Chapter 29
plenty of rage to go around
Rage seared James’s lungs. It wasn’t true. James had imagined this over and over and this wasn’t true, it didn’t end like this.
The room blurred.
Darius was wrong. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t take this from James.
Thunder slapped the nearest wall. Darius couldn’t betray him like this.
Pain burst along James’s knuckles. He punched again, and Darius’s face snapped sideways with the blow. White plaster shone like a blinding halo.
James didn’t remember shoving Darius against the wall. Wrenching his fist in Darius’s shirt. Holding him still for another punch.
“How dare you?” James snarled. “Her head was mine.”
He spent half his life twisting grief into purpose. Lonely years chasing a singular goal, even when he was weak and finding his family’s killers seemed impossible. Finally trusting a new family.
And Darius betrayed him.
Voices echoed, incomprehensible to James’s ringing ears. He raised his fist again. Darius wasn’t fighting back, just looking straight at him with unreadable coldness.
Not fighting back.
Confusion slowed James’s fist for an instant. Enough for Bishop to seize him by the shoulders and haul him back. More words James couldn’t understand—all right, that was a lie. He just didn’t want to understand words like stop, wait, listen, explain.
James whirled on Bishop, because he had plenty of rage to go around.
Bishop simply pointed a gun at James’s head.
Surprise more than fear held James in place. The dark metal was an anchor, stabilizing the firestorm until words started to make sense again.
“I want to hear Darius’s explanation,” Bishop said, in an infuriatingly reasonable voice. “If I don’t like it, you can punch him again.”
“This isn’t your jurisdiction,” James spat. “I’m not one of your cases.”
“You’re not. But I have a gun.” Bishop lowered his aim to James’s leg instead of his face, a more honest threat. “Darius. Talk.”
Darius wiped blood from his lip. Touched his nose and apparently found it unbroken. Pity. He was often quiet, but not like this. He should have fought back.
“She knew you were getting close,” Darius said, his voice low. “If I had waited, she would have gotten away and gotten us first.”
James’s anger flared. “She would have tried.”
“She would have succeeded,” Darius said, quiet but certain.
Bishop’s brow knit. “Who was she?”
But Darius continued answering James. “I didn’t know she was the Rat King. Not until I found Terry in my kitchen. I wouldn’t have kept that from you.”
Darius was a professional. Money over morals, a job was a job, don’t bring work home, don’t ask about his day at the office. He didn’t dwell on his kills the way Bishop did, the way James pretended not to. Darius was like Holden that way.
Justifying himself to James was new. James felt worse about it than the blood trickling down Darius’s jaw. The matching smear on his own fist.
“You found Terry’s body yesterday morning,” James said, struggling for calm. Because Bishop was right. Explanation first. Then more punching. “You kept it from me for twenty-four hours.”
“That’s why I let you punch me in the face.” Darius touched his nose again. “Felicity was better than me. My only advantage was surprise.”
“You knew her,” James said. He couldn’t bring himself to say the name.
“She was my mentor. The killer who made me.” Darius’s grin was sad. “Looks like we have that in common.”
All the air left James in a rush. He sat down hard on the arm of the couch. Mere feet from Felicity Carrow’s dead body.
The missing Rat King.
Nazaro Bradach was the businessman. If Felicity Carrow was the killer, there was a good chance she murdered the Zhou family herself. Was it her idea, or Nazario’s, or both?
“I have more questions,” Bishop said slowly, still aiming at James. “But we should talk in a safe location. James, can you hold it together while we relocate?”
James laughed. A thin, wrong laugh. “Not sure about that, B.”
“We have an appointment right here.” Darius lifted an unfamiliar phone. “I used Felicity’s phone to contact Nazario. He’ll be here in twenty minutes.” His smile stretched bright under the blood. “Come on, James. Did you think I wouldn’t leave any for you?”
Bishop settled against the wall as bones crunched across the room. Normally, a person would scream when someone did that to their hands. Nazario Bradach only made gurgling noises, because the first thing James had crushed was his trachea.
His battered body was chained to his dead co-conspirator’s kitchen table.
James had tried the counter first, for easier cleanup, but securing cuffs there was more difficult.
The cuffs had come from Darius’s supplies.
Between the three of them, they had plenty of weaponry.
But James had found tools in one of Felicity’s cabinets.
The kitchen was airy, bright, and seashell themed. Nazario’s blood was stark in comparison.
“Is he going to be okay?” Darius asked quietly, leaning next to Bishop.
“Eventually,” Bishop answered. “Maybe sooner than we think.”
James had taken his shirt off for this, and bloodspray glittered along both arms. He murmured constantly, low vicious words for Nazario’s ears alone. His phoenix tattoo flexed with every strike of the hammer.
Sometimes revenge was best served hot.
Bishop envied James and Darius on a fucked-up level. They’d both achieved closure today. Darius killed his mentor. James was currently very slowly killing the mastermind behind his family’s deaths. Violent, hands-on, personal closure.
Bishop’s ex-partner was still alive behind bars. That was justice, sure. But it didn’t feel satisfying like a hammer to the joints.
Crushing Archie’s fingers wouldn’t solve anything, of course. It wouldn’t undo Archie’s crimes. But it would feel good, for as many hours as Bishop could stretch it out.
Ever since he met James, Bishop had planned how to pick up the pieces. This day was always coming. Bishop had expected James to be shattered afterwards.
James would probably have a breakdown later. Hard to avoid. His entire life had been wrapped up in his revenge mission. Finally reaching a painful goal could break a man when he had nothing left.
Except revenge wasn’t James’s entire life. Not anymore. This might have shattered James a year ago, before he met Kit. But his life meant more than it used to.
James cared about people who weren’t just memories, now.
Bishop fought down another unseemly twinge of jealousy. He didn’t have closure with Kit either. When this cleanup was over, he would return to his empty house. The couch where Kit used to sit, the mug that Kit used to drink from, and the magazines that Kit used to mock him for.
And the bed where Kit tried to seduce him. Just one of the bad ideas twisting their lives together.
No, Bishop wasn’t jealous of James or Darius or even Holden. He wanted an aspect of Kit nobody else had seen yet. An aspect Kit might not even know himself.
But that wasn’t worth musing about. There was a good chance Bishop had already fucked their relationship up. Irrevocably. He couldn’t let himself regret what he’d done. He would rather do the right thing for Kit, even if Kit hated him.
“Are you going to be okay?” Bishop asked.
Darius’s expression didn’t change, as if he was simply curious what body part James would smash next. Then he relaxed deliberately into something more like honesty. A little anxious. A little stunned. A little relieved.
“This was what I needed to retire,” Darius said, gesturing towards the living room. “Without Felicity lurking in the background, ready to use other people as collateral… I can be done. I can invite Miranda over to meet Kit.”
Bishop gave him a moment before prodding. “That didn’t answer my question.”
“Motherfucker,” Darius said, the most openly friendly he’d ever sounded. “I’m still thinking about the logistics. It’ll get weird later when it sinks in. She taught me everything.”
“Bet she regretted that,” Bishop remarked.
“Never had a chance.” Darius chuckled. “She didn’t see me coming. Taught me that, too.”
Bishop clasped Darius’s shoulder. “I’m glad to have you as a friend. I’d hate to have you as an enemy.”
“The feeling’s mutual.”
Across the beachy kitchen, James set the hammer down with a final thud. “I’ll miss you at the next chamber of commerce luncheon,” he said, and shot Nazario in the face.
Then again.
Then three more times, until Nazario’s skull looked like a watermelon dropped from a roof.
James holstered his gun. Sweat dampened his hair at the temples, and he was breathing fast. He looked how he always got after jobs. Excited. Energized.
“That was fun,” James said. “What’s next?”
“Next we have a criminal organization to clean up.” Bishop weighed his next words. He wasn’t sure how they would take his proposition. “Or to use.”
James and Darius traded glances.
“Knew it,” James said, moving to the sink.
“Waste not, want not.” Darius eyed Nazario’s body as James scrubbed the blood off. “Though some of this shit we definitely do not want.”
This was why they were friends, besides the murders and game nights. They all shared a certain strategic mindset.
“We’ll need to do a full audit,” Bishop said. “Figure out what parts of the organization we want to dismantle. Report whatever the cops can handle, disappear whatever they can’t. But their tech infrastructure, maybe some real estate… could be useful.”
“Some subordinates might need murdering,” James said casually, drying his hands on a dish towel. They would need to dispose of that later. “If they knew anything about my family.”
“I’ll have some spare time in my sudden retirement,” Darius added. “I could dabble in evil empire management.”
“Glad we’re on the same page.” Bishop wanted to start digging now. He had a feeling the Rat Kings’ claws were in plenty of old cases. But first thing’s first. “One of you call Kit and tell him you’ll be home late. Because none of us are leaving until we’ve cleaned up this mess.”
Bishop definitely wasn’t jealous of the way they both raced to call first.