My throat hitches yet I manage to get out, “It was probably the storm.”
She sighs. “No. This happened before the storm. I’m only bringing it up because of what happened next.”
I freeze, then swing my full attention her way. “Next…”
“Don’t go ballistic. I invited a stranger in.”
“Inside the trailer?” I hiss.
“Is there another inside?” She rolls her eyes. “He was sitting on our cement block. Like he was waiting for something. I asked him if was here for you.”
“What did he say?” I ask in a tight voice.
“No.”
What the hell? “Quickly, Madelyn. Then what happened?”
“The storm rolled in. I . . . checked on him. He was still out there, dismissing the storm entirely. I don’t know why but it felt like he was guarding the place. He…um…had a knife.”
“How . . .” I pause to draw air into my lungs. “. . . big was the knife?”
“Let’s put it this way, it was no Swiss Army knife.”
Oh my God. No. NO.
“What did he look like?”
“Handsome.”
“What?”
Madelyn flashes me a smile. “Big. With a broad, well-muscled chest . . .”
My eyes widen to the point they hurt. “His chest?”
“I invited him in from the rain. It was coming down in buckets, what else could I do?”
She touches her fingers to her lip, and the cool, calm, collected person I’ve been trying so bleeding hard to become goes berserk.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind? Inviting a stranger inside? With all the riffraff floating around Shelby? You should know better, Madelyn.” First Franco’s men, now him. “What color hair did he have?”
Please say black. Or brown. That right now, Franco is all I have to worry about.
And Jaxson. Crap. Oh crap.
“Blond. He was a bit stiff…aloof is a better word. And kind of fierce.”
“What did he say?”
“Not