Chapter Eighteen
Dragon
“R ecognize my voice, Caught?”
I do. I fucking do.
The man I killed—who I thought was Night Giant—was nothing more than a lookalike. Not the real thing. A fraud.
“Hiding is a real bitch move,” I growl. “Where are you, big guy? I’m coming for you.”
His deep, mocking chuckle makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. “That’s no way to speak to your master, Caught.”
“You’re nothing but a target to me. Dead fucking meat just like your piece of shit stand-in.”
“So eager to take my place that brother of mine. The bikers you paid to watch me never noticed when we switched places right under their noses at the little grocery store. Ahh, my brother always was eager to please me. He’ll be missed.”
“Did you fuck him too?”
“Oh, Caught. If you were here right now, I’d punish you for your filthy mouth.”
“I’m coming for you, motherfucker.”
It isn’t until Cove takes my bloodied hand in his that I realize I’m trembling. Having his touch grounds me. Brings me focus. Swallowing down the fear Night Giant always seems to instill in me, I wait to hear what he wants.
He definitely wants something.
My gut tells me that something is me.
“I don’t need you anymore,” Night Giant rumbles. “You see, I found something better.”
“Better than me?” I taunt. “I thought I was your favorite.”
“You were. But then you bulked up and got tattoos. You’re no longer the boy you once were.”
Sick fuck.
“If you tell me where you’re at,” I snarl, “I’ll make your death quick like your fat-ass brother.”
Night Giant laughs again, dark and demonic. “I told you, Caught, you’ve been replaced by a newer model.”
Something shuffles and Night Giant orders someone to speak.
“H-Hello?” The soft voice is barely a whisper. Terrified and confused.
“Tell me where you’re at,” I command to the teenage boy on the other end of the line. “I’ll come for you and kill that bastard.”
“I-I don’t know.” His voice cracks. “I’m scared.”
The never-ending inferno of rage inside me for Night Giant seems to go nuclear. I can’t believe this shit is happening again. To some poor kid. It’s so fucked up.
“Listen, kid, I’m doing what I can. What’s your name?”
“M-Mitch.”
I freeze, a wave of shock sending ice through my veins. “Mitch?”
There’s a scuffle and then Night Giant’s laughter rumbles through the phone. “See, Chase , I got a newer model. Your brother says hello.”
A blood-curdling scream echoes through the phone before the line goes dead. I stagger back, my knees threatening to buckle beneath me as the phone drops to the dirty carpet.
No.
This can’t be.
Not my youngest brother, Mitch.
Impossible.
“How?” I croak out, mostly talking to myself despite Koyn barking out questions of his own. “How? How? How?”
This time, I do fall to my knees. Hard enough the entire trailer trembles. Cove kneels in front of me, cupping my cheeks with his soft hands. His blue eyes are narrowed with concern.
Something hot and wet streaks down my cheek.
Blood.
“Don’t cry, Dragon,” Cove murmurs. “It’s going to be okay. Just tell me what he said.”
I’m crying?
My brother.
That motherfucker has my brother.
I did everything I could to keep my family free of the stain that is my life and yet they’re still affected. Not just affected, but Night Giant is replacing his obsession with me with my baby brother.
No. No. No.
“Hey,” Cove croons, swiping my cheeks with his thumbs. “Focus. What did he say?”
I try to speak, but my throat aches. It’s as though my heart is trying to claw its way out of me to go after my brother.
No. No. No.
This can’t be.
He can’t have Mitch.
Cove smacks my cheek hard enough I blink out of my daze. I scowl at him, momentarily distracted by the roar threatening to make me explode.
“What. Did. He. Say?”
I grit my teeth before snarling, “He has Mitch. He has my brother.”
Cove’s eyes widen in horror. Both Katana and Koyn curse. I rise to my feet and shakily make my way back through the door I came in. Cove rushes after me, grabbing at my arm to stop me.
“Where are you going? Do you even know where he’s at?”
I snag Cove’s delicate jaw in my grip and glower down at him. “I’m going to Memphis. Where this all started. Where it’ll fucking end.”
“I’m coming with you,” he states, his blue eyes flickering with the stubbornness I’m so familiar with when it comes to Cove Gale.
“Damn straight you are,” I growl, releasing him. “Someone has to go find out what my family knows and it can’t be me.”
As much as I crave reuniting with them—Mom, Dad, my brothers—I know I can’t. It’ll cut open pieces of me I’ve worked years trying to stitch together. Cove, being the pretty Boy Scout he is, can get in and out with the information we need. Mom will be drawn to Cove’s wholesome appearance.
I can’t let Mom ever see me like this.
Not as Dragon.
For her to learn that her boy didn’t die, but instead turned into this, it would kill me to witness the pain in her eyes. The disappointment. I remember my mother’s pretty smile and sarcasm. Pity and horror are two things I refuse to see on her face.
I’ll get my brother back for her, though. That I can do. I’ll hunt down that sick monster and save Mitch like no one could save me. It’ll be different this time because I know how Night Giant thinks. I know his habits and kinks. I will find that fuckface and end him once and for all.
Hang in there, little bro. I’m coming for you.
“We can’t just show up half-cocked and ready for a fight without knowing shit,” Koyn argues from the driver’s seat. “All I asked for was one day. One day to make a goddamn plan.”
Ignoring him, I glare out the window. If we’d gone back to Tulsa and planned, we’d be wasting more time. Night Giant has Mitch.
“Max Corsetti was going to see Night Giant,” Cove says from the middle row, having squished in beside Katana, uncaring that it earned him a pissy look. “What did he say the guy’s name was?”
“Victor Knight.”
I’d given Bermuda this information, but they didn’t come up with anything. Night Giant is good at covering his tracks and lying low with aliases.
“Nothing turned up on the name?” Koyn asks.
“Nope,” I growl. “Nothing.”
“I’m calling Loki,” Koyn says before barking his name out to Siri.
“Crazy Loki?” I ask, shooting him a sour look.
Koyn snorts. “Pot calling the kettle black.”
“Loki,” Loki grunts out in greeting. “I’m three seconds from getting head from my woman, so this better be fucking important.”
Koyn smirks. “Yeah. It’s fucking important. Corsetti.”
“What about Corsetti?” Loki spits out. “You find that piece of shit?”
“We did and he’s been eliminated. Messy as fuck too. You’d be proud of Dragon’s handiwork.”
“Then what’s the problem?” he demands.
“The problem is Corsetti was headed to see Night Giant, a fuckface sicko, who now has my brother,” I bite out. “We need everything you have on Victor Knight.”
We’ll be in Memphis in the next half hour and can regroup, but in the meantime, I can gather as much information as I can.
“Goddammit. You’re going to make me put my fucking pants back on,” Loki grumbles. “Birdie, baby, stay here like a good girl until I get back and I’ll let you play in your cage when we get home.”
Cove sucks in a shocked breath behind me. I shoot him a smirk, unable to keep from giving him shit despite my stress levels being through the roof.
“Roch,” Loki bellows. “Dammit, someone find me Roch.”
We hear more grunting, more yelling, and eventually Loki says he’s passing on the phone to someone with more knowledge.
Silence.
“Hello?” Koyn says, an irritated growl rumbling through him. “Did he hang up?”
“No.” Soft, deep. Quiet.
“Roch?”
“Yep.”
“Tell us what you know about Corsetti,” Koyn demands. “It’s fucking important, man.”
More silence.
I’m about to tell this motherfucker to start talking or I’ll gut his ass next, but then Cove climbs halfway over the console to bring his face to the front.
“You don’t like to talk much, eh?” Cove asks, his voice soft and lyrical, reminding me of a sweetly sung song.
“Nope.”
“Didn’t think so,” Cove says with a sigh. “Listen, Roch, we have a problem. Your guy, Corsetti, we took care of him. Dragon gutted him. It was fucking nasty.”
Roch makes a grunt.
“All we got out of him, though, was a name. Victor Knight. You heard of it?”
“Yep.”
“Any other names that might help us?”
“Vaughn.”
“You got a last name?”
“Kingsville.”
“Katana,” Koyn says, eyes darting to the rearview.
“Texting Bermuda now,” Katana calls back.
“Anything else?” Cove asks. “Anything that might help us?”
“River,” Roch grunts.
For fuck’s sake.
“He lives on a river?” Cove questions.
“Don’t know.”
Cove sighs heavily. “That’s all you got?”
“Yep.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Fantastic,” Loki deadpans as he takes the phone. “Now I can go back to getting my dick sucked. Bye, cockblockers.”
He ends the call and Cove flashes me a smile. It’s not nearly enough information, but it’s a start. A lot more than we would have gotten with Koyn or me leading the interrogation. I snag Cove’s hand with my blood-stained one before he can pull back to his seat. Bringing my lips to his knuckles, I brush a kiss along them as a thank you.
Tonight, we’ll gather all the information we can get on Vaughn Kingsville or any other alias we can uncover, and tomorrow we’re going to fuck some shit up.