Chapter Seven
Bones
She’s a distraction I can’t afford. One that will eventually cost me my life or the lives of the people I protect.
“Damnit, Bones. Where the fuck are you?.”
“Five minutes out,” I say.
I can practically feel Spike’s frustration through my earbuds as I turn my bike around the corner. I was too busy watching Sunny work that I forgot about Spike’s…appointment.
“I don’t have the patience for five more fucking minutes,” he growls. “Just meet me there.”
“Don’t you leave that compound without me,” I snap, already knowing it’s too late.
“Already out the gate,” he mutters. I hear the iron grind of it shutting behind him. “You’ll probably beat me there.”
“Damnit, Spike. Someone’s out for your blood.”
“No, someone’s trying to play me for a fool,” he spits. “And if I get my hands on Billy before you do, I’ll rip him apart. So, hurry the fuck up.”
I curse under my breath and gun the engine harder.
We got word that Billy, Spike’s idiot cousin, has set up shop in an abandoned area of Palm Springs.
Spike’s convinced he’s behind the Fentanyl movement.
Maybe he is. But I’ve got a gut feeling.
.. Billy’s too damn stupid to be the one pulling strings.
He might be a piece on the board, but someone else is playing the game.
And we’re already ten steps behind.
Foster has Billy pinged at Eastgate, the old warehouse district.
That place is a ghost town and home to most of Palm Springs’ illegal activities.
The Iron Shadows have no claim over Eastgate.
It’s neutral territory. As long as dealers keep their business inside the four blocks of Eastgate, we Shadows let them be.
But someone thought they could take that silent truce and wipe their ass with it.
They brought fentanyl into our town. Into neighborhoods with kids. Into stores where our women shop. That crosses a line no one comes back from.
And if Billy had even a finger in it?
I’ll break it off and shove it down his throat.
Foster’s got his location pinged, but we’re not the only ones watching. Eastgate might be neutral ground, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe. It means no one owns it. And when no one owns it, everybody thinks they can.
It’s the kind of place where bodies disappear and no one asks why.
In less than ten minutes, I’m parked at the coordinates Foster sent. Five minutes later, Spike and Tank pull in beside me.
“You don’t wait , do you?” I growl as he climbs out of his blacked-out Charger.
“You weren’t moving fast enough,” he snaps, eyes locked on the warehouse door like it just insulted his mother.
“That is how you get shot in the back, Spike,” I tell him. “Charging in hot without a damn plan.”
“I’ve got a plan,” he mutters. “It’s called ‘beat the truth out of Billy.’”
I move to stand beside him, scanning the area. Quiet. Too quiet. “You sure he’s in there?”
“I called him once Foster was certain,” he admits. “Told him I wanted to talk. He said to come here…alone.”
I grunt. “And you listened.”
Spike glances at me, and for a second, the mask slips. Just a little. Enough for me to see the rage underneath isn’t just about betrayal. It’s personal. Family always is.
“He’s blood, Bones,” Spike says, voice low and tight.
“But if he’s behind this shit, if he’s pushing poison into our town, he’s dead to me.
Last week, a ten-year-old OD’d. Thought he was taking Tylenol he found in his dad’s dresser.
One dose of fentanyl. Enough to kill five grown-ass men. He didn’t stand a chance.”
Tank steps up beside him, face carved in stone.
“A couple days ago, a pregnant woman died from the same cause. Didn’t take a single thing.
She helped some guy who collapsed on the street.
The junkie dropped his stash when he went down.
Powder must’ve gotten on her skin. She went home, fell asleep, never woke up. ”
“I know he’s involved in some way,” Spike continues. “He gave himself away when he asked to transport the shit through our territory a few months back. I want to know who the hell is responsible.”
I nod once. Then cock my gun. “Let’s find out.”
We move as one.
Spike goes straight for the door, Tank and I flanking him like the dogs of war. The warehouse is a skeleton of rusted metal and busted dreams. The roof half-collapsed, windows boarded like someone gave a damn. The air reeks of oil and old piss. Welcome to Eastgate.
Tank shoulders the door open.
It creaks, loud and long, echoing into the dark like a warning we’re here.
Good.
Let him hear us coming.
Inside, the shadows press in like a second skin. I switch on the flashlight mounted to my Glock, sweeping corners. Rats scurry. Dust dances in the beam. A low thrum of music seeps from the back office. Dumbass didn’t even turn it down.
“He’s here,” I mutter.
We move down the corridor, boots crunching over broken glass and old bullet casings. My heart’s steady. My rage isn’t. I don’t want Billy to be involved. But I need him to be. Because if he isn’t, we’re chasing a ghost. And ghosts don’t bleed.
Spike throws the office door open so hard it smacks the wall.
Billy jerks upright from a stained couch, eyes wide, mouth full of Cheetos. For half a second, he looks twelve again. Skinny, redheaded, and too many teeth for his face. Then I see the glint of metal on the table beside him.
Gun.
He goes for it.
Bad move.
I’m across the room before he can even get his fingers around the grip. I slam him into the wall, knock the breath out of him with a knee to the gut, and twist his arm until he yelps like a kicked dog.
“Try me again, Billy-boy,” I growl, shoving him down into the chair. “I fucking dare you.”
Spike storms in, eyes blazing. “What the fuck are you doing back in town?”
Billy coughs. “Damn, Spike! I thought you were coming alone.”
“You thought wrong,” Spike snarls. “Start talking. Right now. You’ve got one chance to convince me not to put a bullet in your fucking skull.”
Billy’s eyes flick between us, panic clawing its way up his throat. “I didn’t know it was that bad, man. I swear! I thought I was just moving pills, same old stuff. I didn’t know it was cut with that poison.”
“Bullshit,” Tank snaps.
“I’m telling the truth!” Billy holds up shaking hands. “I swear, I didn’t know until last week. Someone higher up sent the new batch through. Said it’d move faster. That people wouldn’t notice.”
“Who?” Spike bites out. “Give me a name.”
Billy hesitates.
Big mistake.
Spike lunges and grabs him by the collar, slamming him back against the wall so hard the drywall cracks. “ Give me a name! ”
Billy’s shaking now, Cheeto dust still clinging to his lips. “Muerte! His name’s Muerte, alright? He’s outta Mexicali. Runs through Eastgate sometimes when his normal route gets hot.”
My blood turns cold. Muerte’s name has come up before but only in whispers. He runs the biggest fucking cartel out of Mexico. And if he’s running fentanyl now?
Shit just hit a whole new level of fucked.
“This is your last chance, Billy,” Spike says, tossing the idiot to the floor. “I want you out of Palm Springs and I don’t wanna see you back here again.”
“But…we’re family,” he whines, rubbing his jaw.
“I said what I said.”
“You’ve got ten hours,” I say, stepping close enough for him to heed my fucking warning. “We’ll be watching.”
I don’t wait for a response. I already know he got the message loud and clear.
I fall in step behind Spike and Tank as they head back to the Charger.
“You headed back to the compound?” Spike asks as I swing a leg over my bike. “Crusher’s grilling burgers.”
“Got shit to do,” I grunt, already starting the engine. “Be back in a few.”
They don’t press. Just trade a look that says they know exactly where I’m headed, then climb in and drive off without another word.
Twenty minutes later, I’m back at Marv’s, the rumble of the traffic fading as I step into the back office. I punch in the code for the security feed, flipping through cameras until I find her.
Sunny.
She’s talking to a customer, laughing at something they said, that smile of hers lighting up the screen like it was made to cut through all the ugly in the world.
What the hell am I doing?
That woman is joy. Light. Hope.
She’s everything I lost a long time ago… everything I’m not allowed to want.
Even standing near me would cast a shadow over her.
And yet… I’m still watching. Still drawn to her like a damn moth to a flame.
“You should ask her to dinner,” a gravel-thick voice says from behind me as the office door creaks open.
“Shut it, Marv,” I growl, eyes locked on the screen. Sunny’s still smiling. Still shining. “You know better than most why I’d never do that.”
“Just because your old man was a monster doesn’t mean you are too.”
“I skin people alive,” I remind him. “And I laugh while doing it. If that’s not monstrous, I don’t know what is.”
Marv snorts, stepping inside. “You wanna talk monsters? Let’s talk about a man who kidnapped a twelve-year-old girl and kept her locked up for fifteen years in his basement.
Raped her. Got her pregnant…three times.
Then murdered her and blamed it on his own son…
who, surprise surprise, also happened to be her son. ”
I go still.
The silence that follows is thick. Suffocating.
Marv lowers himself into the chair beside me, joints popping like old wood under pressure.
“You didn’t ask to be born from that,” he says quietly. “You didn’t choose what he did.”
My fists clench. I still can’t look at him. Can’t look away from her.
“I got his blood,” I whisper.
“You got his blood,” Marv agrees. “But you don’t got his soul.”
What Marv didn’t say was that he and my old man were best friends long before the monster showed his teeth.
When I was born, my fourteen-year-old mother tried her best to raise me right.
My father took me when I was five. Ripped me out of her life and claimed me as his own.
I only saw her once a year after that on my birthday.
It was the only reason I looked forward to it.
One day. One smile. One breath of light in the darkness.
When I was fifteen, everything changed.
My old man told the cops I killed her.
Said I snapped. That I shot her.
It took months before the truth clawed its way into daylight. Forensics proved what I already knew: I didn’t kill her.
She died from a gunshot to the head. In the basement.
But he moved her. Staged the scene in his bedroom. Thought he was smart. Thought he’d covered his tracks.
He wasn’t as good as he thought.
After weeks of scrubbing that basement, the forensic team found what I told them they’d find.
Her blood. Her hair.
And two tiny skeletons wrapped in plastic.
The babies she had after me. The ones he never let her keep.
I was cleared. He was convicted.
And I’ve never seen him since. Died three years ago from a stab wound inflicted by another inmate.
Good fucking riddance.
Didn’t have any family who wanted the kid of a monster. No aunts. No uncles. No long-lost cousins stepping up. Just a boy soaked in scandal and headlines, and nobody willing to see past the blood in his veins.
If it wasn’t for Marv and his wife, I’d have been shoved into the system and forgotten. Some case number with a bruised soul.
But Marv and Cheryl stepped up.
They took me in. Raised me like I was their own. Didn’t care that I flinched at loud voices or refused to sleep in the dark. Didn’t care that the world saw a monster in the making.
They were the parents I never had. And now…they’re one of the only ones who see the man I’m trying to be.
“You keep carrying his sins like they’re yours,” Marv says, voice rough as gravel. “But they’re not. You’re not him, Jack. You’ve got scars, sure. But those don’t make you a monster. They make you a survivor .”
My hand twitches, instinctively brushing the rough ridges that mark my face. The ones everyone notices first. The ones nobody ever dares to ask about.
“He gave me these,” I say flatly. “Said a real man needed to learn how to take pain. That it’d make me tougher.” I scoff. “Didn’t feel so tough when I was ten and bleeding all over the kitchen floor.”
Marv scoots closer, voice quieter now. “Those scars don’t show what he did. They show what you survived.”
I clench my jaw, still staring at the screen. Still watching her . The way she laughs like she’s never known fear. Like the world’s still good. Even after the shit she witnessed.
“She deserves more than a man like me,” I mutter.
Marv lets out a dry laugh. “She deserves someone who’d burn the world down to keep her safe. Someone who knows darkness and would still choose her light. Sounds a hell of a lot like you, son.”
I swallow hard. Can’t speak. Can barely breathe.
“Stop looking for reasons to stay in the shadows,” he says. “Start looking for reasons to step into the light.”
He claps a heavy hand on my shoulder. Not to comfort. To steady.
“Trust that Sunny-girl,” he adds, voice dipping with something close to reverence.
“She’s sweet, yeah… but she’s got a bite to her.
Don’t mistake her sunshine for softness.
That girl’s got steel in her spine. And if she’s lookin’ your way, it ain’t by accident.
Look at her, son. She just witnessed a murder and still finds a way to gift the world a smile.
You grab her before someone else sees what we all see… and doesn’t hesitate to make her his.”
Fuck.