Текст книги "Devil Smoke"

Автор книги: Max Henry

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Yeah, it was, and it was also a long time coming. As I break into a run, one thought cycles through my head. They all deserved what they got, but I’m not finished yet. One more to go before it’ll be enough.

RIDING DIRTY

Bronx

Callum flicks his feet off the pegs of his Harley at my left, stretching his legs out for a few miles before tucking them back in. The ride between Lincoln and Sioux City is two and a half hours; it’s not quite long enough to warrant a rest stop, but enough that we’re all stiffer than a schoolboy at a strip club.

Early evening commuter traffic slows us down, and we break formation more than once to flank the stationary vehicles at the lights and file through the gaps. Children look on with keen interest as the low thud of engines ricochets off the cars they travel in. Their parents do their utmost best to pretend we don’t exist. It’s a beautiful contrast, highlighting the acceptance of innocence over the jaded preconceptions of the experienced. Kids don’t pass judgment on others due to their appearance, name, or beliefs. It’s how society as a whole should be, but somewhere along the way we get corrupted and swayed to believe in a convenient truth. Some more so than others.

I can’t help but wonder if without Gunter, Tommy would thrive? The kid has a good heart; an understanding of what is morally bankrupt, even among dogs. He clearly likes to feel a part of something, but maybe he could be a part of something better? Like the Fallen Saints? I make a mental note to check in with the kid, ask him what his thoughts on the idea are, and if he’d like to become a prospect for a club that would foster him and push him to excel more than Eddie and Gunter ever would.

Wide main streets give way to narrower suburban lanes as we round the last few corners before Ryan’s place. King slows us down to an idle, cruising along their street cautiously. I catch a glimpse of Ryan’s Camaro in the spill of the streetlights and excitement takes hold. She’s still here. But as we glide to a stop outside the address, it becomes abundantly clear that she’s long gone.

Police tape covers the door, and there are signs a lot of people have walked over the front lawn, judging by the numerous indentations creating shadow on the turf. Mighty dismounts and wanders over to check out the footprints, circling a set before he looks up to the house.

“They removed something heavy. There’s tracks where they’ve crossed what I guess was a gurney over the grass here.”

“Bodies,” King mutters, wandering along the front of the house.

Fire rages across my flesh as I place my helmet on the seat of my bike. Was she one of them? What the fuck went on here? My shoulder catches Vince, shunting him out of the way as I march up to the yellow tape. He calls after me, but I only hear the tail end of King asking him to drop it as I reach out and rip the cordoning down.

“They left not long ago,” Mighty calls out. “This stuff’s real fresh; there’s grass still springing back up over here.”

I try the handle and shake my head at the fact it’s fucking unlocked. A crime scene, and some idiot leaves the motherfucking door unlocked. King’s at my back as I push inside and look over the empty living room before turning right and heading up the hallway. Vince and Callum trail behind us, Vince stopping in one of the doorways as I make a line straight for Gunter’s room. I can see the markers from here: paint spots and circles drawn around holes in the wall.

There’s blood and flecks of skin and what appears to be bone everywhere. I’m seen some fucked up shit in my time, but whatever went down here was carnage. I walk over to the first body markers and case out the size of it.

King hisses from where he’s wandering around the other side of the bed. “If anybody survived this, it would have to have been a fuckin’ miracle.”

I turn and look at him as I point to the markers at my feet. “This one’s too big for her.”

“So is the length of this one,” Callum says pointing to the markers near the bed.

“Somebody was in the corner, though,” I point out, walking over to the last set of marks on weak legs. Please, don’t be her.

“I’d say they took a stiff from the bedroom down the hall,” Vince says, joining our little exploration party.

“Tommy’s room,” I murmur absently as I try to work out what the marks in the corner mean. Poor bastard. “I can’t figure this out.” I tip my head to the side, but it makes no difference.

Mighty comes through the door, gesturing with his thumb back over his shoulder. “House is clear.” He eyes us all crouched around the corner of the bedroom. “What y’all doin’?”

“Tryin’ to work out if it was half a body or a fuckin’ midget,” Callum says.

“Move over.” Mighty squats down, tracing an invisible line with his finger. “They were bent over.”

“How the fuck you know that?” Vince asks.

“Eleven years in homicide.”

Vince’s eyebrows shoot up, echoing my exact thoughts. “You were a cop?” he asks.

Mighty nods.

“Fuck you keep your secrets well,” Vince remarks, jamming his hands in his armpits as he crosses his arms.

“None of you fuckers ever care to ask,” Mighty responds.

The two stare at each other with a mixture of surprise and ‘yeah, that’s right, fucker’. Vince slaps Mighty on the arm and chuckles. “Sneaky bastard.”

“Great,” I bite out. “It’s cute you two know each other better now, but I’m kind of missin’ someone.” I point to the markers in the corner. “Do you think this could be her?”

“Hard to say,” Mighty answers.

“Fuck!” I march across the room, resist the urge to punch the wall, and march back. “How can we find out?”

King steps over, calming me with a hand to my shoulder as he addresses the others. “First off, we need to figure out who these markers belong to. I’m pickin’ two are the occupants of the house, but who are the other two? Mighty, I need you to shake up some of those favors you’re owed.”

Mighty nods, and steps out of the room as he pulls out his phone.

“Bronx, do you know where Eddie lives?”

I shake my head, infuriated that still, after everything that’s gone down to get to this point, I know so little about Ryan’s world. “No. Only other place I know of is the crack house I went to that party at.”

“Good. You can fuckin’ start there, then. You and Callum ride over, check it out. If these markers aren’t her, then she still needs to be found. I’ll text you when Mighty gets somethin’, and until then, Vince and I will go for a little ride. There can’t be that many places in the city of Omaha she’d go. She can’t disappear that fast.”

“And if we come across any of Eddie’s men, we take them down?” I ask.

“Just like we’ve discussed,” King confirms.

I pull in a large breath and nod. “Let’s get movin’, then. Sooner I find Ryan, sooner I can start to fuckin’ breathe again.”

BROKEN NAILS

Ryan

Dust kicks up behind the pickup as it pulls away from the side of the road. I watch my ride leave, thankful there are still people stupid enough to pick up hitchhikers, and turn toward the road the crack house is on. My hair’s knotted into a messy bun, the lengths with the blood tucked underneath those without. A quick shower using a rest-stop basin, plus a makeshift bandage for my shoulder made out of sanitary pads and duct tape I stole from a gas station, and Farmer Joe was happy to oblige. Shit, I don’t even remember what his name actually was, let alone what the hell we spoke about on the ride here. It’s kind of hard to focus on conversation when your head is preoccupied with the replays of your first kills.

I pop another couple of Advil from the pack I also stole from the station, and rub the growing bruises on my neck. I expected to go into shock. I totally predicted I’d shake until my teeth chattered from the gravity of what I’d done. What I didn’t expect was to be so damn comfortable bringing crude justice to those who deserved it that I’d be whistling a tune while I walked toward the final showdown. But when the moon’s creating such a spectacular artwork out of the shadows it casts through a line of trees, it’s kind of hard not to appreciate the beauty of life—of being alive.

A couple of ragged men walk toward me several doors from the crack house. There’s no need to try and guess where they’ve come from. Neither of them stare at me long enough to be able to give a positive I.D. if questioned; both are too preoccupied looking inconspicuous themselves as they clutch their baggies of goods tightly in their pockets.

I round the gate into the property and pause for a second to look it over. Give the grass a trim, pop a few plants in, and nobody would believe what goes down here. To passers-by, the house is just another suburban home in a quiet suburban street. In a way, it’s terrifying how well this subculture blended in around here. The majority of people in this area wouldn’t have a clue that their neighbors imported, cut, and sold drugs.

No time like the present.

Fingering the gun tucked in the front of my jeans, I rue the fact I never had time to search out more bullets. The damn things were probably at arm’s length in the bedside drawer, but that fifteen seconds could have been the difference between me standing here now, or sitting in a holding cell with a truckload of evidence against me—a dead girl. Still, I brought the weapon along anyway as it might yet prove useful as a scare tactic.

I tuck my T-shirt behind the gun to make it clear I’m not fucking around and walk up to the front door. I could sneak around under windows, go all Hollywood-style on this, but I’m not here to waste time. I have no bullets and an unknown number of people in the house, but I also have the ability to bluff, and the fact that half the people will probably be smashed off their heads is on my side.

I open the front door and pass a girl leaning on the hallway wall without issue. The junkie’s eyes were that far rolled back in her head, I’d be surprised if she knew if it were a woman or a man that walked by. A skinny guy is in the kitchen cutting a brick down into eights, weighing each package out meticulously on a set of scales to his right. He glances up at me, down at the piece, and goes right on back to doing what he was as if I’m no threat. Perks of being a familiar face.

Eddie’s right where I expect him to be—last door on the left, in his crash pad. The bedroom’s technically his holiday home—where the old guy comes when he wants time out from the rigors of being a drug boss, which isn’t all that often. When an asshole like him enjoys the misery and suffering he spreads like a virus through the community, he doesn’t often need a stress break.

I pull the gun out of my jeans and step into the room. He lifts his head from where he’s lying on the bed, shirt off, exposing one of the now bandaged wounds I gave him. “Took your time.”

“Thought you may as well get your money’s worth from the doctor you paid to do a house visit,” I say, gesturing to the medicines on the nightstand with the gun. “What did it cost you?”

“Too much, if you’re goin’ to render it all useless,” he sneers.

“What’s the matter? Feeling your age?” I ask, my cockiness growing the more I realize just how worn out and beaten down he is.

“Feelin’ brave?” he counters. He pulls in a deep breath, wincing as he shifts his leg. “Tell me, Ryan, what’s the plan?”

“It’s pretty simple, really. It involves you, me, and a gun.”

He laughs, hoisting himself up to sit with great difficulty. “You never suspect the lookers,” he says. “Should have known by now the prettier they are, the more of a chip on their shoulder they ’ave.”

“More of a boulder, really,” I say with a shrug, “and you put it there.”

He pats the side of the bed, urging me to sit down as if we’re some happy fucking family. “Come rest a while, sweetheart. Tell me what exactly it is you expected from me when you started fuckin’ Gunter.”

“I never started fucking anyone,” I bite. “You assholes started taking what you wanted without asking. I just learnt how to live with it.”

“And here I was being a gentleman by lettin’ Gunter keep you.” He shakes his head, tsking under his breath. “Should ’ave thrown chivalry out the window and taken what I could, when I could.” He laughs, gesturing to himself. “Hardly in the state to now, am I love?”

“You fucking disgust me.”

“And you irritate the fuck outta me, sweetheart.” His eyes narrow on me, his nostrils flaring. The bastard wants to hurt me, and it’s tearing him apart that he physically can’t.

I approach the bed slowly, and climb up to kneel at his feet. His chest heaves with the bridled anger. “Any last confessions?”

“Which one you want?” He lifts his top lip, taunting me.

“You’ve got nothing,” I say back, my brows knitting together. “You’re so full of shit.”

“Guess you’ll never know for sure then, love.” He pulls his shoulders back, opening out his chest. “Just make sure you get it on target, eh? Can’t be assed starin’ at your traitorous face for an age while I bleed out.”

He honestly thinks he’s getting it that easy? I might be bluffing when it comes to using the gun, but I’ve got a thousand other ideas on how to kill him. I back off the bed and turn to leave the room, much to his confusion.

“What you doin’ now?”

“Improvising. I’m apparently pretty good at that.” I head down to the kitchen, walk past the guy still packaging as I stash the gun back in my waistband, and pick up the entire knife block—all ten blades. The guy gives me a bored onceover before getting back to work, leaving me to walk out with my bounty uncontested.

I reenter Eddie’s room and set it down on the tallboy opposite the end of the bed. His eyebrow quirks up as he looks between the knife block and me.

“Interesting.”

“Should be, yeah,” I agree. “Where would you like to start?”

“What you mean?” He wriggles himself a little taller, frowning.

“You told me you were going to carve me up from the inside out, so I thought I could return the sentiment, do the same. But you know what? It gave me another idea. Why be like you, when I can be like my father?”

He glowers at me, shaking his head slowly. “Figured that out, did ya? You even know what symbols he uses?”

I dip my head, smiling out from under my lashes. “Again, I’ll improvise.”

He squirms as I pull the first blade out—a long, thin boning knife. “Lost it,” he mumbles. “You’ve gone stone-cold mad.”

“Why, Alice, all the best people are.” I snatch a hold on his ankle and place the tip to the fleshy side of his calf. “Should I start here?”

He lunges for my hand, but the pain from his injuries pulls him up short. He places a hand over his wounded leg and hisses between his teeth, giving me a brilliant idea.

I stab the knife down hard through his hand and into the meat of his thigh, pinning him together in a fucked up mini-skewer. Eddie roars in pain, and for a fleeting moment I think I hear the rumble of an engine, but the noise the old bastard’s making is unbelievable.

His weathered fingers curl around the blade, and with a guttural growl he pulls it free, flinging it across the bed in a failed attempt to lodge it in me. I stoop down to pick it up from where it landed on the floor, and by the grace of God miss a bullet that whistles over my head.

“Shit!” I duck, as though such a delayed reaction was really going to save me. I turn to face the offender.

The guy from the kitchen stands in the hallway, aligned with the door as he clutches his left arm, which is bleeding in rivulets onto the floor. A gun is gripped tightly in his right hand. Asshole. I honestly thought he was one of the good guys. He doesn’t get another chance to fire, his head whipping to the right as a bullet tears through him from somebody down the hall to his left. His body buckles to the ground as heavy footfalls approach.

“Jesus,” Eddie swears, seeing the guy fall, and wrestles to get off the bed in his sorry state.

He flops to the floor at the exact same time as I dive behind the bed, cursing at his leg and rolling on to his side, the two of us ending up face to face. I growl and jam the knife I have in my hand into his wounded shoulder out of sheer frustration. “You and your fucking junkies!”

“Ryan?”

I pop my head over the bed like a gopher from a hole after hearing Bronx’s voice. “Bronx?”

“Jesus,” he takes two long strides and ends up standing on the bed in an effort to take the shortcut. “What the fuck you do to him?” He looks down at Eddie howling on the floor, his gun trained at the asshole’s head.

“Made a Voodoo doll out of him?” I twitch an awkward smile.

Bronx chuckles, stepping forward to lower himself off the bed. “You okay, darlin’?”

“Surprisingly so.”

“How you feelin’, asshole?” Bronx swings his boot into Eddie’s ribs as the old man writhes on his side, clutching the handle of the knife.

“It’s stuck,” he sobs, tears running from the corner of his eye. The bastard’s actually crying.

“Fuckin’ harden up,” Bronx taunts, pushing him onto his back with the sole of his boot. “How you want to finish this?” he asks me over his shoulder.

“Myself,” I answer.

He backs up two steps, lifting his chin to gesture at the gun tucked in my jeans. “You’ll need that, then.”

I smile sheepishly. “I’m out of bullets. It’s all for show.”

“You’ve got to be kiddin’ . . .” Eddie says.

Bronx chuckles, placing a boot on Eddie’s chest to keep him in place, the toe of his shoe nudging the handle of the knife I placed in the English prick. Eddie cringes, wrapping a hand around Bronx’s ankle to try and shift him off the wound, but Bronx doesn’t budge.

I accept the gun Bronx offers and wrap my fingers around the still warm grip to aim at Eddie. The sorry fuck just stares at me, his eyebrows peaked in the middle as he pathetically pleads for mercy. I want to give him some epic final line, something to stew on, but what’s the point? He’s going to have all of point-two of a second to think it over before his brain ceases to function.

I step back, a little more schooled on the distance of blood splatter than I was at the start of the day, and squeeze the trigger. Eddie wheezes out a final breath, his body going lax as the crimson tide begins to flow. I stand and stare at the last page of my story folding over, the remainder of the book blank.

Everything from here on out is mine. Everything from here on out is what I want to make of it. And as I turn and meet those kind eyes that gave me hope before I even realized what the emotion was brewing inside of me, I know exactly who I want with me as I learn all about who Ryan really is.

The man who cared enough to risk his life and his livelihood for me.

Bronx.

“It’s done,” I whisper. “It’s time to live for me.”

“Sure is,” he says, giving me a sly smile. “I’m just so fuckin’ glad you’re okay.” Bronx stows his gun and turns to face me, running his hands up my arms toward my throat. I wince as he passes over my padded up shoulder, and he frowns, pulling my T-shirt out of the way to check out my crude bandage.

“When did that happen?”

“At the house. Taylor shot me.”

His breathing picks up pace, but he holds his composure pretty darn well. “And you hashed that up yourself?”

I nod.

“Bullet still in there?”

“Of course it fuckin’ is,” I exclaim. “I might be tough, but I’m still a girl when it comes to that level of pain.”

“We’ll get you out of here first, then call in Gloria.”

“Gloria?”

“One of the club’s old ladies. Skilled with a hook and a curved needle.”

I hiss air in between my teeth, frowning. “Not sure I like the sound of that.”

“I’ll hold your hand, darlin’.” With his palms cupping the sides of my neck, he tucks his thumbs under the point of my jaw and coaxes my face up, smiling as his eyes flick between mine. “Hell of a day, huh?”

“The biggest one for a while, yeah.”

He lifts one of his hands to stroke loose hair off my face, stilling with his fingers in the lengths over my ear. “There’s blood in your hair.”

“And probably a few other things.” I laugh a little at his grimace. “I’m fine, really.”

“Well, sometimes it can take a few days for the shock to set in after somethin’ like this, so let me be the judge of that, yeah?”

“Sure.” I wrap my arms about his waist, leaning in and resting the side of my face against his chest as he circles his arms around me. The steady tha-thump of his heart is soothing, my own slowing to match the rhythm the longer I listen.

A cough behind me breaks the moment, and I turn to see Callum in the doorway. “That girl who was out the front is still refusing to come out of the bathroom,” he says. “These two the only other people here?”

“I think so,” I answer. “Not that I really checked the whole place.”

“Leave it to me,” he says. “You two carry on with your”—he circles his hand at Eddie’s dead form beside our feet—“weird ‘moment’ thing.”

Bronx pulls away slightly to bring his phone out of his pocket as Callum leaves to check the property. I stay leaning into his chest as Bronx types out a message to King to let him know they’ve found me and where we are.

“I’m sorry I made you worry. And I’m sorry that I dragged them all into this. I just wanted to bring the bullshit to an end.”

He tightens his hold on me again. “So did King, which is why they’re all here. If they didn’t feel this was worth their time, I’d be here on my own, darlin’. You owe them nothin’.”

“Is Harris with you?” I can’t bring myself to call him ‘Dad’ yet. It still doesn’t feel right.

Bronx shakes his head and then looks down at Eddie. “No. He went the opposite direction.”

“He left?” I pull free, glancing down when I realize Eddie’s blood has almost reached my foot.

“He left to go on a run, not to leave you behind.” Bronx follows my gaze, and steps us sideways. “How about we go check on Callum and then get the hell out of here?”

“What about him?” I ask, nodding to Eddie. “Isn’t there evidence we need to destroy or something?”

Bronx brushes his fingers along my jaw, smiling. “You have any idea how many flammable chemicals there are around a crack house?”

“I’m guessing a few.”

“Enough to help burn it to the ground before the neighbors have time to call the fire service.”

I smirk, stepping away from him to pick up Eddie’s wallet from the nightstand. “Déjà vu.”

“Guess it is.” He comes to a stop behind me, looking over my shoulder. “What you lookin’ for?”

“Not sure. Guess I wondered what his wallet would have in it. He must be loaded.”

“You wouldn’t track any of it through those, though.” He reaches around me to point to the bankcards filed in the left side. “Besides, ain’t his money now.”

“Whose is it?” I ask. “What happens now he’s gone? I mean, there’s no Easy or Taylor. Who takes over?”

“The clubs do.”

“Hey?” I spin around to face him, tossing the wallet on the bed. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I said the Saints wouldn’t be involved if they didn’t think it was worth it. The business makes it worth it.”

“They can do that?”

“Who else you expectin’ to come collect?” he asks. “IRS? FBI? Nobody cares, as long as things go back to normal. Authorities prefer it if the operations keep runnin’ anyway. They get too many kickbacks to let the business die off. There’s more work for them shuttin’ it down and crossin’ all their Ts and that than keepin’ watch and making sure everybody stays in their place.”

“God. I thought that kind of ‘dirty cops’ crap only happened on TV.”

Bronx shakes his head, looking down at me with his lips set firm. He sighs, and taps the tip of my nose. “Missed you.”

I can’t hide my smile. “It hasn’t been a day since I left.”

“Doesn’t even need to be an hour,” he replies. “Just know that I don’t like not havin’ you around.”

“Well, I’m here now.”

“That you are.” His eyes fix to mine, the brown color warming to a milky chocolate as we stand for what feels like an eternity, just staring at one another. We’ve been at this point before, we’ve shared a kiss, but this moment is so different to the last—it may as well be totally new. We may as well be strangers.

His lips inch upward at the corners, finally pulling apart as he smiles. “You look confused.”

“I am,” I say, dropping my gaze to the floor.

“What about?”

I look back to find his smile gone, concern etched into the hard lines of his face. “About what to do next.”

Bronx slips a hand around my waist, pulling me into his body with a firm hold on my lower back. “We’ve kissed before, Ryan.”

“But not like this,” I whisper. “Not free from anything holding us back.”

He grumbles at my comment, his jaw twitching at the side. “Wanna see where it goes then?”

“God yes.”

Dead bodies on the floor or a nuclear war—neither would stop me from having this moment with him. Bronx leans down, placing his lips gently over mine, tasting me with the reverence of a man who honestly thought he’d never have the chance to do this ever again. I slip a hand into his hair, holding the back of his head as he pushes deeper, notching the kiss higher in intensity but not pace. It’s slow, sensual, and speaks volumes.

“Jesus, you two. I didn’t mean you had to take it that far.”

We break our kiss, smiling, our foreheads touching, before Bronx turns and looks to Callum where he stands in the door. “I’ll give you yours later, if you like.”

“Looking forward to it, princess.” Callum puckers up and blows Bronx a kiss. “Seriously though, you two are fucking twisted.” He points to the dead packer at his feet. “This dude’s lost his head—quite literally—and still you two find the moment inspiring enough to neck in his presence.” He shakes his head, laughing. “Takes all types.”

“Nah, man,” Bronx says, turning back to place his hand on my cheek as he holds my gaze with a smile. “It only takes one.”