by Heather Long
A pair of rats met me at the corner of Pike and 60th. If we kept heading south, we’d be in 19 Diamonds territory. “What did you find?”
JD shook his head. “I checked his usual dealers, Hawk. None of them have sold to ’im. They swore they wouldn’t either. Not after the beatdown you and Kestrel delivered the last time.” He checked his phone. “We’ve covered most of our territory. I don’t think he’d try to buy here. They all know better.”
They knew better. They sold here under our protection. The two dealers who wouldn’t play ball and continued to sell to Freddie didn’t sell anything anymore to anyone. As it was, we monitored closely who was selling and who was buying. The rules hadn’t changed, nor had the penalty for breaking them.
“Get Shaun and Ripper,” I said before heading toward my car. The old muscle car looked like a beaten-up piece of shit. But I didn’t care about looking cool. All I cared about was that it was solid steel. Nothing on this car would buckle unless something considerably larger hit it.
I’d long-since scratched the racing itch and left that for Raptor and Kestrel. Fuck… Just the thought of Raptor made my jaw clench. It wasn’t time.
I fired off a text to Vaughn and Kellan to see if they’d found anything, while I debated my next move. The 19 Diamonds would not be welcoming if they caught us in their territory. Not that I needed anyone to invite me in.
But was I really looking to pick a fight?
The simple Nothing they sent in response didn’t bode well.
Engine started, I stared out the front window as JD slid into the seat next to me.
“Shaun and Ripper are on the way. They worked their way all the way up to 115th. They didn’t find him either. Checked at Ms. Thompkins too.”
“He doesn’t go there alone anymore,” I mused aloud, but I got why they checked. I’d said no stone unturned. And the rats were out kicking a lot of stones over. Freddie had burned his bridges with Ronnie. Veronica Thompkins could lay a beatdown on a grown man without breaking a sweat, and Freddie could irritate a saint. She didn’t put up with him, and he didn’t tempt fate.
We’d been looking for hours. It was already midafternoon, and we were no closer to tracking him down than we’d been when we set out. I rubbed my phone against my lower lip.
The one thing about JD I liked was the rat knew how to keep his mouth shut. Most of the time. If he could learn to keep his zipper up, he might make it past his year. He wouldn’t. Almost none of them would. The year was grueling for a reason.
Fuck it. If Freddie was there, I was going to get him. I could kick his ass later, but he had to be alive for me to do that.
“Tell Ripper and Shaun we’re heading toward The Smokestack.”
“That’s—” JD shut up when I glanced at him and just sent a text.
I called Kellan. He wouldn’t like it. He never did.
“Yeah?” he answered.
“Smokestack. Fifteen minutes. Don’t be late.”
“Fuck me,” Kellan groaned. “You really do want to start a war.”
“If Freddie went to score, he wouldn’t do it here. He’s nowhere else he should be. That means he’s probably in their territory, and they were already pissed.”
“And whose fucking fault is that?” The complaint rolled right off me. It didn’t matter how irritated he was, he’d be where he needed to be.
“Call in more rats, we may need the distraction.”
We could do more, just the three of us, than most of the rats.
“Liam’s at the clubhouse,” Kellan suggested.
“I don’t care.” He shouldn’t be there either, but the guy kept showing up for Rome. Short of kicking Rome, which I would never fucking do, I had to deal with it. It meant Liam would keep showing up until we put a bullet in him or someone else did. Since we wouldn’t do that to Rome, we were stuck with him.
Didn’t mean I planned on sharing shit with him.
“I meant to tell him so he can watch Rome’s back. If we’re all heading into 19 Diamonds…”
Emersyn was at the clubhouse with Rome. He needed to be there while still nursing that stab wound, whether he took it seriously or not.
Fuck.
“I’ll take care of it.”
I texted Rome to check in and got a middle finger in response.
That was about par for the course.
Asshole.
So I sent Liam a text. Watch for 19D. Heading South.
There was no response from Liam. Not even an acknowledgement.
But the fucker read the text.
He’d watch Rome’s back. Rome would watch Emersyn’s. I pulled off a block away from the Smokestack. The old bar sat squarely in Old Town. Dingy, shitty piece of real estate, and the bar offered all manner of sins. It was great on those nights when we were just looking for a fight. But it wouldn’t be open for another couple of hours.
During the day, it belonged to the 19D only.
It was also a good place to score some E if you were looking for it, along with eight-balls and other drugs. They were a lot looser on what they distributed. They also took a bigger slice of the pie and didn’t give as much of a damn about who they hurt. The only rules they bothered to enforce were the ones we made them enforce.
JD was out of the car without saying a word, and I flipped open the glove box and pulled out a set of brass knuckles. Some jobs called for a knife. Some for the gun.
This one?
This required a few broken jaws.
And that was if Freddie wasn’t there.
The 19D needed to be reminded of their place. They shouldn’t have shown up at ours in the first place. I circled the car and opened the trunk for my bat. Better to be prepared.
Kellan and Vaughn pulled up behind me with three more cars slotting in neatly behind them. They met me on the sidewalk, and the rats arrayed around us. Nine of them, three of us.
Twelve was not a big number.
Ten was fewer.
But two had to stay with the cars.
Without a word, because the boys and I didn’t need that, we divvied up the rats’ assignments. While there might be tension and secrets inhabiting the ever widening gulf between us, we still moved together.
“Do we even know if Freddie’s here?” was Kellan’s only question. Like me, he wore a jacket to cover the gun he kept tucked at the small of his back and the second weapon in the shoulder holster.
The clouds that threatened earlier had blown back in, and lightning flashed in the distance. “Unless he’s shacked up with some new pussy, he’s here, or worse, he’s in Royals’ territory looking to score.”
“Maybe stop cutting him off closer to home,” Vaughn suggested in a dry drawl that I didn’t even acknowledge. None of us wanted Freddie flushing his life down the toilet, and if he had even an ounce of restraint, I might not be such a hard-ass.
But he’d OD’d the last time, and if Doc hadn’t still been at the clinic when we rolled in with him, we might have been burying him instead of listening to him cuss us out for the next week when we detoxed him.
It had sucked.
For all of us.
“We go in, we round up who’s there, kick out the pussy and the civilians, and then get some answers.”
I didn’t hurt pussy.
Period.
None of us did. We all had our weird little hang-ups about it.
Correction, I did and Vaughn did. Kellan held no such illusions. He just shook his head. “I’ll question them.”
Fine by me.
Course, he had a way of looking at them, and they either pissed their pants or threw their panties at him. It could be downright entertaining when I could afford to be amused by it. Right now, the only things I wanted were to find Freddie, make sure he was fine, then get back to Emersyn. I’d damn well kissed her the night before, then shit went down, and I hadn’t fucking seen her since.
That rasped over every nerve like rough sandpaper. As much as I hated doing it, I boxed up my thoughts of he
r and secured them in the back of my mind. Fucking Freddie had better be okay, or I’d kill him and everyone else involved.
The rats followed us, fanning out. One by one, they peeled off, including one heading up to a roof to give us eyes on high. Our route back to the cars would be protected, and we’d have warning if they’d been compromised. No one left unattended wheels when strolling into someone else’s territory.
Define irony.
I’d cut the finger off the 19 Diamond who walked into my territory looking for his men. Now, here we were, in search of one of our own. Now ask me if I gave a fuck about irony?
By the time we reached the red curtained doors to the club, there were four rats still with us. More than enough to get the job done.
I rolled my head from side to side, cracking the vertebrae, then nodded to Vaughn. He took doors first. Not that he was bulletproof or anything, but he was just that fucking fast. The speed at which he took doors and the guards on them was equivalent to a freight train. The crunch of fist on bone and the hollow explosions of harsh releases of breath were my cue to follow. I caught the guy swinging for Vaughn’s back with my bat. The crunch of bone in his arm sent him staggering.
It was also the moment that literally cracked the silence of our assault. Kellan hit the stairs with two of the four rats right behind him. The room was thick with a haze of smoke. The room reeked of dope, and it left our targets in a literal lazy state of response.
More than a few were too out of it to even notice we’d invaded or respond until we were literally on top of them. The girls noticed though. I’d give them that. One girl pulled off a cock she’d been riding and hopped from one foot to the other as she jerked down her skirt.
I pointed to the other side of the room with the bat, and she went. Fifteen minutes after storming inside, we had fourteen males present—all 19 Ds—and eight women. Two were club bitches, from the looks of them, the rest were just whores hanging out for a good time.
Trusting Kellan to deal with them, I studied those present. Meeks wasn’t here, nor was his second, a weaselly little fuck named Twister. Middle management made for a good second in some groups. Twister might be a useless, skinny shit in a fight, but the man could spin shit into dough and they made a pretty penny off him.
Vaughn stood like my silent shadow as I swept my gaze over the men in front of me. Some of them were too stoned to take this seriously. Hell, we were all gonna be a little high before we walked out of here. The bar wasn’t called The Smokestack for nothing.
I rested the bat against my shoulders, hooking my hands over the ends as much to keep them away from the guns and the knives as to give myself time to choose carefully.
Honestly, I knew maybe two of the faces. Three if I counted the bartender, but he was old-school Braxton Harbor and while he was a 19D, it was more because they owned The Smokestack than anything else and it offered him a form of protection. I dismissed him immediately. He knew everything and would share exactly nothing.
That was how he kept his cushy position.
Fuck it.
“I’m only asking this once,” I began, keeping my voice at a civil tone and perfectly pleasant.
I was aware of the conversation going on to my left, where Kellan was interrogating the ladies. The fact that no fewer than three had sighed and tittered with laughter said he’d worked his magic, so I shoved them out of my mind. He’d pull me into the conversation if he got anything useful from them.
“I’m looking for Freddie Dunlap.” I didn’t miss the recognition flickering in some eyes but not in others. One pair of unfocused eyes took on a sharper look. I’d keep track of those. The guy would need to be slightly less stoned to motivate. “Be straight with me, and we’ll leave you intact. Play games, you’ll lose.”
I nodded to the first guy on the left, his bald, tatted head shining under the muddy red lights. That was the other part of this bar’s weird aesthetic. It had high backed booths, lots of dope to smoke and vape, and red lights to give the illusion you’d descended into Hell.
Unfortunately for them, Hell didn’t scare us.
“Have you seen him?”
“Like I’m telling you shit,” the man spat out, finding his balls or his voice for the first time since we’d stormed the club. Okay.
I did warn them.
A split second before I took a step toward him, I spotted the axe affixed to the wall behind him. It seemed decorative, only the way the edge gleamed, it really wasn’t. Sidestepping them, I passed the bat over to JD, and he accepted it without question before I gripped the axe and pulled it down.
Well, would you look at that? It had balance to it, a good, solid feel in my hand, and fit my grip like it had been made for me.
I tested the edge with a thumb and then sucked the blood that welled up from the cut. Sharp enough.
Time to make a point.
I returned to the first guy to offer a challenge to my question. “I’ll do you a favor,” I told him as kindly as I could muster. “I’ll let you choose. Righty or lefty?”
“What?” The man stared at me like I’d sprouted a second fucking head. To my left, Kellan had gone dead silent, and his attention was now on me.
Everyone’s was.
Good.
I liked having to demonstrate lessons only once.
“Are you a righty or a lefty?” I eyed the man in question. He had about three seconds to give me an answer, because while I might be kind enough to give him a choice, I wasn’t going to be waiting around on it all day.
“Right-handed,” the guy said slowly, almost warily, like it had sunk in.
“Hold out your left,” I told him. “And thank me.”
He didn’t move a muscle. “What the fuck for?”
I smiled. “Because I’m giving you the opportunity to only lose a hand. You make me come for it, and it might be the whole arm.”
He didn’t believe me.
It was almost more fun when they didn’t. At first.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the mood to play. I wanted Freddie’s whereabouts and straight answers to my questions.
“Vaughn.”
Seizing the guy by the back of his neck, Vaughn slammed him forward and not so gently bounced his head off the table before slamming his left arm down. Bracing him with a knee to his back, he eyed me, and I read the facts on his face. He was about to get covered in blood. No two ways about it.
“You should thank my brother too.” I closed the gap. “After you apologize for inconveniencing him.”
“Fuck you,” the man spat, even as blood trickled down his forehead.
I had intended to send one of the rats for ice. Well, if he couldn’t be bothered to be polite, I couldn’t be bothered to help him preserve his chances.
With one direct swing, I slammed the axe down through his wrist. The edge went clean through flesh, the muscle, the tendon, and the bone to bite into the table beneath. Blood splattered, and one of the guys promptly threw up.
Weak fucker.
The mouthy one didn’t have much to say beyond screaming.
Without a word, Vaughn just wrapped a towel around the end of the guy’s wrist to staunch the bleeding. Not that it would give him long.
“Who wants to go next?” I smiled, already picking my target in the wild-eyed stoner whose pupils had begun to shrink as reality sank in. “Freddie Dunlap. Have you seen him?”
Chapter 4
Kellan
A fucking axe. Jasper had picked a fucking axe off the wall. Thankfully, he hadn’t spotted the katana hanging there as well. I’d grab it on our way out, though I was pretty sure walking an axe out of here wasn’t just something that could be overlooked. The cops weren’t stupid or all on the take. A lot of them knew we kept our streets relatively clean and they cut us some slack.
Bloody axes and full-on swords weren’t going to win us friends or influence people, no matter how effective Jasper found it for his questioning. The second guy he pointed to dropped into a dead fa
int after pissing himself. I swallowed a sigh, studying the women lined up against the stairs.
They didn’t know much, but I wouldn’t say they knew nothing. Darla, the bleach bottled blonde tipped girl with the black hair was a 19D. Last I checked, she belonged to a couple of the guys. Not that I cared beyond she’d have a better idea of what was what. Conversations would happen around her.
I gave her points for not flinching at the severing of the guy’s hand, and I was also rather grateful when he passed out from the pain. At least he wasn’t screaming anymore. The harsh scent of urine punched through the heavier smoke of the room. The sickly scent would cling to my nostrils for days to come, and I already wanted to wash my clothes.
Fuck, I hated the stench here.
Darla shifted her stance and cut her gaze to me when she thought I wasn’t looking. Hesitation marked her expression, and she sucked on her lower lip for a moment before shifting her gaze back to the guys. Vaughn hauled another one forward. We couldn’t really maim our way through the 19 Diamonds, no matter how much damage Jasper had on display.
Freddie hadn’t vanished like this in a while. I’d checked with the cops and the hospitals. He hadn’t been pinched and he hadn’t OD’d. I’d seen the way he looked at Emersyn. Something kept him from coming back, and it wasn’t Vaughn.
A flash of rumpled, defiant Emersyn in the middle of Vaughn’s bed flashed through my eyes. Fuck me sideways. That was going to go so goddamn wrong. What the fuck had Vaughn been thinking?
You know exactly what he was thinking, the pernicious little voice in the back of my head taunted. He wanted her, she needed something, and he gave it to her.
The first time she’d turned that want on me, I’d damn near caved. But we weren’t good for her, and now…
Now was not the time to think about this. Jasper had no clue, and it was safer for everyone if it stayed that way. I didn’t think he’d go after Vaughn. Not for more than a fist fight, and Vaughn could more than hold his own. But we so didn’t need that shit.
