Shit. Fuck. I blinked, trying to see through the barrage of fear that impaled me.
“Things get too heavy for you?” he taunted.
Yeah, way too fucking heavy.
“Where are they? Need to know, right now.”
Thought he must have felt the violence that was skating from my tongue because he lowered his voice like he was trying to keep the conversation from the rest of the house. “What’s going on?”
“Nixon isn’t who you think he is.”
“Yeah, well I think he’s a piece of shit, so . . .”
“He was using the gallery as a cover, Lyrik. Running shit through the back. Lana was killed as a warning. Need to make sure Mia is safe. Think they’ve been sending a message this whole time.”
A message that was meant for Nixon but somehow had ended up as one for me.
My purpose.
My reason.
This goal.
“Fuck.” Something banged in the background. “Motherfucker.”
His voice dropped in contempt. “They left with him two hours ago, Leif. Got some bullshit message that they were taking the kids for ice cream. Knew it. Knew it way down deep that something was amiss. That fucker is dead.”
Sickness clawed. Fact she was with him. The kids. The kids.
The world spun for a beat.
I gritted my teeth. “Where? Where did they go?”
“I don’t know where they went. Fuck.” Could feel Lyrik coming apart, too.
“Dad.” Brendon’s distanced voice broke into our chaos.
“Not right now, Brendon.”
“Dad, listen. I know you’re upset about Aunt Mia leaving. I know where they’re at. Where Penny is. I have her on my locator on Snap.”
“Where?” I demanded.
Silence stretched on for too fucking long, and when Lyrik spoke again, the entire world dropped out from under me.
No footing.
“Not at an ice cream parlor.”
His voice was grim. Hatred riding in behind the despair.
“Where?”
“North. Some sketch neighborhood.”
“Drop me the location.”
“Coming with you.”
“No, Lyrik.”
“This is my sister and niece and nephew you’re talking about.”
I swallowed around the ball of barbed wire in my throat. “These people . . . they’re cruel . . . evil,” I told him, knowing he now knew the truth about me.
I was one of them.
“You think I’m a stranger to that? Coming with you. Where are you?”
“About five minutes from your house.”
Hadn’t been able to stay with Mia, but I couldn’t bring myself to get very far, either.
“Meet me at Whitaker and Taylor in ten.”
He didn’t give me a chance to refuse before he hung up.
But we didn’t have time to fuck around. Despair hit me at the thought that we might already be too late.
I purged the thought and shoved my gun into the back of my jeans, tore open the door, and stepped outside, furiously blinking through the blazing daylight.
Trying to keep control.
Focus.
Knowing the time had come, but it looked entirely different than I’d ever anticipated.
My gaze moved.
Drawn to the parking lot below.
Braxton was there, leaning against a car. Skin dark and eyes fierce and loyalty firm. He tossed his cigarette to the ground and straightened.
I lifted my chin.
He grinned.
“It’s time,” I told him.
“Yeah, brother. I know. Let’s roll.”
I bounded down the steps of the crappy hotel and climbed onto my bike. Braxton got behind the wheel of the car he’d rented, falling in line behind me. My bike grumbled and groaned, reigned like a pack of vicious dogs that were fighting to be unleashed.
I took the couple turns through the shadowed Savannah streets.
Lyrik rolled out beside me at the intersection where he’d told us to meet. Tattooed arms stretched out, hands fisted on the handlebars. He gave me a look. I gave him one in return.
He throttled it, flying down the road.
Braxton and I followed suit.Thirty-SevenLeifIt was a sleazy street.
Same damn story but a different town.
Rundown houses on every side. Chain link fences fronting the overgrown yards. Sparse trees and dead weeds growing up all over the place.
A few were nicer. People trying to make something out of this life.
Our motorcycles rumbled through the stagnant heatwaves as we took another turn deeper into the neighborhood, our pace slowed and controlled while our spirits raged.
Could feel it.
Coming off of Lyrik.
Coming off of me.
Do or die.
And I had no idea what I was going to come up on. Come up against.
If it’d be the same scene that had destroyed me three years before.
If this would be my end.
But I would give it all to them. No questions or reservations.
Lyrik put his left hand down, gesturing for us to slow. We eased off to the right of the narrow neighborhood road.
Engines chugging and rumbling before we killed them.
Silence rolled.
Evil howling through the sticky stillness.
We both climbed off our bikes, and Braxton stepped out of the car. Could only imagine what we looked like.
Nothing but bloodshed and brutality.
Someone was probably peering out their blinds right that second, calling the cops, which part of me had already wanted to do, but I knew full well this had to be handled a certain way.