Chapter 13
KENZIE
Ishuffled back, but not out of his way.
“Listen to me.” He stepped into my space. “Everything is going to be all right. He’s on property in the Narrows. In the clubhouse basement. I’ll be right back.”
He leaned in to kiss me, but I shoved him back.
“You are not leaving me here while you take on the entire gang by yourself.” I checked the gun in my hand to make sure the magazine was full. I ran back over to the credenza and grabbed the box of bullets.
“I can’t worry about you and rescue him.” He scoffed.
“No one asked you to worry about me.” I scooted past him toward the door. I opened it and peeked down the hall. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me back in.
The door slammed shut.
“Kenzie. You can’t—”
“You aren’t responsible for me.” I pushed away from him. “No matter what happened between us doesn’t change what I have to do.”
He shook his head.
“The last time someone told me they’d come for me, they never did.” I blinked away tears. “I can’t sit and wait while someone else I love dies when I can help.”
He looked away.
“Please, Reid,” I pleaded. “I have to see this through.”
He grabbed me and pulled me toward him. Our lips crashed together. Maybe later, I’d contemplate how inappropriate it was, but now all I felt was heat and desire and a strange pull from a man I’d just met yet known all my life. At least the part of my life that counted.
He grabbed the back of my neck. “You stay with me the whole time. No going off on your own mission.” He kissed me again. “If I tell you to run, you run, okay?”
I rolled my eyes. He squeezed. “Say okay.”
“Okay.”
“I love you, too, princess,” he whispered against my lips, then headed out the door.
I hesitated, my mind racing from his last statement.
“Kenzie,” he yelled.
I gasped and then ran to catch up with him.
The party continued in the main room, and the music made the hallway vibrate. It created a weird echo chamber.
The smell of beer was better than the gunpowder and shit in the room we left. Reid shuffled down the hall, staying close to the walls. I followed his movements.
Someone fell into the hallway from the party but didn’t even look in our direction as he scrambled to get up and leaped back under a chorus of oohs and aahs.
We stopped at the opening to the main hall. Reid scanned the room, not sure what he was looking for. He motioned with his hands, and we continued. A few seconds later, two guys, younger than Reid, stepped into the hall and jogged to catch up.
“What have you heard?” Reid motioned for them to stop before a metal door.
“Uhm, who is this?” One guy gestured toward me.
“Patrick’s sister.”
“No shit.” He rubbed his hand on his jacket and held it out to me. “Nice to meet you.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Where’d she come from?” the other guy said.
“Never mind.” Reid punched him in the chest to get his attention. “What’s happened?”
“Albert’s family is fine, but he’s dead.” First guy frowned. “His men took out Joey and Marco. But then two prospects took him out and got the drop on Patrick.”
“They took him to the Narrows.” Reid entered the code on another keypad and then shoved a bar forward; the door opened with a whoosh. A flood of musty air hit us in the face.
“Stay alert and no one,”—he looked at me—“makes a move without my say so.”
We all nodded.
We stepped onto a small landing leading to more stairs. Moisture dripped down my neck from the humidity. It was twenty degrees cooler when we reached the bottom, which opened into a dully lit room.
Reid led us down another long passageway with cages spaced out on either side of us. What the hell did they do down there?
Voices traveled down the hall as we got closer to the end.
“Seems your guy has abandoned you, my boy.” Sonny’s voice made my skin crawl. “It’s so sad. That’s what happens when you go against your family.”
Reid stopped at the end of the hall and held up his hand.
He pointed for the guys to break off to the right.
He grabbed my hand, and we skated across the left side of the room.
I gasped when I spotted Patrick. He was zip-tied to a chair bolted to the floor. Bruises covered his face, and his left eye had swollen shut.
A prospect stood in front of him and delivered a blow to his stomach. The thud made me nauseous.
We stepped out into the vast room but remained in the shadows. Reid quietly shut and bolted the only other exit in the room. I wasn’t sure if it was to keep others out or to keep Sonny in.
“How could you betray me like this?” Sonny hobbled closer to Patrick. Blood stained his left pants leg. He was losing blood. “I took care of you. Everything I did in this life was for you.”
Patrick mustered up some strength or was too numb to notice it. He lifted his head and grinned at his father. “Please stop.”
“Stop what, boy?” Sonny snarled.
“Stop using me as the reason for your fucked-up choices.” Patrick spat blood, and it landed on his father’s shirt. He slapped Patrick. Patrick laughed, but his head fell back onto his chest. He wasn’t going to last much longer.
The other guys were in position. One guy stood a foot away from the prospect. He failed to notice, either because he was too amped up or too stupid.
Reid signaled, and one guy took the prospect out, and the other let go a warning shot over the other prospect’s head. He was so disoriented; he didn’t know what was going on until the other guy got to him and hit him with the butt of his gun. He crumbled to the ground.
Sonny stood off to the side, scrambling with something. Reid got to him before he could turn around.
“Sonny, it’s over.” He placed the barrel of his gun at the base of his skull. “Check on Patrick.” He nudged me.
I ran over and kneeled next to him, took out my knife, and removed the zip ties.
“Who are you?” His good eye looked glassy, and the other was sealed shut under some pus. I tried not to stare.
“It’s me, Kenzie.”
“Oh, hey, sis.” He smiled at me. “I look that bad, huh?”
I shook my head. “Are you okay?”
“Right as rain.” He leaned forward and put an arm over my shoulder. “Help me up.”
“Patrick, stay put. Help’s on the way.”
“No, I’m tired.” He leaned on me but held himself up under his own strength, mostly. He covered his midsection with his arm. It looked broken.
“Don’t worry, sis.” He chuckled. “It looks worse than it feels.”
I doubted that.
“Who is that? Why does he keep calling her sis?”
I almost forgot Sonny was in the room.
He shuffled around; more blood had pooled under his feet. He’d nicked something vital, from the looks of it.
“Well, if it isn’t Kenzie O’Connor.”
“Fuck you,” I spat at him. “I’m not an O’Connor. I never took your name.”
“Shame.” He spat, and it landed near my feet. “If you had, I would have taken you in, let you be a part of my empire, but you killed my friends. You had to die.”
“You killed my mother,” I screamed.
“And she didn’t kill Dennis and Pewter,” Patrick chimed in. “That was me. I did what you could never do—protect those you’re supposed to protect, so I did it for you. Aren’t you going to thank me for saving your daughter’s life?” He doubled over in a fit of coughing.
I helped him sit back down in the chair.
“We’ve been fucking with your shit for years.
” Reid stepped back. “The drug bust, the takedown of the house in North Jersey. The relationship with Alberto and his crew. Not just a series of unfortunate incidents. That was us. We turned your shit upside down for years under your nose and made you vulnerable, and it brought us to where we are tonight.”
“And where are we?” Sonny turned around. He stumbled on his bad leg but righted himself.
“The Infinity Kings as you know them are no longer.” Reid chuckled. “Taken down by the men you raised.”
Sonny smirked. His gaze fell on me.
“Don’t you fucking look at her.” Reid raised the gun and settled it between Sonny’s eyes.
“Where does she fit into the mix?” He nodded in my direction.
“You know you look like your mother. Too skinny, with wobbly legs and no tits. I was surprised you turned out to be mine despite the number of guys in the gang she fucked. I tried to do the right thing. Did she tell you that? I paid for that townhouse in Hoboken. I came to see you every day. Fed you, rocked you to sleep, changed your shitty diapers. And then true to form, I found your mother fucking Samson, and you know what? One of you had to go.”
“W-what did you say?” Reid stammered.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Sonny chuckled. “Her mother was fucking my best friend. I let him go on thinking it was okay. He said your mother had taken you far away. I knew the truth. He had you stashed away somewhere. I just didn’t know where until I was tipped off his estate was sending cash to an account for a Mackenzie Peterson every month.
” He slurred the last few words. “Your dad was the money guy, after all. I bet he didn’t take care of you and your mother as well as he did for my whore and her bastard.
” More slurring, but the disgust in his eyes when he talked about my mom made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I had no way of knowing whether what he said was true. I peeked at Reid. He and Patrick were looking at each other.
Sonny slumped off the table and crashed to the floor, slipping in his own blood.
“I need some help.” His voice was barely audible.
My heart raced. My blood pumped loudly in my ears. Sonny was right in front of me.
My whole reason for being here. He was two feet away from me, vulnerable and in no position to fight back. It was a perfect scenario. I could end this now, and it would all be over.
“Boy!” Sonny yelled. I jumped. Patrick stood up. “You worthless little shit.” His words came out all jumbled. “Help me, fucking loser. Help me!” he screeched. I covered my ears and turned away.
Bang!
I screamed and crouched down, reaching for the gun on my hip. It was no longer there. I looked up to find Patrick stumbling over to his old man, aiming a pistol at his head.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three more shots rang out.
Reid’s eyes remained on Sonny; his gun aimed at where his head used to be.
Sonny opened his mouth, but no sound came out. We all watched as he slumped to his side, closed his eyes, and died.