Tears. So many tears. Cries from more than one throat battered his ears until a whisper silenced them all.
“I’m sorry.”
Kai’s tearstained face staring up at him wasn’t the surprise it should have been.
He dropped to his knees and pulled the freezing cold little body into him. A quick inhale and a sob worked its way free before any words “It was…” He couldn’t say it, and Eli understood.
“Caffrey?”
A shudder ripped through Kai. “Yes, but—”
“You found me,” Eli acknowledged. He knew without a shadow of a doubt Kai’s ability had brought him here. Someone wanted him found. Eli froze at the click of the gun and turned to see the next face that didn’t surprise him as much as it should have. Ramsay.
“You have been a pain in my ass for sixteen fucking years.”
Eli wanted to laugh, but Kai needed him to stay focused. He could stop the bullet. An agonized memory of a bullet he hadn’t been able to stop ripped through him.
And not because he hadn’t wanted to, but because he had chosen not to.
“As soon as I heard what went down at the club I knew I had to shut you up for good.” He laughed. “It took you a while to get here.” He actually laughed, and fire burned in Eli’s limbs. He wouldn’t get a chance to shoot anything.
“So this is a business for you?”
Ramsay licked his lips. “You seriously don’t think I’m as perverted as Caffrey?” His eyes narrowed. “I just have to keep him in toys.”
Eli felt sick.
“Big business. Kids. Boys. Girls. You have no idea. I started out getting slipped five hundred dollars to feed Caffrey’s habit, but the real money’s overseas.”
Eli was almost detached as he listened. Heard his life described in dollars and cents. Like something you would buy at a market.
“This place was perfect for a while. The port was a good cover, big enough, and so much potential until you fucked everything up.”
Eli didn’t think he’d ever hated someone so much in all his life.
“I hated you for ruining everything at first, but then I realized how much I had to thank you.” He titled his head. “Do you have any idea how much people will pay to get their own trained versions of freaks? It would never have occurred to me without your help.” Ramsay’s eyes gleamed, and Eli could quite happily have thrown up. It was money. It was all down to money. He should have known Caffrey’s life was a façade. He didn’t have the discipline or the brains. Ramsay had both, he just didn’t have the money.
“And was Agent Lin working for you?”
Ramsay scoffed. “We tried, but the fucker was more interested in glory.”
Eli processed that. The complete and utter fool. Glad that he wasn’t bent but saddened that his desperate need for prestige had gotten his partner killed.
A hollow feeling spread through his gut. He was no better, whatever the reason.
“And then when I found out what Caffrey’s latest toy could really do…”
It was how they had found them at the storage facility. And how Lin and Wright had been found at the store. But saying it out loud would just hurt a little boy that didn’t understand how the way he had been born had been turned into unspeakable evil.
“I knew Caffrey’s bitch was getting suspicious. Didn’t like us taking the kid to the club; he was squeamish. Didn’t like it when Caffrey got handsy, and we couldn’t trust the threat of him being sent back into foster care to work for much longer. Too happy with mommy dearest.”
Kai trembled and hid his face in Eli’s shirt.
Caffrey was a sick monster. Ramsay was just plain evil. Ramsay raised his gun. “And if I see so much as a spark come from your fingertips—”
Ramsay didn’t finish his sentence. With one hand, he pressed Kai into him so he couldn’t see, and with the other fried Ramsay so fast he didn’t have chance to even scream.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“He’s refusing surgery until you get there.”
Eli stared at Talon, who’d just stalked in. The cops were swarming over the space, and forensics had just kicked them all out, but he knew what they would find. At least two bodies, maybe more. Eli had set off the alarm when he’d disabled the fence, so the port authority police had been the first on the scene. Kai had just left in the ambulance crying for his mom.
“What do you mean?” Eli repeated slowly, hardly daring to hope. Surgery? Surgery meant he was alive.
“I mean he’s been prepped. The bullet was a through and through, and they’ve stopped the bleeding, but they need him in surgery and he’s threatening them with a lawsuit if they sedate him before you get there. Connie’s ready to call the National Guard, and Jacob’s sitting outside in a patrol car to get you there.”
“But—” It was his fault. He’d as good as fired the shot himself.
Talon gripped him by the arms and shook him. “I swear to God, Eli, you’re being handed everything you need on a fucking plate. Don’t screw this up or I will bury you.”
Was he? Was he really? Or did Daniel still think he could give him more, because there was only one thing worse than seeing the anger on Talon’s face and that would be seeing the disappointment on Daniel’s.
Eli turned and ran. He raced up the corridor and fled the house. He stopped for one second and made Jacob jump and curse when he appeared. On any other day it would have been funny. He slid into the seat and just had a second to close the door before Jacob switched on the lights and siren and gunned it. He didn’t know what—if anything—to say. Jacob was his brother.
“You didn’t fire the fucking gun,” Jacob ground out as if he knew what Eli was thinking. But he could have stopped it, and he chose not to. Eli closed his eyes and didn’t reply. When Jacob screeched up to the Emergency room doors fifty minutes later, Eli was out before the tires had stopped spinning.
He walked the last fifty feet into the waiting room to be swamped by the Connelly clan.
“Eli!” Vance practically dived on him and dragged him through a set of double doors into the ER. And he was in a cubicle behind a curtain before he knew what was happening. Connie got to her feet. She held her hand out wordlessly for Eli at the same time as Daniel turned his head.
“What the hell are you fucking doing?” Eli choked out. Daniel looked as white as the pillow he was lying on, but he raised a shaky hand which Eli clasped.
“It was Ramsay,” Eli said and gripped his hand because he knew Daniel would want to know.
Daniel didn’t respond, but he gripped Eli’s hand with an intensity that surprised him. He could hear his own heartbeat in his own ears. It was loud and all echoey. Daniel glanced at his mom, and Connie slipped out of the curtain. “You have to let the docs see to you or Connie will kick my ass.”
“Only if you promise to be here when I wake up.”
Eli’s breath caught. They were dead. He was done. For so long he’d never envisioned a future and was unsure what to do with one. He’d never thought he deserved one. “I promise to be here when you wake up.”