Page 71 of Swerve (Boosted Hearts 1)

Suddenly, I knew exactly why Hunter might not want the police involved. Shit. I glanced at Harry, still standing beside me. This could get messy. “Harry’s still with me.”

Hunter cursed again. “Get rid of him. I’ll be there in a few. Maybe you should head home as well.”

“It’s fine. The place is clear,” I said.

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

He was worried Neco was somehow involved in this . . . “I’ll wait . . .”

He was quiet a beat. “Be there in a few.” Then he disconnected.

Thankfully, Harry left without me having to come up with some elaborate lie. He had an idea how the guys at the King Agency worked, and he was more than happy to be on a need-to-know basis when it came to this particular incident. As he walked off, I’d heard him mutter something about dead bodies and being too old for this shit, then he disappeared around the corner.

And I hunkered down to wait.

* * *

Neco

I killed the engine of my SUV, parking behind the agency van that Hunter was obviously driving. That instantly set off alarm bells. The van was only used for our more delicate jobs.

I shoved my door open and, keeping to the shadows, rounded the small, run-down house. Hunter had called me a short time ago, pulling me in from the surveillance job I was working, and told me to get the hell over here. I didn’t know what this was about, but I was okay with the extra hours. After my blow up with Ruby, I wasn’t in a hurry to go home. I didn’t want to fight anymore, but I couldn’t tell her the truth, and I knew she wouldn’t drop it. The woman knew me too damn well, which meant she knew something was bothering me. She wouldn’t be okay with me going to Tomas for help, what that would mean for me.

But I was out of options. Ruby was all that mattered. I didn’t give a fuck what happened to me, not when she could still be a target.

When she’d shown me her ink yesterday, fuck . . .

I’d seen her beautiful tattoos before, a lot over the years, the ones that weren’t concealed by her clothes, anyway, and yeah, I thought they were hot, but hadn’t given them too much thought. But now, now she’d explained what they meant to her?

My body . . . it’s covered in the story of us.

Shit, the woman had blown me away, had literally brought me to my knees. After that, I thought everything would finally be all right between us. That she was mine and all I had to do was keep her safe—eliminate her immediate threat. Scott.

But nothing was ever that easy, not for us.

I rounded the house and Hunter stepped out of the shadows.

“What’s going on?”

He tilted his head to the back door, eyes on me, watching me closely. “Don’t touch anything.”

I frowned. Okay, that didn’t sound good. I followed Hunter down a small, dank hallway. It smelled like mold and garbage and shit . . .

Hunter walked into one of the rooms, stopping just inside the doorway.

And death.

Not decay, but the tinny scent of fresh, drying blood.

“Who?” I asked, moving closer to the body on the floor.

Hunter continued to study at me, head tilted to the side. “Scott.”

I strode closer to get a better look. He was on his back, legs at odd angles, face unmarked, making it easy to ID him. His hair was matted with blood, a dark pool of it soaking into the carpet. A shot to the back of the head, by the looks. I couldn’t see any other bullet or knife wounds on his body, though it was hard to get a good look without checking him over properly.

I turned back to Hunter. “You think I did this?” No other reason he hadn’t called the cops, that we were having this private meeting over Scott’s corpse.

Hunter shrugged. “Did you?”