Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Holland fucking Weathersfield.
“No, hold steady—” I’m cut off by a torrent of cold water that rushes over my body. Larry, the maintenance guy helping me, looks over at me with a ring of white around his eyes.
This prick. I want to snarl at him, but instead I grip the tree limb that has ripped through the roof and steady it. Larry bumped it, hailing pieces of wood, roofing, and some water down with it. We need to keep it stable so it doesn’t take the whole roof down.
I stare up at the sky visible through the roof, blood boiling. Wisely, Larry scuttles off.
Someone should pay. Someone should fucking pay.
The hatred curls up in hot energy, and I heave my leg up, dropping it down on the branch with a thunk. The branch doesn’t crack, which just pisses me off more.
I can’t stop seeing Holland’s face, and not the smiling one I found on her social media. The angry one she leveled at me right before she jumped into the creek, full of fire and hatred and desperation. It’s triggered this weird energy in my veins.
Fucking why? I’ve watched men take their last fucking breath while they beg me for mercy. What the hell is wrong with me?
My chest goes cold, and I stomp the log again. This time, my foot slips, and I have to catch my balance.
I know what the hell is wrong with me. I like it when women defy me. I like it a little too much.
I have to focus. Players who shouldn’t be here are here, and people are lighting my forest on fire. Someone is trying to sabotage me from the inside. And somehow it’s fucking working?
I’ve been fishing around with the employees, and they’ve been acting…
odd. Giving me hesitant looks and walking on eggshells, which sets my teeth on edge.
Why do I feel like the enemy in my own game?
Despite that, Larry eventually told me that it was a player who started the fire.
Unfortunately, that player is dead, so I can’t ask him who helped him. But someone did.
I kick at a smaller branch, sending it flying across the room. Somehow, I still feel just as angry.
I haven’t even been able to keep track of where my players are on the map since I haven’t been able to find my tracking device. The amount of shit I’ve let fall through the cracks in this game… I’m going to have to go to the small house to check my computer.
Storming out onto the patio, I lock gazes with someone smoking a cigarette on the back porch. It’s Riley.
She winks at me. “Hey, boss.”
The careless way she’s holding the smoke and the cocky smile she flashes at me make a tingling heat wash over me. It’s like she can see how fucked up everything is, and she enjoys it. In fact, I wonder if she’s a part of all this shit.
Stalking up to her, I snatch the cigarette from her hands. “Don’t burn my map down.” I try to ignore the way my dick hardens in my pants.
Riley raises a lazy eyebrow. “Heaven forbid a woman catches a breather after fucking her woman in the woods.”
The familiar feeling of anger grounds me, and I snap my hand out to grip Riley’s throat. She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Found Fourteen yet?”
I squeeze, an odd possessiveness taking over me. What does she care and why is she asking?
“She’s a popular target. Twenty-Seven’s been talking all kinds of shit.”
Twenty-Seven and Fourteen are the two players who I didn’t know were coming. I realize with clarity that it’s not a coincidence that those two are involved together. Riley is truly grinning now, watching me.
“Let me go,” Riley demands.
I evaluate her. How likely is it that Riley is in on this? She’s new to my club, and therefore, unpredictable. However, Manson vouches for her, and he’s been proven for years. I keep close tabs on him, as well as some of my other long-time players. They’re dangerous, and therefore, useful.
However, if Riley is in the middle of the problems here, then she definitely has the information I need.
Her throat swallows under my grip, and I remember I have no proof. And I try not to act without proof. Too likely to cut the heads off the hydra that don’t actually run the operation. It’s much more useful to use those heads as spies, if at all possible.
Reluctantly, I let her go.
Riley rubs at her throat. “Damn. Would have loved to see Manson kick your ass. He still might.”
“Talk,” I demand, trying to remember what name Twenty Seven put on his sheet.
“Well, Manson prefers to fight with his fists, but I wouldn’t put it past him to pull a knife on you, too…”
Riley flashes me a wink, then grabs another smoke out of her back pocket, flicking a lighter to light up.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say. Twenty-Seven is damn near blowing his head off about Fourteen breaking the rules.
Won’t fucking shut up about it.” She sucks in a breath, the cherry burning red.
If Fourteen and Twenty-Seven are working together, why the hell would Twenty-Seven start drama? I narrow my eyes. Or maybe they’re working together to start a coup.
I know who Fourteen and his mark are. Nobodies. This explains nothing. What I need is to figure out who Twenty-Seven is, and not just the name he forged to get in. And clearly, I need to figure this out now.
“Who is Twenty-Seven?”
“Bear mask.” Riley blows smoke in my face. “Ugly motherfucker.”
I narrow my gaze. Riley knows damn well I’m asking if she knows him from the streets. Her eyes twinkle when she looks at me. I both hate and love the defiance in her gaze. It infuriates me in a delicious kind of way.
Fucking hell. If this woman wasn’t cuffed up, she might be useful to get some of this fucking…energy out. Maybe I could focus more on killing Holland than on the way the hatred tumbled in her blue eyes.
I stalk past Riley as she blows another puff of smoke in my face. I make a mental note to prop her up on a box, string her up by her neck, and shoot out her toes.
Once I reach the small house, I stalk immediately to my computer room.
The place was built to house the people building the villa.
I’ve repurposed it to keep all my important stuff and get away from everything.
Booting everything up, I clear out of Holland’s information and immediately go to the cameras, tracking down the room I know Twenty-Seven is in.
I find him exiting and entering the room, but he’s always wearing that fucking bear mask, or some half mask covering everything but his eyes.
Switching to some of my less obvious cameras around the outside of the building, I track Twenty-Seven leaving the room to go outside for a smoke. He takes his mask off, but faces away from the camera.
And then, he turns, and my world slows.
Because I know that man. He’s older, more worn, with lines on his forehead, but otherwise he’s the same.
It’s my fucking brother.
Blinking in disbelief, I pause the frame. There’s no arguing it. Jail has worn him, but my brother still looks the same. He looks just like me.
For a minute, I can’t breathe, memories freezing me up.
What is he doing here? After a minute of blank staring at the screen, I unpause it. That’s when my brother looks up into the camera and smiles, flicking his cigarette into the bushes and sauntering inside.
I’m on my feet, staring at the screen like it’ll provide all the answers. As I stand there, frozen, my side starts aching, and I feel small. Tiny. And I feel the telltale numbness that says I’m about to spiral creeping in.
I try to shake myself out of it.
After months of trying to track him down, my brother appears here? On my island?
For a second, all I can feel is panic. He’s here. After all these years, he’s here. Something deep down in me knows he’s here to finish the game he started all those years ago.
My hands shake. Clicking open my tracking app, I zero in on his location.
He’s all the way across the island. Of course.
Then my gaze snags on another number that isn’t far. In fact, it’s at the villa.
Fourteen. Holland.
For a minute, I just stare, unable to process this information. What is my brother doing with Holland and Oakley? Something. It’s not a coincidence they showed up together.
Slowly, anger starts to take over the fog.
My brother is here, and he’s messing with my game. My game. I make the rules here. Not him.
My blood boils. I’m not sure how Fourteen is related to my brother, but now I won’t let anything stop me from finding out. Any interest I felt for Holland is gone.
Interest is for the weak. And I’m not weak.
My brother will never win.