Chapter 1 – Corvus #2
Why don’t you come out of the shadows and play? Or are you too much of a coward? It’s me you want. Come and get me, motherfucker.
“When did she send that?” Rook asked, trying to scroll back up on the phone over my shoulder.
We both looked at the time stamp. It was sent days ago, and she’d received no reply.
“She was fucking taunting him,” Grey said.
“Who?” Diesel asked, a knot forming between his brows.
“Let me see,” Becca demanded, rushing over to stand on tiptoe to see the screen.
“Are we really surprised?” Rook asked gruffly as Becca let out a little gasp after reading the message.
“No,” Becca replied to the rhetorical question. “But… you don’t think she would go after him, do you?”
Heat surged through my chest, making my breaths come heavier.
I knew she would . But did she? After everything that happened, was that where her head would be right now?
“I don’t think she can,” Grey answered Becca. “I’ve exhausted every resource we have looking for this fucker. As smart as Ava Jade is, she couldn’t find him alone.”
“That’s the fucking problem,” I growled, struggling to regulate my breathing at the idea of this piece of shit’s hands touching what was ours. “She’s alone . And that’s exactly what he wants.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Who are you talking about?” Diesel asked, reminding me he was still standing there, the other Saints who’d been with him scattered around the bar, checking on their injured brothers.
I met my father’s cold eyes, lifting my chin. “We meant to tell you,” I said, unable to sound even the tiniest bit apologetic. I had bigger fucking problems. “We were going to last night before?—”
“Before you lost your shit on Ghost over a fucking jacket,” Rook supplied, reaching over the empty bar to scoop a bottle of Jack from the other side and take a swig straight from its mouth.
Diesel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mind explaining now ?”
“AJ has a stalker,” Grey started, and when Diesel shifted his hard stare to my brother, he lost his nerve, sagging at the raw emotion in Grey’s eye. The fear. The pain.
He wore his worry plain on his face, not bothering to try to conceal it.
Diesel dragged a stool from the bar and set it down near Grey’s cot, falling onto it, leaning his elbows over his knees. “Go on.”
Grey told Diesel almost everything, not glazing over the gritty details. There wasn’t any point. Once he caught wind of it, Diesel would find out all of those details for himself one way or another. And he needed to know. This person, whoever it was, had threatened not only Ava Jade, but us too.
If it were reversed, I’d want to know.
“You should’ve come to me sooner,” Diesel said when Grey was finished, his icy blue eyes pacing the floor.
“You weren’t?—”
“You should’ve fucking told me,” he cut me off, his tone sharp as he pushed to his feet. “Where is she now?”
My brows furrowed.
“Ava Jade,” he clarified. “Where is she?”
“We don’t know,” Rook said, leaving the bottle on the bar. “This idiot told her all that shit down at the Docks was her fault.”
I flinched, but I would own that.
“She took off,” Grey added.
Diesel nodded. “I saw her storm down the dock. I remember.”
“We should look for her,” Becca said, piping up for the first time in thirty minutes.
Diesel’s gaze slid to her like he was only just remembering she was there. “There’s no reason to believe that this… this filth has her. She was upset. She left. She doesn’t know you’re here to come looking.”
“She’d figure it out,” Grey argued.
Rook shook his head. “She won’t be ready to come looking. Not yet.”
“Becca’s right,” I said, two words I never thought I’d utter. “We should look for her. I don’t care if she’s ready or not. She shouldn’t be out there alone.”
“Give her the day,” Diesel suggested. “If she isn’t here by nightfall, we’ll find her. Send out teams of three to every place you think she might’ve gone.”
I cocked my head at him. We? He was going to use our men to aid in the search for her?
“She’s one of us,” Diesel said plainly, looking at me as though I should’ve understood that. “And she’s important to the three most important people to me. That makes her problems my problems. But I got to say, boys, the timing of this shit…”
He trailed off, not needing to finish the thought.
We all hoped the war with the Aces and Dead Men was at an end after the slaughter at the Docks, but we needed to be cautious.
We needed to rebuild. Strengthen our ranks.
With the Kings here to help bolster us, we were all right.
We wouldn’t be perceived as weak or vulnerable to attack any who wanted a piece of our territory.
But did that alliance still hold now that the threat was dealt with?
“Tonight, then,” Rook said with a note of finality in his tone.
Diesel shook his head. “You three aren’t going anywhere. The vet said Grey shouldn’t be moving around for a couple days at least. You either, Rook. In fact, I recall him saying not to put any pressure whatsoever on that leg.”
Diesel eyed Rook’s torn off jeans and the bandages cuffing his thigh and calf. Blood was already showing through the starchy white gauze even though I’d changed the dressings for him twice. Unless I tied him down, he wouldn’t stay sitting.
“And you,” Diesel added, gaze sliding my way. “You’re lucky the internal bleeding didn’t put your ass in a casket. You need fluids and rest.”
“Then we’ll rest,” I said through gritted teeth. “…until the sun goes down.”
He threw his hands up, scoffing as he rolled his eyes. “Have kids she said,” he muttered to himself. “It’ll be fucking fun, she said.”
Grey snorted, and I couldn’t help the tiniest smirk at the reminder of the reason Diesel St. Crow took in three strays and made them family. His wife, who couldn’t have children, but always wanted them. The woman who resolved to adopt… just before her life was ended.
“All right. Rest then,” Diesel said after a moment. “We’ll be back in a few hours. Got some things to check up on and Maverick wants to have a meet.”
“You need us there for that?” Rook asked.
“It’ll happen at Sanctum. I’ll be back before he gets here.”
“Wait,” I said before Dies could take off again, remembering the other thing we’d wanted to talk to Dies about during his party. “Aries.”
He quirked a brow.
“Maverick’s man,” I explained. “His clean-up guy. Ava Jade thought he might be the guy. Her stalker. He took off a couple days ago, after the newsletter was sent to the entire school about my… origin. We haven’t seen him since.”
Diesel’s mouth pressed into a thin line as he thought through the new problem. Asking a gang leader to hand over one of his own men wasn’t going to be pleasant, but Maverick could either give him over or let us hunt him down. If he was smart, he’d prefer the former.
“I’ll bring it up at the meet,” Diesel said finally. “You think it’s him?”
I rolled the question around in my mouth.
“No,” Rook answered for me. “The guy’s a creep, but not a monster.” He sneered. “Too weak. Besides, he’s probably a hundred pounds soaking wet.”
“AJ said—” Grey started, but Rook cut him off.
“Which is why we’ll look into it. You actually telling me you think that little shit is the guy?”
Grey didn’t have anything to say to that, falling silent.
“We just want to ask him a few questions,” I supplied.
“A few questions?” Diesel scoffed, knowing exactly what that meant. He shook his head. “I’ll speak to Maverick.”
He whistled low and lifted his hand, making a circular motion with his ring and index fingers. The others who’d been with him gathered back to his side, following him from the bar. The conversation finished for the moment.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Rook asked as I lifted my jacket from the back of a chair with my pinkie and slid it on, ignoring the pain of the movement.
“I can’t just sit here.”
“Where are you going?” he repeated.
“To check on Julia.” I didn’t have a specific place in mind, but the words rolled off my tongue anyway.
It was as good a place as any. She wasn’t answering our requests for updates on our humanitarian projects the last couple weeks or so.
And hadn’t Sparrow said something about that girl in Williams’ class trying to call the hotline but not getting through?
Yes. I would check on Julia.
It was as good a thing to do as any if I was meant to fucking wait another two hours to hunt my Sparrow.
By the time I got back, no force on this earth, not even Diesel St. Crow, was going to stop me from finding her. I prayed she’d be back before I was. I didn’t want to, but I would drag her back if that was what it took. Kicking and fucking screaming.
“ Fuck . Wait,” Rook huffed, a snarl on his lips as he put weight on his fucked up leg. “I’ll come with you.”
His leg buckled when he moved forward, and he caught himself on a table, cursing.
“No you won’t. I don’t need your gimp ass slowing me down.”
“Fuck you.”
“Besides, you and Grey need to be here with the others. Just in case.”
“That’s what the sentries are for,” Grey argued, swinging his legs from the cot.
He wasn’t wrong. Diesel left a team of men guarding Sanctum. There were five around the building and two on the roof. No one would even get close.
“You need to lie down,” I reminded Grey. “And, Rook, you’re already bleeding through your fucking bandages.”
“You aren’t going out there alone, man,” Grey argued.
“I’ll go with him.”
At once, our heads turned on a swivel to where Becca was still standing quietly by a high-top table. She flushed, swallowing hard as she tried to appear confident, nearly succeeding.
I… didn’t know what to say.
Fuck no seemed a good option, but I knew Sparrow wouldn’t like that. “You should stay here,” I said instead. “Where you’ll be safe.”
“Fuck that. I can’t sit here anymore, either. Let me help. I’m a shitty shot, but I know how a gun works. I’ll cover you.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, holding back another response I knew my Sparrow wouldn’t like. “Rebecca…”
“Look, either you let me help you or I’m just going to go and start looking for her.”
“No, you’re not,” Rook warned. “Not alone.”
“If anything happened to you, AJ’d have our balls,” Grey added.
She strengthened her resolve, lifting through her hips to stand taller, looking more like someone who could be Ava Jade’s equal than I ever gave her credit for. “Then you’re taking me with you.”