Chapter 2
two
The Angel
“How sure are you that the two incidents are related?” Dad asks, sitting down across from me.
We’re in one of the big corner booths at the Downtown Diner, and Mom’s seating people on the other side of the room to give us the space and privacy we need. I didn’t even let Saint come—not only am I too pissed to even look at the guy, but this is Crossbones business.
“Not one hundred percent,” I admit. “But my gut tells me they are. And Heath wasn’t in a bad place. He had to have seen something or been forced to do it.”
“You think they made him cut his own wrist?” Seraphim asks. “That’s fucked.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But he wouldn’t try to kill himself over nothing.”
“If he saw them take Mercy, and he couldn’t stop it, would that have been enough?” Maverick asks.
“Maybe,” I say. “After losing his sister like that…”
I glance at him as I swirl my fries around in ketchup on my plate. He gives nothing away. Not a hint of how he feels about being a part of her last moments, not a hint that he’s connected this to his recent revelations.
I shove the fries into my mouth. “It’s gotta be on his mind, with us digging into it. It’s gotta be hard on him.”
“And she’s been asking around about Frederick?” Uncle Maddox asks, absently rubbing the back of his scarred hand.
“We all had,” I admit. “Which is why I might need to pay him a little visit.” I hold up a hand before they can protest. “I know, I know. But I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You are to him,” Dad says.
Fish-Face Freddy has been leading the Crossbones since Dad and my uncle were my age.
I’ve heard the stories about the reclusive legend since I was a kid—the extravagant parties he threw back in the 90s that sound like the Faulkner equivalent of Diddy parties, where he’d have everyone from gangsters eager to prove their worth to state senators to aspiring Miss Arkansas contestants in attendance; the number of enemies he’s made disappear in plain sight; the creative ways he’s gotten away with his crimes.
As he got older, he retreated from the spotlight, rarely receiving guests let alone hosting parties, and giving up his aspirations of turning the Skull and Crossbones into a new mafia empire with hands in the pockets of everyone important in the state.
Now he chooses to be feared rather than adored, and instead of spending on lavish parties, to accumulate wealth and buy vacation homes around the country, and, if rumors are to be believed, an underground bunker somewhere in a remote area of Montana or Wyoming.
“And that’s why I came to you,” I say to my dad and my uncle. “I’m a kid to him, even if I’m your kid. I’m not afraid of what he’ll do to me. I don’t think he’ll see me at all.”
They glance at each other. “You should be afraid of him,” Dad says. “Even a family like ours, who stuck with the organization for over twenty years, can fall from grace in his eyes.”
“You know what to say to him by now,” I insist. “You can make him listen. You’re high up.”
“And the higher we climb, the more dangerous we are to him,” Maddox says. “Which is, in turn, more dangerous for all of you.”
He nods at the four of us—me and Seraphim, Maverick and Mad Dog.
“I don’t care,” I say. “I’m going to get Mercy, and if that means pissing him off and losing whatever protection our name gives me, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. I love her. I have to find her.”
Dad and his brother exchange a look. Most of the guys their age have left the life, faded out when they got jobs and didn’t have time for gangbanging or had kids and didn’t want to risk leaving them without a parent.
They stayed, and we were all raised knowing the rules without having to be taught, like that we always call it an organization, not a gang, to outsiders, and that you never, ever disrespect a guy without expecting payback—especially Fish-Face Freddy.
“Okay,” Dad says at last. “I understand. I’ll set it up.”
“We’ll go too,” Maverick says, popping a tater tot into his mouth.
“That won’t be necessary,” Maddox says.
“I’ll go with them,” Dad says. “You sit this one out.”
I know what that means. He’s not sure we’ll make it out of that meeting alive.
Dad and Uncle Maddox never do dangerous shit together because they have some pact that if something happens to one of them, the other will take care of his family.
“I’ll go,” Mad Dog says, not looking up from his burger. After a second, his father nods in agreement.
Mad Dog is the oldest of all the North kids, and one day, I bet he’ll lead the entire Skull and Crossbones organization.
Our parents never got to, since Freddy’s been around so long, and he’s far too well guarded now for anyone to take him out.
He’ll hold on until his skeletal old fingers give out when he’s eighty or some shit.
By then, Mad Dog will be old enough to take over but young enough to lead for a while longer.
He’s always been a bit harder, a bit more serious than the rest of us.
Even though we all grew up with gang shit around, our parents protected us from the worst of it, put a shield up between us and the gnarliest aspects.
They figured out that they needed to shelter us because they didn’t shelter him. He was the prototype, the test baby, the one that taught them all the things they didn’t want to do with the rest of us.
“How are my boys doing?” Mom asks, arriving at the end of our booth.
“Just fine,” Dad says, wrapping a possessive arm around her middle and pulling her down onto his knee.
My chest caves in at the sight of them being all cute. That’s what I want. That’s what I dreamed about, what I thought I’d never find, and then, what I thought I’d found. I have to get her back.
A while later, we’re leaving the diner when a call comes through from Saint. I pick it up as I push the door open and step outside into the cool, murky spring night.
“What’s up?” I ask, knowing he wouldn’t call unless it was important.
“I got the footage back from the cameras,” he says.
“We don’t have one placed where they found Heath, but I have one that caught three guys approaching Mercy outside our dorm.
They walk out of the feed together, and she never shows up in the one in front of her dorm. She must have left campus with them.”
“Did she fight them?” I ask, my heart beating so hard I think it’ll explode.
“No,” he says. “I have Nate running it now, seeing if he can find anything on them.”
“You don’t know them?” I ask.
Adrenaline speeds through me. This is our first good lead.
“No,” he says. “They don’t go here. They look older.”
“Send me a screenshot.”
I hang up and turn to my cousins, who are close by my side, while our parents went their own way.
“?Qué pasa?” Maverick asks, nodding toward my phone.
“They got video of the guys who took M,” I say, gripping my phone as I wait, wanting to roar with impatience. It’s already been three days since they took her. Every second she’s gone is too long.
I fumble my phone and almost drop it when it finally buzzes with a text.
I swipe it open and squint down at the grainy photo, a still from the video.
One guy is turning his head, his face a blur.
One has his head down, so I can’t see much more than dark hair and a hooked nose.
I growl in frustration, but three more pics come through in rapid succession.
“Is that…?” Maverick asks, leaning over my phone.
The three of us stare at the screen as I enlarge each photo, zooming in one a short, stocky guy.
“It is,” I say, pocketing my phone. “Looks like we’ll be paying someone a little visit.”
A few minutes later, we’re turning onto Mill Street in Maverick’s El Camino. My pulse pounds in my temples, and I’m out of the car before he even throws it in park.
A rusted out old Chevelle SS sits on the street, and a blond guy is bent over the engine, a flashlight held between his teeth. When Mav pulls up to the curb, he straightens, shaking his hair out of his eyes, and I see it’s not the Hertz we’re looking for.
“Chris home?” I ask, but I’m already halfway up the cracked walkway, and I don’t know if he answers. Standing on the small, rotting porch, I bang my fists against the front door.
Mad Dog heads around the back without a word, and Maverick joins me at the front.
A minute later, one of the slats in the blinds lifts.
“Chris,” I bellow. “Get your ass out here.”
The slat drops, and Mav nods at the window, his gun already drawn. “Think he’s getting his piece?”
After popping out the scream, I slam my elbow into the window, and glass rains down inside.
Tangling my fingers in the cheap blinds, I rip them down, tossing them to the floor.
Maverick covers me while I climb in, then follows.
An older guy is passed out on the couch, his shirt pushed up to reveal a round, tight beer gut, but he doesn’t even stir when we pass him.
The room smells like cheap alcohol, old cigarettes, and fresh piss.
I hurry past, down the dark hallway, where I hear quiet cursing.
We find Chris in a bedroom, trying to squeeze through the small window.
He must have checked the back door already.
I toss him on the floor and point my pistol at his forehead.
“Where is she?” I demand.
“Who?” he asks, kicking his heels into the cheap carpet to back away from us.
“Mercy,” I growl. “You fucked with the wrong man’s girl. You got one minute to tell me where she is, or you’ll never be speaking another word in your life.”
“I don’t know, man,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do nothing with any Mercy.”
“That was ten seconds,” I say. “Want to keep wasting words, or say something that might save your life?”
“I don’t know,” he says, his voice going high with fear. He tries to back further, but Mad Dog blocks his way, shoving the muzzle of his gun to the back of his head like an executioner.
“We have surveillance footage that says otherwise,” I tell him. “So I’ll give you one last chance to stop wasting our time.”
“Please,” Chris blubbers. “I just went with them, I didn’t know what they was going to do with her. I don’t know where she is! They dumped me out of the van and took off with her.”
“Who?” I demand, planting a boot on his leg. It jolts with fear, and I lean forward, pinning it with my weight.
“I don’t know,” he sobs. “I don’t know them. It was the Disciples!”
“The Disciples?” I ask, drawing back in surprise. Mav’s brows rise, but he doesn’t say anything. “Why the fuck were you working with the Disciples?”
“They wanted help finding her,” Chris blubbers. “I just got caught in between. I’m innocent!”
Mad Dog snorts and backs up a few steps, leaving the space behind Chris empty.
The rat must know what that means, because he tries to turn over, like he’s going to crawl away.
I stomp his kneecap, barely feeling the crunch when it tears free of the ligaments beneath.
He screams, but it’s muffled to my ears.
When I go into ‘business mode,’ as Maverick would call it, I shut down and get shit done.
“It wasn’t me,” he screams. “I don’t even know their names. Ask the Sinceros—ask the Delacroixs—I don’t know anything!”
He’s blubbering now, but I got all the information I needed.
I pull the trigger, and the pop echoes through the room, loud enough to make my ears ring.
His body crumples to the floor, and I turn to the door.
Maverick nods and backs up a step, and I lead the way out, with Mad Dog bringing up the rear.
Their old man is still out cold.
As my cousins climb back into the El Camino, I tip my chin at Zephyr, who stands by his project car.
“We were never here,” I warn, and then I climb in too, and we pull away from the curb.