No.
B.J. had been my brother since ’fore we were brothers. I’d known the guy since we were fuckin’ kids.
There was no fuckin’ way he’d turn after all these years.
’Less he didn’t turn on a dime.
’Less he’d been workin’ behind my back for fuckin’ years, just bidin’ his time to stab me in the fuckin’ back.
I opened my eyes again and Warren moaned at the look in ’em. “Not lying, not lying, promise.”
“Zeus, brother,” Buck called from behind me where he leaned against a stack of hay. “Blackjack’s MIA. Tried to call ’im into action but he wasn’t pickin’ up his phone.
“Fuck,” I boomed, slammin’ my fist into Warren’s face just to feel it crunch, just to rid myself of the fuckin’ burn in my fuckin’ chest.
“Someone find me that fuckin’ Judas so I can rip off his fuckin’ head,” I shouted into the night air.
Behind me, someone left the barn.
“Prez,” Nova appeared at my side holdin’ out my cell. “Let Priest take over, yeah? Danner’s on the line.”
I ripped the phone out of his hands and ordered, “Don’t fuckin’ kill ’im,” before I said to Danner, “Talk.”
“They took her in a black van with stolen plates. We found it, Garro, outside the fuckin’ gates to your house,” he said.
A message.
A message, as those goddamn pictures had been.
Not that they were just watchin’ me from afar but from up close to.
From B.J.
“Garro?”
If Blackjack hated me enough to sit on that hatred for years and let it burn his ass, what were the fuckin’ odds he’d let Lou live?
Fear pierced through me, radiatin’ from the bullet scar just above my heart.
“Here. Got a lead, man named Javier Ventura’s been backin’ the Nightstalkers, check his properties for any activity, will ya? I’m ridin’ out now.” I swallowed my dislike of the cops even though it felt like fuckin’ acid goin’ down. Anythin’ to save my girl. “Owe ya, you find ’er.”
“No,” Danner’s voice was firm. “No, I owe you for putting her in and getting her taken. I’m on it. But do me a favour. I heard there was a barfight off 99 at Lloyd’s Bar. Some guy got beat on really hard. Dispatch is sending out a car to check on it.” He paused. “That guy might be Mitch Warren.”
I looked over at the miserable fuck that had thought he’d had a chance with an angel like Lou just ’cause he wore a fuckin’ suit. I wanted to kill ’im but then, I was in a murderin’ mood. I figured so long as I could get my hands around motherfuckin’ Ace and motherfuckin’ Blackjack’s throats, I’d be okay to let Warren rot in jail ’fore a while ’fore he went to hell.
“Heard there were gunshots too. Might need the paramedics,” I added.
I hung up and tossed the phone to Nova.
“Priest,” I called to the redhead settin’ up his medical tray of tools. “Next time. This one’s a catch and release.”
I stalked up to Warren, grabbed my 9 mil from the waistband of my jeans and drilled a round into both of his hands. “That’s for puttin’ my boy in prison and havin’ a hand in gettin’ Cress and my fuckin’ woman tied up in this shit as well.”
With his wails in my ears, I turned around and stalked out of the buildin’ callin’ to my brothers as I went.
“First man to find that motherfucker Blackjack gets to be the one to put a bullet through his fuckin’ head.”
I woke up to the sound of my dad’s voice.
This confused me because I hadn’t seen or spoken to my dad since the night he punched me in the face and kicked me out of my house.
Briefly, I wondered if I had died and gone to hell for my sins because only there would I find that voice again. Only there would I be punished like Sisyphus or Tantalus with the fruitless repetition of a single horrific act; begging my dad not to hit me over and over again, even as his fist crashed into my cheek.
I decided to open my eyes because anything was better than imagining that horrible possibility.
I opened them and realized that I wasn’t dead and, in fact, I wasn’t even harmed.
I was curled on my side in an empty room in a house. There was duct tape across my mouth, hands and feet and someone had taken off my dress so I was only in my skimpy black lace underwear. My pain ached but it was nothing I couldn’t handle after months of cancer and weeks of chemo. They hadn’t hurt me. In fact, I had the feeling they’d only tied me up this way to degrade me.
There were divots in the carpet from displaced furniture and the sharp scent of turpentine in the air like it had been recently painted. When I stood up to look out the window, I had a direct line of sight to Zeus’s and my house. I thought back to the drive home on the bike every night and remembered the bright blue beach house that had been on the market for months without any offers because the last owner had died of a heart attack in it.
That’s how they’d been watching us.
There was even a tripod in the corner.
I took a deep breath to center myself and remember that Zeus was coming for me. There was no way in heaven or hell that my guardian monster wouldn’t find me. He would find me and as was his habit, he would save me.
“This has gotten so far out of hand.” My dad’s voice was coming closer, up a set of stairs I could just see through the open door. “I can’t even comprehend how you fucking idiots could have let it come to this.”
“Javier told us we could have the girl.” Ace’s voice followed behind him and a second later they both appeared on the landing. “That was the deal.”
My dad wasn’t listening. Instead, his eyes were riveted on the sight of me bound up in the fetal position with silver duct tape at my wrists and feet where he’d normally placed only the most expensive bracelets, the most famous brands of shoes.
“Look at you,” he breathed.
I didn’t know what he meant by that. If he was horrified by how far his society princess had fallen or by the way his criminal associates had treated me, or if hope of hopes, he was disgusted with himself for his part in my situation.
I knew the answer a second later when my Armani suit-clad father rushed Ace and thrust him into a wall.
“What the fuck have you done to my daughter?” he shouted.
“Dude, chill, you know she’s Garro’s whore. She deserves worse.” Ace laughed with his hands in the air.
“She’s a Lafayette,” my dad said as if that meant everything.
And to him it did.
If my mouth hadn’t been taped shut, I would have told him I was a Garro now.
“She’s a Lafayette and she will not be hurt in this. Do you understand me?”
Ace blinked and from one second to the next his affability was gone. His face was rough and pockmarked like the face of a cliff, worn and creased from hard living. It grew jagged edged as he snarled, “You don’t got much say in things now, Mayor. Javier runs this show.”
“Javier runs this show because I let him. Don’t mistake that. Now let Louise go.”