The Suppressor Erik Carter (books suggested by bill gates TXT) 📖

freely and openly. Usually they were all laughs, smiles, playful flirtations. Tonight, though, their conversation appeared deadly serious. Burton watched the silent drama playing out before him—short, jerky movements, terse swipes of hands, punctuating their words, knitted brows. Burton had never seen them like this.

“Look at that, Glover. Trouble in paradise,” Burton said without taking his gaze away from them.

Glover scoffed as he smoothed a strand of his dark blond hair back into its combed-back position. “Hippie bitch. Hot piece of ass, don’t get me wrong, but could you imagine dealing with her? Hudson’s an idiot for getting involved with that chick.”

Burton felt a pulse in his forehead.

He turned on Glover. “That’s why Hudson’s an idiot? How about he’s an idiot because he stole from me?”

Glover’s lips parted. He cleared his throat. “What happened in New Orleans? Of course, but I mean … he can be an idiot for multiple reasons, right?”

Burton glared at him for a moment. “And don’t call Cecilia a bitch.”

He turned back to the window. Hudson and Cecilia were hugging, a long deep embrace. All was forgiven. Then they parted, still facing each other, two hands interlaced, arms stretching out, a few final words. Then the fingertips broke their bind and Hudson turned and walked out.

Burton walked off too.

“Where you going?” Glover said behind him.

“Shut up.”

Around a sofa, through the center of the great hall, past the kitchen—where Sylvester was seated at the island and looked up from his wine with a goofy, wet-lipped smile and greeted Burton with a Hey, buddy boy, which Burton ignored—and to the dim, sconce-lined hallway that led to the foyer.

As Burton turned the corner, Hudson approached from the opposite direction.

Hudson slowed, ever so slightly and only for a moment, before continuing toward Burton, a pathetic attempt at posturing. Hudson was just that sort of guy, a man who thought too much of himself, a man whose posing had landed him somewhere he never should have been.

Burton wasn’t sure how Hudson had landed among the Farones, but this car thief had arrived only months earlier and done so with quite a splash, impressing both the old man and his psychotic son. And, of course, he’d ultimately impressed the daughter as well. The irony of it—the hair-yanking, anger-pulsing frustration of it—was that Hudson somehow managed to thrive while maintaining a frame of righteousness.

Righteousness.

In a criminal organization.

Insane. Just absolutely absurd.

This was one of many reasons Burton was restructuring the Farone crime syndicate: they recruited idiots like Pete Hudson.

He stepped into the hall, and Hudson continued in his direction, only slowing when they were a few feet apart. More of that unspoken pissing match.

They looked at each other.

What a big, goofy idiot. Hudson’s gee whiz face was long with a prominent nose and bright green eyes. Olive skin, dark hair, and a defined but unassuming jawline—all of which gave him an everyman handsomeness that was surely the reason Cecilia had overlooked his dork persona.

“Taking off, Pete?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, you relax for a bit. It’s gonna be a big night for us. I mean, taking down the Rojas? Whew!” He gave a little disbelieving shake of the head, a long exasperated sigh. And a slight malicious grin at the corner of his mouth.

Hudson saw right through it, stared back into him. Stone-faced.

Burton lessened the grin, maybe fifty percent, and let dark sincerity pour from his eyes. “You don’t think I’m going to forget what you did to me in New Orleans, do you?”

Hudson didn’t reply.

“You stole from me, Pete, so I’m going to steal something from you. When I do, I want you to remember something—everyone will be involved, and we’ll take our time. Two things are going to happen. One will happen tonight; the other will happen down the line. A chance for me to reconnect with my roots, with Daddy. A real homecoming. Know what I mean?”

Hudson narrowed his eyes.

Good.

Burton had wanted his statement to be cryptic. It wasn’t supposed to make sense.

Not yet.

The only disappointment was that Hudson didn’t reply. Burton wanted a What the hell does that mean? He wanted to frustrate Hudson even more, to engorge his confusion to a mouthwatering level.

But Hudson just looked back at him for a moment longer, then stepped past, went to the door, and exited without looking back.

Burton watched him leave.

Chapter Nine

Waves crashed on the sand that, in the daylight, was touted as “the world’s whitest.” Bathed in bright moonlight, it took on a cool gray hue.

Jake was far beyond the condo towers, in an area of beach houses, moving to the far end where the properties were more spread out and the houses larger, grander. A moist breeze blew off the water. Few people were out.

As he rounded a curve, Burton’s house crept into view, an ultra-modern amalgamation of lines and right angles with an off-white facade and long stretches of glass. A grid of handrails traced the staggered balconies. There were two proper floors, and a third was built into the slope of the beach, fronted by a trio of concrete stilts and a zig-zag staircase that descended from a sprawling porch on the floor above.

All those mammoth windows were dark. Nobody home.

Still, Jake needed to approach this situation very carefully.

He stopped walking and sat in the sand, brought his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, looked out to the waves, a typical nighttime beachgoer reflectively studying the sea. He felt the coolness of the sand on his butt through his chinos. He let a few moments pass then took a pair of compact binoculars from his pocket, looked to the waves and slowly, casually turned his gaze toward the beach, swinging the binoculars slightly upward until Burton’s house appeared.

He wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for, but if C.C. was right about the vehicles she’d seen that could mean—

Jake brought the binoculars to a halt.

A busted-out glass door.

On the lowest level, beneath the overhang. A few jagged fangs of glass outlined the doorframe, but most of it lay