Chapter 17
Kendrick
“You make a habit of keeping tubs of alcohol wipes in your car?” Greedy asks.
With a frown, I watch him run a wipe over each finger. “Between your fingers and all along the nail beds, too,” I instruct, ignoring his jab. “And this isn’t my car.”
He balks, but the glare I shoot at him in the mirror shuts him up.
I don’t know why he’s acting surprised. I wasn’t about to drive my own car across town to commit multiple counts of aggravated assault.
His father’s a surgeon, so I have no doubt he’s privy to plenty of auxiliary medical information. I just happen to possess a wealth of knowledge about expunging evidence. Learned a lot from my pops over the years, whether he realizes it or not.
With my attention on the road again, I cruise at speed and stay extra alert as my wipers slice across the windshield.
Honestly, I’d feel better driving my Suburban in these conditions, but the Toyota Decker keeps at the marina was our safest bet, seeing as how it’s a nondescript gray and registered under a pseudonym.
“You’re sure they won’t squawk?” Decker asks beside me. The dude’s jaw ticks incessantly as he opens and closes his fist, inspecting his throwing hand.
We all have a lot on the line, but Decker has the most to lose.
He shouldn’t have come with us. But it didn’t matter what I said or how Greedy and I tried to reason with him.
He refused to be left behind.
Greedy regards his rival, none of his usual bravado on display. “They won’t. They’re done and they know it. My guy in the ER is set to text me the moment they come in. We’ll know what they tell the staff as soon as they open their mouths.”
“If they can open their mouths,” I add.
Three on three should have been a fair fight, but the second-string punk-ass Sharks were so sleep-deprived and dehydrated they could barely lift their fists to defend themselves.
Greedy did us a solid by ensuring they were ill-prepared and scared shitless before we even showed up. We wore masks as a precaution, but it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out who we are and why we were there.
Not that any of that puts us at any real risk.
Between his connections at the hospital and my familiarity with the department, we’ve got multiple fail-safes in place.
“You think it was enough?” I ask Decker quietly, my focus fixed on the road.
We fucked them up, and the precedent has been set. But even after inflicting that amount of damage, Decker’s desire for revenge still burns so hot it’s stifling. And I can’t shake the feeling that he wouldn’t have stopped had I not pulled him off the last guy.
In my periphery, he turns my way. “Nothing will ever be enough. But it was a start.”
“Amen.” I hold out my knuckles, and he pounds them. Then I swing my arm back and offer them to Greedy, too.
We may hate the guy on the field, and we may be preparing to beat his ass in the game on Saturday, but we couldn’t have pulled this off without him. For that, I’ll always be grateful.