Knowing I can go no further because of the drop off to the creek, I stop just a few hundred feet away from the back of the dungeon I built. Sprinting the length of a half of a football field, I crawl up the hill and shimmy on my belly to the perfect view of the driveway. I hear no sounds of destruction, but voices—at least three or four—in the garage. The door drops down easily as the men pile into the back of the van. I count them—5.
And someone knows the code.
The dumbasses have trouble turning around in the confined space as I sneak up behind the house and wait for their departure.
They’re halfway down the drive when I press the buttons for the garage. The door lifts and I yank the canvas from the 1969 red Camaro. I know better than to do what I’m about to, but there are exceptions to every rule, times when engagement must override discipline.
“Forgive me, Steph.”
The keys fall from the visor into my hands because we live in Sugargrove—where crime does not happen. She roars to life like a beast and I hightail it down the drive leaving my lights off. Waiting at the top of the hill on the road, where the land curves towards the other house, I spot their van, slinking by the front of the other property. They’re considering going in. They’re considering round two.
Because they can’t find what they’re looking for.
Tugging my phone out of my pocket, I call Jaid on speaker phone. She answers on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“… Why?”
“Don’t play fucking games with me. Where the fuck are you?”
“Houston,” she hisses. “Why?”
Serene sends a text, “Sibyl is down.” Subsequent texts follow from Georgia and Dom. Nico calls and calls again. We're connected by the grid of mass communication, but we're not connected personally at all anymore.
The earlier adrenaline high was nothing compared to this. I’m livid with Jaid; I'm terrified of their next move. She was supposed to be staying in Florida. She was supposed to be safe and far away from all of this. “Text a code red into the Sibyl system, statewide.”
“Oh my God, why…”
“We’ve got security breaches…”
“Jesus Christ,” she yells, scurrying about. “Powering everything down now!”
Waiting for these menaces to make up their minds, I pop out a quick text to Georgia. “Help. Full team. Tactical. Houston command. Now.”
“I’m getting you a team,” I relay, breathing heavy. “You are on lockdown.”
“Where are you, Sal?”
“Sugargrove.”
“Fuck,” she shouts as the van pulls away. “Why?”
Ignoring her inquiry, I follow them for about ten minutes as they turn back towards old town square and Main Street. “Why the fuck are you going back into town?”
“Because they are going to Juliet,” Jaid mutters. “I’m into the remote site. I’ve got you on track.”
I’m less than a quarter mile away when the rifles are pulled from the van windows. “Call 911.”
The unmistakable pinging sound vibrates through my very core as they blast through a row along one side of Main Street. Windows shatter to the concrete as alarms sound off and they speed towards Juliet. It is all surreal and seems to take forever.
“What are you going to do?” Jaid yells as I witness the mass annihilation of my sacred streets. “Salvatore! Answer me!”
We’re flying down the backroads as I see the red and blue lights in the distance behind me. “I’m going to fucking stop them!”
I end the call. The battle is on for supremacy, but Sugargrove is my jurisdiction. This is my outpost and no man, gang, or criminal network is causing the fall of the town Luca Raniero built around Juliet. They may as well toss me a hat and call me a cowboy cause this town is mine, y’all. I’m an honorary Texan.
And shit just got personal.
We race towards my beloved sanctuary going over ninety. They turn for the back entrance, knowing exactly what they are doing, and come to a sudden, jarring halt as the dense blockade of over a hundred motorcycles comes into view. Screeching the tires, I stop the car.
Striding towards the van, I slip into the back unannounced as Cruz steps forward with a belligerent swagger towards the windshield and they take aim. I quickly pop off the guy in the back when I hear Cruz yell, “Get down! Now!”
One in the front turns to fire and slumps dead as I take out the one in the passenger seat. Leaping out of the back of the van, I run towards the car. “Where are you going?”
“There were five.”
“There were three.”
I turn to Deacon as those blue eyes punctuate with complete servitude. “There were five. I’ve been following them since they were at the farmhouse, which means two are still there.”
He slides around the front of the car as I do a one-eighty and floor it. “Call Joe Kaiser on my phone. I need through Main Street. And then text Jaid. Tell her to stay down.”
Deacon is on the phone, but I’m off in my head, focusing on beating the clock. “Do you need an escort?”
“Not unless she’s got a nice rack.”
I hear him cackle. “No escort, please. Thank you, Sir.”
I down shift her to slow down through the chaos of police cars, fires trucks, and ambulances. We’re waved through the first responders by Cody Cameron as I note the two gunshot injuries sitting on gurneys.
It is a Sunday night at nine-forty-five in the Middle-of-Nowhere.
I’m fucking pissed.
“This never should have happened,” I mention, burning the rubber on the turn onto High Drupe Road. “Not here. Not now. Not ever.”
“I know, man.”
“Who called you?”
“Jaid sent me a text to rally around the entrances of Juliet. We were having Sunday dinner at the church.”
“… Church?”
“We don’t have a big enough clubhouse anymore.”
“We’re going to need to fix that,” I say, speeding up the drive to the house. “Stay back.”
We’re almost to the house when I see the shadows disappearing into the woods. I dash like a rocket towards them. Deacon is hot on my tail—all those winter runs I made him do are proving worth it.
We’re deep in the brush, about a mile in, when we go sliding towards the creek. I’m following the two, and they seem to assess on the fly. The broken logs and burly limbs don't slow them down. The water washed rocks of the creek are slick, but if careful, it’s a far more direct path. I hear Deacon grunt from slipping behind me, but I don’t look back, as I see the men climbing up the hill to the road.
A four-door sedan stops on the bridge, and he drives off with the perpetrators in an instant.
Gone.
“Fuck!” I heave and spit as my body barrels over from mental exhaustion. Your adrenaline drip is now complete. Like a shut off valve, everything hits me all at once—not just the attack tonight—but Iris. It isn’t the track which has escaped me but the choices I have made. The paths I chose were not from the track I laid. Like Iris…I am…
Gone.
Vanished.
Disappeared.
Lost.
My gut churns in turmoil as my intuition knows the connection. The heavy, rusty choker snaps shut around my neck, enslaving my past, present, and future with one hard press. All that I am and all that I have ever been reside in the belly of the beast, in the dankest of dungeons with the deliberate denunciations to cause doubt.
There is no more room for doubt.
I cross it out and forget about it.
Doubt is dead to me.
And now, I know, there were at least six. Without concern, I ask, “What time was dinner?”
“Did you want an invitation?”
“What time did Jaid text?”
Pulling his phone out, he answers the only question I need to know. “7:01.”
Maybe saying the I to Emily was the biggest fucking mistake of my life. These sisters are blood—Jaid and Emily�
��and they clearly talked.
I need some of my own.
So much for not being seen.
23
Nicotine Burns
A week later, I’m sitting in my man cave in Boston. It’s not a true man cave, but a den for my demons with a flat screen, surround sound, and lazy furniture begging to be sat on. I’ve got the ballgame on, but it isn’t my focus as I chat with Georgia.
“We’ve upgraded all of the hardware and the software. Sibyl will not be going down again unless there is a mass power outage longer than the generators capacity.”
“Buy a bigger generator,” I respond.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.” I rub the week-old scruff on my face. “You know I’m not mad at you.”
“You should be,” she says. “It was my fault. I was too busy focusing on these border cases. Sal, I know they are connected.”
“Do you have all the individual files?”
“Yes,” she says, flustered. “And I sent them to you a week ago.”
“I know, I know…things have been…crazy.”
“How are the gunshot victims in Sugargrove?”
Leaning back the recliner, I stare at the ceiling. “The lady that owns the gift store was hit in the arm. And a man walking his dog was grazed by a bullet. There were no fatalities.”
“And how many units do you have on the ground?”
“I have over a hundred Reckless Rebellion members in casual clothes, patrolling Juliet nonstop. And five field agents on site as well. We brought in two trailers with six ex-military guys each for the properties.”
“God, it has to look like a damn war zone.”
“It did when I left.”
She pauses with concern. “Are you fixing the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you spoken with Emily?”
“Nope,” I say, knowing she has been staying in a hotel suite downtown. “We got into it and she left.”
“You sound angry,” she mentions, taking a slurp of her drink. “Do you think she was wrong?”
“I don’t know if she was right or wrong, and that isn’t the point. The point is I called her with intel, and she passed it on to her sister.”
“And thank God she did, Sal.”
“I don’t know if I feel that way,” I mutter as my agitation grows. “I’m not there yet.”
The turning of her pages draws my attention. “Are your parents mad?”
“Mama says young people fight and make up and grow. She says we’ll be back together in no time. The problem is I don’t know if I want to grow with Em. I can tell you anything, G. My deepest, darkest, most heinous secret—and you would never rat me out.”
“You’re sounding an awful lot like a mobster.”
Running my finger through my hair, I snicker, “Ya, well…it was only a matter of time.”
“Just don’t put a hit on her.”
“I would never.” From my spot in the man cave, I notice the bright lights pulling up in the night. “My sister is here with dinner.”
“Okay, be safe over there in B-town.”
I laugh. “I’ll try.”
I close my laptop and cross my feet like a royal prince waiting to be served as Cat walks in. “Jesus! What are we having?”
“Italian from the new place downtown! I even brought you Alfredo for later.” Her brows lift high as she sparks a grand smile. Her eyes scan over the empty pizza boxes, half-full Chinese containers, and numerous bottles—whiskey and beer—in the room. “You’re misfiring again.”
“My home got shot up.”
“I know,” she says, licking her lips and pulling the coffee table closer. She sits on the edge and hands me a foil wrapped calzone. “Sausage and peppers, no onions.”
“What did you get?”
“Four cheese, black olive, and pepperoncini,” she says as I hand her back mine and steal hers. “You are such a shit.”
“Ya, but you love me.” I unwrap the mammoth calzone to determine if I can eat or not. My nerves are shot and my nutrition levels are near record lows. “There is only one sausage that ever touches these lips.”
“Oh, dear lord!”
I grimace. “I cannot stand finocchio in sausage!”
“You almost sound like an Italian with a very unItalian habit.”
“Shut it.” I snort as she giggles.
“We’re cleaning your house after we eat,” she declares with a friendly scowl. I’d call it maternal—and it easily could be—if my sister would ever settle down to one rod. But that is the pot calling the kettle black…black. Winks.
“I’m not doing the laundry.” I’ve had a distinct aversion to laundry since my time in the slammer. I can do it and it smells wonderfully clean. But I loathe folding.
“That’s fine,” she says, pulling off a bite of her calzone. “You can do the bathrooms. And trash. And dishes.”
“I need fresh sheets.”
Her eyes squint with an evil eye slit to slice a man in two. “Because you fail to make your bed.”
“No, because I came all over them three nights ago when I dreamed of Iris and haven’t been back up there since.”
Her eeeew—expression is priceless as I chuckle under my breath. She swats at me. “That!” She lifts a single finger in the air. “That is not funny!”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s funny or not, it’s true.”
She shifts and crosses her legs as she leans closer. “Any word?”
“I have no news.”
“That’s good news!”
“No, that is she is still missing…and old news.”
She peers down over her nose. “You know if I could do anything, I would.”
“Unless you have a magic genie I can rub and bring her back, there is no point,” I mutter with despair, opening up the calzone and eating just the olives and pepperoncini. “She is everything.”
“You sound like you’re considering not even going through with the wedding.”
Shaking my head, I snort. “We’re in an epic fight. My fiancée is staying in a hotel. I’m here. I’m not hearing wedding bells anytime soon.”
“Can we at least have the Italian cream cake in this box?”
I sit up and peer into the box. “You bought an entire Italian cream cake?”
“I know my little brother.” She winks.
I’ve grown so close to Catarina I cannot imagine not having her in my life. There was a time—I honestly didn’t care one way or another—but she is my island in the midst of the storm, especially since Maria is off with Chris doing happily married couple things or fucking like rabbits.
“I want to fuck like rabbits!”
Her eyes open wide. “That is never something you should never tell your sister.”
“Not you!”
She sticks out her tongue and laughs. “Who is Miss Rabbit?”
“Iris.”
“Always?”
“Always,” I say with every ounce of conviction. “Forever.”
“I hate how much you are in love with her because it pains my heart to see you in such strife,” she admits as her eyes fill with tears. “I want that kind of real love, where the guy cannot get enough of me. My good. My bad. The fights. The fucking. All of it.”
“Are you still talking to Deacon?”
“Some,” she says, blushing. “I think we’re on different paths right now, but heavens…that boy is incredible.”
“Those eyes.”
She nods. “Those eyes.” She giddily smiles. “I would do anything for those eyes, and I think that scared me.”
“Wait…” I lift a finger and finish chewing. “You backed away from Cruz?”
“Yeah.”
I want to fucking slap my sister with a dead fish. “Are you fucking insane?”
Her tears finally fall. “He’s so good and I’m… I’m Catarina Raniero.”
“Fuck that!” I shout, balling up the foil and tossing it in my pile of trash. S
he rolls her weeping eyes. “You don’t get to play sob story, Cat! I did that for four years! Four years, I wasted. I could’ve already been married and have little RanKets running around. And now, that may never happen.”
“Little RanKets.” With the somber dose of reality, she whispers, “Let’s clean. Get drunk. And eat cake.”
“You wanna get high?”
“Maybe,” she says, moping. “Depends how bad your sheets smell.”
With the cake in the fridge, we crank up the sound system and start cleaning my house. It’s not terrible. Most of the mess is contained in four rooms—my bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and man cave.
I’m cleaning the bathroom while she changes my sheets and gathers my clothes off the floor. Appearing in the doorway, she asks, “How many pairs of gray sweatpants can one man have?”
I grin like the devil.
“Don’t say it!” Her hands move with an explosion in the air above her head. “I don’t want to know this about my brother! Ho. Ho. Hum!” She pushes her fingers in her ears and closes her eyes as I stalk closer.
I’m inches from her nose when she peeks and jumps back. “Do you have any idea how good Deacon Cruz looks in my gray sweatpants?”
“I fucking hate you!” She tosses a tank top at me. I lunge for a pair of the unmentionable sex pants and throw them so hard they go over the rail to the first floor. “Um, Sal…”
With a straight face, she crosses her arms as my pants whirl around on the ceiling fan which hangs from the top of the second story ceiling to about twenty feet from the ground. “Oh, wow… brings a whole new level to swinging it around.”
She punches me in the bicep as I race down the staircase to the garage. I grab the tallest ladder—the sixteen-footer I bought to hang Christmas lights—that I own. I bring it inside and pop it open. Twisting my hat on backwards, I rip off my shirt and toss it to her.
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes,” I say, turning off the switch and pulling up the cuffs of the currently worn, fashionable, gray sweats. I blink up to the legs tangled around the blades.
“You’re about to scare the fuck out of me, aren’t you?”
Every Minute I Love You (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 3) Page 19
