Chapter 44
She did it
Endo
It seems I’m always chasing after Scarlett. It’s my first time chasing after a woman I care about more than I care about my own safety or the safety of pretty much anyone else.
I hate that I care about her.
I can’t stand it.
It’ll get me killed.
It’ll get everyone killed.
And I don’t give a shit. I’m doing it anyway.
I step over the body of a guard to get into the car with Slada. The mayhem around us means very little when you’re in a bulletproof SUV. Thanks, Massio.
“Are you hit?” Slada asks while turning to look into the back. She finds a rifle. “Nice.”
“No. You?” I pass her my phone so she can help me navigate the streets as we follow the tracker embedded in Scarlett’s engagement ring.
I want to get as close as possible while we still have her location.
After today’s violence, if she doesn’t pawn the ring and run away from everything her father and I put her through, Wilfred will replace it with one of his own.
The latter will happen over my dead body, so that’s why I lurch out of Massio’s gates like a bat out of hell, making Slada curse next to me.
“Let me drive,” she says.
“No way.”
“I’m a better driver,” she mentions.
True. She used to race cars for a living. “Don’t care.”
Normally, I don’t operate in a way that’ll jeopardize Slada or my nephews, and most definitely not Cass, but since I stood over the corpse of my half brother, Selnoa’s most notorious criminal, and put three more bullets in his chest just to be sure he was dead, I figured I’ve lost all sense.
The entire lunch might’ve been recorded.
There could’ve been cameras in places we couldn’t reach, and now I’m on camera firing the first shot.
Massio knew I cared about Scarlett and used that to provoke me but I did the rest. I didn’t have to rise to the occasion.
Hell, I could’ve turned the plane around, which would’ve avoided all this.
But I didn’t. And I didn’t not only because I didn’t see another way of getting information about Cass, but also because I wanted Scarlett to see her father for who he really is. A crook. It’s the only way she’ll understand what I do and will do for her. And for my brother.
My brother, who is rotting in a prison thousands of miles away.
I slam my fist through the dashboard. It cracks the speedometer.
Slada throws up her hands. “Oh, great. You’re so helpful when you’re angry. Now I have no idea how fast we’re going.”
“Fast. That’s enough. How far are we from Scarlett’s location?”
“Coming up. Take the exit.”
“They’re getting on the highway?”
“Mmhm.”
“What’s in that direction?”
“Fields.”
“Fields?” We follow the signal and seem to be driving right behind them, but there’s nobody out here besides us. I hit the gas and speed past the dot that’s her signal.
“What in the world?” Slada asks. “Hold on.” She grabs her phone and dials Connor, then puts him on the speaker.
“Are you seeing this?” I ask him.
“Seeing what?” he asks.
“Don’t be cute.”
“I see nothing. You specifically prohibited hacking your phone.”
“Connor, please be helpful,” Slada says.
“Okay, fine, I hacked Endo’s phone. I see the road and the tracking signal.”
“What do you make of it?” I ask, maintaining the high speed that puts me right on top of her signal.
“There’s only one answer. They’re traveling underground,” Connor says.
Motherfucker. “How the fuck did your father dig up a metro under the fields without me knowing?”
“He was smart.”
“Smarter than you?” I ask.
“No.”
“It looks like he’s smarter than you, Con. You’re in charge of surveillance, and he slipped under the radar to build a tunnel he’s using to escape with my fucking wife.”
“Uh-oh,” Slada says.
“What?” I ask.
“You said wife.”
“Shit.”
At that moment, the tracking signal disappears.
“I’ve got no signal,” I say in a voice I don’t recognize as my own.
It sounds like the voice of a man who’s panicked, a man who’s losing control of a situation when the stakes are highest. I slam my palm on the wheel.
“Fuck fuck fuuuck.” Then I hit the brakes and turn the car so that it spins the way I’m spiraling now, thinking I’ve lost everything.
I lost her.
The car stops, and smoke from the tires surrounds us. Dust lifts.
I look up at the roof. I wish I believed that if I prayed, God would deliver salvation, or at the very least empower me to deliver salvation for myself, but my relationship with God is strained.
Cass and I pushed a priest down the water well the day after he made me watch him masturbate. I guess he thought I would be ashamed, like Cass was ashamed to tell me he’d been the man’s audience for months. Yet, if there ever was a moment when I needed help, it’s now.
I step out of the car and put my hands on my hips, close my eyes, and raise my face to the skies.
“Endo,” Slada says from next to me.
“Yes?”
“Look.”
The dust settled, and up ahead on the side of the road is a man’s body. It’s the corpse of a large man with long, braided, jet-black hair. There aren’t too many big dudes with long hair, and certainly not braided. My brother is one of them.
I sprint toward him, hearing Slada yelling after me. Something about booby traps. The entire road could be lined with trip wires, and I could step on a mine and lose a leg or my life, but my life isn’t that important if I can’t spend it with the people I care about.
And I damn well care about my brother.
When I get close to him, I slide on my knees and turn him onto his back. His beaten face is unrecognizable, but this is my brother, all right. Slada pulls up next to us and gets out instantly.
“It’s him.” Her hands fly to her head. “Is he…”
“I’m about to find out.” I press my ear to his chest and hear a faint beat. “He’s alive. Barely. But that’s good enough.”
“We sure could use that doctor right about now,” Connor says from the speakerphone.
I snort and grab Cass under his arms.
Slada picks up his legs. “You mean the doctor you threatened to kill?”
“I changed my mind about her. I like her now,” Connor says.
“Too late.” I groan as I lift Cass into the back of the SUV. He lost weight, but he’s still a big guy and as heavy as the ton of bullets that Cass might want to load Daniel’s chest with when he finds him. I’m done with him. Cass can deal out revenge on his own time.
Once Cass is loaded into the car, I grab his wrist so it doesn’t dangle, and something flashes before my eyes. I pick up his hand. On his pinky finger is Scarlett’s engagement band.
You know what they say about angels?
They deliver.
You know what they don’t say about them?
Bad men shouldn’t chase them.
“Thank you,” I whisper to the big guy in the sky, then I take my brother home.