28. Gunner
Gunner
Theo Plus Two
“T heo Griffin! Get your ass in here. Now!” Jay’s voice booms from his room like an explosive going off. “Bishop!”
First Spence, and now Jay. I look into Lib’s eyes in question, but obviously she has no clue. Jay stomps through his doorway and stops in the breezeway with something akin to murder in his eyes. “Get in here. Now.”
“The fuck is going on?” I stand and extend a hand to pull Lib up. Jay doesn’t stick around to discuss, instead he forces us to follow him into the room where Soph sits at a table with her laptop. “What?”
“Check it.”
Jay stalks his room much the same way I do when I’m pissed, but I ignore him when Soph turns the laptop and shows an email taking up most of her screen.
--------------------------------
To: AcesAndEights
From: Checkmate
Aces,
I’m willing to talk if you’re willing to be honest.
It never had to be this way. If only the Bishops knew how to tell the truth, none of us would be here today.
I’m interested in the Bishop fortune. I’m interested in how you earn your means.
Being the blood of a fallen king doesn’t qualify you for immunity, so truth and honor is all you have left.
I was forced into this war more than two decades ago. An innocent, thrust into battle with nothing to his name but his hands and wits.
But that’s not fair, is it?
I’ve never hurt yours, but yours have hurt mine.
Someone must speak, they must explain, or they must pay.
--------------------------------
“What the fuck is going on?” Jay stops stalking, instead snatching a duffel from the closet and begins to fill it with guns and cash.
Lib’s brows shoot up high. These guys, while we know they’re always packing, are usually pretty discreet about it, but now Jay literally packs handgun after handgun like they’re protein bars.
“Why is he giving us the same story you gave us two months ago? Why is his email address your email address?” He pauses and glares into my eyes. “What the fuck is your game?”
“That’s not me. I was sitting outside just now, talking to Lib.”
“It wasn’t him,” Soph confirms. “But whoever he is, he’s here.”
“Here?” Jay races to the window and tears the curtains open. “How close?”
“About twenty miles out,” she murmurs.
The email remains up on one side of her screen so I can reread it, but her fingers fly over the keyboard in a race to find this guy’s exact location.
“Guys, I don’t know who the fuck that is.”
“He knows your name,” Romeo murmurs from behind me. “And the original searches began at Griffin Plaza.”
Soph nods. “This is absolutely connected. And he’s looking to get you in trouble.”
Being the blood of a fallen king doesn’t qualify you for immunity, so truth and honor is all you have left.
“Bishop blood again.” Libby releases my hand and walks a slow lap in front of the bed. “It continues to come back to Bishop blood. He said he was forced into this war two decades ago.” She stops and looks to me. “Same as the rest of us. We were all just kids then.”
“Could be Frankston?” I ponder. I look from one face to the next as they all stop and look up at me. “Frankston was in that club that day. He and Tate are the only men left alive.”
“Both in prison,” Lib presses.
“Yes, but you’ve been on Tate this whole time. I suppose it could be him, but he knows you’re close. Whereas Frankston has been locked away separately. Could be him?”
“He’s still locked up,” Soph reads straight from her computer screen. “He has the basic commissary balance. No jobs for extra cash. He tried the laundry for a bit, but other dudes kept fucking him up, so they yanked him.”
I push my hands into my hair, but stop and look to Soph. “Fucking him up?”
She grins. “He was stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey. Often. And mostly against his wishes.”
“No sympathy from me.” I drop my hands. “Okay, so maybe not Frankston. He doesn’t control anything anymore, and he’s still in.”
“Has anyone ever checked out where the sour-sisters are?” Lib’s eyes flicker between mine. “We don’t know this is a dude, right? Could be them.”
Soph turns to us. “Sour-sisters?”
“Stella and Zoey Slutface,” I answer. “Sisters, bitches, and bullies.”
Soph laughs. “Tell me how you really feel, Griffin. And while you’re at it, perhaps give me their real names? ‘Slutface’ isn’t popping.”
“Stella and Zoey Hayes,” Lib inserts. “They spent a lot of time hanging out at a college over the years, though I doubt they went to a single class.”
“Distributors?”
Lib nods. “I know they were mooching off Hayes money up until Kane took Hayes out. I never really thought to check in after that. They just weren’t a part of my world anymore, and I didn’t wanna revisit.”
“It’s okay.” I walk away from Soph and pull Lib into my arms. This room is packed with everyone but Spence, and that means we get zero privacy as I press my lips to the soft skin behind her ear. “It’s okay. You don’t have to go back there. That’s not your responsibility.”
“Looks like they’re hooking somewhere in AC.”
“Hooking?” Jay asks Soph. “Really?”
“Records say they’re working at the casino. They serve rich folks their drinks, but I’m gonna use my creative brain and read between the lines.”
“High-end escorts.” Lib pulls out of my arms and turns to Soph. “I know we’re here to work, and not to let our feelings get in the way, but it makes me happy they’re selling their bodies for rent money. It kinda makes us all feel a little better, right? The irony is beautiful.”
“Nobody said we’re not allowed to have feelings here, Chick Cop.” Jay zips up his duffel and tosses it onto the bed behind us. “Bitches can have saggy old dudes rub themselves all over them. It feels good knowing they’re not living it up now, while those they hurt are dead or suffering.”
“They’ve had a week off here and there this past year,” Soph says. “But nothing extravagant. No flights, no credit card purchases. They’re living a modest life now that their daddy has bit it.”
“Score one for Kane. He took that motherfucker out.”
“It says I’ve never hurt yours, but yours have hurt mine .” Soph’s eyes meet ours. “I guess Kane taking out Hayes qualifies for that, right?”
“Not quite,” I argue. “A Bishop took out a Hayes, but it’s not like a Hayes never hurt a Bishop.” I turn to Jay. “Wanna show us that scar on your forehead again? Because that bullet came from Hayes’ smoking barrel, no?”
“It did.” He brings a hand up and rolls his bottom lip between his thumb and finger.
“But do we take that email for what it says; they’ve never hurt ours?
Because everyone thinks they’re the good guy in their own story.
So maybe they’re telling the truth and theirs really didn’t hurt ours, or maybe this fucker just has a victim mentality and won’t ever tell the real truth. ”
Romeo walks into the room and folds his arms. “We treat this like a threat on our lives. He says he’s willing to talk, so let’s organize the meet. We say where, we say when. We set it up so we’re in complete control, and we get this shit taken care of.”
“Sophia!” Spence steamrolls out of his room and makes the walls rattle when he slams his door. “Finish this! I need to go home.”
Soph rolls her eyes and turns away. “Yeah, you already said that.”
“No, you don’t understand. My girl’s friend died.
That one we were all rooting for because she’s sick.
She fucking died, so now we need to finish this.
I’m not staying away any longer. I tried, ballerina.
I really did, and I’ve never punked on an assignment before, but I can’t stay on while she’s home crying for her friend. ”
“The girl died?” Romeo’s commando exterior drops away to reveal something much more vulnerable. “She’s only seventeen, right?”
“Yes! She’s a fucking baby!” Spencer roars. “She’s a child, she was sick, her boyfriend dumped her because he’s a weak prick, and now she’s gone. She won’t ever get a redo at this life. She won’t make it to prom. She won’t get to do shit, becau–”
“Because she’s dead,” Romeo finishes. He turns to Sophia.
“Make the meet happen. I haven’t been home yet either, so make this shit happen, let’s end it, then we can stop living out of bags for a minute.
I’m done.” He turns away before Soph can argue.
“Reply to that email, Sophia. Organize the meet.”
TWO DAYS LATER
It’s funny how life can work out so strangely. I never expected to be working so close to Jay Bishop during what feels like such a high-stakes time, but here I am, laying on my stomach amid trees, twigs, and leaves. Jay is just four feet to my left, Libby two feet to my right.
Spence and Romeo are set up on the opposite side of the valley we called the meet in, and Soph stands by the car at the bottom as she waits for our visitor and acts like her life isn’t at risk.
She agreed to a meet with this guy that claims his name is Theo.
The six of us have spent two days in one room talking this through. Three of us know that world of Colum Bishop. Romeo lends his military knowledge and bounces ideas off Spence, while Soph adds the brains and keeps us all on track.
We don’t know who our target is, but it would seem, this target is willing to come to us.
To talk.
You know what they say about things being too good to be true.
This might be what “Theo” says it is, and maybe he really is just here for a chat, but just in case he’s not, Soph has five sniper rifles pointing her direction now, and five well trained shooters willing to end this all today.
I can’t even find it in my heart to get mad that Jay is still keeping me close; not because I’m a friend, but because in his world, I’m the devil.
“Car approaching, a thousand yards to the east.” Jay’s voice is deep, low, and in work mode. He moves his head just a fraction to the right to keep the approaching car in his sight. He won’t let his girl die in this war.
“I’m watching,” Soph murmurs into the earpieces we all wear. “I don’t see him yet.”
“It’s bendy,” Jay replies. “And there’s no dirt, no dust. Everyone understand their roles?”
“Yeah,” Romeo’s voice crackles in my ear. “Listen to him. Silence him. Go the fuck home. I miss my family.”
“You’re almost done,” Soph says. “Stay sharp, guys. I’m the only one who might die today.”
“I’ve got you, Sugar Plum.” Jay’s body literally vibrates beside mine as we watch the dark SUV approach. “Never doubt me.”
When the SUV is close enough, the air changes for all of us, but most of all, for me and Libby as our eyes meet.
There are two passengers. Female.
“The fuckin’ sour-sisters are involved.”
Libby’s voice catches, but it ends on a stream of cussing that almost makes me worry for her.
Thankfully, Libby isn’t much for internalizing.
I don’t have to worry that this is going to fuck her up.
She’ll swear about it, she’ll make the shot she’s been wanting to make her whole damn life, and then we move on.
This won’t be a setback for her.
I can’t speak, since we’re all wired into the same system and the others will hear, so instead, I slide my foot across the grass until it touches hers, then I loop them together in the closest thing to a hug I can give right now.
For just a brief second in the silence, her lips curl up into a ghost of a smile. It’s tiny, shaky, and weak, but it’s the best she can give. And it means she’s here with me. She’s pissed, but she’s right here and letting me touch.
Turning back, I study the driver’s broad chest, since his shoulders and head are hidden by the roof of the car and the angle at which we sit.
He wears long sleeves and jeans. This Theo’s limbs are long; long torso, long arms, long legs.
He’s tall. He wears a thigh holster on his right leg, and keeps another handgun in the cup holder between his seat and the passenger seat.
“Okay, I see him now.” Soph’s voice catches as though she might now be realizing how this can go bad.
She’s brave, and since the email was addressed to her, she insisted on being the one in the valley for the meet.
But she isn’t stupid. She could die today if this dude decides he doesn’t want to chat.
A cell phone chirps in my earpiece. It takes us a moment to find it, because it’s actually across the valley. One sharp bleep, then Romeo’s voice. “Hello?”
“Romeo!” Sophia hisses. “What the fuck!”
Romeo’s “Now?” snaps in my ear. “Today?”
“Romeo!” Jay cracks. “Focus, motherfucker!”
“I’m out.”
He stands on the hill seven hundred feet across from where we lay.
His movement blows our cover, because before this, the car wouldn’t have had any clue there was more than one person here.
He might have suspected it, but he can’t have known.
But now a muscled ranger stands in a ghillie suit and telegraphs us all.
Romeo’s gun drops to his side, and the SUV comes to a screeching stop just one bend before he would pull up in front of Soph.
“I have to leave.”
“Romeo!”
“Family emergency.” Without another word, he turns on long legs and sprints into the thick trees at his back.
In the valley, the SUV’s passengers panic and show their faces when they peer out the windows, but the driver slams his car into reverse and spins his wheels in escape.
The sour-sisters look exactly the same. Different, but the same. Too thin, too tall, too mean, but they’re gone again within a second as their driver escapes around the bend that hides them from our scopes.
“Yeah.” Spence jumps to his feet. “I’m out too. I’m sorry.”
“Spencer!”
“Pull her out!” He collects his things and turns the way Romeo went. “Your team is out. Pull Soph out. We’ll regroup later.”
“Spencer Serrano!” Jay pushes to his knees. “Where’s the brotherhood?”
“I’m sorry! I need to go to Abigail.”