Page 70 of Creeping Beautiful

It needs to stop.

CHAPTER TWLEVE - ADAM

NINE YEARS AGO

There is a really big part of me that wants to stay out of it. All of it. But this was my plan. I bought Indie with this endgame in mind.

And Nicholas Tate has been part of the plan since the beginning.

But Nick Tate and I don’t seem to be on the same page anymore.

The drive from Old Home to Daphne, Alabama takes about two hours and I spend every minute of that drive thinking about what I need to say and how it needs to be said.

Nick Tate’s story is as long and twisted up as that snake that wanted to squeeze Indie back on the island. The son of the Admiral, one of the Company Untouchables—maybe even the most untouchable, until he wasn’t, that is—Nick didn’t grow up like most people. Not like McKay, not like Donovan. Not even like me.

Most of his life was spent as an invisible. He was born on a superyacht. No birth certificate. No formal schooling. But trust me on this, no one underestimates his intelligence or his skills.

The last time I saw Nick we were plotting the death of our fathers.

That turned out fairly well for me.

But in order to save James Fenici during the Santa Barbara incident—another Untouchable, sociopathic Company assassin, in love with Nick’s twin sister, Harper—he ended up the prisoner of a Central American drug lord.

That’s where he’s been for the past ten years.

Or… not.

Since apparently he was here in Louisiana this morning and now we have a meeting in Daphne, Alabama.

Just as McKay was walking into the office to talk with Donovan the gate buzzed. I got in my truck, drove down there, and met a messenger who handed me a thick yellow envelope.

I tipped the girl, she left, and I found a burner phone inside when I opened it up.

One number in the contacts.

I pressed send and Nick picked up. “It’s been a long time, Adam.”

I noted three things about his voice.

One. It was deep. Ten years ago, we were still kids. Both of us just eighteen years old. We are no longer kids.

Two. He had a slight Spanish accent. And by Spanish accent I mean he sounded like a fuckin’ gangbanger.

And three… he was very calm.

Six words tell me a whole lot about what Nick Tate has been up to for the past ten years. Maybe I didn’t grow up on a superyacht, but he and I were cut from the same cloth.

“What the fuck did you do this morning?”

“I hear you bought one of them?”

“If you mean Indie, then yes. I did. And I do not fucking appreciate you showing up like this morning and scaring the fuck out of her.”

“Was she scared?”

“What do you want?”

He paused. Sighed. “There’s another plan in play. Right now, in fact. Everyone’s here.”