CHAPTER 2
The apartment stairwell was a claustrophobic tunnel, suffocating with the heat of two bodies and the fear that hung in the air like thick fog.
Graffiti curled up the walls like veins, chipped paint revealing old violence beneath the institutional gray.
Somewhere above, cigarette smoke drifted downward, a burnt-paper punctuation to the layered grime of old concrete.
Clint's movements were fluid yet deadly as he checked his weapon with as much care as a lover would caress their partner's body.
Axel's hands shook slightly as he followed suit, the weight of the loaded mags feeling heavy in his palms. In the eerie light of the flickering bulb, they stood like brothers in arms, preparing for the unknown.
When they were just three steps from the landing, where a flickering fluorescent light cast sickly shadows across their faces, Clint turned to Axel. “Wait here.”
“Why?”
“So I can… evaluate the situation.”
Axel understood the cowboy’s instinct to protect him and keep him out of harm’s way, but it was just as dangerous for Clint to go in alone. “You should have someone watching your back, just in case.”
“I do,” Clint said. “You. From here. It works to our advantage if you stay back, out of sight. I’m not going to barge in. I want to make sure we have the right person before we… proceed.”
Axel would have preferred to be by Clint’s side, but he understood the cowboy’s reasoning. “Okay. But if things go sideways—even in the slightest—I’m coming in.”
Clint looked at him a moment, then nodded, knowing he couldn’t talk Axel out of it. “All right.” He kissed Axel. “Everything will be fine if we play it cool.”
Smiling small, Axel murmured, “And who’s cooler than you?”
The cowboy grunted and climbed the remaining steps.
Axel leaned up, watching him as he walked to the apartment number from the address Jordan sent.
Tension knotted Axel’s chest and caused a throbbing ache in his temples.
His stomach had yet to unclench from the nightmare events of earlier, and his mind kept jumping to the boy…
and if he’d even made it to the hospital alive.
Maybe he was already dead when they put him in the ambulance.
Axel tried to push thoughts of the boy from his mind.
Clint needed him here. He couldn’t afford to be distracted.
He leaned his back against the stairwell wall, the chill of the concrete pressing through his jacket and into his back.
Axel shivered as his gaze fell to the steps, grimy from the steady traffic of feet moving up and down the stairs night and day.
Discarded cigarette butts littered the stairwell, and a lingering odor of stale smoke had seeped into the stone walls.
When the apartment door on the landing opened, Axel sank out of sight, then rose again when he heard a woman’s voice—deeply distressed.
The door jerked open after a single rap, startling Clint and the woman on the other side, who gasped and took an unsteady step back, eyes wide and bloodshot from crying.
She looked about Clint's age, maybe older, with light brown hair, graying at the temples, that appeared to have been pinned up haphazardly with a tortoiseshell clip, which hung precariously off a loose strand.
Her knuckles whitened as she clutched her worn leather purse against her chest like a shield, her face ashen beneath blotchy red patches, mascara smudged in raccoon rings beneath her swollen eyelids.
“Excuse me—” Clint started, when the woman cut him off with a trembling hand raised between them.
“I-I can’t talk.” Her voice broke on a sob, and tears spilled over. “I-I have to go… I have… my son…” Her chin trembled violently as her breath came in shallow gasps, her pupils dilated with the particular wild-animal panic of a mother whose child is in danger.
Clint shifted his weight, boots scraping against the worn hallway carpet as confusion furrowed his brow. “Ma’am…”
“My… My son called…” Her voice fractured, each syllable threatening to plunge into hysteria.
“His little brother… was shot.” Tears spilled down her blotchy cheeks, dripping onto the worn leather purse she clutched like the last life preserver on a sinking ship.
“Somebody shot my baby. I-I have to go… I have to…” The last words dissolved into a keening whimper.
She shoved past Clint, her shoulder catching his arm with surprising force, leaving the apartment door swinging on its hinges.
Her footsteps echoed in the stairwell, a frantic staccato punctuated by ragged breathing.
Clint stared after her, boots rooted to the threshold as though cemented there. A sick feeling crawled into his gut, coiling around the knot that had formed earlier, both sensations twisting together into something leaden and poisonous that sat just below his ribs.
“Clint…?” Axel approached, confused, glancing back toward the stairs. “What happened? Who was that woman? She was crying.”
Shaking his head, Clint dragged his hand over his mouth. “She said her son was shot,” he mumbled hollowly.
“Shot?” Axel swallowed. “In the… drive-by?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
Axel leaned against the wall, his throat working. “That fucker hurt two kids?”
As his own son’s face rose in his mind, Clint drew Axel to him and pressed his lips to his head. “He will fucking pay,” he whispered, his voice razor thin and taut.
Leaning back, Axel’s brow pinched. “But wasn’t this the shooter’s address? What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Clint whispered as he took out his phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Devlin.” After two rings, Devlin Grant answered.
“It’s Clint. Can you check on something for me?
A young boy was brought in by ambulance not very long ago.
A hit-and-run victim. Can you tell me if he…
” his voice trailed off as Devlin delivered the grave news: the boy had died before reaching the hospital.
Clint had expected as much, but receiving the confirmation was like a punch in the gut, knocking the wind out of him.
Axel stared at him, tears rising. “He’s dead… isn’t he?” His chin trembled, already knowing the truth. He hung his head and pressed his hand to his eyes.
Exhaling slowly, Clint asked Devlin, “Were any shooting victims brought in? There was a drive-by a short while ago. Maybe another young boy…?”
“There was,” Devlin told Clint, a strain in the young doctor’s voice.
The twins, his two brothers-in-law, were barely older than the boy who had died.
“Two victims. A young black man in his early twenties. He didn’t make it.
And a thirteen-year-old boy…” The hesitant pause made Clint want to throw up.
“His older brother brought him in. Bullet wound in the chest. He… He’s extremely critical. He’s… not expected to pull through.”
Clint trembled, the distraught woman’s words haunting him; My son called… his little brother… was shot.
“What is it?” Axel whispered, a tremor in his voice. “The woman’s son… is he…?”
“Does, um…” Clint cleared his throat, not ready yet to answer Axel’s question as he spoke to Devlin. “Does anyone know anything about the drive-by? Maybe the older brother?”
“I don’t know,” Devlin said. “He… He’s not in any condition to talk right now. There is speculation around the hospital that the young black man may have been the target of the drive-by, but I don’t know if that’s true.”
“Has anyone been called on his behalf?” Clint asked. “Did he have family? Anyone?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Rumor has it he was part of a street gang. But I don’t know if that’s true.”
Clint frowned. “Okay. Thanks.” When he ended the call, Axel stared at him, his entire body tense.
“What’s going on?” he asked thickly. “The woman’s son…?”
Lowering his eyes, Clint shook his head. “It doesn’t look good. The boy was shot in the chest. He’s in critical condition. Devlin said that… that he isn’t expected to make it.”
“Oh, my God,” Axel whispered sickly, and leaned against Clint.
His breath shaky, Clint held him tightly, lips pressed to his hair. “Devlin thinks the third victim might be the target of the drive-by. He’s dead.”
Axel raised his head and sniffed, wiping his eyes. He stepped back, glancing at the apartment. “I still don’t understand why this was the address linked to the shooter’s car.”
Clint's gaze drifted to the open front door of the apartment. His weathered face tightened as what had seemed like fragmented puzzle pieces—the hysterical mother, the blood-spattered car, the timing of it all—began to lock into place with an audible click in his mind. The revelation spread through him like ice water in his veins. “Maybe…” he whispered, his fingers curling into a tight fist at his side, “… it wasn’t the shooter’s car. ”
“What?” Axel shook his head, his brow knit in confusion, a vein pulsing visibly at his temple. “Who else would hit a kid and just keep going?”
Clint stared at the open doorway—a dark maw of devastation framing the chaotic interior of an abandoned life—as a slight arrhythmia fluttered his pulse beneath his worn jacket. “A panicked kid,” he mumbled, “trying desperately to save his dying brother.”
Clint's words hit hard—like the knockout blow of a prized fighter—and sat heavy in Axel's chest, a leaden weight pressing against his lungs until each breath became shallow and labored.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, drowning out the sounds of the city as they sped through the streets toward the hospital.
The shooter being at fault for both boys’ deaths had made a terrible kind of sense, a clean line of cause and effect in this blood-soaked chaos.
But the reality that the older brother may have been the hit-and-run driver?
That twisted everything into a grotesque knot that Axel's mind couldn't untangle.
His thoughts scattered like cockroaches under sudden light, scrambling for the safety of a simpler explanation.