Deserted - Auctioned

Gray didn’t reply, because he didn’t know what to say to that.

“So, what can I do for you…?”

“Gray.”

“Gray. What can I do for you, Gray?” Then Kellan held up a finger and turned to the bar. “Mick! Two pints over here, when you got a sec.”

His easygoing and casual demeanor rattled Gray. Was Kellan really that bad? Dominic had made it sound like organized crime was involved. It didn’t help that Kellan had piercing green eyes that seemed to hold a touch of mirth in them all the time.

“I have to find someone.” Gray tried to relax and shrugged out of his jacket. “Dominic said I could cash in the favor you owed him.”

“Oh, he did?” Kellan finished his meal and threw the napkin on the plate. “That’s not how this works, but I’ll hear you out. If I feel motivated to help…” He trailed off with a shrug.

Gray suppressed a pinch of frustration and waited while Mick arrived with two glasses of beer.

One was for him.

“Put it on my tab, mate,” Kellan said.

“No, that’s fine,” Gray said as politely as he could, and he dug out his wallet and offered Mick a ten. “Thank you.”

Kellan and Mick exchanged an amused glance before the bartender returned to the bar.

“Dominic told you a bit about me,” Kellan stated with that smirk. “You don’t wanna owe me anything—which you wouldn’t. It’s beer, not a kidney.”

Gray lifted a shoulder and didn’t touch his glass. “No disrespect. I’m just being careful.”

Kellan nodded and took a swig of his beer. Then he sat back and retrieved a pack of cigarettes. “You mind?”

Gray shook his head.

“Who’re you looking for?” Kellan asked, lighting up a smoke.

The absent-minded action reminded Gray of Darius and the way he lit his cigarettes when he was tired. He’d let the smoke dangle from the side of his mouth while he searched for his lighter.

Don’t think about him.

Gray cleared his throat. “It’s a kid. Jayden Chapman. He’s eight years old and presumably hiding from CPS.”

Kellan furrowed his brow in thought and exhaled some smoke through his nose. “Chapman—I might recognize the name.”

It hadn’t occurred to Gray that maybe he’d known Jonas—who had spent years on and off the streets. How big was the Philadelphia underworld? “His older brother’s name was Jonas.”

“Was?”

Gray dipped his chin. “He died. Long story, but I promised him I’d find his brother.”

“Hm.” Kellan brought out his phone and set it next to his beer, and he pulled up an app that showed a blank page. Maybe it was one for taking notes…? “What can you tell me about the brothers that might help narrow shite down? They’re white, I assume. Religious? Part of a community? Did Jonas talk of mates he had here—family they stayed with sometimes?”

Pasts and futures hadn’t existed in the world where Gray had met Jonas. He shook his head, at a loss. He knew virtually nothing trivial about Jonas. Gray knew the guy had done everything to protect the innocent around him, and he knew he’d been in agony about having left his little brother behind.

“Sorry. I don’t have much to go on.” Gray rubbed the back of his neck, absently feeling the barcode and the digits below it. “He told me Jayden had been safe at the time—when Jonas left Philadelphia. But he wasn’t supposed to be gone longer than a summer.”

Kellan was writing something down.

Gray flicked a glance at the guy’s colorful tattoos. From the letters across his knuckles and the darkly shadowed shamrock with a broken leaf that covered his hand, to the quotes swirling around instruments and other motifs along his arm. There was a sawed-off shotgun with the words “May the rebellion in your blood save you from their shackles” underneath the barrel. The topside of the shotgun morphed into a violin on its back. The name Luna was written in cursive along the strings of the violin. A set of green eyes, a cliff with waves crashing up against it, an old-looking family crest… A Celtic cross inside a circle. Inside the circle, Gray read “The Sons of Munster.”

His other arm was much the same. Violence, Ireland, music, quotes, two bullet holes.

Kellan got comfortable once more and took a drag from his smoke. “You’re very invested in the brother of someone you barely knew.”

Gray nodded slightly, understanding why it came off that way, and he couldn’t say he had any desire to explain why this promise was important for him to keep. “We went through something together,” he said carefully. “His only goal had been to make enough money to be able to start fresh with his brother, but he didn’t get that chance.”

Kellan’s striking eyes clouded with pensiveness. “You don’t share his background. You’re not from the streets.” Gray had nothing to say to that. Kellan smiled a bit. “I admit, you have my interest.”