Faceless (Sinister Secrets Book 2), Candle Sutton [dar e dil novel online reading txt] 📗

The doors slid open. Travertine tile stretched before him. While the lower floors only had cheap commercial grade tile, he and the other three penthouse suite owners enjoyed nothing but the best.

It was what he deserved. The best.

Including the best treatment from his kids, not that any of them seemed eager to give him that. His other two kids wanted nothing to do with him and now it appeared Kevyn, his firstborn, would follow in their steps.

A weight enveloped him.

So he’d made mistakes. What parent hadn’t? Didn’t he deserve another shot?

He unlocked his front door and stepped inside.

The haze of twilight filtered through his floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. Shadows stretched dark fingers across the room.

Something moved, seconds before a tabletop lamp clicked on.

His heart stuttered and he jumped.

The glow illuminated the angular face of his business partner.

He cursed. “Geez, Tio. You trying to give me a heart attack?”

A smile curled Horatio Vickers’ thin lips. “Looks like it almost worked.”

He never should’ve given Tio a key to this place. Asking for it back now would raise suspicion, though, something he couldn’t afford to do. “What’re you doing sitting in the dark?”

“Waiting for you.”

Not good. Did Tio know?

No, of course not. How could Tio possibly know?

Mitch dropped into the closest chair to camouflage the tremors working up his legs. “You got nothing better to do than sit around my place waiting for me?”

“Where you been, partner?” Tio’s bright blue eyes, heightened by colored contacts, gleamed in the lamplight.

Mitch fought the urge to tell Tio it was none of his business. “Why do you care?”

“Can’t friends care?” The hard set to Tio’s square jaw belied his words.

“I went for a drive. Magnolia area. Been thinking maybe it’s time to invest in some real estate and get outta the downtown.”

Tio snorted. “You? Buy a house? That’d tie you down.”

“Hey, I can commit. I bought this place, didn’t I? And I was married once.” Not that his failed marriage was going to help his case any.

Tio made a show of looking around. “Yeah. And how’d that work out for you? I don’t see a wife. Or kids.”

Kevyn’s face flashed through his mind as Tio’s comment dug the knife in a little deeper.

“Where. Were. You.” Tio repeated the words slowly, his hard eyes cutting right through Mitch.

Why did he feel like Tio already knew the answer? He was reasonably confident no one had tailed him, but could Tio have planted a tracker?

He wouldn’t put it past Tio to do something like that.

Tracker or no tracker, Tio couldn’t learn about Kevyn. She’d be used as leverage.

The best lies had a kernel of truth.

“I told you. Magnolia. Looking at a house.” Mitch sighed. Too bad he couldn’t release the tension as easily as the air in his lungs. “Truth be told, I’m trying to make amends. I ain’t getting any younger and I’d like to know my kids. Figure if I get a house, maybe it’ll show them that I’m not the man I was. Maybe they’d come visit if I had the space for them to stay.”

As he spoke, he couldn’t help noticing the tightening of Tio’s jaw, the narrowing of his eyes.

Silence descended with a palpable weight.

Tio flexed his fingers slowly. “See, there was a day I woulda believed you. But that was before you snooped into my business.”

The oxygen around him thickened. The crew neck t-shirt he wore felt like a noose tightening around his neck.

Tio knew!

Of course he knew. From the moment Mitch had stumbled across those files, he’d known it would only be a matter of time.

How to play this? Like he wanted in?

It’d never work. There was a reason Tio hadn’t involved him in the scheme and it had little to do with finances.

But it had everything to do with scruples.

Maybe he could make Tio think he was being paranoid. It wasn’t likely to work, but Tio needed him to run the business.

They both knew it.

“Snooped into your business?” Mitch arched an eyebrow and quirked a grin. “What’re you smokin’ and are you gonna share? We’re partners. Your business is my business. Why would I need to snoop?”

Tio’s bright blue eyes studied him impassively. “You sure you wanna stick with that story?”

“You’re paranoid, man.” His tone was so confident that he almost believed it himself. “You and me, we work too well together for me to mess that up. Especially after what, almost twenty years? No way.”

Silence descended, stretching from one second to two, from two to five.

Silence was one of Tio’s favorite tactics. Most people couldn’t handle the silence.

Too bad for Tio that this was a trick Mitch himself had taught him.

Mitch held Tio’s gaze, refusing to break eye contact. Let Tio be the first to look away. Let Tio show the weakness.

Finally, Tio blinked. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Maybe?” Mitch leaned back in his chair and casually draped his arms across the armrests. “No maybe about it. We’re blood. And blood doesn’t betray blood.”

When Tio left a few minutes later, Mitch couldn’t help thinking that he’d only bought time.

This would come up again and when it did, it would explode in his face.

Two

“Did you find anything?”

“No.” Kevyn measured a breath and counted to three before speaking again. “What’d Sorenson say?”

Dak had just returned from briefing the Special Agent in Charge on last night’s visit from Mitch Taylor.

Dak rounded his desk and dropped into his chair.

Silence lengthened while Dak studied her briefly. “He’s… concerned.”

Naturally. Probably wondering if her father was into something illegal.

She wished she knew the answer to that one.

“He’s going to assign someone to dig into your father. They’ll