Goddammit, now Gray couldn’t very well say no. Of course he’d be there for Willow.
“I’ll talk to her,” he promised. “I’ll pick her up too. She’s your sister, so she’s bound to be stubborn.”
Darius smirked.
Gray opened his mouth to speak again, because he was far from done, but Tariq flew by.
“Where’s the fire?” Darius frowned.
Tariq stopped and turned around. “No fire. I’m gonna park AJ’s car behind the brothel. And I’ll remove the tracker.”
Good call.
When it was just the two of them again, Gray faced Darius once more.
“What if someone shows up before we’ve blown up the place?”
“That’s why we’re keeping the drones nearby,” Darius answered. “If anyone stops outside the brothel, we’ll detonate the C-4. The entire place will probably collapse.”
Gray chewed on his bottom lip, wondering if what they had was enough. Not a whole lot could burn down here. There was barely any furniture, and the foundation was made of concrete. “I think we should build a bigger fire,” he said. “We have time to go buy gas and shit that burns easily.”
“Better than explosives?” Darius grinned. Then his humor faded, and he squeezed Gray’s hand. “It’s a solid idea. We want the paint melting off the walls.”
Exactly.
“And maybe a smaller charge upstairs,” Gray added. “The floor where Lia treated you is a mess.”
Darius’s smile was back. “Look at you, knucklehead. All grown up.”
Gray chuckled.
“Don’t worry. We’ll make sure everything ignites.” Darius stifled a yawn and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Speaking of the doctor—I wouldn’t mind one of the painkillers she left behind.”
“I’ll give you two when we get back to the house,” Gray said. “It should knock you out for the rest of the day.” Otherwise, Darius would just find reasons to do anything but rest. “Did Willow tell you where she came from?”
“The doctor?”
Gray nodded.
Darius snorted and shook his head. “Yeah. Willow called Kellan fucking Ford and asked for a favor. He in turn called someone he knows out here who owed him, whose daughter is a doctor. So we got away from one criminal organization only to be in debt to another.”
How wonderful. Jesus. Not that Gray was too worried. Not only did Kellan seem different, he was extremely family-oriented and wanted Jayden to have a good home. It was unlikely they would “collect their favor” in a way that would jeopardize Jayden’s upbringing.
“I feel like we need to file that away as a headache for the future,” Gray said.
“Definitely.” Darius leaned forward, and Gray took the hint and gently pressed their foreheads together. “I’m so ready to go home.”
“Me too.” More than Gray could put into words. Back to their routines, back to building their future. Back to watching Darius with Jayden in the mornings when they fetched eggs from the coop. They’d come home to newly hatched chicks, according to the text Darius had received from their neighbor Nelson last week. Justin would be thrilled. “This year has been…”
“Yeah.”
But they’d done it. They’d overcome hardships, terror, and the darkest nightmares. They’d conquered their enemy. They’d started their life together, their family.
One year of…everything.
A new journey waited now. An aftermath of recovery and better days.
Four
Niko and Dante went shopping. They bought twenty gallons of gas, enough firewood to create a giant bonfire—which made Darius grimace because firewood was one of those things “only city folk paid for”—the kind of rope used to make fuses, and some other things. In the meantime, Reese and Darius set up the C-4 in the showroom. Willow helped since they needed technology to be able to set it off remotely.
Darius didn’t like that part, but that was just him being old. He argued, “What if the laptop dies, huh? What then?”
To which Willow replied, “Then I’ll call in the ancient grunt cavalry—AKA, you—so you can live to mock technology another day.”
Gray made sure Alicia’s laptop was plugged in properly because he feared that Darius actually hoped the tech would fail.
It was nearing noon when they finally walked out of the compound. They left the armored door ajar so that Elliott could connect the fuse running from the showroom to the tiny charge they’d arranged where they’d played hospital earlier. At least they had nothing to worry about with the brothel. It would ignite at the slightest spark.
“Should we be worried that our baby sister has software that can set off explosives?” Ryan asked as they climbed up the stairs.
Gray grinned.
Darius grunted, one arm around Gray’s shoulders to support himself. “She’s on our side. That’s all I care about.”
Reese let out a low whistle. “I wouldn’t want her as my enemy.”
They were all in agreement.
The sun stood high and shone brightly on them the second they were out of the house. It gave Gray an unfunny feeling. It felt wrong to leave this place behind with so much damning evidence lying around. Door open, to boot. Anyone could walk in here and just…see everything. Dead bodies, walls splattered with DNA.