11. Dax
DAX
We knew word of us coming to New York wasn’t going to stay quiet for long, but I didn’t plan on Diego retaliating this fast. Demitri had sent word that Pinky had been found out and killed, so he was laying low until the dust settled.
It would seem he felt it’d been too long and wanted answers.
Well, the bastard just upped the ante by pulling this kind of stunt.
If the Phantom Saints weren’t out for blood before, they were now.
“That man’s a sick fuck,” Cognac muttered, slamming his beer on the counter. “We never would have known about the letter if Demitri hadn’t shown it to us. They placed it in his locker along with the present wrapped in a pretty wooden box.”
“How do we know they are her ears?” I asked.
Picasso gripped his stomach like he was trying not to gag before he could answer me. “Demitri said the earrings were the same she wore the day she was taken. Opal studs Gabby got her for her birthday just two weeks earlier.”
“Do you have the ears?” I pressed.
“Why the fuck are you asking that?” he challenged. “We’re talking about my niece here, not some two-bit criminal you can gawk at the remains. Have some respect.”
While I knew he was coming from a place of anger and fear, I didn’t appreciate his attitude or the fact he assumed I was asking out of morbid curiosity.
“Listen, jackass. I’m asking this because it’s really fucking simple to cut off someone else’s ears, put in the damn earrings, and claim they're your loved one. Fuck, have a little faith in me, would you? I’m not a complete monster. ”
Picasso looked appropriately scolded but didn’t say anything as he walked out of the house. My assumption was he went to get the ears, but I wasn’t sure, so I followed after him. He headed right for his bike parked right at the bottom of the stairs and lifted the flap to one of the saddle bags.
Seeing him pull out the wooden box, I jogged down the steps and placed my hand over his. “You already had to look at this once. Just let me handle it from here. I know family means everything to you, and I want to do my best to bring her back home safe and sound.”
Without speaking, he nodded and let me take the box from him.
I didn’t return to the house. Instead, I headed for Wes’s command center, where no one but my guys would bother me.
Weston made sure everyone knew they weren’t welcome in the new space, and if he found anyone messing with things, he would break their hands. And they call me the crazy one. Ha!
I flipped on the lights in the snug little room, setting the box on the desk.
Opening one of the side drawers, I pulled out the magnifier Wes used when putting tiny computer parts together.
This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been skeptical about body parts being sent to me.
Hostages were valuable and you didn’t do anything that might kill them off while they were still of use to you.
Slowly, I opened the lid and used tweezers to lift the edge of the cloth wrapped around them.
To me, it looked like a fancy handkerchief with the initials DDL sewn into one corner.
The man was good with theatrics if you asked me, but it was the same reason I like to leave an ace card with my flaming skull on it, so they knew who did the deed.
It’s how you trained people to fear you, which was half the battle of gaining power.
While I obviously had no medical training to be able to tell if these ears came off a woman or if they matched the right age, I could tell if the earrings were shoved through the ear once they were cut off.
At first glance, they looked fine, but with how gruesome something like this was to the loved one, they don’t look that close at the details, just like now.
One earring was far too off-center and angled funny.
Even with a piercing gun, it wouldn’t be at this angle, plus I would bet money that there was no way a woman like Gabby would let her kid have a jacked-up piercing.
She was far too detailed and liked to make a show of being a well-off lawyer to draw in clients.
It made me wonder if she owned that house or rented it for the part to make us think she owned it.
Feeling confident that there was a high chance of these not being her ears, I went to hunt down Demitri.
He might be a guy and clueless about earrings, but he might remember a disapproving conversation between mother and daughter.
As I walked through the clubhouse, I spotted him knocking back a shot.
Can’t say I blamed the guy after what he just found.
Hopping up on a stool next to him, I caught the eye of the new bartender, Tops.
“I’ll have one of what he’s having,” I said.
Tops scowled. “You sure? He’s got horrible taste in liquor.”
“What is it?” I questioned, curious what could be so bad that a bartender would warn you off it.
Grabbing a bottle, he slammed it on the counter and just raised a brow as I read the label. “Oh, that shit can fuck all the way off,” I blurted. “Damn, son, why the hell are you drinking El Toro? Do you want to feel like a shit stain tomorrow?”
“What does it matter? I’m the reason my sister doesn’t have ears anymore,” Demitri slurred.
My gaze snapped up to Tops. “How many of those has he had?”
“Oh, this is his bottle. It was full when he set it on the counter. I told him he couldn’t drink it like that. I don’t want people thinking I actually use this swill,” Tops explained.
The bottle in question was about half full and that just made me feel nauseous. “How long has he been sitting here?”
“Twenty minutes or so ago, he stumbled in,” Tops answered. “Figured it was better to keep an eye on him instead of kicking him out for being a drunken mess. Damn, you should hear the things he’s been babbling on about. Guy needs to stop playing so many video games or something.”
Great. So much for keeping this on the down low.
“I’m gonna take him back to the house. You hide that bottle or dump it out for all I care,” I instructed, feeling it was best to get him the hell out of the public eye.
“Good call. Someone might actually believe what he’s saying about being a rat,” Tops commented, giving me a look that told me he was one of them.
I held his gaze a moment, but I didn’t see any trouble coming from him, just being a true brother to his fellow crew member. “Thanks, Tops, you’re good people.”
Sliding off the stool, I shoved the box in my back pocket where it barely fit, but I needed both hands to deal with the drunken mess. “Alright, here we go.” Grabbing an arm, I pulled it over my shoulders and dragged him with me.
Thankfully, he could still stumble about and wasn’t dead weight.
At this point, I would have taken him by the ankles and hauled his ass back to the house like the moron he was.
What the hell was he thinking, getting lit and flapping his gums about being a rat?
Fuck, I had so many other things to worry about, and taking care of this kid wasn’t one of them.
Sprocket was on the porch steps, probably waiting for me to come back when he spotted what I was dealing with. He set his own beer down and made his way over to us. “What the hell happened?”
“What always happens when you drink bad tequila, poor life choices,” I answered. “Damn fool is sharing all the secrets as he tried to smother his sorrows in a bottle of paint thinner.”
Sprocket took the other side, but our height difference made this awkward in another way. Finally, I gave up and just let Sprocket handle the problem as I got to the top of the stairs first to open the door for them.
“The fuck is going on?” Eagle demanded from his nephew. “God, why does your breath smell like it could be lit on fire?”
I chuckled to myself. “That’s about all that shit is good for. Found him in the clubhouse knocking back shots like it was water. Kind of impressive for it being El Toro if you ask me.”
“Sprocket put him on the couch, and someone find a bucket that boy can puke in,” Eagle instructed, then he turned to me. “So?”
“There is a chance it might not be her,” I answered in a low voice. “I stopped to talk to him because I wanted to know if he remembered her fighting with Gabby about getting her ears pierced without permission. One piercing seems too far off the mark for it to have been done professionally.”
“No, Gabby took her on her tenth birthday to get her ears pierced. It was all she wanted for her birthday,” Eagle shared.
“I remember Gabby telling me how still Elena sat for the lady doing it, saying she wanted them to be perfect. Elena is just as particular as Gabby is about details. It would have bothered her to have it off-center.”
“Then these aren’t her ears,” I stated, pulling the box out of my back pocket. “My money is on that wasn’t her finger either. They’ve kept her too long, and I doubt they would waste a hospital trip to keep her healthy. If you don’t treat a missing finger, you could bleed out.”
Eagle’s shoulders sagged in relief as he guided me toward Picasso’s room. “Tell him. He won’t listen to me, but I bet he’ll listen to you.”
“That is if he doesn’t cuss me out again,” I muttered, entering into the space.
There he stood before his easel, a new canvas set up that he was sketching something out.
Keeping silent, I approached and tried to figure out what he was trying to process.
It was a tree, but not one I would think of depicting life.
Instead, it looked like it was sick, dying, gnarled, and knotted.
The branches seemed to be trying to reach out and grab the viewer if only they could make it off the canvas.
What I was more curious about was to know who exactly this was depicting.
Himself? Me? Our enemies? Maybe even the world as a whole.
“I'm almost positive they aren’t hers,” I whispered.