Blood Line (A Tom Rollins Thriller Book 1) by Paul Heatley (korean ebook reader txt) 📕

Anthony. You won’t be for a while. By the time you’re ready to go after them, whoever they are, they’re gonna be ready for you. What’s to say they haven’t already gone to ground, disappeared – you tell me now, I might still have a chance to find them.”

“They won’t run away. It’s not their style. They’ll stay right where they are, too proud to go anywhere else.”

“So tell me who they are before I go and find out for myself.”

“This is my battle. I ain’t telling you again.”

“I can go to Harrow, Anthony. I can ask around. You might even have made the news. It’ll give me clues, leads. I’ll tear the town apart if I have to. It’s easier if you just tell me.”

“I’m not interested in you doing it the hard way or the easy way. I don’t want you to do it at all.” Anthony is adamant. “This is mine. Can’t you understand it? Damn it, get it through your fucking skull – I don’t want your help!” Anthony is working himself up; he’s shouting.

Tom hears Jeffrey and Sylvia in the next room, standing, coming closer to the door, listening in case they need to interject.

Tom is getting annoyed now, too. “Where is Alejandra?” he says. “I can get her. I can keep her safe from whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into. You know I can. Tell me where she is.”

All the fight goes out of Anthony. He deflates. He falls back. His eyes fill with tears.

Tom feels sick. He grits his teeth. “Where is Alejandra?” There is no response. “Where is Alejandra?” He’s shouting now, wants to grab his brother by the shoulders, to make him tell him.

Anthony looks at Tom. The tears roll down his cheeks now. When he speaks, it isn’t with aggression. He doesn’t raise his voice. If anything, he sounds surprised Tom doesn’t already know. “She’s dead.”

Tom reels. He falls back in the chair. Flashes of memory run through his head. Her face. Her laughter. When they kissed. Her smile. She’s looking at him, and she’s smiling.

His hand goes to his pocket, searches out the Santa Muerte pendant. He squeezes it so tight, it feels like it breaks the skin of his palm.

Anthony says something, but Tom doesn’t hear what it is. His mind is still racing. It is still filled with thoughts of Alejandra, with his feelings for her. His chest is tight.

But now he knows, now he is certain, he cannot allow Anthony to deal with this himself. Whatever has happened, it involves him now, and he is not willing to wait for his brother to heal.

Tom stops.

All this thinking isn’t getting him anywhere. He can mourn later. Now, he needs to be practical.

He takes a breath.

Stares at the wall, through the wall, into the distance. Focuses himself.

He looks at Anthony, studies him. Cool and detached, all business. “This is the last time I’m going to ask you,” he says. “Tell me what happened.”

“This is my fight,” Anthony says.

Tom exhales through his nose. “You said earlier you weren’t dealing, but you were lying,” Tom says, going through what he has surmised thus far. “But I don’t think you were doing so voluntarily. When you were with Alejandra, I believed that you’d left all that behind you. And once she was pregnant, I didn’t think that was a lifestyle you’d ever consider going back to. Unless you didn’t have a choice.”

He watches his brother’s face closely. Anthony tries not to give anything away, but there are uncontrollable tics and twitches under the skin that Tom watches for. “Stop trying to interrogate me, Tom,” he says. “It ain’t gonna work. I ain’t gonna tell you a thing you wanna know.”

“How did Alejandra die? In the crash?”

A tic, by the right eye. A flash of unwanted memory.

Tom considers this. “Or was it something else? Was someone else there?”

Tic.

“Who was it?”

No answer.

“Did they kill Alejandra?”

Anthony’s eyes can’t hide it this time. More unwanted memories. They blaze.

“They were there,” Tom says. “At the scene. They caused the crash, and they killed Alejandra, but they didn’t kill you. Why not?”

Tom waits, lets his words do their work. “Did they have bigger plans for you? What, torture? They wanted to make an example?”

Anthony chews his lip.

“And then, while you’re in hospital, you’re still at risk. So much so that someone has to sneak into the commune, leave a phone so they can get in touch with Dad, tell him that you need to be moved. The commune wasn’t as heavily guarded then as it is now, but it was still guarded. You know what these people are like, how seriously they take all this. Hell, we were raised by one of them. But whoever this anonymous caller was, they were able to get in and out without being seen. And the way Dad tells it, they rang that burner phone the moment he opened the box and found it.

“So that tells me whatever is going on, whoever got in touch with you has funding, technology, and the skills to get into places where others ordinarily can’t.” Tom leans forward, counts off the points on his fingers. “And it sounds like they had a vested interest in keeping you alive. Or else they felt guilty.” He watches Anthony’s face closer now, watching for any reaction, no matter how small, as he prepares to show his card. “Were you undercover?”

There is a twitch, a small one, in Anthony’s bruised cheek.

“Who were you undercover with?” Tom says. “Who for? Who was your handler?”

Anthony looks pissed. Won’t answer.

“I imagine he’s the one who left the phone, made the call. What happened, Anthony? Speak to me. How did you get yourself into that situation? What was your objective?”

“Stop,” Anthony says. He stares at him, hard. “Leave it alone. I don’t want you to do this for me. This is for me, Tom. Me. I will deal with this. When I can. I have to.”

Tom gets to his feet.

“Tom,” Anthony says.

Tom promises