The Drift (Preacher Brothers 3)

Chapter Two

Wilder

I brought the joint to my mouth and took a long inhale. I passed it to Frankie, the smoke still in my lungs as he took it and placed the tip between his lips. The sound of us baking was loud in the alley, the echo of bottles being broken in the distance seeming to bounce off the brick walls.

“Where the fuck is he?” Frankie asked in a muffled voice, holding the smoke in his lungs.

“He’ll be here,” I said, the smoke he exhaled a cloud of haziness around us.

“Well, I have shit to do, man.” He leaned against the building, propped one of his feet on the brick wall, and pulled out his cell. The screen lit up his face as he started messing with it.

“Chill, Frankie,” I said. “He’ll be here.”

He snorted. “This is why we don’t do deals with junkies, man. They are unreliable and unpredictable.” Frankie didn’t look up from his cell as he spoke.

Yeah, we didn’t do deals or set shit up with people known to be junkies, but this situation and opportunity was too good to pass up.

“Well, when a junkie can give us access codes, schedules, and any other detail that can score us a big job—the biggest we’ve ever had—I’ll take my chance and deal with a tweaker.”

“Well, better hope Dom isn’t pissed.”

I clenched my jaw. Yeah, Dom probably would be pissed. “He’ll get over it when he realizes how much money we can score with this. Another five minutes and then we’ll bounce,” I said and leaned back against the bricks. I shoved my hands in the front pockets of my jeans, the baseball cap I wore pulled down low, the brim blocking out the muted yellow glow from the light at the end of the alley.

And then I heard footsteps approaching. My entire body tensed, and I could see Frankie’s did the same. We both pushed off the wall, him shoving his cell phone back in his pocket, his hand going to the small of his back, where I knew his gun was.

I slipped my hand in my jacket, my fingers brushing up against the cold metal of the gun. No way in fuck we went anywhere without a piece, and especially not when we were meeting with a junkie.

The guy was shuffling along, as if he didn’t know how to pick up his feet when he walked. The scrape, scrape, scrape of his shoes along the asphalt filled the small corridor of the alley, echoing off the building walls.

“Can’t this guy fucking walk?” Frankie muttered under his breath. The tension in his voice would’ve matched mine if I said anything in response.

And then the junkie came closer, the light from the streetlamp washing over him in this dirty glow. He looked between both of us, his body twitching, his eyes red-rimmed as if he hadn’t slept.

“Two of you?” he said in a slurred voice.

Frankie looked over at me, and I could read his expression. He was pissed, all but shouting at me that he “told me so,” that we shouldn’t fucking deal with tweakers.

“You got the information or not?” I took a step forward, hand still shoved in the pocket of my coat, waiting for him to give us what we needed so we could get the fuck out of here and away from him.

He took a step back and started looking between Frankie and me, and then he lifted his hand and started picking at his face. “No,” he muttered and shook his head. “I don’t like this. There’s two of you. Why is there two of you?”

Frankie snorted, and I glanced at him. He shook his head. “Wilder, man, this is fucked. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He shoved a hand in the pocket of his jacket, and I heard his keys jingling around.

Before I knew was happening, the tweaker started screaming about doppelgängers, a government conspiracy, and why there were two of me.

I looked over at the junkie, and everything happened in slow motion. I watched as he produced a gun, one he had shoved in the front of his pants. His hand was shaking as he pointed it at me, as his bloodshot eyes went wide and he kept rambling about magic and witchcraft and how there were two of me.

And then I heard a gunshot go off.

At first, I didn’t know if it was Frankie’s or the junkie’s. But then the tweaker turned and ran away, tossing his gun to the ground, and I stood there staring at his retreating form.

I heard Frankie shouting at me, but the words were muffled, this ringing in my ears, this pressure like I was on a plane and they needed to pop.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Fuck, Wilder.” He had his hand on my shoulder and turned me, his focus down at my abdomen, his eyes wide. I looked down and saw my white shirt slowly becoming saturated with blood, the color a vibrant red even in the darkened ally.